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Snow, Christmas & Playing With Bokeh

December 15, 2013 at 9:29 am by Claudia

Good morning!

There’s a lot of snow on the ground. Last night, when I shoveled a path for Scout around 9:30 pm, the ruler told me we had 7 inches on the ground. We easily had 3 or 4 more inches overnight, so 10…11 inches?

We have a lot of shoveling on the agenda today.

snowyporchlights

I trotted out to the porch in the early evening to take this picture. I love the not-quite-dark-deep-blue of the light. Gosh, that’s a pretty contrast to the snow. You can see how I do our lights – simple and effective – one of the perks of having a porch like this. It takes me all of 5 minutes to set up.

snowyporch

Snow falling.

We shoveled a couple of times during the day, but you wouldn’t know it this morning. The first real snowfall of the year is always beautiful and magical, especially when it seems to guarantee a White Christmas (which was airing on television last night but Don didn’t want to watch it. Boo.) As I’ve said many times before on this blog, I love snow through Christmas and into the first week of January. After that, I find I’m not nearly so enamored of it.

I spent a couple of hours playing with the Christmas lights and with bokeh. Bokeh: the visual quality of the out-of-focus areas of a photographic image, especially as rendered by a specific lens (from my laptop’s dictionary.) This is one of my favorite things about my Nifty Fifty lens and is one of the first things I learned about when I got the camera right around this time last year. Oh my goodness, I love bokeh. I’m going to share one with you each day this week because they are so Christmasy. First up:

littletreebokeh

Eeek! Isn’t this pretty? It took some body contortion on my part to come up with it, but it was worth it.

I’m feeling a bit better. Still sinusy, still congested, and the hardest thing about it all is that I feel rather exhausted. But each day, I improve a little. Thank goodness for online Christmas shopping. I don’t have the energy to deal with stores and shoppers and crowds. Even if I was feeling tip-top, I wouldn’t want to deal with all of that. No malls. No big box stores. Local, if at all possible, and online.

Time to start thinking about digging out and shoveling our long, uphill driveway…

Happy Sunday.

If you’re interested in education and the benefits of going back to school, read my post about my personal story, sponsored by Kaplan and BlogHer.

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Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow (Just This Once)

December 14, 2013 at 8:44 am by Claudia

sunset

Another spectacular sunset, this time with jet trails as a bonus. Winter sunsets seem to be routinely stunning.

I’m still under the weather; nevertheless, I keep going like the Energizer Bunny. We had a meeting with a Navigator yesterday afternoon, who helped us load our always inconsistent from year-to-year income into the application necessary for Affordable Health Care. She was such a help. We made her laugh. (We like to make people laugh.) And she was funny. Don has been covered by his union for the last 6 months but that will end on December 31st. My minimal (just hospitalization) coverage will also end at the same time. So we have to find something that works for us and is something we can afford. Cross your fingers for us.

We also did some grocery shopping, stopped at the library, Don got a haircut (much shorter) and we made a run for dog food. Then, in the evening, we decorated the tree.

bigtree

A little sneak peek. We have a gorgeous Noble Fir this year and its amazing scent fills our den. That has to be one of my favorite smells, along with a campfire. I used to routinely use a wonderful pine bubble bath that I bought at Wanamaker’s in Philadelphia. This would have been in the eighties when I was going to graduate school. I can see the exact area of the store where it was on display. Eventually, I moved away and I never found the exact same thing again. I’ve used others, but that stuff was the best ever. I think it was from Switzerland. Wish I could remember the name!

littlewhitetree

We’re hunkered down here at the cottage. We’re in for a big snowfall today and tomorrow. I’ve heard predictions of anywhere from 8 inches to a foot of snow. It was already snowing when I got up this morning at 7 am. The heaviest snow will be tonight and into tomorrow. The radio is playing classical music, we’re drinking Peet’s French Roast, Scout is snoozing on the sofa, the trees are lit, we don’t have be anywhere (thankfully) and I need a day of rest.

Especially since tomorrow will be all about shoveling.

Happy Saturday.

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This Week: Outside

December 13, 2013 at 8:35 am by Claudia

river

river with mountain

fririver2

fritrees

fritreecar

frisunset2

frisunset

I must never take the natural beauty of my neck of the woods for granted. It’s simply gorgeous.

Very, very cold here. So cold that we didn’t take our late afternoon walk yesterday. It seems that much of the country is in a deep-freeze. I’m grateful we have a roof over our heads, an oil burner that keeps our house warm, food to eat, a tree to decorate.

I’ll take some photos of the finished tree, of course, and I’ll share the ornaments I love, but I won’t be taking you on a “Christmas Tour.” We decorate very simply here. No themes. No magazine worthy spreads. No extra expense, save for the cost of our tree. Our Christmas is about our traditions; a real tree in the den that is decorated with our favorite vintage ornaments, our bottle brush wreaths, our little white tree in the living room and a wreath on the door.

We live in a small cottage that already has lots of color, where there are many treasures and collections on display. Our living space doesn’t need a lot more visual stimulation so I try to keep things simple. Last year I was alone at Christmas for the first time. Don was working in California. Unsure about how much to decorate, I decided to eliminate the real tree. I used the little white tree, along with a few decorations in the living room. I loved it. With that in mind, the only thing I’m adding to last year’s mix is the tree in the den.

Simplify. That’s my word for this holiday season.

Anyway, we’ll decorate the tree tonight. I’m looking forward to re-discovering our vintage Shiny Brites and all our favorite ornaments. Since I didn’t have the big tree last year, they stayed in the storage bins. I’ve missed them.

I love the scent of a Noble Fir. Heavenly.

Happy Friday.

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Snow, Christmas & Playing With Bokeh

Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow (Just This Once)

This Week: Outside

Lambs Like to Party

A Note

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