A quick stop....

A quick stop here to say Happy Holidays to my friends and family! and whoever else stops by! It has been fast forward! Started with my Christmas with the young girls which involved an amazing gift exchange, large quantities of wine and ended with shooting a BB gun at some very bad art! Moved on to immediate families without a single disgruntled daughter-in-law in sight! which gave us our best Christmas in at least 15 years! We now move on to four days with 5 families consisting of four generations tucked away at Fort Worden in a Victorian Officers House to ring in the New Year! This is an annual event that has taken on a life of its own! Golf tournaments, savenger hunts, gift exchanges, Texas Hold'm, food and just hanging out and catching up! Happy New Year everyone! Will be back next week!

It's the extras......

Most times I love the extras.....the extra olive in my martini, the extra 15% off the sale price, the extra frosting on the corner piece of cake, etc. But this time of year extras mean something else entirely. Most of our lives run at fast forward all year long and adding extras can make them overwhelming! For the past few years I've chosen not to be overwhelmed during this time of year. The extras. Decorating the house, the tree, the baking, the Christmas cards, the shopping, the stress of trying to figure out what gift to give, the required family get togethers all add up for a very unmerry season. I no longer have children at home, so decorating the house turns into just alot of work. This whole chore I have crossed off my list. The tree. Jim still insists on a tree. Now? I help him put it up and he decorates it! It's not how I would do it, of course, because when I did it? it had to be the most fabulous tree ever! But it's not my tree anymore and he is very happy with it. Baking. I was never one of those people known for their holiday specialty. Most of my experiences in the kitchen are only memorable because they all turn out so badly with the final humiliation of the smoke detector firing off a screaming warning to get the hell out of the kitchen unless I'm just making coffee, which I do very well, I must say! The Christmas cards. Again, this is something Jim still feels is a part of his Christmas experience, so I answer the five we still get and the rest I do electronically. One card, bam! to all my friends! The whole stress of THE GIFT has been replaced with gifts of cash! Bam! They can buy THE GIFT themselves at half the price after the holidays! Downsizing and eliminating some of the extras has actually given me the time to enjoy getting together with family and friends! This is the real gift to me!

Stupid!

Every time I pass one, I think "how stupid!" At least a couple of times a week I pass a city bus announcing "Sorry. Out of Service." How stupid! Why does a bus have to say it's sorry?! A bus doesn't have to be polite or make excuses for driving around without people in it. Its job, when in service, is to be on time and get you where you need to go! Apologizing for being out of service is just stupid overkill!

A Little Light......

I finished three light boxes yesterday (pics of two of them below) and I really like the way they turned out. I plugged them in last night in the living room and they were just the right amount of light on these long winter nights. One is a detail of a painting I did of a dog and the other is a montage of a photo I took while lying in bed recovering from my last operation. Crows kept landing on our skylight while I was lying there, so I took some photos of them. Both of these boxes are images copied to vellum, then waxed and glued over the front of the boxes. The one of the crows is a section of waxed vellum that I had sewed together with black thread. Oh, and it has some bird feathers from Mrs. Little and Mr. Gracie, my two parakeets.

Leopard.......

For all of my fellow mac users, I just want to say I installed the new Leopard on both my computers this past week and am finding the new OS system full of cool applications! It was a painless install! I only had to reinstall once! and that was because of my stupidness! My only complaint is that Leopard gobbled up more of my precious hard drive space. If you are hesitant, I encourage you to make the plunge. All my third party applications are still running fine and the new ones this system offers are wonderful. My fav at this point is "spaces"!

Mattress savvy......

For Christmas Jim and I bought ourselves a new mattress. So? Well, that's the thing. When Jim and I got married 30 years ago, his parents gave us a beautiful bedroom set. For 30 years Jim and I have slept on the same mattress. For 30 years we have turned the mattress over every six months per "mattress gurus". For 30 years we raised our family, worked to pay our bills and went to bed each night without a thought about any kind of "mattress replacement cycle". About six months ago I realized I was waking up every few hours to turn over and then again a few hours later. So? I woke up achy and with a back ache. So? Aches and pains at my age are to be expected, but should I be able to feel the springs in the bed? Hmmmmmmm. I'd never paid attention to the mattress before.
"Jim, I think we need a new mattress."
"Hum?"
"I think we need a new mattress."
"You do?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because I'm waking up all achy."
"Achy?"
"Yes."
"You never told me that."
"I"M TELLING YOU NOW!"
"Oh. A new mattress?"
"Yes."
"Hmm."
"Do you realize this mattress is at least 30 years old?"
"Thirty years old?"
"Yes."
"Hm."
"They are having a sale at Macy's and also in Port Angeles."
"Hm. Okay."
The very nice lady who helped us told us that most mattresses will last about 10years. Ten years? She asked us how old our mattress was,that we were replacing. Jim and I just looked at each other and neither of us could bare to say 30 YEARS! How could we be so "mattress stupid?!!" so I said about 20. Even that was humiliating. As we walked through the store looking at different models I soon realized that our "mattress savvy" was sub-normal. "Turning" was totally out! You don't turn a pillow top! Or any of these amazing new models. We reclined, bounced, and pushed until we found a fabulous Simmons/firm. No pillow top. Too squishy. It arrived yesterday! and one last humiliation! As the two very nice young men hauled out the old box springs, one of them turned to me and said, "Well, it's really time you replaced this! I can hear the springs jingling inside this old box spring!" We are now at least 7 to 10 inches higher off the ground. The mattress is mammoth! We both slept so well last night! Not a broken spring insight!