Holiday Happenings

I see I haven't posted since December 19.  Every time I go for a long stretch without writing a new post, I think of a lovely young woman I met at a writers' retreat who told me she checks my blog every day for new stuff.

And then I feel bad for her.

I'm sorry, Florence!!  

But thanks for checking in.  I appreciate it a lot. The rest of you too.

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We have had a lot of wacky weather, for Oregon.  Ice and snow and freezing rain and sleet.  I try to restrain my happiness about snow because it messes up everything, and Paul as school principal, with the heavy burden of making sure everyone is safe coming and going, has to make all these heavy decisions about whether school should be on time, late, or called off.

We even had to postpone the Christmas program, which I don't remember ever happening before. We'll have it tomorrow night instead, unless there's too much ice and snow.

The snow brings the hills in closer, somehow.

Looking west. 

East from the local filbert orchard.

 Steven moved home from Aurora to make room for the new crop of students, and then Matt came home for two weeks.

Oh how I like people coming home.

This list of things to fix on the computer has been accumulating for quite some time.
Matt went down the list. Check check check.

We played games.  Well, the others played games a lot.
A few times, I played Boggle with everyone who wanted to show that they loved me.
They said it was like playing basketball with LeBron James.
Silly people.

We had our annual Kenyan dinner to celebrate Steven's coming to us
12 years ago.  Funny how his hands just remember how to make chapatis,
rolling and twisting and tying the dough.

On Christmas Day, we talked to Amy via Skype.
I miss Amy.
And I really like Skype

There were also games at the Greater Smucker Christmas.
As always.

Rosie gave us all flower-tipped pens and had us write prayer requests and notes of appreciation
on each other's place cards.
Rosie's daughter, Cassie, made custom name cards for everyone.

We took everyone to Tillamook, on the northern Oregon coast, for four days.

More games, of course.

If you go to Tillamook, you have to tour the cheese factory.
And if you're still a farm girl at heart,
you have to milk the cow.

This is Netarts Bay. We stayed at a house nearby.

One day we walked on this beach, where a tunnel goes through the mountain
and out onto a beach on the other side.
I felt like I was following the Pied Piper into an unknown fate.

After getting thoroughly chilled on the beach, the girls and I warmed up with tea at a little old cafe.

One day I made a cup of coffee with cream, which didn't turn out as artistic
as the ones my young barista friends post on Instagram.
Mine was more like rat intestines.
Or parasites.

Matt went back to Washington, DC.

We started doing a small renovation on our bedroom, trying to borrow a few square feet from the office in order to eventually accommodate a larger bed, in the interest of better sleep for all concerned, including those who, as my sister says, "fight the Mongol hordes all night," and those who attempt to sleep with them.

We are also interested in being able to walk around a larger bed, since our bedroom is very small.

In the renovation process, Paul uncovered layers of wallpaper that his fore-mothers and -aunts had hung, sometime in the past 105 years.

I thought it was lovely, especially the floral paper.

And it made me wonder, who and why and how, and what was going on in their lives, and were they papering before the new baby came, and so on.

 Have a wonderful 2017, all of you.

Especially you who keep coming back here, reading, listening, saying hello, investing a bit of yourself in my life whether I see you stopping by or not.

You are appreciated.

This weekend we had an ice-snow-ice sandwich, and then it rained on top of that.
So trees and posts reflected on the snow.

One final shot, just for fun.

This is Steven humoring me as I figure out the camera on my laptop, right before he leaves for his new
place in Junction City, where he will be a resident volunteer at the fire station and also
a paramedic student at Lane Community College.

And over an hour closer to home.

I like it when my children come home for the holidays.

Quote of the Day:
"One thing that I've found as a result of my background is that rodents bother me far less than most people.  We have a facebook group for our apartment building, and people have been sounding off. 'Is there a way to get out of the lease if you see a mouse?'
These are grown men."
--Matt, who learned to kill mice with his bare hands, back in his sacking days