Here comes a storm…

They were calling for snow flurries for later today…now I hear it may be just rain.  Whatever is coming, it is on its way…

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Glad I don’t have far to go today…

Oh, what a night…

OK, here goes another December weather rant.  Puppy and I went to bed last night to the sighing sounds of the surf.  We slept pretty soundly until somewhere just after midnight, when the howl of the wind, crash of the waves on the rocks below our house and bang! of small objects hurled against the house.  Boo barked and ran circles around the room, begging to be let out to fight the noisy monster. I let him out and he conducted a thorough examination of the yard…all the snow was gone and twigs and branches were strewn about, but he could not, for the life of him, find the monster. So, we came back in and attempted to settle back down…no luck…first the power went out (causing lots of tweets and peeps from electrical devices around the house), then it came back on to more tweets and peeps. This precipitated another trip outside, still to no avail. All in all, he went out four times between midnight and 4am…then, finally, he was able to fall asleep curled into my legs…wouldn’t want that howling monster to break in and blow me away!

This morning, the wind has subsided a bit, but the waves are still crashing and it is 51 DEGREES FARHENHEIT outside! AT THE VERY END OF DECEMBER!!! Here’s a glimpse…

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The good news is that the snow is gone, so I can take the lights off our outdoor tree without falling down the cliff!  I will miss my rainbow tree and can’t wait to make it even more magnificent next year…

Blog, blog, blog…

As I was doing laundry yesterday, I turned on a movie to watch as I folded…Motherhood, I think it was called, with Uma Thurman…she played a writer whose career was put on hold by mother- and wifehood…she blogged as an outlet, joining the wide world of Mommy Bloggers. I actually enjoyed parts of the movie that I could TOTALLY relate to (without giving too much away, the fact that she let a stranger help her carry things up the many stairs to her apartment and the fact that he then helped her decorate for her daughter’s birthday party while dancing wildly; then there was the scene with her husband where she broke down about how much her life had changed since kids and how her dreams and aspirations were ebbing away)…

But the movie got me thinking. There are so many bloggers out there.  I started my blog of 4 plus years after reading my daughter’s blog and those of her friends…the Healthy Living bloggers, I called them…foodies and marathoners and dancers.  I then branched out and picked up various blogs to follow which tickled my soul and enriched my life.

What kind of blogger do I consider myself to be?  Hmmm…I love my grown and gone children and their families and my greatly enhanced and extended family, I am (or was) a community theater actor, singer and director, I love to cook, garden and take photos of pretty things…I love my dog, my cats, my in-laws and, most of the time, my life.  So, I’m a daily life blogger?  A family life blogger?  A “my life” blogger? And then I started taking pictures which I couldn’t stop myself from sharing, making some days’ blog posts extremely photo heavy. I just can’t seem to label myself…

What kind of blogger are you?

We’re not alone here…

On our walk yesterday, we were greeted with day old snow…I immediately noticed the pattern of Boo’s footsteps as he raced ahead.  But then I started noticing footprints that belonged to no one we know…for elimination purposes, the top photos are ours, the rest seem to belong to birds, squirrels and other woodsy creatures we rarely see…

Hus and me

Boo!

Bird and ?

A veritable potpourri of prints

Raccoon?

Name that print!

Squirrel? Rabbit?

’twas the day after Christmas…

It snowed again last night…I woke up this morning to find a light blanket of the white stuff outside. It covered Boo’s footprints from yesterday out on the deck and frosted the trees in a dusting of sparkle! A wonderful surprise for our Boxing Day!

A sprinkle of sparkle

I had so much gifted to me yesterday. My green-eyed cat necklace, smoked Alaska salmon and homemade dried bananas (thank you, Mom and Michael!), fluffy aloe-impregnated socks, homemade peanut brittle (thanks, Dad and Judy!)…and more…the highlights, however, were the Google Hangout all the “kids” had with us and our brunch with my dad-in-law at his assisted living facility. Later, while waiting for the Bears v. the Packers game, hus and I feasted on leftover prime rib and duchess potatoes…I had no room for pineapple upside down cake, but did manage to swallow a little decadent Madagascar chocolate with nibs and sea salt. What a happy day it was…

Boo got a new toy and the promise of endless pigs ears and hard chews, but his FAVORITE gift was white and fell out of the sky.  He had seen snow on the ground, but this time, big, white puffs floated out of the sky and fascinated and delighted the pup…he ran and leapt and buried his nose in it, he tried to catch it in his mouth…he looked for all the world like a small child reveling in the unknown. Ahhh…

Now, that is one happy puppy!

Here’s my Merry Christmas Eve present to you…

I woke up this morning to another breathtaking sunrise.  It doesn’t last long, usually a half hour to an hour, but…

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Empty nest holidays…

There are certain specific holidays which to me are Family Holidays.  We are not religious, so most holidays for us have been centered around family. We have always lived too far from family to spend time with anyone other than the four of us, which simplified our holiday lives. Christmas and New Year and Easter were times for spending time together, cooking warm and festive meals,  laughter and love, peace and harmony.

I was one of those people who shopped all year round…any sale I found on whimsical, fun items for sending to sisters, parents, nieces and nephews were snapped up and stored in my Christmas closest.  I stockpiled Christmas! Then we sold our big house, gave away a lot, dumpstered a lot and packed up even more for our move into a tiny, two room house on the Coast of Maine. And there went my Christmas closet.

Here, I have no space nor need for a Christmas closet.  My kids are grown and live far away, so there is no need to hide things anymore.  Plus, we now make a donation to Heifer International in the names and for the love of our extended family (this year, we donated geese, chickens, honeybees and trees), so there is no need for stockpiling.

As much as I love packing up the Christmas boxes and mailing them to my kids, I miss the days of early morning feet down the stairs, our girl and boy giggling and poking and dancing around the pile of presents under the decorated Norfolk Island Pine that served as our Christmas tree.  Empty nest holidays just aren’t the same.

OK, I am almost speechless here…

I just got back from my morning walk with Boo…I shed my boots and jacket, walked over to my computer to start downloading photos, when something caught my eye…remember, please, that it is 30 degrees outside (wind chill is 18 degrees) and the water temperature is just plain frigid…

I was totally baffled as to why these folks might be scuba diving out in my backyard in DECEMBER!!!  They motored out in a lobster boat with motor boat attached, donned scuba gear, hopped in the little boat and later tipped over backwards into the ocean, with net bags in hand.  The little boat hovered nearby for about 10 minutes before the divers were ready to come back in…then, they all motored back to the lobster boat.  In order to discover what these guys could possibly have been doing, I called my husband and asked.  His guess?  Sea anemone.  An industry developed in the 80s and, I guess, continues today. It apparently began because sea anemone roe was a Japanese delicacy. I know that in years past, there were vast harvesting ships out off our coast, but it was all mechanized.  These men were just diving into the oh-so-very-COLD Atlantic Ocean and harvesting by hand.

Do you think hus is right?

A word about feet…

I’ve mentioned a number of times that I am a second generation Southern Californian; there were four of us kids, not a lot of money…playing outside didn’t cost anything…growing up on the edge of the desert meant bare, naked feet most of the year ’round. After college graduation (University of California, Riverside – Go Highlanders!), and caught up in the whirlwind of young love and the spirit of adventure, my now-husband and I drove the old VW bus from California to Maine…we ended up in downtown Boston (across the street from Fenway Park) and I began my education into that brrrrr’y season called winter.

Winter is cold, sometimes VERY cold. Normal people wear socks and boots and slippers except in the shower during the winter months. I have tried, I really have.  I own four pair of boots (rain, snow, dressy tall and dressy short) and now, 37+ years later, I usually wear said boots when going out. However, even I have my limits.  My feet are happiest naked. When indoors, bare feet are my norm.  Summers, bare feet are my norm unless I’m going somewhere…then, whatever goes on my feet needs to slip on and off easily. But winter is another matter.

All this is to say that I am trying to change my ways.  My feet still feel suffocated in socks, especially when the socked feet are booted. But it just isn’t practical (or comfortable or common sensical???) to still be walking the dog in the wee hours or clicking my early morning photos whilst my naked feet slip on ice or sink into snow. It was 9 degrees outside this morning when I took the photos below…and I slipped my non-stockinged feet into my woolly boots before I stepped through the sliding glass door onto the deck…now who says it is too late to teach this old dog new tricks?

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In one half hour…

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Ta da!