December Juggling

 After all the things I talked about yesterday, almost none of them worked out like we thought.  

We did end up going to the nursery event, and it was so much fun.  It would have been so easy to NOT go, and I would have been more than fine with it, but we fortified ourselves with Starbucks and headed to Issaquah, which is just time for half a cup of a tall peppermint-mocha drink with just half the peppermint and mocha shots, or whatever they call the way they make them.  I never go there on my own, so it's always a treat.

The girls got peppermint steamers, and Emily and I got the above.  I got a cheese Danish because it was the first thing on the menu, and there was no reason not to.  Someone got a grilled cheese, another a cranberry something, and everyone was merry and full of sugar by the time we got there.  

We had wanted to get an earlier start, but we didn't, and the parking lots seemed full, but we lucked up and got a place a few steps from the door.  Thanks goodness, because the weather was not cooperating with us or the nursery.  

I seem to have taken my quota of pictures when we first walked in because there was a hummingbird that kept our interest for a while.  It seemed to fly along beside us.  I can't think of a better place to be than a nursery and greenhouse on a day yesterday.

I'm hoping Emily took more pictures but probably not.  She xeroed in on a beautiful table of red and white cyclamen and grabbed a red one.  I think this is what she's holding in the picture here.  I meant to get one too, but I got distracted and never did.  She and the girls picked out a wreath, and we looked around a bit before going into the Holiday Shop.

You can see Emily's cyclamen in front of her and the table of them behind the girls.  

I think I just couldn't decide on a white one or a red one, and I am still fighting to keep my plants I brought inside happy at home.  I want another Lenten rose, but I think I'll wait on plants I can't take care of until the holidays are over.

It seems the style lately is oversized everything, and the bells and acorns and pinecones are beautiful but not for me.  It would so overwhelm my little space.

And no more pictures from me that trip.  I took the girls into the shop where we immediately found a replica of Woodrow to hang on the tree.  We loved looking at all the things, but I feel like I can't let down my guard with either me or the girls on knocking one of those delicate ornaments off the tree or dropping something.  They're so good about not touching, but sometimes you just have to.  

I learned they like dragonflies so have ordered them a little dragonfly ornament that's not $30 and more their size.  The highlight of that part of the trip seeing a CAT!  Imagine that.  A pretty manx who followed us around and didn't have to worry about getting her tail stepped on.  I love these girls and their enthusiasm and ability to get joy from every single thing. I had mentioned at one point that I didn't need any more ornaments for my little tree but I would like to get some of the little bottle brush trees that I seem to have collected over several years.  They spent a lot of time bring me sample for my approval (unbreakable - whew), and we finally decideone just the perfect color of dusty pink to go with my tree bows.  

This is the picture I took last night. The new tree is on the right.  It really doesn't matter that the people in the scene are sometimes bigger than the houses and there's a random plaid box in the midst of it all.  As long as you get a happy feeling when you look at it!  

And this is the pictures I took just now.  So much has happened.

The fluffy yellow tail in the window doesn't mean Bowie was responsible for the state of the tree table.  I saw Layla tiptoeing through the landscape gingerly, thinking no one would notice her.  

When we left, we considered going by Michael's for ribbon but Saturday, pouring rain, warm home..... and our gifts will remain ribbonless for a while.

There was talk of my going over and watching Christmas in Connecticut with the family.  The girls love the old movies.  The grownups too.  But I didn't end up going since it was dark and raining and warm at home.  Maybe next time.  Gray had had a soccer game where she "played hard and got a killer goal."  

It was a good day.  

I'm up fairly early on Sunday morning working on my book list for the year.  I've been invited to eat lunch with sweet neighbors that I haven't seen in a while.  I have one gift wrapped and one in a bag.  I have a long way to go, but I'm going to enjoy every day for the rest of this year except maybe the 16th when I have to see two doctors.  Sometimes enjoyable, sometimes not.  We'll see.  

Always Exciting Friday

 Emily calls on the way to work sometimes, and that's one of the few times we can talk without kids or work interrupting.

She sent this sunrise picture and was talking about how Bellevue is such a pretty town, even though it's more of a city now with a downtown that looks like some Seattle areas.  That's from my limited experience at either place.  I only go to places where I can creep in on the back roads, the scenic ones by the lakes and waterfalls when you aren't in a hurry.

She's going full speed ahead with the opening of the Bellevue Clinic, and even thought I don't quite understand all that's involved, I know it's a huge undertaking.  I can tell she's excited underneath it all, although it makes Christmas planning a little harder.

Ryan is taking the girls to Bellevue after lunch to meet up with her to go see Wicked, so I won't see them this afternoon.  It should be a nice fun night for them.

Em and I had wanted to go to an event at Squak Mountain Nursery in the morning, but I think we're going to call that off.  We knew it was doubtful we could fit that in.  Gray has a soccer game, and we'd like to catch the Snoqualmie Winter Lights event from 3:00 to 5:00.  These activities are always out of my comfort zone as far as staying warm, but if I layer and prepare for it, I'm always glad I got out.  We haven't even had many freezing temps this year, and I doubt we'll have a white Christmas either.  I'd just as soon have snow away from holidays so I can burrow into my cave and not come out.  

I just looked at the calendar of activities on the community pages for this weekend, and if you had the energy, you could stay out from breakfast until bedtime, shopping at the markets and bake sales and listening to the choirs and band ensembles, ending with the tree-lighting ceremony and singing carols.  This is with fitting in soccer and possible birthday parties and cookie exchanges and school activities.  

The family likes to go to Leavenworth on Winter Break where everything is snow and hot chocolate and sleigh rides and whatever else you can find to do in the cold and snow.  They're thinking they won't have snow this year, and I suggested they stay home and just rest.  Emily said that's all they did in Leavenworth - rest.  Cavort around in the snow, get warmed up, and go back to the cozy cabin with coffee and hot chocolate and do nothing BUT rest without any temptations to do housework or wrap gifts or go to parties.  I guess she has a point.  

I suppose it's time to start wrapping gifts.  I don't mind it, but it's just getting all that stuff out and making a big mess and then having to clean it up...... Maybe some Christmas music.  

Getting a Jump on Christmas

 I'm not organized enough to even post, but I don't want to forget things. 

This is the earliest I've done my "shopping," which is just opening my computer and ordering, but the decisions I made earlier I'm already second-guessing.  I have to stop that.  I'm not sure why we keep on doing it anyway.  There's nothing the girls want except the one thing they are asking Santa for.  I'm going to get some Starbucks and Swirl gift cards for them in addition to their few surprises and stop fretting about it.  

One afternoon Graysen begged to learn to crochet, and we tackled it.  I'm so not a teacher, and she's left-handed, but she was pretty willing to try it and thinks she'll be okay doing it right-handed.  One reason I don't like teaching children anything is their lack of patience.  I want them to learn one skill and perfect it before they go on to the next, but GG was in a big hurry to go from learning to make a slip knot to making a chain to doing single crochet before she really knew how to hold the yarn.  We laughed about it, and she didn't lose patience with me.  She found a friend at school who takes her crocheting to school, and this might give her the incentive to slow down.  Or go even faster, since Mia is making a scarf!  

I started this scarf for Ryan because someone was mourning the fact that you can never find anything he wants or likes, and we drive ourselves crazy trying to find one gift to give him.  Some comment was made about knitting a scarf, and I just did it.  It's totally half double crochet, but the yarn is so soft that now everyone who sees it wants one - except probably Ryan!  He'll like the fact that someone made it for him though, and he knows he on the list for a quilt in 2025.  

Speaking of quilts, our closest quilt shop is closing, and it's so sad.  I don't go places much and have not been quilting very much at all, but it was such a pretty and friendly place.  I hate it for the owners.  They're still going to do online sales but not in that beautiful shop.  

Knowing I didn't need to add a thing to my overflowing quilting area, I still looked through a few pages.  One thing that I wasn't looking for but caught my eye was this fabric.

I made Elise a quilt many years ago.  Fifteen years ago?  I really can't remember.  She liked it, and it was fun to do, but she could never find a backing she liked well enough to use.  And then we folded it up and put it in a box and forgot about it.  Now she's decided that just because she can't find the perfect eggplant shade of purple, something else might do.  

When I saw this, I sent it to her and asked if she liked it.  She answered back, "I love it," and I was thrilled.  I'll have to go back and find out the name of it.  It's already off the web site.  With it being 108 inches across, I could have made do with 2 yards, but I went ahead and took the whole 3 yards they had on sale.  At least, I paid for it and asked them to hold onto it until Emily could run by and get it to save shipping costs.  Emily wasn't sure she was going to have time, and I know how rushed she is going back and forth to Bellevue and Issaquah, etc., so I decided to travel the few miles and get it myself.  I really am still not loving driving out of town, but I'll do it if I have to.  I called Ryan to see what child, if any, I would have after school so I would know when I needed to be back.  When I mentioned I had something to pick up in Issaquah, he immediately offered to pick it up for me since he was there right then.  I don't usually have nice things like that just fall into my lap, but that was NICE!  The girls didn't come here after school, but Graysen ran down and delivered the fabric to me, and I'm really excited about moving on with that quilt.  

A few more pictures I've taken or received this week.

I've been told these look really nice from the front, but I haven't walked out to see.  

Noreen started it with her window snowflakes, and I had to have something similar.    She did her dining room window, which I can see from my dining room. 

This is all I did to my dining room window.  I found these little mitten lights from last year that Elise brought and popped them over my plants.  It's looking more like Cinco de Mayo.

The Win-Bins and Wheats at the Nutcracker.

I've run out of energy so will finish later.  Graysen had her first band concert last night, and they just did such a good job.  It was their first time playing as a group, and they were perfect.  The seventh and eighth grade groups showed what they have to look forward, and I was amazed at what a year can do. 

 She and her dad had an indoor soccer game tonight out of town while Katherine and Emily went to martial arts.  Such busy lives, and I think I'M tired.

Other November Things

 I see a few pictures that I've taken and need to see what was going on this month.  

I had a cough and sore throat for more than a week that kept me from spending much time with the girls.

We had the Bomb Cyclone that was exciting at first, but candles and warming refrigerators soon became not such an adventure.  It all worked out fine, but those were some high winds.  We lost a couple of trees on our street, but right up the interstate from us, in Issaquah, it looked like a tornado had come through.  Whole section of trees were down as well as signs that haven't been replaced.  Grocery stores are having a hard time getting back to normal after they lost so much of their frozen and refrigerated supply.  

We're about #457 on the outage map.  Emily and Ryan never lost power, but I was without anything but my gas fireplace for 36 hours.  I had half a cup or so of leftover coffee from the day before, and I tried heating it over a candle.  It didn't work. Noreen brought me a welcome thermos of coffee from her daughter's gas stove and some ice from Safeway.  Ryan brought over a phone charger, and I was pretty comfortable.  Other than a few things to be thrown out, we survived another weather crisis.  I'm hoping for a little snow around Christmas, but we haven't even had any temps below 39.

Noreen received a new tree this year and very generously gifted me hers.  I'm struggling a little bit with what to put it on and at this point was trying a storage bin.  An end table is too high.

It's caused quite a stir for Layla, but the other cats have ignored it thank goodness.  I already love it, and once we get everything sorted out, it will be beautiful.

Since my earlier little tree was just a tabletop one, I limited the ornaments to gold and pink, but I'm going to include more colors this year.  Here I'm trying out burgundy poinsettias and red ribbon.  The red ribbon is on it's way out.  I found some pink and gold at Target.

Emily and Katherine and I took off for a quick Target visit Tuesday, and we were not serious shoppers.  I did get my ribbon, and Emily found a few things, but we sort of just had fun.

The Target cavorting reindeer or what Kate calls "booties in the air reindeer."

Will cows be taking the place of cats in Kate's heart?  I don't think so.  Cats AND cows. 

The main purpose of the trip was to register for and pick up bibs for the annual Issaquah Turkey Trot, which the family didn't end up participating in because of too much on their plates, no sleep, stress over the clinic's opening after the power outage, tiredness, etc.  It was a nice chance to donating food and meals though.

I waited in the car while Emily was in line and saw this.

Then I noticed Emily gesturing to us to look and taking pictures.

This is what she saw close-up.  He was definitely the star of the Turkey Trot line, and I bet he was in the race yesterday morning.

I think someone mentioned him being a Komondor breed, but I'm not sure where those blue eyes came from.  

The girls had strange dismissal times this week and part of last week, so I never knew who I was going to get and when. 

Gray came in one cold rainy afternoon and wanted to go straight to Minecraft.  I don't begin to understand their interests any more, but she let me know that one of her dogs died and she saw three wolves.

I had worked on my mantle, such as it is, a little, and she was glad to see stockings there.  Hers, on the right was not spaced just right, but it soon fell down, and I was able to place it better later.  

Breaking the news to Kate when she arrived about her dog dying.  

I got K to hold up her project from school.  Not a presentation as such but a poster that describes what she's like to other people.

And a cute Halloween piece of art.  She said the background was "directed art," but all the little touches, including the boarded windows and things in the air and on the ground were her own art.  You could tell she had fun doing it.

I was looking for something on Facebook to show them, and we came across a Rooster Valley post.  The header was a collage of old pictures, and Graysen was so thrilled to see that this picture of her class made the cut.  She's in the yellow raincoat "before I learned how to smile," with the school in the background.  All these kids are now 12 or nearly so.  What a good beginning two years of preschool and pre-K they had.  Most of them were separated for elementary school and now middle school, but they'll be back together in a couple of years at the high school.  Yikes.  I doubt they'll remember each other, but they won't forget Rooster Valley and the runaway gingerbread man that they had to go all over town searching for.  

Another afternoon, their friend Carly came home with them, and they got out a wooden railroad set we inherited when a friend moved.  They haven't looked at it in 2 or 3 years, but they soon had it spread out all over the floor.  Cats found it interesting too.

I found my little areas of decorations all over the place, the manger inhabitants mixed with the trees and ice-skaters, and snowmen and gingerbread men in the oddest places.  That's what I do this for though.  If something gets broken, I'm okay with it, but mainly I love to see their eyes when they see a beloved ornament that they remember from year to year.  This is what my life is all about now, and I'm so thankful for it.

Big Thanksgiving

 As in lots of people, most of whom I had never met.  It was the best kind for me.  I had nothing to worry about as far as food preparation or hosting duties or actually any decisions, so I could be an observer for the most part.  

The Win-Bins have some wonderful friends who just happen to have two little girls the exact same as theirs.  They offered their basement area for virtual schooling during the Covid school closure, and the girls are like sisters now.  The four adults seem so relaxed with each other too.  

Ryan and Cal zipping off one-liners or quiet observations about just about anything.  I can't believe I didn't get one picture of them together, but I'll have to see everyone else's pictures.  I forgot to take put my camera for the first hour.

Emily and Ali seem so different on the surface, but just gravitate toward one another with such affection and comfort.  Ali is quiet with the kindest voice and never seems flustered or upset - even with a hurt child (one), a dog accident (Peter), a lost tooth, or 11 people in her kitchen while she was preparing the meal.  

Emily is also kind and loving but is usually in the middle of a funny story, sometimes with an exaggerated Southern accent or discussing their vegan lifestyle.  

The others in attendance were Cal's parents, his brother and sister-in-law and their 3 children, and his sister-in-law's widowed father.  

It's funny about meeting complete strangers, how you know nothing about them except their relationship to the people you know, and then at the end of the night, after talking with each of them and hearing them banter back and forth with each other, you feel comfortable with them.  So many subjects of conversation.  Just a hint of politics - as in it won't be mentioned - so I have no idea about they feel about the future of the country.  

We talked food, of course.  Lots of talk about food.  Emily and Ryan had spent hours Wednesday afternoon chasing down a vegan ham that I didn't taste last night because there was regular ham and turkey, and I can taste it today if I want to.   The ones who did taste it were pretty confidant it tasted like "real ham."  

Emily's dressing was close enough to what I usually make that I didn't even comment - which she said upset her because she saw me about to try it for the first time and was waiting for my reaction, and I just went to the next food.  Did I forget to say she's sensitive and will not let me live that down.?

Cal had cooked the turkey, and it was so good, the best I've had lately.  I regretted not bringing home enough for a sandwich at least.  There was stuffing side-by-side with the dressing.  They're both typical sides for Thanksgiving meals, but they're nothing alike to me.  Each is good in its own way if you don't try to compare them. 

There was a big pan of macaroni and cheese prepared by Cal's mom that was also good and set off a long conversation about how mac and cheese has evolved from the real thing to the boxed ones and now to those vile microwavable cups that all the children love but make the adults gag. Three of the children do prefer a  Costco variety with more protein.  I'll have to get that name and have some bought to keep at my house so I don't have to see those bright blue and yellow cups!

What's left?  Brussels sprouts.  That was never a vegetable served at any of my Thanksgivings before we moved here, and now it's always a main veggie.  My father and father-in-law and probably Mike would never have tolerated them at their feasts.  I've developed a taste for them and love how different folks season theirs.  

There was a huge pot of mashed potatoes that Ali worked on that was probably my favorite thing besides the turkey.  This is young dog, and his name is Brodie or Bodie.  Such a sweetheart.  That was pretty much his spot for most of the preparation.

With some resting from his efforts when he could find a place.

With three more people in my generation, of course we touched on various ailments and insurances and losing spouses and driving at night and driving in general.  Grandchildren, pets, coffee, movies, college football.  These are just some of the things I overheard or was involved in.  We admired one of the 10-year-old's expertise in knitting, and she brought out her cute knitted pumpkin to show us.  I enjoyed a good conversation with a 16-year-old with a good outlook on not being in a hurry to drive and peer pressure and funny things about dances.  Adorable and so full of life.  I want her to talk more to my babies!  

One of her brothers was sick and stayed mostly to himself, only coming out for "Pie.  Pie."  And the other one too young to get trapped into conversation by a grandmother.  I saw him fall down the (carpeted) stairs twice, and Katherine took a spill once on the newly-refinished floor.

The children's table.  

Choosing seats.  

They did very well by themselves except for the drama of the lost tooth by the same 10-year-old (9-year? I can't keep up with birthdays) - the one with the white sweater.  Luckily, we were mostly finished eating when that news arrived with all the fanfare a lost tooth provides.  Later I saw an ice pack and some comforting come out in the kitchen once but wasn't privy to that story.

These six played so well the whole night.  What went on in the basement stayed in the basement, but adults were called down to video a pyramid and a chicken fight once they all got comfortable enough to ride each other's shoulders.  That was videoed and shut down for the future!

I'll add more pictures if Emily has any on her phone that I don't.

I almost forgot the pies.  Pecan, apple, and pumpkin.

Such a nice night and such good people.  I'm just happy to be included in such a festive night.