Chilly, Silly, Willy-Nilly; It's Monday!

Yes, the house number is written twice.  I have no idea why, but until we're repainting they'll stay that way!

 We are slowly decking our halls; this is last year's front door.

We don't usually decorate this early for Christmas; we keep the decorations

up through Epiphany, January 6th, so since we don't want skeletal remains of fresh greens

festooning the house ala The Addams Family, we put up our greenery closer to the Big Day.

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On Saturday, we left That Old House to entertain itself,
and we took off for the North Fork of Long Island,
for some maintenance at the beach house.

This is August 2010, at our family's beach house:

On Saturday, when we went out to install the Ice Eater under the dock,

it looked like this:

And if that looks cold to you, that's because it was!

Howard took the picture, above, after we got back from a late post-installation lunch

at the Soundview Restaurant in Southold, which, as its name suggests, overlooks Long Island Sound.

We had a great table, right at the windows:

Sorry about the schmutz.  No one could keep these windows free of salt spray spatters.

It wasn't crowded; we were lunching fashionably late in our sweatshirts and warm clothes,

between the lunch and dinner crowds.

That's sister Peg and her husband Bill across the table from us, cluttering up my nice picture of the restaurant.

We all had seafood.

It was fabulous.

And so were our well-deserved adult versions of tomato juice,
in keeping with the reds of the season.

 Well, at least Bill and Howard deserved them.

They were out on the dock in the bitter cold, with my brother Lindy,

doing the grunt work of installing the Ice Eater.

Peggy and I were in the warm comfy beach house, with hot coffee and fresh pastries,

chatting with Carol, Lindy's wife.

And men think they rule the world.

Last May, the Sound looked like this when our kids were skipping stones on its smooth surface:

 On Saturday, it looked a little more rowdy, and as if it could skip boulders all on its own.

 But still, so beautifully blue.

 Saturday flew by.

I had hoped to get to some of the little shops out on the North Fork of Long Island,

had hoped to get to a tree farm for a fresh wreath or two to hang on the beach house --

it looks so forlorn and bare in the winter -- and had hoped to work with Peggy in going through

more books and fabrics and patterns in my Mom's sewing room.

But the day got away from us,

and before we knew it, we were on the road back to That Old House.

(No traffic.  No traffic in either direction that day.

If you know the New York area, you know that is a Christmas Miracle.)

Meanwhile, back home, Howard's been stringing some lights in the lilacs,

and the little critters who co-habit the yard with us have been snacking on the Fall pumpkins:

Before: the background picture -- a perfect pumpkin.

After: the little pictures -- a pumpkin fulfilling its destiny as food.

We take the pumpkins and smash them enough to expose the seeds, then put them in

sheltered areas in the yard for the animals to munch on for weeks to come.

They only occasionally knock on the door and ask for a dusting of cinnamon and nutmeg.

It's Monday, it's only 18 days until Christmas, and I am still bumping boxes of Christmas stuff down from upstairs.  I love opening the boxes of stored decorations and ornaments.  It's like, well, Christmas!  -- Cass

Stop in and say Hi to Susan, at Between Naps On The Porch.  It's Metamorphosis Monday. Click here!
It's Blue Monday at Smiling Sally's blog.  She has the cutest snowmen featured today!  Click here.
And Mary, my fellow New Jersey girl, hosts Mosaic Monday at her charming Little Red House.  Click here!

 

 

I hope to be better at commenting this week.  I have tried to keep up with reading, but I'm afraid

my commenting has been spotty; it's just been such a very busy and distracting few weeks.  And for some blogs, there are so many hoops to jump through to post a comment that sometimes I move on to the next one.  Sorry!  I hate to admit that.

I use -- and love -- Blogger's spam protection.  It's amazingly effective, requires no effort on my part, and doesn't ask my readers to decipher impossibly wrinkled looking wiggly letters, or ask me to moderate each comment.

It's a Good Thing -- saves a blogger and her readers loads of time.

And don't we all need more Time?

Don't you just adore poinsettias?