Christmas at our house

It's finally feeling Christmassy for me these days. We had a terrific snowstorm today, the Christmas shopping and crafting is finally all but done, Mario Lanza is singing his own special brand of fire'n brimstone style Christmas songs, and Byron and I recently put up our Christmas 'tree'.  

As a kid, I'd always gone out with my family to pick a live tree and cut it down and then hang out drinking hot chocolate and not being able to feel our toes.  The tradition continued into adulthood. My sister and her family and I and my dad would go out tree hunting, and after I met Byron he too joined the brotherhood of tree hunters.  It officially stopped being fun when we realized a few years ago that not a single member of my sister's family could take a snowball  well. The highlight of this discovery was my brother in law Ray being a wet blanket about getting one in the back.  Anyway, we opted out of this arbicide last year, and decorated our cd rack instead.  This year we did the same, and it makes me giggle with glee every time I look at it.

I've gotten an  early Christmas present, I must've been good this year :)   Byron installed a light in our bathroom so that we can try to be better houseplant parents.  The plants are definitely responding well, although we seem to have also established a thriving fruitfly community :(

I've been thinking about how people are approaching Christmas this year, and I'm pleased that so many people believe Christmas doesn't need to equal spending lots of cash or giving stuff for the sake of having given stuff.   This Christmas cheer stuff, however is great--random acts of kindness, time spent, company enjoyed,  experiencing the wonders of the season. I'd rather have this all the time and have that be enough than get a bunch of stuff just because it's Christmas.

My plant light is 'stuff', I suppose, but more than that, it's going to allow me to keep gardening thoroughout the winter, and start my garden earlier in the spring, two things that I'm really looking forward to.   Thanks, Santa!

ahh, snow!

Snow is good for the soul.   

I've just come in from shovelling, which I really enjoy. It's a good opportunity to be outside and feel productive and breathe deeply.  I admire the was one teensy weensy little fragile snowflake can, in cooperation of millions of its brethren, can bring a bustling city to a standstill.  The persistence of mother nature reminds us that for all our big heavy brains and clever technology, we're still at her mercy. I also spend this time pondering weighty issues :) The snow quality tonight has deteriorated a bit, it's mostly fluffy and too dry for snowmen, but easy to shovel.

We've gotten a load of Weather today--dry flakes of snow, big clumpy 3D snow, wet snow, powdery snow and wind.  The snow started when I got to work at 8, and I was all atwitter with glee as I watched the blizzardy winds swirl snow from the rooftops.  Finally around 9:30  I couldn't hold back any longer, and took off to do a snow assesment in the back alley, where I made two small snowpeople.  It was snowman snow! Perfectly crunchy, sticky, dense, packable snowman snow!  I left my two snowy sentinels to guard the door to the stairwell and went about my day.  By the time I departed for home, they were up to their little necks in about 5 inches of snow.  (these are snowmen 6 and 7 of 10000)

Looking forward to # 8 and beyond, we're expected to get 50 cm by Sunday night!

adventures in home ownership

it's that time of year again, the time when it always seems like the middle of the night. you get up and go to work in the dark, you come home in the dark, you go to bed and wake up in the dark to use the washroom and go back to bed and wake up later on when it's still dark to go to work again. the 'flu is making the rounds, and so is glumness and tiredness. this is nothing at all what Richard III had in mind when he got all long winded about "the winter of our discontent", but it sounds about right...

don't get me wrong, i love winter. love it. i love coming in from the cold and i appreciate the exertion of shovelling while wet snow turns my hair into a frozen nest. i love the excuse to have hot chocolate or warm honeyed milk, and i love the way a snowfall, consisting of millions and millions of teensy weensy fluffy beautiful flakes can slowly bring a whole bustling city to a muffled standstill. every season has its drawbacks though, and for me, winter is a time of feeling old and tired. i've been suffering a recurrence of the elbow/arm/wrist problems i had earlier in the year, caused by and accompanied by all sorts of barely tolerable work nonsense. what a body needs, in this sort of situation, is something fun and new, a good, satisfying learning experience or two!

byron and i embarked on some home maintenance work over the weekend; i think it was pretty routine, as far as work goes, but it felt like a real adventure. i was all atwitter with excitement as we took measurements and drove to home despot, where i happily spent less money than i feared we would have to. we have finally conquered the crawlspace under the house! the crawlspace which, in my mind, was inhabited by rabid hobo squirrels and colonies of malignant centipedes, actually turned out to be a just little space with a dirt floor, inexplicably strewn with clay pots and bricks. i discovered to my delight that i'm just the right size to sit on the entrance step and get in and out easily. we soon replaced insulation in the floor of our kitchen with a lot less effort than i would have expected. dunno how byron feels about it, but i thought it was great fun. we'll see if the eavestrough cleaning holds as much potential for amusement!