oh christmas tree.

The house smells sooooooo good and I've had a healthy dose of jazz music and ornament therapy! I can't help but find things to do outside so I can come back in to discover the smell all over again. When I went away to college my mom helped me to separate and package up all of the ornaments I had received growing up. She even gave me one of her old "christmas" ornament storage boxes (just a plain cardboard box with "where in the world is carmen san diego" logo on the side). My mom loves to use and reuse and reuse again and again and I love that about her. She cares for all of her possessions as though they were antique treasures, even special cardboard boxes, so I'll treasure that box for as long as humanly possible. :)

My grandma jan made me an ornament each year until about the time I hit high-school. I loved receiving her little christmas gift in the mail, mainly to see what ornament she had made for me. This elf she made when I was two.

Photobooth Friday.

We stopped by the Matador on Burnside last Saturday afternoon inbetween lunch and errands. We opened the curtain to find abandoned and forgotten drinks from the night before still sitting along the back wall. I love these shots of greg, so much so that I don't mind that my cute scarf turned headband missed out on the photobooth fun. :)

Pro and Con about the Matador. Con - Smoky. Pro - photobooth strip collage on the side of the photobooth. drinking merry people + late night in a bar + photobooth = um...you can imagine!

relationships.

relationships are like gardens. you need to pull the weeds by their roots. we're weeding right now and it feels sooooo good.

randomness of today.

Today had some randomness that I thought I would share...

On my way to work listening to morning talk radio I heard that the 750 year old, 200 foot tall famous Oregon Sitka Spruce perished in this week-end's wind storm. I had to have a moment. I'm an old growth tree lover from Northern California with a great respect for these beings. 750 YEARS. I can't help but feel that something alive for 750 years must have a great spirit. Anyway, anticipating an end to this tree the Willamette Week wrote a "pre-bituary" last January you can check out here.

This sadness was offset when I arrived to work to find that coffee drinks were on the house in recognition of the Livestrong Foundation. I don't quite get the connection between free coffee drinks and the Foundation, nonetheless, this made me very very happy, ESPECIALLY on Monday morning of a VERY busy week and especially after hearing of the Sitka Spruce. Yes, I also find it a little strange that coffee can turn my day around, but, it's Monday, super windy and pouring down rain and I'll go with it.

I went to the post office in the very rainy and windy midday to stick our holiday cards in the mail AND get my ornaments out to my swap group. Research told me that international shipping would likely be the cheapest at the post office. Research did not tell me not to go to the post office at lunch on a December Monday. I like doing things like going to the post office, but, I am SO not post office savvy and this was ever apparent today. I waited in the loooongest line with my bag of boxes, tote full of christmas cards, umbrella, big puffy coat and scarf to find out that they don't tape up your packages or print the nice little labels for you...this needed to be done before you arrive. So, sweating now, I was sent off to tape and address, but, was given a hall pass to cut in line once I finished, so that was good given the state of things in line. As I was in the back filling out my forms, labeling and taping my boxes I was overhearing a conversation between a mom and her little daughter about how the little girl shouldn't be teasing her little brother, who looked three (both VERY cute BTW...she looked fiveish). Anyway, it was my observation that brother was taunting sister just as much, but, sister, being the older one, likely gets the "talk" a little more often. The little girl kept trying to explain to mom that he was doing this and he was doing that and her mom says, "listen...I think you need to get with the program", and the little girl replies, "but I don't WANT to get with the program". HA. You said it sister, niether do the rest of us most days.

Now, it's evening and I'm feeling good...the holiday cards and ornaments are off and I got A LOT done at work today thanks to my giant soy latte.

hello december!

Woke up to snowflakes this morning, which, was particularly fabulous since it's Saturday so I took a step outside to take a few pictures and enjoy.

Then came back in to warm my hands around a hot cup of coffee. :)

Now...Greg and I are off to Asher's b-day party at Avalon Theater and photobooth. yaaay! Later...address Holiday cards, box up ornaments for the swap and RELAX!