Hey all… time to snoop through Noah’s diary again. Why? Because we can.
Tuesday, November 18, 2025, 8:30am: Ugh… November…
I mean, it’s been November for a while, and it will be over in a week and a half, but still. Blech.
There’s gonna be some sunny breaks later and tomorrow and Thursday, too, but then back to the dreary monsoons.
Some days I kinda hate it here. Flin Flon was better… well, not really, and it’s snowing there today, but I looked it up and Flin Flon gets between 2100 and 2300 hours of sunshine a year but here in Victoria we only get 2109 on average.
Ma lives in the Florida swamps and even though they still get a lot of rain, they get like 3000 hours of sun a year.
I mean, it’s better than Vancouver, they get less than 2000.
Still… November is the worst. Well, January also sucks, but at least the days start to get longer and you know it’s getting better.
Technically, December is worse because the days are shortest, but it’s different because everyone has their Christmas lights on and the kids are excited for Santa. Well, Ursula’s excited for Santa; Valerie doesn’t seem to like him much, but Valerie doesn’t really like anything yet.
Ruth doesn’t want us putting up our Christmas lights yet because her mom doesn’t put her lights up until December 1st. And of course we live in Frank & Agnes’ guesthouse, so it would look weird if the guesthouse was lit up and the main house wasn’t.
Ugh… also, we can’t do colorful lights outside because Agnes insists on only the clear “winter white” yellowish ones.
I think Christmas should be all sorta colorful, myself. I’m keeping an eye out for one of those silver tinsel trees we can load up with all kinda colorful lights. We have a tree that looks sorta natural but with white flocking on it and I have all kinda pretty glass ornaments on it that look like food or just colorful balls. Agnes thinks it’s vulgar as her fake tree just has tiny white lights and gold and silver balls in matched sets.
Ursula’s had a 4’ pink tree in her room since she was a baby but last year on Christmas Eve she said she wanted a purple one and bigger. I told her she’d missed Santa’s cut-off but I did find her a 6’ tall one on Amazon for $80 that I’ve had hidden away in the garage all year, so next weekend when we put our trees up I hope she’s happy. And then I can put the littler pink one in the nursery for Valerie.
Ursula’s tree is pretty cool, actually. It’s all dinosaur themed in honour of her favorite stuffie Mr. T-Rex and she does kinda need a bigger one because every year I get a couple more dino ornaments for her. I found her a couple more glittery glass dinosaur ornaments at the Mycraft store last week. They’re getting crazy expensive and you’re only supposed to use the coupons once per day but I have the app so I just bought one in the morning with the 30% off coupon, then went to BulkCo and had lunch and came back and got the other one for 30% off again.
Still. They were 12 bucks each after the coupons. But Ursula’s pretty careful with her dinosaur stuff.
Anyway, so on the 25th we’ll put up our trees and then at least it’ll be sparkly inside the house… well, Ursula’s room is sparkly now because she wanted one of those fairy curtain light things so I got her a multicolored one with a remote for behind her desk.
I think Ursula’s room has a pretty cool vibe. It’s bright and cheerful, with sparkly lights and cozy fake fur mats on her chair and she even has a little reading nook in the corner I made her with a big cowhide-covered ottoman I found on clearance at Homestore and one of the fake fur mats and a couple king sized pillows with pink satin pillowcases on them and a green ‘70s swag lamp I got at an auction house up in Chemainus back when Ursula was a baby hung over it with a nice bright LED bulb in it.
Pretty much whatever Ursula wants goes for room decor except Ruth says she can’t paint it black in there and we both agree that leopard print isn’t appropriate for a little girl. I did find Ursula some cool pink towels with small leopards on them for her bathroom; that was a couple years ago at Homestore and Ruth agreed it was OK because they were cute and not … y’know… old lady chasing after young dudes in the bars.
I mean, when Ursula’s an old lady, if she wants to do that, it’s none of my business and I might even be dead by then anyway, but… y’know… it’s kinda like there will be no way in Hell either of my daughters is gonna ever be allowed to wear one of those “I’m with the band” t-shirts.
Uh-uh. Nope. Not happening.
Not even if I’m making her do roadie duty as a teenager helping lug in amps for one of my gigs so she can learn the value of hard work. She can have a t-shirt that says “ROAD CREW” not an “I’m with the band” shirt.
But anyway, point is: I sure didn’t have a cool room like Ursula’s when I was a kid.
Unfortunately, this didn’t lead her to read any more than she did beforehand, but she does like to curl up in there with her teddy bears and Mr. T-Rex and plot world domination. And having a cool room also didn’t make do her homework more, so we still have to have her do it at the kitchen table while I make dinner so we can supervise. But it did make her room all sparkly for when she’s hiding out in there drawing dinosaurs stomping the school and devouring the principal.
Ruth doesn’t like those drawings but I told her Ursula’s brothers drew very similar things and I think they turned out just fine. Or at least they never actually set any schools on fire. Ursula needs to be able to express herself.
Besides, when she grows up, she’ll move on to hating her job and her boss and forget all about hating school.
