Digital zoom does it no justice, but I was pleased by the view from my north-facing office window this morning just after sunrise:
Mount Baker, visible from 80+ miles away bathed in sunlight and peeking above the rooftops and below the clouds.
Normally I’d post a photo of this year’s Christmas tree with a count of the number of lights we installed (it was 2800 in recent years)—in fact by now that photo’s usually been posted for a few weeks. But this year we decided to observe the holiday in a pretty low-key manner.
No Christmas tree, for example—I’m sure our electric meter is pleased with that, no lights making it work overtime to track power consumption this month. We did lighter decorating with candles and some small lights, a lighted garland over the fireplace with our Christmas stockings. Also did some baking and we hosted a small group of family and friends at dinner on Christmas Eve, a tradition we started about 10 years ago to leave Christmas Day relaxing and uncluttered.
In that spirit, then:
Here’s to a warm and happy Christmas to you and yours, and the best wishes for the upcoming New Year and into the future.
I’m blessed to have a warm house and a beautiful Christmas tree surrounded by friends and family.
Merry Christmas and happy holidays.
I step away to refresh my coffee . . . .
Forty years ago today at 09:23 MDT, Julie Anne joined the world with a yowl, and the world blinked at the sudden arrival of this brightest of lights in its midst.
Forty years on, the light’s brighter still.
Look, even the kitchen calendar is getting in on the act.
Everyone, go pester Jewells with birthday wishes at her various online haunts:
First pint of the season of Pyramid’s Curve Ball blonde ale.
We attended the sentencing hearing for the perpetrator of a burglary in October. Needed a bit of a break afterward.
Walked into the kitchen, found warm-beveragy goodness. And free apps!
<squint>
Thank heavens for technology. Otherwise I’d be lost.
Sirloins and veggies. Ahh, summer.
Finally, a 4th with not a cloud in the sky.
And an appropriate summer cocktail! :-)
Dinner mit usual wimmins. ;-)
Our Towering Inferno has settled down to a crackly comfy little fire.
Happy Memorial Day. :-)
Julie Anne’s efforts to get a fire going in the chiminea met with... difficulty, shall we say:
So I stepped in (at, for the record, her suggestion) with the charcoal lighter fluid.
A couple minutes later we still had the roarin’ fire we sought. Cuz, science!
The phone, she is broke :-(
We joined friends for a matinee of The Producers in Issaquah. I was getting into the car on our way to the theatre when I bobbled the phone in my left hand and it clattered to the driveway for the fourth time I can remember, and this time it gave the unmistakable psht! sound of the glass giving up the fight.
Yay AppleCare+ — we’re waiting now at the Apple Store, University Village for warranty service. Should be all good in the next hour or so.
Twelve-year-old me really really really wanted this morning to watch Seattle City Light deal with the fallen tree a block down the road. The tree went down as a fast-moving storm blew through the neighborhood Friday evening, taking out or cable service and snapping a power pole in the process, and my 12-year-old self was all about gawking at the work to fix the problems because: Ooh! Big powerful machines!!!
Forty-year-old me knew that if I didn’t mow the damned lawn, it would overtake the house in a matter of hours. It had been three weeks since the last mowing, a combination of weekend plans and bad weather repeatedly delaying the next mow.
Somehow my brain arrived at a perfect compromise: Mow the front yard first!
So that’s what I did, and I managed to avoid chopping off any digits and scalping the turf even though I kept my eyes on the work down the street even more than I kept my eyes on the task immediately at hand.
And how was your Saturday?
Oatmeal and an apple fritter.
Cuz, you know, I’m all about balancing things out, even though the Diet Coke wouldn’t fit in the frame.
Julie Anne made a strawberry-rhubarb pie with rhubarb from our own garden.
Isn’t it purty?
On the Seattle Times homepage just now, a dour expression for so much lovin’:
The first pint of Curve Ball this year. Aaahhhhh....
Just... ewww.
And Easter is two months away, for crying out loud!
And Seattle set a record low temperature.
Rapidly approaching the time of year when I will have to close the blinds on my east-facing office window.
I love the approach of springtime in the Puget Sound. :-)
Alehouse restroom. Flashing back to the hospital gift shop in 2004, all those old-lady volunteers.
Which is not to say the old-lady volunteers were in the alehouse restroom with me—nothing so scandalous.
No, one of them was named Stella. And every time I saw her, I’d do the “Streetcar” bit. And she’d smile tolerantly and encourage me to return to the cash register lesson.
Can you tell I got dressed in the dark?
You can’t quite see the cheery glow of the practically white-hot metal, but trust my tongue. OW.
I present in its unmodified entirety the severe-weather alert I saw for Seattle just now:
... SNOW POTENTIAL THIS WEEKEND AND IN THE WEEK TO COME... A COLD AND SHOWERY AIR MASS WILL SPREAD ACROSS WESTERN WASHINGTON THIS WEEKEND. SNOW LEVELS WILL FALL TO 1000 FEET ON SATURDAY AND THEN TO NEAR SEA LEVEL OR JUST A COUPLE HUNDRED FEET ON SUNDAY MORNING. IN SHOWERY PATTERNS... SNOW ACCUMULATIONS CAN BE HIGHLY LOCALIZED... DEPENDING ON ELEVATION AND HOW CONVERGENCE ZONES DECIDE TO FORM. LOCATIONS FROM SEATTLE NORTH TO THE ISLANDS AND SKAGIT COUNTY WOULD BE THE MOST LIKELY PLACES TO SEE ACCUMULATING SNOW... BUT ANYWHERE STANDS A CHANCE. LOCATIONS THAT GET SNOW COULD GET A FEW INCHES... WHILE MANY OTHER LOCATIONS WILL JUST GET FLURRIES OR LEFT OUT ALTOGETHER. THE CHARACTER OF THE EVENT WILL BE SIMILAR TO THE ONE THAT HAPPENED ON DECEMBER 29TH... THOUGH THE EXACT LOCATION OF THE HEAVIER SNOWS COULD VERY WELL BE DIFFERENT. MONDAY AND TUESDAY OF NEXT WEEK WILL BE COLD AND DRY. STARTING WEDNESDAY THROUGH THE END OF NEXT WEEK... THERE IS THE POTENTIAL FOR A WIDESPREAD HEAVY SNOW EVENT SOMEWHERE IN WESTERN WASHINGTON. GREAT UNCERTAINTY INHERENTLY EXISTS IN A FORECAST WITH THIS MUCH LEAD TIME... AND IT IS POSSIBLE THAT A HEAVY SNOW SITUATION WILL NOT HAPPEN. CHECK BACK LATE THIS WEEKEND OR BY MONDAY FOR THE LATEST ON THIS POTENTIAL HIGH-IMPACT EVENT. IF THE POTENTIAL STILL EXISTS AT THAT TIME... THEN THE DRY WEATHER ON MONDAY AND TUESDAY WOULD AFFORD AN EXCELLENT OPPORTUNITY TO PREPARE.
Crazy bald kid didn’t know WTF he was talking about!
(Clearly I am rapturously attentive in this meeting)
“Mornings aren’t pretty”—truer words never spoken, though I didn’t sleep long enough to get a really grand case of bedhead. But I kinda feel like Mickey looks.
And it can’t be pure coincidence that one French press = one giant coffee cup, right? No, it must be a greater statement of the proper order of the universe.
In order: People, beers, and cans of enchilada sauce to ring in the new year.
Best wishes for 2011.
After the jump, photos from my balcony half a mile away from the Space Needle’s New Year fireworks show. Excellent weather this year, clear and cold with practically no wind—and the smoke from the fireworks moved west of the Needle so we had an unobstructed view of the whole show.
Continue reading "Happy new year :-)" »
On the second hand (a set and a run), instead of, say, on an actually USEFUL hand like the final (3 runs)???
I decided, on the final hand, to try for three runs of diamonds. Here’s to that second joker :-D
Game final score: Don 190, Julie Anne 400
Not the game-winner, but it looks good so far.
Three hands in (of seven total) and I’m batting a thousand.
Annie and Flex have been following the sun’s slow march across the living room.
Katharine has become a fan of the iPad. She stole it away from me and landed 58 airplanes in Flight Control HD, and now she’ss blasting energy blobs to smithereens in Plasma Globe.
Julie Anne really outdid herself this year.
Cinnamon rolls for breakfast on Christmas morning.
Family and friends just gathered. The tree is beautifully decorated, “the fire” crackling merrily away, coffee steaming, and breakfast in the oven.
Doesn’t get much better than this.
Julie Anne’s scratch-made pumpkin pies.
For the record, this wasn’t a total Martha Stewart endeavor—Julie Anne bought the pie dishes, she didn’t make them herself. And she feels kinda bad about that.