The 25th day...

We were greeted at the front porch by our 7-year-old niece, and spent a few happy hours with home-made pastries, lots of catching up, a tour of Anna's new preschool classroom, hide-and-seek, and talking with the guys while playing pool. Then we moved to my sister's house for more talk and watching the rain pound the roofs and cooking and sampling wine from Plain. The cats got braver and braver with all the family and the skies turned dark, and we shared a simple dinner of lasagne and salad and bread and dessert, sitting around the table until well after dark. No messy kitchen meant more time to talk with everyone, and I treasured the time.

The girls liked the earrings I made for them, and the packaging: the tiny lilac twig that held them inside an Altoids tin, wrapped in pages from an old paperback book.

Our gifts were all about light this year: homemade beeswax candles and a candle holder fashioned from a round of hardwood. A beehive candle. A solar light that will be perfect for backpacking next summer. And a motion-activated light for the outhouse at the cabin.

Christmas morning

Every year, we spend Christmas on an island with my sister and her family, and it's wonderful. Their home is true country, and if there's such a thing as a spiritual home, I think this is mine.

This morning I woke early, and lay in bed, thinking about the day ahead of us. Then I noticed how white it was outside the windows.  It snowed! The front pasture was white, and the trees were frosted with snow.

It was a half hour before I could get outside with my camera, and by then it had started to melt. But it was beautiful while it lasted.

Surrounded by snow...

This is what I want for Christmas...  simple and pure and white. Just a few inches of snow, so I can make a snowman and enjoy the view out my windows.

I don't need this much snow, though... back in January 2012, there was enough snow to use as a wine chiller!

Snow is all around us this week:  up north in Snohomish County, throughout the Cascades to the east, and west in the Olympics.

But whatever the weather where you are, I hope you have a very Merry Christmas!

Being indoors...

A 14,410-foot mountain is hiding behind those streaky white clouds

There's a pretty solid theme to my musings this month...  mostly about the weather, going out into it, and staying inside to escape it.

But there have been brilliant days interspersed into all this soggy gloominess. Days with blue sky and wild white clouds. Days so still that absolutely perfect reflections are possible.

This morning I walked my favorite trail for a while, into a wind so strong I had to hold my hood with both hands. My daily cache in hand, I turned around to head back to the car, just as the heavens opened up and soaked me. Grrrr....

Back home (and dried off), I settled down with hot tea and finished wrapping Christmas presents, while watching Antiques Roadshow. The wind was blowing outside the windows, but I was surrounded by the warmth from the woodstove and the smell of pasta sauce cooking on the stove. It's 38 degrees and raining outside... that makes being indoors even better.

Bear in black and white

This year I won't be putting out the antique toys and the train and the bears on the Mission Oak cabinet in the living room. With a new cat who is flexing her skills at jumping, that doesn't seem like the best idea. So I thought a photo on my blog might be fun, and started looking for photos from previous teddy bear's Christmas displays.

But I got sidetracked. Thinking about the antique toys reminded me that I never unpacked the bears I put away for safekeeping last summer, when we had three little kids staying with us. When that was done, it was time to go out for a geocache before it got dark. Then it was time to think about dinner.

So instead, I decided to post a photo of the one bear that's always out on the Mission cabinet. This cute mohair Boyd's bear is one of my favorites, and so is the transferware platter.

Solstice...

I really wanted to spend the day cuddled with the cat, doing some baking, maybe work on my Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt. But I couldn't put The List off any longer. When I walked out the door, it started to rain. Dang.

First a quick walk on the trail to repair a geocache, then three long, convoluted hours of driving and shopping, getting soaked by the rain, and splashing through puddles and parking lot streams. I really needed Bogs today... they are definitely at the top of my list now.

When I finally finished and drove up the hill toward home, there were huge white snowflakes mixed in with the rain. I'm so envious of my friends who live east of the mountains, who keep posting photographs of their yards covered in snow. And we don't have a bit yet. So please... forgive me for crossing my fingers.

Ready for snow...

Rainy days are quiet days here... it's easy to turn my focus inside and take care of housekeeping, keep the fire going and the house toasty warm, and be content with observing the outdoors through the windows. It's been tough to keep the feeders topped up, and the birds have taken over the orchard trees. Three pair of mallard ducks spent the day on the pond, then left when dusk came.

I stood in the bedroom and looked at the pond, so high right now because of all the rain. In the late afternoon light, there was the most beautiful reflection of tree trunks. I wonder if I can get close enough to capture this, with the marshy ground all around the pond? I haven't had barn boots since my last horse went... time to start shopping for those Bogs.

I'm ready for snow. It's been way too many years since we had a white Christmas, and I'm ready.

White elephants

We've tried them all in the 40+ years I've been part of this family. Gifts for everyone led to family gifts, then gifts only for the kids under 18, then no gifts (but too many people still brought something for everyone). That disaster led to drawing names, then to cookie exchanges. But last year we finally made it to the White Elephant game, and everyone agreed that this was absolutely the most fun and relaxing way to exchange gifts. I don't know why it took us so long!

The Spam gift box was a big hit with our college student.

The ceramic barn cookie jar was a big hit with this barn lover.

I was sure this barbecue apron would be stolen by one of the 

hard core chefs in the family, but Nicole held onto it.

Mary was thrilled with this compact roadside emergency kit, but I think Bruce wants it.

DWs box has backbacking food; it will be perfect for next summer's family pack trip.

Tom's going to organize his trunk.

Writing by hand

It took just over a year to fill the second composition book, and I like using them (and the cloth covers I designed). A few road trips filled most of the pages: Colorado 2014, Yakima Valley in June 2015, and Colorado 2015. I left it at home for Hawaii and Ireland, and took lighter weight notebooks. So, this year wasn't a great test of how long one of these notebooks will last... I always write more when we're on a road trip.

When I was a working writer, I spent most of my day designing, writing, and editing technical manuals and documents on the computer. I had a second laptop for e-mail and graphics work, and since I also used my journal for meeting notes and project status notes, it was always open so I  could keep notes and ideas updated throughout the day. When I wasn't at work, I used a Daytimer binder for my journal, using pages I designed myself. It went with me wherever I went, and I loved the dark green leather.

Since I retired, my writing habits have slowly changed back to handwritten notes, but I regretfully had to shelve that lovely green Daytimer binder. Once I retired, those custom pages weren't possible anymore.

A couple of years ago, I designed a cover that fits over a standard composition notebook. I liked it so much, I made a bunch more, and gave most of them away. The composition books are perfect for my "new" style: I can tuck one into whatever tote or day pack I choose to carry, and I love being able to pull it out and write whenever the mood strikes me.

A cold day at sea...

My day required jeans, long-sleeved t-shirt, fleece pullover, down sweater, canvas barn coat with down liner, two pairs of wool socks, boots, gloves, a fleece scarf wrapped around my neck, and a fleece hat pulled low over my ears.

Our friend, Larry, just had the engine rebuilt on his cruiser, and invited us out for a shake-down cruise on Puget Sound. On this foggy and cold day, it was tough to stay warm once we got out on the water... glad I brought along the fleece and nylon lap robe from the MX-5.

It figures today would be one of the coldest days this month; the low temperatures plus the fog made it a bone-chilling afternoon. It didn't stop people from being out on the water though; for once, it wasn't raining. We've had our share... halfway into the month, we've already had 6 inches of rain (much more where I live, closer to the foothills).

I've been very into reflections lately; the calm water behind the breakwater gave a beautiful painterly look to these reflections of boats and birds.

There was a lot of ship traffic today, like this container ship outside Commencement Bay, waiting for a tug escort. We watched until both tugs were in place to nudge the ship into dock, then headed back to the marina.