So How Did YOO Spend the First Day of Winter?

Mine went a little like this:

Take a hot bath,

Investigate the perv outside,

Let the cat out,

Check the Neighbors' progress,

Make sure the snow is still here,

Make Peppermint Bark (thanks to this recipe),

PLAY TIME!!!

The Approach...

The Flop...

Check out that form! If only it could be an Olympic sport...

The Dismount...

The Dustoff...

The Snowball (which can often go unreconized as part of the snow angel making process, but it is crutial. Really, it is.)

Somewhere in there I watched the Wizard of Oz, finished a book, caught old episodes of Wonder Showzen, and knitted a few rows on a scarf. Overall, it was a nice way to officially welcome winter.
xoxo

Snow...

It won't be long before we'll all be there with snow

Snow ... I want to wash my hands, my face and hair with snow ...

Er, ok maybe that's pushing it, and we only got a little dusting of it anyway, and by the looks of things we're still 11 days out from Christmas, and I've already seen way too many holiday movies. But it can't detract from the issue that I'm a proper fool when it comes to snow! Where I grew up it wasn't promised every year. I can only count a handful of times when there was actually enough snow to play in, so every snowfall to me is such a treat. Oooh, and when it falls at night, it's even better! I love how it turns a cold, dreary night into a softly lit, nearly silent, pastel world, when you swear the whole universe stands still to witness what's happening right where you are.

The Weather-Man promises more, and the dark, moody sky to the west is definitely backing up his claim ... here's to more snow!

  I'll soon be there with snow
I'll wash my hair with snow
And with a spade of snow
I'll build a man that's made of snow
I'd love to stay up with you but I recommend a little shuteye
Go to sleep
And dream
Of snow

It's Beginning to Look a lot Like Awesome

Iiiiiin my living room ... do bee dodododododo ya da da da da dada ...

Have I mentioned I love winter?

Black Friday

I'm baffled year after year not only that people actually venture out for a shopping spree the day after Thanksgiving, but the VOLUME of people who still go out shopping on the day after Thanksgiving. Personally, I boycott every year ... it's a small opposition, but I feel that I'm doing my part to stick it to the man (I'm sure the man is totally bummed out that he's not getting any ever saddening US dollars out of me today).

I've always wondered if the "savings" were really so great that suddenly putting yourself at risk of a major trampling made it all somehow worth it. To be honest, I've seen better deals on ebay, and you can have your things delivered to you, and you don't have to cram all your shopping into one hellish, nightmare of a day. So I have to wonder, why do people do it? I mean, in the end are you really saving? I guess it's a good thing that laptop was only $399 because now you need the other $800 for hospital bills ... IF, of course, you survived in the first place!

So here we are, another year, another barrage of discount, superstore trampling fatalities proving that you, in fact, can put a price on a human life. Does this seem weird to anyone else? Is stuff this important? Is that all we're about anymore? I'd like to think not, and I keep believing we're not so utterly blinded by greed, and possessions that we've completely lost sight of what matters, but I find myself in the same conversations as last year, "Have you watched the news? Did you hear ... ? Sad, isn't it." It is sad. I hope this post-turkey tradition fizzles into a distant memory, and we can all celebrate in ways that promote family, togetherness, and thoughtfulness, and not just stuff, and we can go on to have truly happy holidays.
I guess I am the true believer, just ask me about my thoughts on Santa! ; )

Ever Get the Feeling You're Being Watched?

No? Look harder, and in the meantime I'll type.

So it's been a while, hasn't it? Let's see, I'm another year older, and none the wiser I'm sure of it this time ... Halloween came, and went (grand total of 2 trick-or-treaters) ... then I missed my chance for an oh-so-clever "seems like just yesterday was October" post, then election day, followed closely by the 5th (which of course we shan't forget!) ... then I thought I could round it out with a cozy mid-November post, but I missed that by a few days, and we're still waiting for two more babies! It's been strangly calm, and busy at the same time, if that's possible. I'm sure it must be, how else would we get the phrase "hurry up and wait," surely there's a lot to that one!

Idle Hands ...

It started out innocently enough ... I just wanted to see what it would look like on the needles, and then I promised myself I'd stop. Little did I know it would turn into a full-blown scarf.

Ok, I kind of suspected it would, but I wanted to see if I could finally get my edges tight instead of all authority. I knew I was wrapping something wrong somewhere, and hey, she knows what she's talking about! I got snug edges out of it anyway! A small, but tasty victory.
baggy, and floppy. So, naturally, I had to go to the

Ring Ring Ring Ring Ring Ring Ring Banana, er, Bread?

It grows in bunches, I've got my hunches...

Winter always puts me in a baking mood, but I confess the giddiness starts the moment the seasons change from Summer to Fall. While I'm not someone who shops for Christmas in June, I do secretly start celebrating the holiday season the day after my birthday (which is before Halloween even), so it's no surprise to me that the baking bug has started nudging around the kitchen these days. Besides, gray, rainy days call for something warm and yummy ... and being in Seattle, we're never short a rainy day so I think I'll have plenty of opportunities to get flour all over myself. Anyway, this was my very first banana bread ever, so I thought I'd dress her up, and take a picture. It actually turned out, and the rikkis liked the end cuts too!

Back to School

Well, I'm ready. I've got my fresh set of pencils for the new year ... though, to my knowledge I'm not actually enrolled anywhere. Old habits, I guess.
There's something about this time (my fave) of year though, when it's still warm outside, but one day you feel the first bite of fall on your sunny summer day, and you know change is in the air. If winter has its hibernating, and spring its cleaning, and summer is for playing, then surely fall is for organizing, and getting ready, but as you get older what exactly are you getting ready for? I suppose finding out will be part of the adventure!

Rainy Day Project

Well it didn't start out as a "project" sort of day, it was more of a rainy day - cleaning & organizing day, my kitchen being the perfect target. When right there in the middle of my raid I came across old packets of abandoned Crystal Light. My first thought being, how did this utter poison make it into my house? My second thought being *DYE PROJECT*!!!
I ransacked, and put back together my kitchen just in time to turn around and make it my laboratory where it looked like a Tupperware party collided with a VW bus full of hippies. It was worth it though, I swear I'm the last to jump on the dye your own yarn / thread wagon, and there were loads of different recipes and techniques that I wanted to try. So I put them to the test on sectioned out crochet thread that I haven't done anything with since a college project about a thousand years ago.

I think just having candy colored threads at my reach on whimsical spools would surely be inspiration enough for future projects relating to the materials or not! As you can see I had a few misses, but I think I've got some hits in there as well. I have no idea what I'll be doing with them now, but even if they're just used to tie up packages, or staking helpless flowers at least it'll be a little more exciting than using plain white. I think for now, though, I need to start making some of Thanks to these from this delicious blog post!

I can't wait to find out what kind of uses I have for this thread now. And I really can't wait to get started on a set of those spools for myself!

xoxo

Long, Cold Winter ...

Or a very happy Valentine's day. Either way, my family's expecting the arrival of FOUR autumn babies this year! Well, three now, my cousin has started the baby-ball a rollin' already with the newest addition of her family joining the clan just this last week! We've got another cousin anxiously waiting for her baby to come, and I've got two on the way of making me "Auntie" yet again.

Love is in the air, or global warming gave us a blistering cold winter coaxing us to stay indoors and snuggle up, or Hallmark put out some really good cards this February, or whatever you want to blame it on, it's raining babies in my part of the world this fall, and it's got me elbow deep in projects. One of which has been a long standing agreement with two of my sisters over a shared childhood bookcase. No matter who has it last, it goes to the first one of us to have a baby. This little bookcase that could, has been passed around more times than a bong at a Grateful Dead concert, and somehow has come to call my place home for the last couple of years. So in keeping up with my end of the bargain, it will be given back to the expectant sister, but not before it gets a minor face lift. While us girls have come to love it for it's brown-ish goodness, I think in the spirit of giving it not only back to a sister, but to a new owner to make his own memories with it, it should be spiffy and ready to take on its responsibility of being co-creator of new memories.

Lessons from Mother Nature

I was admiring my tiny urban jungle of sorts the other day, caught up in the thought of a flower's life purpose: to be beautiful. Of course this raises a couple of arguments ... true, some are edible, and they give honey bees something to do, certainly. They're still beautiful while they do their "jobs," and even blossoms found on the most robust bushes, or spidery vines appear to be suspended in a moment of effortless grace. What if we decide to make that our life's purpose, above all else, and before everything that ends up consuming our time, and becoming our lives we each make a conscious effort to live it beautifully, and commit to seeing each task through to completion with the grace of our decorative little pals? Unlike flowers we have a choice about how we do it, but why would we, and why do we do it any other way? Why are we afraid of being beautiful?

Why is it we seem to shun grace, or pass it, and a calm attitude off as if showing any of this to the world makes us in a way less driven, and lacking tenacity? How does running ourselves ragged, and living in perpetual stress, and chaos make us seem like more conscientious, and dependable workers? I think it's a hoax, we've tricked (albeit, cleverly) ourselves into believing a frantic system of living means we're really taking care of some serious business. I think I'll be taking a lesson from the gals on my patio. We all need reminders sometimes - this was definitely mine.

xoxo