November is upon us again

Hello there my most wonderful faithful kingdomites!

Yes, november is upon us again and that means a month of daily posts here in the kingdom and many other places across the blogosphere.  I’ve got some scheduled themes for you to enjoy… continuation of the Echo series on Mondays, some picture blogs on Wednesdays, a bit of shameless self promotion, a bit more shameless promotion, some poems, and some other goodies planned out that I hope you enjoy.

And, yes, this is totally a filler post!

Okay, not totally.  It has just been so long since I’ve said hello to all of you that I thought it would be fun to kick off this month with something other than the long form fiction I’ve been posting here since the start of the year, basically.

So…  Hello!

Tell me, are you going to be posting every day this month too?  Drop me a comment and a link if you are.  I may not always be able to comment but I will do my best.  We are, after all, a bogging family.  We’ve got to support each other.

Made it!

We made it to the end.  A whole month of blogging daily.  Good job.  Good job, indeed.  Yes, this is another filler post.  But, as I promised and fulfilled with the previous two, I shall here as well.  What was your favorite post this month?  (Not of mine!!)  From around the blogosphere or something you wrote that you are really happy with, proud of – leave the link in the comments and I will click through and read it.

half

Halfway through… Halfway through.  You did it!  I did it!  We’ve reached this milestone together.  A month of posting every day.

So, I know I haven’t been the best at going out and reading everything you’ve written, but if you are reading this, and you leave me a link or two in the comments, I will go out and read those things.  That’s an official Matticus promise.

And really, if you can’t trust the Jester of the Matticus Kingdom, who can you trust?

made it

We made it!  30 days and 30 pictures and 30 sometimes rambling, sometimes long, sometimes short, sometimes nonsensical, sometimes fiction but mostly non-fiction, sometimes poetic accompanying words.  What can I say, that’s how I roll here in the Kingdom these days.  Congratulations to all you nano poblanos, you tiny peppers, you cheer peppers, you bloggers extraordinaire for once again seeing it through to the end.  Great job.  You are all amazing.

And now to sign off the way every major event should, and usually often do:

With fireworks!!

it was cold

We wrote three words to describe the trip when we got home.  A week in the mountains, seven days in one of my favorite places in the world, all those hours basking in the cleansing glory of nature, and all we had to say was: it was cold.

We wore jackets all day long.  When it sleeted when hid in our tents and bundled into our sleeping bags.  We ate dinners huddled close together around the table, leaching warmth from each other.  We stayed in bed late and returned to bed early.  It wasn’t that we were ill-prepared for the low temperatures, it was that we weren’t expecting it to be so cold for so long.

There is an energy sapping strength to the cold.  It drains away your joy.  It funnels away your focus and motivation.  It removes all else so all you can think about, all you can see is it.

I didn’t remember the deer who walked through our camp until I stumbled upon this picture looking for photos to share for NanoPoblano.  We had never seen deer just walk through camp before.  They came in because the camp was much quieter than normal.  The camp was quieter because we were the only ones there.  We were the only ones there because it was so cold everybody else had either packed up and left or had decided not to come in at all.

Perhaps we should amend our notes from this year?

It was cold, and while that has certain perks they aren’t worth it.

I read the above to the Queen and she amended: It was cold, and while that has certain perks they aren’t worth it “unless we pack our snowboard gear.  Nobody told me to pack snowboard gear!”

Whoops.  My bad.