Then One Foggy Christmas Eve

Julietta's first Christmastime.  Darling girl.  ♥  While family eats and watches a Christmas movie together back home, Mike, Stuffed, and I are cozy in our little apartment, our cards all taped to the door, our favorite movies playing one after the other, and Stuffed napping here, there, and everywhere around us.  'A strangely foggy Christmas Eve here too, so much so that we can hardly see our neighbors' apartment next door, and the fog after a day with temperatures in the forties and our windows open most of the day while holiday baking was in full-swing.   My favorite day of the year, this.  ♥

It's been an easy-peasy day here, and this entire season's been the most-organized of every holiday season so far for me.  We have been washing dishes as we go all day, so we're even caught up in the kitchen, and unlike every past year, I have the cinnamon rolls baked and waiting to be frosted and it's earlier than midnight!  ;)

Yay for progress!  

Mom reminded me this past weekend that Mike and I did Sloppy Joes for Christmas Eve a few years back, and yes, that sounded good this time too, so after baking sugar cookies and cinnamon rolls today, supper was an easy affair.  Mom, of course, with big meals for more than ten both tonight and tomorrow, has been much busier, and it's been sweet to be able to cheer each other on today.

Happy holidays to you all.  Tonight and all the days ahead, may you find sweetness, love, and wonder.  

♥

Bianca Painted Stuffed!

And as with her gift last year, I could not be more charmed.  She handed it to me Saturday night covered in crushed and crumpled wrapping paper, and my brother explained, "She's had this made and wrapped since ohhhhhhhh, October maybe!?"  :)  Sweet Bee.  ♥  I will treasure her and her artwork all my days. 

Week of Wonders

'Off to Mom and Dad's soon for Early Christmas.  ♥  Above is Bianca experiencing New York City for the first time this past week, photo from my brother.   This shot just captures all the wonder for me. 

'Wisdom below from dear Marie's blog.  ♥  And with it, my warmest wishes to you all.  See you in a few.  

♥

October, November, & Now December 4th

I spent some time last night looking through twelve years' worth of my photo albums on flickr, and it struck me that all those years--every year of the past twelve except this one--seemed to have been [easier?  more creative?  less of a blur?] than this one, but then it further struck me that this year was just not as well-documented as past years.  :)  I keep a journal as always, and I take pictures almost every day, but since I haven't sorted them all into an album labeled 2019 yet, and since there are only thirteen blog posts before this one to tell 2019's story in images and words here, this year just somehow seemed "less."  (A-ha!)  'Funny how memory works.  This year really has been a blur, though, as every year anymore seems to speed by faster than the ones before.  

It seems like I was home for a visit with my parents Halloween-week maybe two weeks ago.  It stormed almost the entire time I was there, sheets of rain pouring onto the deck's roof and then flooding it.  I baked a gluten-free dark chocolate cake for my parents, 

helped Mom figure out her first cell phone, and watched game seven of the World Series with Dad.  Sometime overnight on Halloween, we lost power.  Mom's many candles were put to good use all over their little house the next morning.  The top photo is of their kitchen island as November began.  It was the most perfect Halloween-week weather. 

Mike's mom celebrated her eightieth birthday just as little Bianca was turning six--six?!  She was just three!  She was just BORN!--and somehow, cards, flowers (mother-in-law), and balloons (niece) made it to them on time.  "She was so cute skating with her friends," Mom reported of Bianca's roller rink party a few weeks ago.  But look at this dear little face--

--and tell me what she'd NOT be cute doing.  'So adorable.  ♥  And still a little imp.  :)  She began kindergarten this fall. . . bows on her knee socks, stuffed animal on her desk, and answering the question of what she wants to be when she grows up with:  "A detective."  A detective!  Of course, at her preschool graduation ceremony this spring, all the kids had facts about themselves announced to the audience as they walked across the stage.  Bianca's?  "Bianca likes cats."  Bianca likes cats!  Ha ha!  Sweet girl.  I get such a kick out of her.  :) 

I got this shot of my oldest and youngest nieces from the Thanksgiving table last week.  ♥  The mind boggles.  And what a rich time for my parents, I have been thinking, to be able to enjoy grandchildren who range from five-month-old to almost-sixteen.  My nephew will be old enough to drive soon.  Baby Dylan!?  Precious times, and precious time. 

Mike and I spent Thanksgiving day at my older brother's home and then spent the night at his mom's.  'Such a sweet holiday, and the craziness of my working life being what it is, this was the first Thanksgiving I'd spent with family since 2010.  2010.  There are a number of changes I need to make in my life in the next few years, and changing things like that is high on the list.  Late last Wednesday night, I finally decided what I wanted to make for dessert to go along with both brothers' pies, and especially given how little planning went into them, I'm so delighted by how both desserts turned out.  'Such a good feeling when a "baking vision" turns out.  :)  I went with gluten-free yellow cupcakes to have an option Mom could eat, and I tried the all-over-the-internet "pumpkin pie wedge" Rice Krispie Treats.  The first batch of the Rice Krispie Treats I made standard pie-slice-size and took to Mike's mom's since there was to be a smaller gathering there.  We totaled  fourteen at my brother's home, so I made mini pie slices with that batch.  'Dollop of homemade buttercream on each to mimic whipped cream.  :) 

The tiny pumpkins were crafted out of homemade fondant, one of my favorite little baking/dessert-making/cake-decorating things to play with the past fifteen or so years.  Mike is careful with his sugar intake, and I (always anymore, alas) need to lose weight, so I rarely make things like these Thanksgiving desserts, but it is so fun and relaxing, I should make the time more often and just give away all but a couple of whatever I've baked.  Or maybe I should play it safe and just buy some poylmer clay to craft desserts for dollhouses.  :) 

Mike's mom had fall leaf-patterned flannel sheets on the bed for Thanksgiving night--so sweet  ♥--and oh my goodness, it was the most comfortable bed and the coziest and most festive way to end the holiday. 

We returned home Friday evening to a cuddled-up-on-a-chair Stuffed, still going (relatively) strong at twenty years old.  ♥  I remembered just in time last week to get this fall's photo of him with the yellow trees outside the window, and he spent most of today on a nest of blankets beside the space heater while snow fell.  Dear sweet Stuffed.  ♥ 

I say life's been a blur, but I will also pat myself on the back here and point out that my Christmas cards have been ready to mail for a week, I'm almost done with my shopping, and I put up the tree a couple Sundays ago.  'Unprecedented holiday organization here, and it's making the entire month ahead feel better.  Onward and upward, then, and may it not take me three months to find my way back to my little online space here.  Happy December to you all.   

♥

And Baby's Arrived ♥

wrote my brother, who now has a family of four  ♥

Hearts and Flowers, or Up-and-Down Spring

'A perfect heart-shaped stone Mom found out in my garden this spring. 

Spring has been lovely, 

and now we move into summer already.  The oldest I've ever been and the fastest-moving year I've ever had, and I'm sure the two go together.  I turned 42 last month, my older brother is only five years from 50, baby Bianca "graduated" kindergarten last week, "little" Dylan who started kindergarten just yesterday has a girlfriend and is in high school this fall with his sister, a new niece or nephew is due any day now, I have been struggling for awhile now with what seems to be psoriatic arthritis, and all this to say time has been flying and I have been feeling old.  Bianca's cat ↓ captures my wary watching of the seasons as they change.  :)

'A thousand changes at work lately too, which have made for a stressful spring.  As Lisa over at "Searching for a Balance" knows, balance isn't something you find once and cross off your to-do list, but instead something you have to re-find over and over every day.  I found the below heart on a table at my workplace one night this spring and had to laugh.  When a paper towel-piece heart randomly appears on a worktable, I have to take it as a reminder to "be still and know that [He is] God," right.   So I adjust to the thousand new changes and plod onward. 

And get a haircut that is way too short--where is my wild mass of curls!!!??!!  GONE!  I now have the smallest sprig of them, like an unruly paintbrush perched atop my head--

 --then I find a heart in my hummus and chips and chill out a little more.  Again. 

I made it home around Mother's Day and Father's Day so got to see both my family and my roses--Louise Odier is in bloom this very week!  ♥--and those things alone end this up-and-down June on a sweet note.  

Heaven on earth!  And the scent!!  ♥  I made a small bouquet of these and my white Iceberg roses for my sister-in-law Sunday as she works her way through her final days of pregnancy.   To her, the days are probably not moving along quickly enough.  

'Another perfect heart Tuesday afternoon, this one as I was waiting for the bus back to the apartment post-visit home.  And tomorrow, it will be summer.  Ay yi yi.  

♥