Out comes Christmas...

... a little bit at a time. And stop laughing.... Christmas will be here in a heart-beat, now that Halloween has come and gone.

I spent the day after our Halloween party taking down all the decorations... black cats and witches and pumpkins are now all packed away in the storage closet. So much quicker to un-decorate because I'm not walking around with each item and thinking "Now where should I put this...."   When the decorations come down, there's only one place to put them--- into the boxes.

This morning, I started with the Christmas decorations.... the breakfast room and the kitchen are nearly done.... then comes the foyer.... and then the big guns come out--- the living room and dining room.  The rooms on the second floor are all done.... those are the easy ones--- just a little tree in each of the rooms with a few angels and reindeer here and there.  The table-top tree in my dressing room stays out all year long because it's filled with shoe ornaments, and flowers and Victorian ornaments. Mainly, it stays right where it is because it won't fit into the storage closet unless I take off all the ornaments and fold up the tree. Not going to happen... easier to leave it where it is, plus it's a little bit of Christmas all year long.

Our very special Miss C called last night.... as happy as she could be.... her horse Tallahatchie has taken to his new saddle without fuss and C plans to keep putting the saddle on him every day now, with hopes of soon being able to ride him.  When she called, her voice was so bubbly and joyful that I thought she was going to tell me that she met someone...... but I know her news last night was much better than that.  She's been working every day with her horse, training him, grooming and loving him, and they have such a tight bond..... it will soon be their one-year anniversary.  "Tallahatchie's Adoption Day" is November 8th, and that's the day that C calls his birthday.

After the horse's progress report, I told C our news.... that we have arranged for a friend of ours to live in the apartment over the barn...... he will do work for us here, in lieu of rent charges. I had to tell C that I took all of her personal things out of the barn rooms and put them into the guest cottage. When she comes up here for visits, she'll be sleeping in the cottage from now on.  She was happy that we found someone for the barn.... my husband and I had been discussing this for over a year, waiting till we found just the right person, and we think we have.

I told C about the Halloween party.... and she was sorry to have missed it. Not so easy now, with her 'big girl job,' as she calls it. The older she gets, the more she has come to realize just how precious time is..... and the less personal time you have, the more you cherish it.  C has been very busy at work these past few months, plus all the training and care of Tallahatchie. On Halloween night, she was sound asleep, too tired even to go out with friends close by, much less able to make the two-hour-plus drive all the way up here for the party.

We miss her at our parties.... and on the holidays... and every day. C was in and out of our house all the time when we lived in Clear Lake, but it was easy back then--- we all lived in the same neighborhood.  Now my husband and I are in the Hill Country, and C lives close to Galveston.  Life surely has changed a lot for my little second-grade reading student, who is now making "big bucks" at her "big girl job."

Time marches on, whether you're paying attention or not. Better to always pay attention.