Belated Christmas Tea - Friday 1/8/2009

It's hard for me to believe that this was actually so long ago, probably because I was out of it for the next four days with a nasty cold.

We didn't have our Christmas tea before the holidays because I and another coworker were snowed in. Then the boss announced after we came back that there isn't enough money for us to go to tea. This was a terrible mistake, morale-wise.

But Weens came up with the idea of doing our own little tea along with the delayed Secret Santa exchange! So she went to Porto's for pastries and I brought in some of my teacups and my big happy Chatsford teapot (famous in tea circles, dontcha know?) and we had a very nice little gathering.



Weens' Christmas Queen presided over it all!


Cause I know you want a better look. These things are filled with guava, coconut, currents, almond paste, cherries, pears, etc. MMM.

The only dark note was that two people had Jens' name in the Secret Santa exchange and no one had OneL's! And I think it's my fault! Because after the holidays I'd forgotten and Jens told me I had her and she had me, which I had reason to believe.

So wrong. My fault for not remembering. And believe me, OneL is the person to whom this stuff matters the most. She dealt, but it was too bad.

I received some cool techno music from Jens.

Yet More About Food - Friday 12/26/2008

Royal Riviera pear courtesy of Mishegoss. Perfectly cored fruit courtesy of Kitty. The melon baller works perfectly for this.

A few seconds later I scattered bleu cheese over one of the pears. Mmmm.

Old Technology, Meet New Technology - Saturday 12/13/2008

The trusty filing cabinet worked for a long, long time.

Today I set up the new photo printer that I won from Liz over at Los Angelista's Guide to the Pursuit of Happiness. Yeah, won! For free! [She's giving away a Wii Fit now...get over there!]

We met up for lunch last Wednesday and she just. gave it. to me.


Here it is. What a beauty! If I had done the research to pick one out, this would have been the one I would have picked. I didn't realize when I entered her contest that it is not only a fabulous photo printer, but it is also wireless!

Yeah, shout it! Wireless!

So now if I want to print out a couple of pages from my laptop in the other room, I don't have to start up the desktop. I can just print from anywhere in the house. Probably from the back yard!

And yow! The first print, right out of the box was so gorgeous that I was actually able to use it for a birthday card. I was astonished. My Lexmark never printed such vibrant colors.

This is where the trusty filing cabinet gets to take a bow. Part of the ease of setting up the new HP Color Photo C6830 was that I dipped into my file (all the computer tabs are red) for the wireless router we installed a couple of years ago, and was able to type the key into the printer when prompted.

I'm sporadic about being organized. I am way more organized than some people and considerably less than other people. It always makes me so happy when I can actually find something I need when I need it.

[Which leads me to... p.s. Hydra: I was serious when I said that the key locator we saw at Target would make a nice gift.]

Blind Monkey - Saturday 12/6/2008

From a lowly pair of Rockford Red Heel socks will rise a monkey.

When I was little I had a sock monkey named Zippy. He was the younger, more slender sibling of Zippy, so technically Zippy Two. But we were really good buds, so I called him Zippy. Or just Zip if we were really in sync.

I made sock monkeys for a couple of friends' babies a few years ago. Now I'm making one for my grand-nephew!


I was going to take lots of photos along the way, but I got all involved and forgot.

I think Zippy was made for me by my Grandma W., but I'm not sure that's right.

I'm not sure what happened to Zip in the end. I do remember my big brother, Texaco, tying Zippy's tail to one of the arms of the multi-headed floor lamp and making him whine pathetically, "Help me! Hellllp me!"

No one should be denied the joy of having an older brother.




It took about six hours to get to this stage because I am hand sewing this monkey.

I actually dug my sewing machine out of the closet, but I haven't used it since we moved to Acton eight years ago. After looking up the instructions online for threading the dang thing and realizing that I probably should have oiled it a couple of times along the way, I decided that hand sewing is the best option for me. It's also nice to be able to say about the finished product.

The only thing left is to embroider on the eyes and mouth. I felt weird leaving him like this, but I wanted to get the right color of floss.

Giftwrapping and Nostalgia - Sunday 8/3/2008

Wrapped Braveheart's birthday gifts. Used some of the Viennese art paper that resurfaced as I cleaned and reorganized my studio for hours and hours and hours over the weekend.

I have boxes full of writing dating back to when I was about 10. Stories and poems mostly. Too funny, some of it. The adventures of Marco Mondoux are so clearly influenced by my reading of The Count of Monte Cristo between 8th and 9th grades. There were all these references to actual places in France, and I seem to have picked real French names... guess we are who we are from a very early age. Research is kind of in my bones.

One day I'll dive back in and organize it more. Now, just having it vaguely divided by big eras is good.

I found an expenses ledger from around 1998 when it cost $12.51 to fill up our Taurus and $5.32 to fill up our Escort.

Sigh.

Come Git Yer Coffee! - Tuesday 7/8/2008

Dang, this photo's blurry.

Maybe it's because we haven't drunk the coffee yet.

Gift from Braveheart from her trip to Iowa. There's also a Paw mug for Hydra!

I love the vintage stuff. I love coffee cups and tea cups and glassware. It's stupid, but I do. I do!

Christmas Day 2007

O Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum!

You can't really see them in this light, but we switched to lower-energy-use LED lights on the tree this year.

We had a great Christmas. Hydra woke up at 3:15 and there was no more sleep to be had. We opened packages that had arrived from people in other states, and a couple from each other. Did a little prep for dinner, set the table, etc. Most of the prep was done the day before.

The cousins arrived from Orange and Riverside counties around 11:00 and we broke out the Mimosas and the-- Let's call them Pimosas. Champagne and peach juice cocktails, for a change. Appetizers: homemade shrimp spread, cheeses, crackers, TJ's Sun dried tomato/pesto torta, kalamata olives, nuts.

Opened gifties from one another. Lots of goodies!

Dinner was pork tenderloin roasted with garlic, rosemary and sage; P's killer mashed potatoes, V's delish spinach pear and Gorgonzola salad, apple-sage stuffing, shaved Brussels sprouts with bacon.



Now the birdhouses I painted (but did not build) can be revealed. I had a lot of fun with these. Ended up doing two more. Green and another pink/lavender in another shape.



After dinner we drove over to Shambala for the traditional viewing of the lions. Okay, it's not a tradition yet, but it may be... It's only about 7 miles from us. This guy was in an enclosure near the road.


This big fellah huffed and puffed for us from down in the canyon. We just stopped along the road to look in.

Back to the house for apple pie and mincemeat pie, and tea. Everyone stayed till about dusk.

We felt really good about the day. And I have to admit, it was nice not to have to drive anywhere!

Busy Day - Tuesday 12/18/2007

Oh my gosh! I had to crop this image out of a larger one because I spent a good part of the day working on Christmas gifts and some of the recipients read this blog from time to time!

You'll have to wait till after Christmas to see what I did with these colors.

Hee hee!

I also baked a bunch of Scotch shortbread today. The house smells so good.

There were a lot of clouds over the mountains across the valley. I made myself a one-egg omelet with avocado and cheddar cheese with sun-dried tomatoes and took it out to the deck and watched the sky move overhead while I ate. With my hood up. It was like 50 degrees out.

But it was sooo wonderful to be home to witness the storm moving in.

Tribute from the North - Saturday 10/27/2007

One of my all-time favorite Canadian-Americans took time out of his busy schedule to send me a message of good will!

I was dozing on the couch yesterday--big change from the bed!--when the Fedex man came a-knockin'.

Mom got up and answered, and what!? A box from my friends and long-distance co-workers The American (mother of the adorable lad above) and Bella.

They also sent a charming pillow and cards. I put the pillow to immediate use!

Glass! - Friday 6/15/2007

Remember I told you Braveheart brought the writing group gifts from Iowa? Amongst mine was this amazing 1950s Italian carafe and glasses. I think it's probably for a liqueur, but that didn't stop me from using it for red wine.

This is way cooler than what I brought her from France. She's really good at this.

Oh, and I took her advice and pushed my hair back off my face. I may be done with bangs for a long time again. Since I've had a couple of requests to come out from behind the camera lately, I thought I'd give it a shot.

It was interesting looking down the barrel of my own Nikon.



No filters or Photoshopping were used in the creation of this image.

Believe me, I was tempted!

[p.s. Finally went to the doctor this afternoon. Saw an x-ray of my back. Yes, indeed, a small bone that looked like it was in the middle of a vertebrae was knocked a little cockeyed. There's nothing to do, I guess. Just wait for the soft tissue to heal, which should take another 3-4 weeks. The doc says that we'll know what the cause of any future pain is. Oh, lovely. In the meantime, it's a rib belt, occasional pain meds and lightening my load. I think I may need to revert to the handy dandy Kodak instead of the Nikon for health's sake.]