“This time of the year there should be a hotline you can call with questions about cooking turkeys, a special 800 number where the phones are staffed by experts.”
“There is.”
My favorite bit starts at 2:41, if you’re not in the mood for the entire video. Best line: “I’m not saying that’s necessarily a deal breaker.” I say that every single year.
Full recap from Butterball University is coming; in the meantime, you can skip over to Butterball and read about why I love Thanksgiving.
I’m packing to go to Chicago tomorrow (well right now I’m not packing, right now I’m sitting on the floor looking at the very small pile of clothes on the bed and wondering what exactly I’m going to wear on Wednesday because all I have picked out are a pair of underwear and some ballet flats) and I’ll tell you what, nothing makes you rethink your closet like trying to pack for a trip.
Or two trips, really, in two weeks. Yes, that will do it.
While I’ve been packing and unpacking and repacking, I’ve been thinking — and writing — about not shopping, specifically about what it would take to go an entire year without shopping.
Not me, mind you. I’m not giving up shopping. Rachelle is. Good lord no, not me.
I couldn’t go a year without shopping, but I could go something like six weeks, which happens to be exactly how long until the end of November. So that’s what I’m doing: I’m giving up shopping (for clothes for myself) for the next six weeks. But there’s one caveat: Wade and I are supposed to go to a black tie function in early November, and I do not have a dress, not one that can stand up to Wade’s (borrowed) tuxedo. So I’ll be shopping for that.
But! To make it more interesting (because what’s the point of shopping if it isn’t interesting?) I’m only going to shop thrift and consignment stores for a dress. Ooh does that make you nervous? Because it makes me a little nervous. God only knows what I will find.
In the mean time, when I’m not out looking for the Perfect Vintage Evening Gown (For Under $100), I’ll be doing my best to take my own advice about shopping my closet, which is how I wound up wearing a summery dress layered over a blouse with my boots today. Go me! Next up: Funky patterned tights. Possibly with peep toed shoes! Get ready.
For the next six weeks, I’ll be posting photos of what I’m wearing here and in The Working Closet Flickr pool, and writing about my not shopping adventures at BlogHer. I would like for this to be less about the not shopping (which implies a kind of pining for things at J. Crew and counting down to actually buying them) and more about rethinking what I already own (because truly, I have some lovely things — just not a black tie appropriate gown).
And now I have to go stuff some things in my suitcase and get on the road again. Coming soon: Photos of me with a turkey. Yes, really! But not a live turkey, a Butterball turkey. I know you’re excited. Especially since I might be wearing nothing but underwear and ballet flats.
I drink a lot of coffee. To a certain extent, I do it out of necessity; I don’t sleep nearly enough, and I have a bad habit of taking on more than I can really manage in the hours available to me, which leaves me sleep deprived and dreaming about the day that someone will invent a caffeine IV, because that would really make my day so much easier.
I will drink coffee in the afternoon because I am desperate, because I know that the moment I sit down to supervise homework or listen to someone read a book, I will fall into a coma-like sleep that will last until I am jolted awake by a wee child’s voice saying, “Mama are you listening?”
Afternoon coffee is a necessity, but morning coffee is a ritual. I love that first cup, steaming hot, with just the right amount of half and half. When the weather is good, I will take my coffee outside and sit on the porch and enjoy the silence. On the days when the boys get up with me, we sit on the sofa and talk, and they know not to jostle me while I’m cupping the mug of coffee.
I have a routine for my day, a predictable pattern that I follow without fail. I make to do lists and watch the clock and check things off. But I have very few rituals, moments where I step back from the lists and the schedule and just exist in the moment. The first cup of coffee is sometimes the only ritual in the entire day.
I would like to have more small rituals in my day, more times when I step away from the work and the laundry and the chaos and just exist. For now, though, I will take the cup of coffee in the quiet house in the morning.
Do you have a daily ritual? What would you do if you had the time? And — most importantly — can you make the time, right now? I think you can.
