Labors of love

 

 Christmas day puzzle chaos.

Ta-da.

 

These English Wentworth wood puzzles are such works of art. You can lose yourself in the details, as we did for almost 2 weeks. It was challenging but not frustrating like most 1,000 piece puzzles.   

John probably found 50 pieces to my 1, but I got the satisfying part yesterday, finishing off the last few pieces while he watched the Seahawks. Hey, it was my present after all, but I was happy for the help.  Otherwise, I'd still be at it by Easter. I hope to use the dining room table for something else by then.

Well, another wet week begins. Pouring rain and black as midnight outside at 6 am. What can you say about January in Seattle? In a few short weeks, we'll notice more light again and the bulbs pushing up. The yard is already filled with busy birds, getting ready for spring. They love these wet, mild storms and so does the garden.

 

What a different world on the other side of the Cascade mountains-- blue sky and brilliant sunshine on snow.  Amanda sent this cute picture yesterday. The girls carried their gingerbread village up to the property and left it as a treat for wildlife. Although sounds like a good deal got nibbled off first on the hike up there. 

Ring in the new

 

This picture looks so Scandinavian. It's Amanda, Tom and the girls up at their property last night. They built a bonfire and drank cocoa while the snowflakes drifted down. A memorable ending for this strange year. Amanda said it was quite magical until the sisters started bickering and wresting in the snow. Ha!

Just a rainy, oh-so-quiet night in Seattle until midnight, when loud fireworks started up on our street. Leftovers from the 4th of July?

On New Years Day, I usually watch the Rose Bowl Parade with all those fine California horses.  This year I'll give it a skip, because the parade has gone "virtual" whatever that means. Turkey for dinner today, and  our pretty little Christmas goes back up in the attic. 

Happy New year dear family and friends. On we go. 

New Year wishes

 

May this new year find you
healthier and happier,
peaceful, content, satisfied,
looking forward
to fresh, revitalizing interests,
a variety of pleasures,
interesting new people,
material and personal successes
to make this new year
the best one yet.
Happy New Year!

By Joanna Fuchs

Perhaps the silver lining of this horrendous year has been better appreciating the small blessings that still fill our lives.  Family, friendships, nature, health, hobbies, simplicity, love.  

It's been many years since we left the house on New Years Eve and tonight will be no different. We have some great memories, though. The best were long ago, when the Seattle Symphony put on a Viennese concert full of waltzes and other light classical pieces. 

After the concert, we would go out for a late dinner with friends at an Irish restaurant near the Seattle Center, share a bottle of bubbly, and then step outside the restaurant with our glasses at midnight to toast the fireworks at the Space Needle. Seattle was a very different place back then. And this year the fireworks are “virtual.”

Anyway, maybe a healthful night's sleep is the best way to welcome in 2021? Whatever you do, we wish you the happiest of new years. We have to believe better times are coming.

Soup weather

 

There's usually some leftover seasoned meat when we have tacos, and I use it to make soup the next day. A healthy winter lunch and no recipe required. The extra freezes well.

Just dice and saute some vegetables like onion, carrots, celery and peppers. Use fresh jalapenos if you like spicy. When the vegetables are soft, dump in a can of Mexican style tomatoes, a can of red or black beans, a box of beef broth and the leftover meat. Simmer for a half hour or so, it needs very little seasoning. Sometimes I put a little blob of sour cream on top, which John thinks is disgusting. 

Oh, the weather. Dreary doesn't even begin to describe it. Our window candle with the light sensor never went off yesterday, it was so dark. The forecast calls for a "continuous caravan of Pacific storms" over the next week. Five feet of snow piling up in the mountains, and here in the lowlands, even wetter than normal, which is really saying something this time of year.  

The plume of moisture headed our way...

 

A good one

 

 “The great secret that all old people share,” wrote Doris Lessing, “is that you really don’t change in seventy or eighty years. Your body changes, but you don’t change at all. And that, of course, causes great confusion.” 

Found that great quote on a blog I follow called The Owl Underground. 

I miss working and playing at the West Seattle Senior Center. People lucky enough to live a long time are often pretty interesting. The young assume all old people are exactly the same. The pandemic sure hasn't helped, lumping seniors into the same frail, vulnerable category. You can't downplay the risk, but most will do just fine.

Anyway, good news with the vaccine going out to nursing homes. Yesterday, on my Uke Zoom meeting, we invited a 96 year old woman who has basically been confined to her room at a care center for the last 9 months. Imagine that?  And yet she looked as perky as ever.  How resilient some people are. 

She doesn't play ukulele, but loved our weekly sing-along at the Senior Center.  A true Ukes groupie! It was fun seeing her. I'm up to 10 invites, which is getting to be quite a wrangle. The only complaint is 40 minutes is not long enough.

We can't play together at the same time on Zoom, but the brave ones do solos while everyone else mutes and plays along in silence. No judgement, just encouragement no matter how bad we sing.

I played "Hey, Good Lookin'" yesterday, and sang the entire song the wrong key! 

You think a Hank Williams 3-chord ditty is a piece of cake?  Ha. 

He wasn't called the Shakespeare Hillbilly for nothing. 

So long, December

 

 

Considering the empty calendar, devoid of concerts, parties and the usual holiday events, the days felt busy and full this month. A jammed (or empty) calendar says nothing really about richness of life.     

So many lessons in this horrendous year. With life stripped down to basics, the smallest things became more meaningful, even precious, as I suppose as they should have been all along. It's only human to miss doing what you once enjoyed, but other things filled the empty spaces.

The world will be different when we come out of this, because we have changed. Poor 2021 has lots to live up to, especially the first 6 months.  Patience.

Switching gears. How about our handsome 96-year-old Dad, in his new holiday clothes? Dad walks outdoors every morning, reads a daily newspaper along with a big stack of library books each week. He is the perfect example of how to take each day as it comes and enjoy the moment. Go Dad. Despite the year long separation, our family has become closer in many ways. 

 

 

Gift show off time. It wouldn't be Christmas without an Apple bauble under the tree. Thank you, John! That little white ball is a HomePod mini, cute as a Baby Yoda and sounds better than the tall floor speakers we had in the 1980's. Now Siri plays woo-woo music while I do yoga in the second bedroom. 

In a few days we can say goodbye to 2020, a year we will never forget. There's going to be a "virtual" fireworks display at the Space Needle on New Years Eve, which sounds like an appropriate end to a surreal year.