A trip to the mountain

These photos don't do our trip to Mt. Hood justice.  The sky was so blue, the sun warm, and the air cold.  When I walked through the woods all sounds except the creaking of the trees disappeared into a snowy silence.  I hope we go again soon; I haven't had my fill of that snow silence yet.

Happy Holidays!

Sunset

Time for the monthly post - for anyone still bothering to visit!  Life is full these days - so full there hasn't been much incentive to stop long enough to blog about it; but for a winter's sunset, I'll make time.  This one stopped everyone in their tracks.  I even called JJ to tell him to step out of his windowless office for a quick look.  Beauty like this shouldn't go unnoticed by anyone.  I kept running outside with my camera every few minutes, trying to capture each changing nuance as the colors blended and separated, deepened and darkened, then finally faded altogether.  In these dark damp days of winter, as the light gets ever more scarce on its way toward solstice, it's nice to know there is occasionally something bright and dazzling to stir our souls.

Happy Birthday, Lynda!

Here is a little autumn sunshine to illustrate the glow I feel when I think of our friendship - across miles and miles of land and sea, but closer than next door in my heart.  Happy Birthday, Lynda!  All my love to you on your special day.

xoxoxoxoxoxo

Fall table

I'm all about the kitchen table these days.  I love spending time here reading, writing, watching movies and drinking heavily flavored coffee.  Last week when the million-mile winds blew through the neighborhood I watched the trees toss and turn, saw leaves spinning across the dried out lawn.  I spend a lot of time letting black cats in and out of the sliding glass door.  A lot of planning and dreaming goes on here, a lot of sipping and noshing and snacking.  Homework, too - we're in the thick of it with math problems and spelling words.  If I could, I might just spend all day here - but then I wouldn't get out to pick flowers for a centerpiece - and we can't have that!

Rip Van Winkle, Jr.

Yesterday, upon being woken up for school, Owen pulls the covers over his head and says in a groggy voice, "Wake me up in fifty years."  And so it begins...

Watermelon stripes

Check it out!  I finished something!  After a summer of much laziness, I finally finished this little sweater.  Pink and green - when you have little boys, it's always a thrill when someone has a girl.  I think the buttons look a little bit like watermelon seeds.  I found them in Gramma Joy's sewing basket.  Hurray for vintage!  I knit the first half starting in May and was amazed to see how much my gauge loosened by the second half.  That's never happened to me before, but it was quite the lesson in paying attention.  As in, do it!  You can see how much looser the left side of the photo above is versus the right.  So much tighter and tidier at the start of this project, before all those stripes wore me down.  Thank goodness for blocking is all I can say.  It hides a multitude of sins.  I'm looking forward to giving this one to its intended recipient (though being only a few months old, she won't be wearing it anytime soon!).