wishing for a(nother) winter wonderland

i gotta say it: christmas always comes too fast. i would like there to be 2 months between thanksgiving and christmas. there are just not enough days for me to prepare. and i am even more behind than i've been in previous years. christmas cards not even started yet! i do not like being stressed over xmas lists and shopping that needs to be done, because i actually do like that part. i like giving to the people i love. it's just that it always seems to come all of a sudden, and i am very bad at accumulating items over the year, or even starting in november. i wish there were more days also, because, simply, i just really love the xmas season. and added to the wonderful reason for the season, i confess i do like the material tokens of tradition as well: i love the carols, the decorations, the tv specials, the food. and plaid. and the christmas tree. i wondered/worried that we were robbing francis of the joy of hunting down the perfect tree with the fact that we are re-using the same tree from the past 2 years: we bought a little potted tree about 3 ft. tall, and it "lives" in the upstairs hallway, out of sight, off-season. but he was excited to bring it down and use it again. it had lost some branches, and is even more charlie brownish than last year, but... it seems to fit with our apt. and mood.

so i'm trying to embrace the beauty, amid the shortness of days. to indulge in all the christmas traditions we love. discovered a new favorite channel on pandora: swingin' christmas music. francis has again asked for gingerbread cookies, so we have baking days ahead. and movies to watch, for the 37th time. the only thing missing from this picture is my family. we spent last year's christmas at my parents in PA, with all my siblings, their spouses, and my grandma. so it's going to seem a little quiet here, on the homefront, on christmas day, our little family of three. (we are already planning to group-skype! that should be interesting, and nice. well, it will have to suffice)

so. since i never did get some pictures up here from our 3 days of snow before thanksgiving, here are some. it is hard to tell by the pictures just how steep our hill is, as i am standing on a little flat half-way down, acting as lookout, a necessary job: from the top -looking down- you cannot see past the dip 2 blocks down to tell if some fool is ignoring the "road closed" sign and trying to barrel up a hill of ice. this did happen a handful of times. we went out the first night because lessons have been learned that when you see the snow, you need to hit it; it'll very likely be melted by the following day. but the next day, it wasn't melted! and still below freezing. so francis called some friends to walk down, and they sledded all afternoon down 65th street. when night came, and they went home, i thought he'd be sledded out, but, i was wrong. after dinner he was dying to go out again. and again the thought it wouldn't be here tomorrow prevailed, so out we went a second night. by the third day, we were completely amazed it was still below freezing outside, the hill was still iced over, the road still closed, so the friends tromped over again and repeated it all over again. by thanksgiving, it was mostly all melted away. one of our friends has apparently misinterpreted my grumpiness at the seattle gray, and commented on seeing me all decked out in snow pants, hat, mittens, scarf: " how you holding up? i thought you didn't like all this cold." i said: "what?? i don't like gray. but i love seasons. i like my summers hot, with sun. and winter is supposed to be cold, with snow." so, my hopes might not be shared by many here, but i got a kid who wants to use his new sled (!) for more than 3 days this winter. and i'm crossing my fingers, saying a prayer, and hoping some returns for christmas... i'd like it to be white...

april showers bring...more showers!

well, i haven't been blogging lately, because i've been too busy reading. i have this problem when i discover a good book, and that is: i don't want to put it down. i also don't want to do anything that intereferes with the reading, like cleaning my house, or feeding my family!

however, these past few weeks have been good for reading, because, after that bizarre day of heat and sunshine we had, (april the 12th to be exact) it has been a cold and wet mess for days on end. we've had hail! we've had snow! we've had pouring rain! the weather just can't seem to make up it's mind. or remember what season it's supposed to be...







so i've been weathering out the storms of april, curled up on my couch.

i started reading the Lord of the Rings for the very first time, and i am still going. it took me all last week to complete the Fellowship of the Ring, and this week, i am almost done with the Two Towers.

it started like this:

a few weeks ago, on tv, all three movies were playing back to back. i decided to record them, for francis, because he hasn't seen them yet, and i thought the edited tv version might be less scary. but then, after he went to bed, we decided to watch what was left, and decided: hmmm. still scary!! he found out we had recorded them, and was begging to watch them. he said all his friends have seen it. so what were we to do? when the movies first came out in the theatre, we couldn't wait for francis to be old enough to get to see them with us. so now he's 10, and he's seen many of the superhero movies that are PG-13, so why not this? but something in me, and greg, still wanted to wait. we changed our minds. we deleted the movies from our dvr (what was i thinking? we'll want to have a party! we'll want to rent it in widescreen! when francis is finally allowed to see it, it will be a movie event!) we told francis we weren't ready for him to see it. he was bummed, but he accepted our answer without a big fuss. we told him that he was more than welcome to read the books, and that, in fact, the books are classics, and many many people count them among their favorites. he instantly bit: do we have the books? i seemed to remember acquiring the first book after the first movie came out, but somehow, even tho i got high recommendations, i never picked it up. (somehow, i never read these books in childhood, i don't know why...) so i hunted a bit, and found it, among one of our many piles of books. isn't it funny how something that is great, can sit unappreciated in your possession, waiting for you to discover it? maybe it's all in the timing. i am ready to read this book now. and so is francis. i started reading it, to get ahead of francis, to see if the language would be difficult for him, and once i got going, i couldn't put it down. then i went to half-price books, to get the rest of the them, and also the Hobbit. (i have already read the Hobbit, but my copy is old, from childhood, and i wanted to get francis his own copy.) once he saw the Hobbit, he said: wait! which one comes first? (you see, he likes to do things in order.) so he has decided to read the Hobbit on his own, for his school reading, and we have started reading the Fellowship of the Ring to him, for his evening story-time. so it's all good. he's got time, the movie can wait...

but i haven't been completely useless:

i still walk the boy to school, rain or shine...



and to us, our first signs of spring, are snail tracks!






i even got a hunkerin' for rice pudding,(or was it to make up for all my lame dinners this past week?) but i only know how to make a restaurant-sized batch (from my days at georgia's) so we had plenty to spare, and share:







francis' baseball game was cancelled (due to the snow) but it didn't stop karen's suprise birthday party down at the arcade on pier 57!









so, longer post than i meant to write, gotta get back to my book!

but i will end with another quote from francis: last saturday, with our day booked from morning til night, at 9pm we still had two more destinations. as we were driving into ballard, francis said: "what is it we have to do now?" and i explained we had to pop in on a friend's art show, and then hit another friend's going-away party, and said: " why? are you tired? cause i'm tired..."

and he said: "oh no! i'm not tired at all! i used my da's energizing face scrub in the shower, and i feel totally energized!"

however, by the end of the night...