I have a few Christmas traditions….. putting certain ornaments in certain spots on the tree (mostly high up for safety from the cats and dogs–some of these babies are now more than 45 years old, but were new when I got them), watching White Christmas, listening to The Night The Animals Talked (becoming problematic…. none of our cassette players works any more except for the one in my car… had to sit out there last year, and can’t find my box with the old 33 rpm records to get the record copied into digital) on Christmas eve, and for the past decade or so, listening to the Peter, Paul and Mary Holiday Concert.  For a girl who was baptized a Protestant Christian and went to 10 years of Catholic schools, I don’t know if it is odd that one of my favorite songs is “hayo, Haya”,  about the miracle of the lights and another is “Light One Candle.”  Since today is the first day of Hannukah, when the light in the temple should have burned out but lasted for eight days, I’d like to share it with you.

I couldn’t find Hayo, Haya by Peter, Paul and Mary on You Tube, but here is a California high school chorus singing the song (in Hebrew I’m guessing, since it isn’t in English)… but the melody is just as haunting:

As with  so many wonderful things, you can find it on the internet, and in this case on YouTube, so here you go  for Light One Candle (with, I think, Korean subtitles!):

So in the spirit of peace, joy and equal opportunity faithfulness, go in Peace to love and serve the Lord, whichever and whomever you choose, for there are many paths to what is good and right.

We got a light snow last night…maybe 2 to 3 inches.  When I took Widgeon out last night at 9, it was almost like a frozen mist coming down it was so fine.

Here is what we saw on the upstairs weather station (yep, hubby is a gadget guy….) when we woke up today:

Yes…it was 3.6 degrees (F) outside… that is way below 0 (zero) Centigrade (32 F = 0 C) for those of you outside North America.  Inside, it was 56 (we keep the heat upstairs at 50 unless the boys are home during the day as on the weekends).  Downstairs, we have a fancier weather station (remember what I said about hubby):

As you can see, the timer-thermostat had kicked on the inside temp is up to 63, outside was rounded up to 4, but windchill is at ZERO.  BRRRRRR!  I’ll bet little Widgeon’s little parts nearly froze on morning walkies!

And the Lo temps for the night:

Yes, that is a wind chill of 7 below.  I am very grateful we live in a fairly new, TIGHT house that doesn’t leak cold like a seive.  I don’t know how folks in chinked log cabins survived the winters.  I expect the warmth from the  cows and horses helped…… Fortunately, we have a seriously less stinky alternative:  the wood stove.  As the former voluteer firefighter, Paul is in charge of buidling fires.  So first thing this morning he was chopping kindling on the back porch and getting the banked coals back to a warm toasty fire:

Believe it or not, I also quilt.  It seems like it has been FOREVER since I have had time to make art.  I am still working on the manuscript (and actually got excited yesterday… I appear to be making headway on the tedious “finishing up” stuff.   And, this past week, I had a PHENOMENAL opportunity:  Lisa Chipetine invited me to have Sandra Sider critique one of my quilts.  Never having heard or been in on such a thing, I was only a tad apprehensive.  I knew they would be kind, but I had NO idea how incredibly useful the process would be.  I promise a blogpost soon on that, plus an “after” shot when I get a couple of edits done.  For more info, go here:

http://www.threadplay.com/critiquing.htm

Anyway, that’s it for today…more soon!  And I promise, eventually I really will get back to art and quilting!

Deborah and Hannah…do not look!!!! to the bottom of the post until all packages have arrived in Texas!  There are mid-stream warnings….

Yes, I am still alive, just really busy!  Between (among) Thanksgiving, Mom’s birthday, getting ready for Christmas and whatnot, I’ve been too busy to read let alone write let alone thing.  Sleep?  I remember it fondly.  I’d like more.  LOTS more!

But I did have a wonderful Monday.  Alas, the ice storm that hit the northeast got Hannah….she had been without power for three days, with FOUR daughters ages 3 to 12 or so…. then to add insult to injury, on our meeting day the elementary school in her area closed because (drum roll, sob) there was still no electricity!   So it was just Kate, Kathy and me, and Deborah by phone!  Hannah we missed you! You were certainly there in spirit.

AND, thanks to Kathy, we remembered to take pictures (that cue used to always come from Deborah…now we sometimes forget!).  Here is Kathy’s tree:

and the prezzies under the tree:

And the lovely table Kathy prepared, including critters and a fun plate for Hannah’s youngest daughter, who also didn’t make it since she and mom were home with the three older sisters (wahn! but we understand…been there, done that! and if the power had been out in Camden, I would have been home, too)

Kate’s mother-in-law has a recipe for a fabulous peanut curry soup, and I’d been hankering for it, so Kath made it:

I made scones (didn’t turn out so great…rosemary salt, but they were too close to the bottom of the over and got tough on the bottoms…tasted good, but…), and Kate made Deborah’s steamed cranberry pudding for dessert (sorry, no pics)…..

We opened gifties before and after… we started with Deborah’s (Hannah… you need to stop here!); her bag was so cute, sewed shut with little felt leaves, that I opened mine from the bottom:

It’s such a hoot… Deborah made Judy Coates Perez’s ornaments from this years Quilting Arts Gifts magazine, and Kate and I had planned to make Judy’s ornaments from LAST year’s issue, but didn’t have the time or couldn’t get the materials in time! I’ll take a picture of my new Frayed Edges ornaments on the tree and post later…..  Here is Kathy looking at the zine Deborah made for a swap;…. I totally love it and am planning an indulgent hour alone with it later this week:

We took a lunch break, and I spotted Kathy’s photo holder:  a string of beads with clips interspersed.  Since we have one of those AWFUL stainless steel fridges that don’t hold magnets but DO hold every fingerprint that ever passed through the house, I think I shall make one of these hangers for next to the fridge:

DEBORAH:  you need to stop here!

After lunch, I fell off the photo wagon and forgot to take pics of Kate’s gift, and mine… so you’ll have to do with a photo of the ornaments I made … took the photo (obviously) before gift wrapping… they are inspired by some cool lobster buoys I saw at Marriner’s (a local diner)…will try to get photos of them, too… but for now here you go:

That’s it for now!

Yep, my mama is now official NINETY…. hard to believe eh?  All things considered, she is doing pretty well and, as we both say from time to time, it beats the alternative!  My dear sister-in-law (soul sister) Joyce (my late half-brother T.J. gets the prize for bringing the best person in the family into the family by marrying her back in the 60s) flew out for a weekend from Los Angeles.  It has been 6 or 7 years since she has been able to visit us and see the boys.  She is their absolute favorite relative, she is SOOOOO good to them!  Anyway, we had a wonderful visit….

Joyce arrived on a COLD Friday (it was late January/February temps…. highs in the low 20s, lows down to ten, plus breezy!) evening, and we gave her the evening tour through all 2 blocks of lit-up downtown Camden, passing the lobster-trap-Christmas-tree (topped by our favorite crustacean) in downtown Rockland en route from the small Knox County airport.  I think Joyce was stunned to be in a 9-seat plane!   I guess we are so used to pipsqueak planes that it seems normal…..

This is a LOVELY picture of Joyce in the frigid air outside Quarry Hill, the retirement community where mom lives (it has independent and assisted living areas, a demetia unit and a small nursing care unit, used mostly for folks who get ill but will recover enough to return to their regular apartments).  That light stuff you see in the middle of the photo is not a camera flare…that’s frozen breath!

On Saturday night, we went out to a lovely restaurant, Atlantica, right on Camden Harbor.  I took my camera.  I forgot to use it!  But we had a lovely dinner, all six of us.  The boys were well behaved, and Mom really seemed to enjoy the outing.  The chef was very kind… it is a seafood restaurant, but mom is vegetarian.  When I called to see about reservations he said “no problem, I’d be glad to make a vegetarian plate for her”.  WONDERFUL!

On Sunday, I fixed dinner for us at home:

Then Eli helped out…he is becoming quite the photographer:

If anyone knows, by the way, someplace that still has the fabric I used in the apron, let me know… I’d love to buy another couple yards!

Joyce gave mom a small watercolor of Bermuda, where mom and dad lived (and I was conceived) when she and my brother first met, and where Joyce and T. vacationed.  I gave mom my 2007 journal quilt because it uses a photo she bought in Japan when she lived and worked there in 1946-47 with the US Occupation Army and which she still has on her dresser, of the little girls.  The photos of  Hiroshima are ones I took when Mom and I visited there in 1996…and she loves the quilt:

After gifties, we did a real birthday cake.  Rather than risk setting the house on fire, I used the boys’ birthday candles to make a “90” (I bought each of them a numeral candle for each year, then we double up those 0-9 candles for their teen years–currently the “1” candles are getting a real workout during the teen years).

And one more of mom:

Joyce departed on Monday, one day before the official birthday.  Because it was SO cold, we decided Mom shouldn’t go out, so we took sandwiches and ate with her at Quarry Hill.   I used the timer on my camera to take this picture on mom’s living room sofa:

This:

(The photo is shot through my glasses so you can see how blind I am!) I couldn’t quite believe my eyes, so I put on my glasses and saw THIS!

Yes, my dear sister in law arrived from Los Angeles last night.  I don’t know how many years it has been since she has seen snow, so this unexpected arrival (a day before the forecasts) must be just for her and for today, which is St. Nicholas Day AND Camden’s Christmas by the Sea celebration weekend (the kick off to the holiday season).  Here’s the front porch and yard… just a dusting, but still…yipppeeeee!

So of course, I  had to have my morning tea in this:

the mug Deborah Boschert gave to us Frayed Edges in 2005 (There’s a remarkably similar photo on my Dec. 27, 2005 blogpost!).  What a perfect morning!   More soon….