Capture December, Day 31 - Fun

I stopped at Petco and picked up the dogs a couple of new toys and found a harness that was also a reindeer semi-costume for Leeloo. It's different than her figure eight harness so I thought it might also kind of act as a pseudo-calming harness. It kind of does, but I'll have to take off the little tale.

I had some fun taking pictures of her in the hat:

I was coming down with a cold, so we stayed home and watched movies. Andrea came over and did laundry and watched with us. Since it was so late and icy, we had her stay the night on the couch. So a safe, if a little boring celebration.

Capture December, Day 30 - Your Winter Wonderland

For the last few years we've been getting more snow in November and December. This year has kind of been odd and we've only had a couple of snowfalls to the valley floor. When you're only a couple hundred feet above sea level, you get shorted on snow. It's not really a problem since we're just an hour away from the Cascades and Mt Hood with its snow and there's often snow in the coastal range.

A few days before Christmas we did have a brief snow fall and I was fortunate enough to capture it:

Used to be a hazelnut orchard on the other side of the fence, it was probably only a 1/4 inch of snow and gone in a few hours

Norbert really enjoys the colder weather and does play in the snow when there's enough to play in

Houses instead of hazelnuts. I imagine next summer I'll have them on the other side of my fence. The roofs look pretty with the snow 

Wind toy, see the snowflakes falling?

Where the future houses will go, its all prepped for them to start building and it will be harder for me to see the snow on these trees, if at all.

Capture December, Day 29 - Skyview

We're in the gray skies period of winter. No rain, 36 degrees out and cloud cover. It's the kind of weather that causes SAD in some people. I'm a cave dweller, so don't mind the weather. ;-) So long as the light isn't piercing, and doesn't hurt my eyes, I'm happy.

Capture December, Day 28 - Words

Kind of wondered about what to do for Words. Brandon suggested looking around at the decorations. So I did find the words inside the ornament that Rachel gave a few years ago, but then I ran across the bucket that we had our Christmas cards inside. They have words on the inside and outside. I'll share the outsides with you since the insides are personal. ;-)

Years ago when the budget could afford it, I used to send out Christmas cards and a family newsletter. The budget took a hit and they were the first non-essential thing to go. I gave them in person where I could. I noticed this year that the numbers have decreased again of the ones we receive. I think others have had the same problem.

Do you still send out cards?

Capture December, Day 27 - Night Time

A night time pic I don't think I've shared yet:

Our fireplace mantel all decorated up!

Capture December, Day 26 - Gratitude

I am grateful for my family and for getting to spend time with them during the holidays as well as having a home we are all safe in.

What are you grateful for?

Capture December, Day 25 - Morning

I did get a Christmas cactus and it was blooming today!

We were up at 6:30am to shower and leave by 7am so we could drive to Judy's and pick her and my massage chair up. She was in an 30 min up and 30 min down from eye surgery. Then on to Aunt Debbie and Uncle Dave's house for the celebration.

Stockings have been done and looking at what was given in them. This is Will, Shannon, Paige and her boyfriend Spencer

There are five children under the age of 12 in the house, so there were lots of gifts given out:

You can see some of the wrapping paper disaster and J was having presents passed over her head.




ps: the formatting is being difficult for me.

How was your morning?

Capture December, Day 24 - Favorite part of Christmas Eve

I don't have a picture of my favorite part of Christmas Eve because it involved sitting quietly upstairs next to the tree talking with my son about is day with his father. We were having our time together while the rest of the family with the munchkins were downstairs getting special presents from Santa Claus.

Brandon's Uncle Dave dresses up in a Santa costume and talks with the kids. There are five of them and parents are busy taking pics and everything. I was talking with my kid, so we were all happy.

I'll take a couple extra for tomorrow's post.

Have a safe and happy Christmas!

Capture December, Day 23 - Scarf

I made a scarf! I was test knitting it, and had the idea of giving it as a gift. So tonight it went to my lovely step-mother Jeanne to wear.

Its the Webfoot Scarf by PDXKnitterati.

I have been given some lovely scarfs in the past. Have a very nice brown plaid cashmere scarf that I can't remember who gave it to me. Another in a black plush too. I so very rarely use them though. It just doesn't get cold enough and trying to keep it on the jacket, I've lost scarfs that way.

What's your stance on scarfs?  Use them, or not?  Good knit to give away?  Six feet or more of boredom?

Capture December, Day 22 - Tradition

A tradition that I had to ask my stepmother to continue is to send an Advent Calendar. She was awesome while William was growing up and sending one to him each year. Then he turned 18 and she thought he was too grown up for it and stopped. It wasn't until we didn't have it that year that I realized how it was a part of our family tradition. So I told her how much we loved them and looked forward to getting it each year, so she's continued.

This year it was a couple days into December and I realized we hadn't gotten the oversized envelope in the mail. There was a card from them that I thought was just a holiday card. I opened it up and was blown away that it was a tiny card sized advent calendar:

What is your family tradition?

Capture December, Day 21 - Peace

I find peace in the solitude of my bedroom away from the electronics and losing myself in a good book. I'm not going to share my bedroom with you though. :-)

I also find peace when the dogs are sleeping with me. I thought I had some camera pictures of them sleeping, but I'm only finding a couple of poor quality pictures from the phone:

Norbert in one of his favorite sleeping spots, along the back of the couch. 

 He kind of squishes down the back pillows.  He also walks along the back edge too.

Leeloo snuggled on her pillow on the couch. 

What gives you peace?

Capture December, Day 20 - Tree Topper

We have two tree toppers, neither one of them on top of the tree. We have a 7 foot artificial tree and where it goes in front of the living room window, there's not enough height to add either one.

The angel was the first one

The Santa that we picked out

What kind of tree topper do you have?

Capture December, Day 19 - Candy Canes

I thought I was going to have to go out and buy some candy canes, but then I stopped and looked around. There's candy canes on decorations, chocolates, candy and even ornaments.

Some candy we bought to share at Juletide with the girls

Brandon's mom and niece made some peppermint bark and added candy canes

Noticed that there were some on the wrapping paper 

The stocking holder Santa is holding on to one

The copper ornament, see the cut outs to be the stripes?

Santa is also holding one on the glass ball

I almost missed these - they each have a candy cane!

I'm saving the rest of the Lindor's to put in stockings. They don't need to go inside me!

Capture December, Day 18 - Stockings

We've had our stockings for the last ten years or so. William picked out his when he was younger. He'd like a new one, but hasn't found one that he likes yet. I wanted to knit some for us, but those aren't the kind that Brandon want and we have a set that my Grandma Eileen made, so those are covered.

What kind of stockings do you have?

Capture December, Day 17: Presents

Not all of them are under the tree and I'm starting to cut it close to get my mother's shipped to her. Need to buy a picture frame and get that taken care of tomorrow!!

Capture December, Day 15 - Favorite Holiday Song

I don't have a bunch of CDs, so can't take a picture of one of those. I did get a Pink Martini holiday CD that I liked, but it didn't have my favorite holiday song. So I'm reduced to sharing another You Tube:



Is it showing my age that I like Dean Martin's version better than others?

Capture December, Day 14 - Family

I've wanted to get family pictures for awhile and finally made it happen today. Here's the one that's the holiday photo:

Capture December, December 13 - Swap!

Today, I'm supposed to give you Family. Tomorrow though I have formal family pictures scheduled, so you'll have to wait until tomorrow to see them. ;-) I'm swapping tomorrow's Christmas tree for today.

Our tree is an artificial one we got through JoAnn's a couple years ago. It's our second one because we figured out that my breathing problems were because of the live tree we were getting. An artificial one works for other reasons - no needles or dead tree to deal with at the end of the season.

Capture December, Day 12 - Beautiful Sight

My son gave me an orchid for Mother's day. I was able to keep the blooms alive through most of the summer before I accidentally over-watered it and the blooms died off.  I had been keeping it just below my kitchen window or in the window sill depending upon the sun angle.

It had already sprouted a new leaf and according to the instructions that meant it was ready to sprout a flower stem within a period of time.

Today, I noticed that I have a new shoot for flowers!  This is my beautiful sight:

The new leaf is the one you can see with the purple-red bottom

Close-up of my flower stem in progress

The type of orchid. Really should do some more research on them

What the blooms looked like

Its been several years since we've had one, I may have to try to find a Christmas Cactus.

Capture December, Day 11 - Green!

I love living at the foot hills of the coast range in the Willamette Valley. It means that we're green pretty much year round. Sure people may stop watering their lawn and it will brown, but the trees and other plants will stay green.

So my green today:

Moss - it may or may not be where the grass is supposed to be growing, or in my flowerbed creeping in or out

Yea, my Columbines are still green. We haven't gotten a good freeze yet

I admit to being lazy and I didn't pull the broccoli, cauliflower or brussel sprouts. This is the broccoli I found today. There's a brussel with a sprout too.

A few of the potatoes were sprouting in their bag, so they got popped into the  former herb box. I have two that have sprouted to this point. Anything I'm supposed to do to help them winter over? Onions are sprouted and the stalk is still hardy on the fennel. Hope this doesn't mean we're having a mild winter?

Sometimes the Rosemary is blooming with tiny purple blooms this time of year. They can look like mini-Christmas trees. I'll have to keep pruning it so that it doesn't go wild.

But if you think I should share something green Christmas related, I have some wrapping paper for you: