Whitest Christmas in Memory

Snow storms and snow flurries, snow mixed with rain, heaps and piles and long rows of slush in the street. Christmas 2008 in Seattle. A mellow couple of days at home, family gathering postponed after another heavy snowfall. Soon it will start warming and flooding and raining. Oh, rain. Yes! Really looking forward to that. Here's the view from the living room window:

Unfinished Painting and Pre-holiday Musings

Two hours of sifting and sorting through notes from previous Thanksgivings, making shopping lists and detailing those items that must be transported from the Seattle house (having breakfast at the same time), then looking for the cranberry relish recipe that used to be on the cranberry bag and researching the perfect method for roasting the turkey -- whew!  I just want to get back to my paintings now.  The painting is going well, especially the last thing I did last night -- loosely brushing in the beginnings of trees against a luminous background.  This sort of effect tends to get lost as the painting gets finished.  This time will be different! (I hope.)  

Now, if I can just tear myself away from this comfy couch with the view of birds on the suet, hummingbirds at their feeder and the soft light on the Sound, I might get some work done before it's time to get ready for my 2 o'clock shift at the gallery.  Oh, today the Dish Network is sending out a repair man.  We have "drift" and no TV since Thursday night.  We miss trouble free cable TV.  Comcast is getting closer but hasn't reached our road yet.  This is a very slight and really inconsequential flaw in "country living" and the only one I can think of so far.  Even heating with a wood stove, lots of work, is satisfying.  Yesterday we went up in the woods and sawed up parts of a big tree, maybe a wild cherry, that had been down maybe since last year. We hauled out four wheelbarrow loads of fire wood.  It really was enjoyable working in the woods in the fresh air.