We got up this morning and were putzing around for an hour and a half before we realized it had snowed overnight. I suppose this is what happens when you get up around 6 am and it’s still dark so you don’t open the blinds or the shades and you sit around and drink coffee and look at Instagram so that when you finally get up to open the blinds, you gasp and say “There’s snow on the ground!”
Not all that much fell, but it’s enough for a shovel, and more than in the photo at the top of the post, which was taken a few days ago. By the way, I’m not one who fusses with hiding the cord for the christmas lights. It would be hard to do with this particular tree, but really, I care not one whit if it shows. We all know it’s there, right?
This was a pre-lit tree for a number of years until the lights stopped working. Then I spent the better part of a day prying them off the branches and cursing while I was doing it because it was so hard to remove them. All because I didn’t want to shell out for another tree.
We watched Wonder Woman last night while eating molasses cookies. I know we’re rather late to this movie, but it was fabulous! Amazingly well done.
The current garden-in-the-kitchen. Actually, there’s more than this. And I moved the dieffenbachia to the sideboard in the living room because the edges of the leaves are getting brown and that is either because I’m not keeping the soil most enough (a possibility) or because of the cold air that blasts into the kitchen when we open the door (a distinct possibility.) So I moved it yesterday.
The flowers-to-be on the sansevieria are growing taller.
On the window sill, the fascinating string of pearls. I love this little succulent.
Since we’re both not working at the moment and Don is finally back home after several months of being on the road in 2017, we are basking in the opportunity to just be. It’s awfully nice and very welcome after a hectic and busy year.
What are you up to? Getting ready for the holidays?
Happy Thursday.
Where my apartment faces I never really know the amount of snow we get. It is a shock to look out the window in my bedroom that faces the parking lot, realizing there are piles of snow! Goodness knows how much there is in the rest of town! I don’t get out much 😟
Molasses cookies sound so good and comforting!
Hope you and Don have a wonderful day!
You too, Debbie! Have a great day.
When I saw this on Facebook this morning, I thought of you, Claudia. They decorate the Thorne rooms for the holidays at the Art Institute in Chicago: http://www.artic.edu/exhibition/holiday-thorne-rooms-5?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=holidays&utm_term=holiday-thorne-rooms. Did you get to see that? Do you decorate your miniature houses for the holidays?? Enjoy your quiet time!
I saw one of the rooms that had been decorated for the holidays. I’m sure they have decorated more of them since then. Thanks so much! I have decorations for the big dollhouse but I haven’t dragged them out yet.
Plants look great! I think tropical ones grow all year round, even up there, if they have enough warmth, moisture and light! LOve that string of pearls; such a cool plant.
Enjoy the time with Don, Claudia and thanks for sharing.
They do, sort of. There isn’t always enough light and it gets very, very cold!
your day sounds lovely. i am happy for you and don!
i read somewhere that most of us spend our time as human DOings, when really we need more time as human BEings. that would apply to me over the last eight months so am going to spend some time doing that old-fashioned-sounding (but wiser) way of living … resting and relaxing some every day.
as soon as my landlord is done fixing a couple teeny things here (i have the rest of the day off) … yippee!
kathy in iowa
Being sounds simple but it’s hard sometimes. Go for it. Rest and relax!
Your plants are all doing great…mine too. I’m glad you two are getting time to just be…that is so important. I’m having my Ladies Lunch today…I’m hosting, we take turns every month. There’s only 3 of us, but we eat good and have loads of laughs…#old friends are the best! I still have to decorate our tree, but at least it’s up. My son and his wife are arriving next Tuesday….so, there’s still time to get everything done, I hope. Enjoy your day! ;)
I hope you had a great time with your friends. Yay for your son and daughter-in-law arriving for Christmas!
The sun is out and there is NO wind today. Those days are too far and between. It actually is nice outside in a cold sort of way. I don’t remember having as much wind as we have had the past couple of years. I’m not a fan of the wind.
Just being in the moment is something we all forget way too often. We have to be conscious of it and then carpe’ the moment!! Too easy to get caught up in everything else. Glad you have the opportunity of a few weeks together to enjoy and grow the pleasure of Now. It can be magical!
Enjoy the moments of your Thursday! And, those molasses cookies, too!!
It’s very, very cold here this morning! Yikes!
I’ve eaten far too many molasses cookies, but I’m sure enjoying them!
I think your plants love you. that’s why they bloom and grow their little hearts out for you.
kind of like a rescued animal.
every dog I ever had was a rescue. and we’ve all noticed and said it and it’s true…
they somehow KNOW. they know what you did and they spend the rest of their lives showing you that gratitude and love. I know they ALL love. but there is something about the rescue.
they never forget.
and that little tree just delights me! especially the cords. reality and beauty mixed together! xo
and shoot.
now I am dying for a molasses cookie. and i’m not even sure I’ve ever eaten one! LOLOL!
All of our dogs have been rescues as well. I understand.
You must eat a molasses cookie! They are delicious!
Wonder Woman was such an excellent movie, on many levels, but most of all the actor Gal Gadot. What a screen presence! I usually don the watch “superhero” movies, but a friend convinced me to go with her (she had seen it once before), as it was more a girl power movie to her. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Glad you have so much greenery inside your house and thus can enjoy the interior garden during the winter months.
Snow is so rare here that people flock to the higher elevations just to see the dusting of snow and scrape up enough for a ping-pong sized snowball! However, skiing is just a five-hour trip away (longer on Fridays when people flock to the Sierras), but I’m neither a skier nor a snow person. I’m waiting for high 70’s weather again!
She is a wonderful actress and simply stunning in her beauty!
I remember driving to the mountains to see some snow when I lived in San Diego.
I can relate, Claudia. I had a little 4-foot pre-lit tree for 5-6 years that I LOVED. Perfect size for my apartment – I kept it on the dining room sideboard – just the right size to hold all my ornaments. Just PERFECT. When the lights finally conked I thought like you did – no problem – I’ll just remove the dead lights & string on some new ones. OMG – what a nightmare. I honestly spent the majority of a full Saturday trying to get the lights off without mangling the tree. Couldn’t do it. Finally gave up and chucked the mess. STILL haven’t found a replacement in the same size that isn’t pre-lit [because I don’t want to experience THAT again] or wildly-expensive. Maybe I’ll get lucky at the post-Christmas sales. PS – your house is beginning to look like the houseplant side of a very upscale florist shop. You really do bring the outdoors inside during the Winter months! I’m jealous. Gotta do something about getting some plants here at my new place. Have a toasty warm Thursday [sun just came out here in Rochester]. Peace. 🎍
#Resist
I have never found one like mine, either, so that’s why I went to all the trouble of removing those darned lights!
Get some plants, Janet! You’ll love having all the green around you during the winter.
I love your little white tree with the shiny brites! It is just so festive! Tiger asked me why I had so many little trees instead of just a BIG tree. I told him I could set up and decorate little trees by myself but not a big one and besides I enjoyed have little trees in several rooms. I think he liked my answer. I had the last (I hope) of my tests today and the results were good. I’m ready to get this health issue resolved and move on!! Shopping is done, no wrapping yet. I’m going to really enjoy this last week before Christmas and look forward to the big day and being with both my daughters, sil, grands and my mom. I’m blessed! I know you and Don are enjoying some home time as 2017 ends. I foresee a busy 2018 as well! Hugs!
The more trees the merrier and having a lot of BIG trees is problematic!
I’m so happy to hear your good news about your medical tests. Wonderful news, my friend! And both your daughters are going to be in town for Christmas? Heaven.
your little tree looks so pretty by the window. this is my first time with succulents. I love how easy they are to take care of. you’re look great.
They are very easy to take care of, April. Enjoy them!
I meant yours!!! Ha
xo
Your plants look like they are thriving. You obviously have a green thumb. The now is pretty when it first falls,but then it gets so dirty. We received about an inch or a little more.
Marilyn
Especially in the city – city snow gets very dirty!
I’m glad you can just hang. This is your togetherness time. A beautiful time for you at a beautiful time of the year.
What am I doing? Trying to not breathe smoke; went out of the house on three errands when I knew I shouldn’t have yesterday and I’m paying for it. It’s not just me, it’s everybody out here in SoCalif. The N95 mask/respirator makes it even harder for me to breathe. And then, when I was paying my very-late phone bill at this little ancient market (Mom & Pop style) yesterday, the guy at the head of the line of customers at the register somehow lost the grip on his gigantic bottle of beer, it hit the old floor hard and got beer all over everybody including me. I had just taken a shower and had on clean clothes right out of the washing machine. Last night I looked down and noticed I was a little bloody and found a sliver of glass imbedded in my shin from the stupid beer bottle.
I took the morning to write notes of condolence to everybody I personally know (a growing number of people) who’ve suffered loss in the wildfire. It made me really, really sad. They’ve mostly all gotten post office boxes so that their mail can be forwarded from what is now no longer an actual address. It’s hard to know what to say or do; I feel so helpless. So, I did it more for me than them, but I took part of the money I’ve been saving for four years to reupholster my family’s sofa and chairs from the 1950s, and tried to give each family something, even if it means to go out and everybody eat ice cream with peppermint sprinkles or buy something to brighten up their temporary living quarters with something green (a plant; maybe a living Christmas tree in a pot) to get their minds off ash and gray. (At least when the sun sets and the night goes dark, we don’t have to keep looking at the blackened hills.) My furniture can wait awhile longer. It’s not important; the people are. Again, I did it for me; it’s not that I’m some do-gooder. But I had to do something.
I’m in a war zone of sirens and helicopters over my head again, all day long, so it’s nerve-jarring because I never exactly know what it means. I have to be content with the notion that we’ve got a lot of life-savers out there acting on our behalf 11 days into these fires; the least I can do is try to be productive and stay calm. So, I put up my little white artificial tree an hour ago and I know tonight that my husband and I will learn to enjoy it because its clear string lights are very soft (they don’t have movement) and I chose pale blue & green (not my usual, but instead a cool theme rather than a warm one) to get away from anything that would remind us of flickering flame. (I think I’ve decided there’s nothing more terrorizing than fire, yet it’s what also can keep us warm and light a way.)
I want to listen to Mannheim Steamroller’s ‘Silent Night’ tonight; it always makes me feel as if I’ve been visited by something magical. It’s from their Christmas 1984 album. It tends to set things right with me, for as much as it is achingly poignant. It makes you get quiet and think about the reason for the season.
I tried to stay away from news and alerts today but I knew something had changed with the activity in the air. I’ve also learned that they’ve brought in some super-duper helicopters who have some sort of infra-red capability to be able to do the water buckets over the fires all night to supplement the copters who get grounded by sunset without that infra-red aid. We got the gusty wind back today and it has started to really accelerate the fire east of me, about 10 miles from here. There’s so much focus right now on the Santa Barbara county fires that this other fire in the opposite direction has sort of disappeared from the news. I’m sandwiched between these two fires, about 30 minutes from the SB ones. It’s still all one fire; this is still The Thomas Fire in aggregate. My husband drives home east to west from L.A., so he really noticed a difference tonight and how ramped up the Fillmore fire (east of me) is; they had to close their schools today and also had a town meeting tonight. Very scary. I was pretty startled when I saw their evacuation advisories tonight; the fire is too near the town now. Their population is about 15,000 people. It’s at the foot of rugged mountains. This was a slower-moving fire and it had seemed to calm down and was in the backcountry but now it’s coming down the slopes and a ton of avocado orchards and lemon groves have burned. They are also unique for having a lot of orange groves whereas so much of Ventura County (and Calif in general) no longer grows oranges. It’s so beautiful in this rural area and they also have many large, wholesale nurseries. It’s not a monied area like Ventura and Santa Barbara; I fear many lower-income, hardest-working people will lose their small, cherished houses and modest farms in this nice little town which was formed in the 1800s (that’s old here), although the firefighters are trying so hard to keep a line; it’s just that the terrain is unforgiving in part. We lost a firefighter there today and it just adds to the grief.
I heard on TV, although I sorta knew it, that we’ve gone 250 days without measurable rain and, of course, we never completely got out of the drought here. And they’re saying they might not be able to have these fires out til January 7 and that’s a date subject to change because the fires and conditions are so unpredictable. We sometimes get rain in Jan & Feb so we have to hold out hope. Somebody said yesterday when I was out on the errands-of-the-day run that none of us will feel secure til it rains but, as of now, none is in sight. Sigh. I think when that day comes, whenever we get rain again, I’ll go stand in it and just let it wash over me. It will be the most welcome thing, to feel rain on my face again. Of course we’ll then have to realize we’ll have mudslides because we lost so much ground cover in the fires; there’s nothing left to hold the dirt. If all this doesn’t convince people to never move to California, I don’t know what will!
We are thinking of you and everyone in California, Vicki. It’s heartbreaking.
Very good article in the LA Times online today about how the fires are also ravaging the local economy at Christmas. Few people are gonna go out in this smoke to shop in brick & mortar stores. A resident was quoted as saying that in the past couple of days, Ventura’s downtown is a ghost town. Where I live, we have a woman who is trying so hard to ‘make it’ with a really nice little shop on our struggling Main Street and I know from last year that she has decently-priced stuff at Christmas, all set up so nicely in her store. Her store reminds me of a Gold Crown Hallmark. Very nice displays with some very original items/brands. It’s not vintage; it’s all new stuff. Also noticed day before yest when I went by that her lights were on, store open, but not one customer. I’m determined in about an hour to go in there; I don’t need one single Christmas thing but we need to help our merchants. The red flag warning was supposed to be lifted at 10am; I dunno, I’m still seeing some pretty good wind although it’s not howling. So far, the heroic firefighters have kept the town of Fillmore from losing homes, as much as I can read of it. When I go out in the car (briefly) today, I’ll make sure this time that I take my mask as a hedge against the smoke. (Read the latest emergency alert and all the schools in the county [most all of them] are closed now til January because there has to be mop-up before kids can be admitted back in to buildings and school yards with ash & debris clinging to everything.)
Some good news is that my school friend, Pat, is now in a rental house and out of the cramped feel of a hotel room. It gives them a tiny bit of time to get ready for the holidays and still give their grandkids a Christmas morning. He’s decided to rebuild. Man, I wouldn’t. They’re warning people that if they rebuild, they may not be able to obtain homeowner’s insurance now because some neighborhoods have of course proven they were subject to risk and this is clearly very costly to insurance companies (I guess at the very least, their premiums will soar).
Thanks for the support. Again. I think you’ve got more snow coming…
It would be such a tough decision, wouldn’t it? Rebuild or not? Especially when you have roots in the community and love it. Oh, these poor people!
Find those moment of peace, whether it comes from music or holding your husband’s hand. Much love.
Thank you, Claudia. You’ve got such a good heart.
xo
I remember how frustrated you were with trying to get those lights off of that little tree Claudia!…We had snow overnight too…not a lot but just enough to look pretty before the sun started to melt it away…The string of pearls is such an unusual plant!…After the hectic year the two of you have had its nice that you’re taking the time relax and enjoy being together…
It’s so cold here, that none of the snow melted yesterday. I think it’s going to get a bit warmer on the weekend. Thanks, Nancy.
I’m a day late to leave a reply. That is so me.
I’m glad that you and Don will be together for Christmas. Wasn’t it last year you were away? I was so sad for you.
You have asked about Christmas plans. Well, I am finished shopping. I don’t need to go into any store til after the New Year. I do my best every year to avoid the stores these last 2 weeks of the year.
My family thinks I am a nut job, because I like the quirkiness of yard flamingos. I have one named Walter, who is over 5 feet tall.
What does that have to do with Christmas? My tree this year is flamingos, pink feathers, flamingo lights, and pink poinsettias. My few table decorations are flamingo themed. There are flamingos everywhere but the Nativity. I also have a Santa flamingo for outside.
Claudia, I am a nut job. I will be wearing a dress with flamingo on it and I have flamingo socks. I am also going to spray my hair pink!
I could have done so much more just looking at Pintrest idea for this theme.
If you’re a nut job, you’re my kind of nut job, Trudy! Love this!