And in other news...

I'm really swamped right now.

That gentle I'm-all-ready-for-Christmas-well-kinda glow that I've been cocooned in has vanished like the mist and I realize I'm not nearly as prepared as I thought I was. So it's bullets for you today:

• Shell and I made 11 tourtières the weekend before last, 4 regular ones (beef and pork) and 7 venison ones, for the Christmas party. I always go over and trade labour (rolling out pie crust and fluting edges) for a pie to take home. This one was mine:

I took a venison one. That's some damn fine Bambi, I tell ya. Mmmmmm.

• Our family has its own version of pig latin that's been used for generations for discussing things in front of the children. Handed down from my Mom's cousin Pat, (and thus called Pattish) it has proved useful in talking about birthday presents and so forth. Until the weekend, when I was asking my Mom if she had been able to track down any Junie B. Jones books for Leah. I had to repeat myself a couple of times, since my Pattish is rusty, and Leah, who was sitting nearby, soon had a knowing look on her face. Later, she came up to me and said, "I know what you were talking to Nana about when you were talking in cursive. You were talking about Junie B. Jones." I was amused. First of all that she understood. And second of all her word for it: cursive. She figured that if fancy printing (writing script) is called cursive, then fancy talking should have the same name.

• I finally wrote a Christmas letter. I put a few photographs in, but not nearly as many as I would have liked. So I'm presenting you with a few that didn't make the cut. Or just ones I liked. With captions:

"One of these things is not like the others, one of these things just doesn't belong...." A cauliflower from the Farmers' market, August 25, 2007.



There really is no place like home. A view from the end of our driveway, September 11, 2007.



7 adults, 8 children, 2 dogs, 1 really good time. September 2, 2007.



Jackie O. drops by for a visit. November 17, 2007.



Showing their true personalities. November 4, 2007.

• And that's it for now. I can put a checkmark beside 'post on blog', and get back to finishing shopping, cleaning, and baking. Oh yeah, and working.
  

Oh, almost forgot. Rachel's oh-so-classy take on a much-loved Christmas carol: "Deck the halls with boughs of farts. Fart, fart, fart, fart, fart. Fart, fart, fart, fart." Yeah, I'm sure Santa's much amused. Better trade the wood-burning fireplace for one that can use lumps of coal.