would you believe that i didn't take a single photo over christmas?

it's true. i packed my camera. and my tripod even. but never once did my camera leave it's case.

the truth is that i really *do* love taking photos, and i love scrapbooking. but i'm not what you would call an "event" scrapbooker - that is, i don't define my albums by including one layout for every event. i'm more of a "moment" scrapbooker - if i can say that without sounding overly cheesy and sentimental. i scrapbook to remember life as it is, not a chronology of events. so i am okay with not taking photos over a major event. i'm "at one" with my lack of photographic proof, you might say... but i digress. i didn't start this blog to discuss my scrapbooking philosophy. i meant to talk about christmas - so moving on...

matt & i, as you might expect, have settled into a traditional method of celebrating each christmas. most people finish their shopping on our about december 23rd and begin celebrating on the 24th or even waiting until the 25th. but when i went out for my annual "last minute shopping trip" (hers, not mine) with my mom on the 23rd, it was really for her benefit - matt & i were already hurtling headfirst into our Three Day Christmas Celebration.

it began with brunch with his immediate family saturday morning. luckily, his mom is flexible and grew up in a huge family herself, so her philosophy is that christmas doesn't happen on a specific day - it happens when everyone is in the same house at the same time. anyway, games were played, lunch was had, gifts were exchanged. it didn't go exactly according to plan, but it went.

sunday - christmas eve - morning, we were up extra early for church, as it was my first sunday on-staff. between the morning service and being back for the annual candle-lighting service later that evening, we rushed home to pack, have lunch, lock down the house for the weekend. back to church, successful candle-lighting service, and then we rush to the ferry - hoping we didn't just miss a boat. a half hour ferry ride, a half hour drive, and we arrive at my grandparent's farm. grandma is as relaxed as i've ever seen her - because we're later than usual, and she's had more time to prepare. (it's normal for us to not have dinner until around 9pm, but still - we were later than usual.) after a leisurely dinner with the family, our annual phone call with my trans-atlantic aunt, our gift exchange, and goodbyes to mom & bob, and we head to bed - exhausted, but with more to look forward to.

but that's where all of the lovely christmas tradition turns sour this year...

you see, i went to bed feeling strange... a little "iffy", you might say. i had a little trouble getting to sleep, and then awoke at 4:15 and knew immediately that i'd best get to the bathroom before i saw dinner on Instant Replay. sure enough, dinner came up - and i proceeded to be terribly ill for the remainder of the night. matt's not a great nurse-maid in the middle of the night - he sleeps so hard that i'm more likely to get some comment about washing his hair in motor oil than a sympathetic remark. (luckily, he makes up for this by being a fabulous caretaker at my beck-and-call during the day - it just makes for lonely nights.) so i struggle through it, sleeping off and on, when i'm not busy... well, you know.

fiiinally, the rest of the house wakes up. i'm pretty sure that i've emptied my entire digestive system of its contents and that it's all over... but it's not. i pick at my breakfast - torn between severe disinterest in food, and not wanting to be rude. eventually, i'm fairly confident that my stomach can "hang in there" long enough to brave the 50 minute drive to my dad's, so we pack up and head out.

thankfully, the worst of it was indeed over and we made it to dad's without any additional displays of gastronomic pyrotechnics. i was still feeling yucky and the nasty cold/cough that seemed to jump me while i was already down for the count added to my problems.

we did our best to celebrate at dad's. food (for matt, certainly not me), gifts, even a christmas carol game, but we were both in bed early christmas night. and probably not a bad thing either.

so, really - i guess there wasn't much to take pictures of... but i'm okay with that. really.

i got a 96%.

what's your score? :)

and today's photo:

nothin' special, but it makes me happy. back next week, and with some news. merry christmas! :)

one more...

i promised a photo a day, and i missed yesterday, so here's one more:

i love wrapping gifts. nothing says "'tis the season!" like plugging in the tree, turning on christmas music and settling in with a cup of tea to wrap a stash of gifts. usually, i begin with grandiose plans of fancy packaging, but i generally revert to plain ol' storebought creatively printed wrapping paper. it's cheap, easy, and practical. but there's something to be said about a package wrapped in brown paper and embellished with real ribbon, or a special handmade gift tag.

in this case, the tag is just a tree shape cut from felt, pinned with a Making Memories mini safety pin and an Avery price tag. i'm pretty sure i got this idea from Martha, but i can't for the life of me locate that page in the magazine.

don't take recipes from strangers

(or "the batch of ill-fated sugar cookies")

i love holiday baking and sugar cookies hold special memories for me. my mom & i used to bake them every year and then decorate them with every imaginable color of icing, and there was nothing better than a few fresh sugar cookies - the icing perfectly set - and a big glass of milk to reward all of that hard work.

you could say that this year's burning desire to bake sugar cookies was my inner 8 -year-old longing for a taste of her childhood. saturday morning, i rose early, cracked open my recipe book and proceeded to mix the dough for sugar cookies. it was in tasting the dough (as every baker knows is a requirement!) that i noticed it seemed sweeter than mom's cookies... i was disappointed, but kept going. the purpose for making the cookies was to have something for matt to take to a party that night, and something to offer guests that were coming over the next day. so i kept rolling, cutting and baking.

the baking part went fairly smoothly, especially compared to the rest of the evening. the cookies came out and i tasted again: they were definitely too sweet for me. i looked at the recipe and thought through my steps - yes, i'd done everything right. they were simply too sweet for me. and it was far too late to turn back now.

so i'm feeling short on time - having to send at least half the batch with matt in under an hour. to speed the process along, i'm cooling cookies in the fridge on a rack, and apparently having a serious case of the dropsies. more than one cookie gets fumbled between pan and fridge, shattering on the not-exactly-clean-anyway kitchen floor.

gotta keep going - i mix the icing. no recipe - recalling from memory... confectioner's sugar, water, vanilla... or was it milk and vanilla... mom doesn't remember, so i go with milk just to be "safe". first dribble of milk into the mixing bowl - icing's too thick, need more milk. second dribble - i lose control of the gallon, and pour way more milk than intended. ack! i mix and taste the icing. doesn't taste like mom's. frustration is mounting. i mix in some color to see what i can work with and begin to ice the done & cooled half of the batch.

the icing is runny, to say the least, and i'm not thrilled by the idea of serving these to company, but they're probably okay for matt to take to his party. except that the very wet icing won't set. matt comes home and is very patient and understanding, until he urges me that he has to get going and i tell him to just wait a minute, i'm not done yet. having gotten the point that i'm having a "bad cookie day", he impatiently says "i'll just get something at the store".

wrong answer, bud.

i basically send him packing when i - with the heat of the 375 degree oven in my eyes - suggest that he does, indeed, just get something from the store. he leaves, and i've had it with the cookies. it's about time for a saturday night movie on TV, so i set out to fix myself a plate of goodies. of course, i drop the first gooey cookie on the floor, icing side down. *sigh* cleanup the mess, start again.

i walk to the living room, balancing my plate of cookies atop my glass of milk, as i do with my breakfast every morning. i reach the coffee table - and i bet you saw this one coming - the plate gets jostled and goes down, smashing into my glass-topped coffee table, shattering both the plate and the cookies into a thousand shards and a bunch of dust all over my table AND floors (oh, and icing-side down, of course). being of a rather skittish nature, this process startles me, and i jump back. the milk in my glass reacts as one with a basic understanding of physics would expect and sloshes out of the glass and down - onto the couch, the coffee table and the floors. i hope santa doesn't mind eating his milk & cookies off the floor because i might very well leave it there till christmas...

at this point, i'm pretty sure i'm being tested. i mean really - how could one day of baking possibly go so awry without it being used for Divine Purposes? i sigh and retrieve the necessary supplies to clean up, fix myself another plate, and then effectively ban myself from the kitchen for the remainder of the evening.

the next day, as i'm cleaning up for company (and cleaning up the previous day's mess in the kitchen), i'm sweeping. what remains of the cookies - which i intend to ice with something other than my recollected icing recipe - is resting on the rack on the counter. the kitchen being small, and me being in a hurry, the arm of the broom brushes up against the edge of the rack and sends the whole thing tumbling onto the floor. every last whole, servable cookie is now face down, on the floor, and in pieces.

so maybe the whole day's events weren't related to that one recipe, but i've found that cookbook rather hit-or-miss, and those cookies definitely didn't taste like mom's.

today's picture:

i've always loved miniatures, and have admired my mother-in-law's collection of christmas houses for several years. her collection spans the entire top of their entertainment center, with trees and figurines and even a little gravel pathway. last year, i fell in love with a set and began collecting for myself, with the help of the after-Christmas sales and a little contribution from my mother-in-law. it's minimal now, and when compared to hers, looks rather pathetic and bare, but i love it. i love the way the houses glow when they're lit up and the room is dim. i love the warm, cozy feeling they give me. and when we're not having a white Christmas - at least i know my little Christmas houses are.

truly, the season is upon us...

no, not christmas. that would be too obvious. 'tis the season during which my husband insists on wearing a santa hat every blessed waking moment... yeah, that season. so he waltzes into my office today, wearing work uniform and santa hat and i say "oh, it's that time of year, huh?"

and he, who knows me too well, dons his best impish grin and responds: "yep. sorry."

i suppose it's a good thing he lost his seahawks cap, because he threatened to wear that under the santa hat. wouldn't that have been a sight!

i had a great weekend - we had dinner & games with friends friday night that ended with a spontaneous trip to the local candy cane lane, and then another spontaneous trip out in the middle of nowhere, to an even better candy cane lane. had a little me-time on saturday, did some crazy christmas shopping with my mom that afternoon, and baked the most doomed batch of christmas cookies i've ever baked in my entire life (i'll tell that story this week when i have nothing else to talk about - it's just too bad i didn't get a picture). i'm thrilled to say that i made great progress on my christmas journal, but i'm nowhere near caught up. (i've done 6 entries total, i think - and let's see, i should be on entry 18 today... oh well!) i cleaned the house, wrapped more presents, and othewise whittled away at my to-do list. church on sunday was an adventure: saturday afternoon, we got a call that a tree had fallen on the power line next to the gym we rent for sunday services. we were moving our service to another building on the same campus - the room where we hold the kids' church, which meant no kids' church and since the gym had no power, no preschool or nursey classes either. the whole church, in one significantly smaller-than-usual room. but it worked. an extra measure of patience and understanding, and it's amazing how people can come together in frustrating circumstances.

today's christmas photo:

one year, my mom discovered an unfinished ceramic nativity set at our favorite painting studio and painted it for herself in the simplest, most elegant fashion. i knew i had to have one for myself, so the next year i did the same.

but i only got halfway through it before i needed to stop for the day. i left the painted half to be fired, and took the unpainted half home. the painted half wouldn't be ready in time for christmas anyway. over the course of the next two years, i would lose the painted half and find the unpainted half - and then find the painted half only to lose the unpainted half. finally, i saved myself from - well, myself - and put the painted half away with the other christmas decorations. when i came across the unpainted half the next time - having thought for sure it was gone forever - i wasted no time in painting it, and then putting it with its other half.

so now i have my nativity set, and it's truly my favorite part of my christmas decorations. if it came right down to it, i could "lose" everything else, and be just fine with this on display. and if i had my way (and trusted my cats), i'd have it out year round anyway.

and finally, i have big news to share that i think i've been hinting at for the last week (or two), but there's one more person who must hear it from my lips, and i can't risk her reading this before i talk to her! so i'll post about it as soon as i can...

what a storm! the weather last night had me briefly wondering if now would be a good time for an ark... it felt like all of november's record-breaking rain coming down in the space of about 10 hours. mom & i left the office at 5pm, earlier than planned, because power was already going down in the north end and we knew traffic would be bad. the wind was gusting so hard in downtown seattle that it was shaking the car. lightning lit up the sky regularly, though i never heard thunder. traffic was not as bad as expected, and we were grateful to make it home quickly.

our lights flickered all evening. i camped out in my studio to work on my poor, neglected christmas journal, with our coleman camping lantern next to me - so i wouldn't have to grope through the darkness if the power went out. the winds howled outside. the cats howled inside. the rain came down... and down... and down... but the power stayed on. we quite were surprised.

as the wind wreaked havoc on the outdoors, we'd identify the sounds we'd hear... *craaaack*... "tree limb!"... *budum budum budum*... "garbage can!"... *thud... thudthud*... "chairs off the back deck!" (whoops!)

and sure enough, i went out to inspect this morning to find two garbage cans toppled, two loose limbs laying below the pine tree, and two lawn chairs laying prostrate in the backyard, not to mention, a few loose fence boards and the gate to our backyard wide open. at least we didn't ever lose power!!

so, i thought i'd share a photo from my home every (week)day through christmas, because i have this anal-retentive thing about trying post a photo in every entry and i have an abundance of photos of my christmas decorations at home. :)

this is one of my favorite scenes right now, because i'm so in love with gold and red:

the roses are leftovers from my grandmother's wedding, the golden vase belongs to my mother - but i'm not giving it back until after christmas, and the photo is one of my favorite things: my aunt, at 4 or 5 years old, opening a brand new doll at christmas. i love her very-1950's outfit, the very-1950's christmas tree in my great-grandparents living room and my very-1950's great uncle next to her with a very-1950's bowling ball on his lap. but the best part of this photo is the look in her eyes - the expression of a child who's just received a gift that was more than she could ever imagine.

thursday musings...

if our weekly visit to my mother-in-laws hadn't been cancelled due to illness, it would've been cancelled due to the weather warnings. so, my evening is suddenly free & clear. part of me is disappointed, but the part of me that's worn out from the hustle & bustle of the season doesn't mind staying home one bit.

not really sure what i'll do with myself tonight, but i've been wanting to play with this soft tree pattern, make a button wreath ornament out of my green button stash, or cover something in glitter. mmmm, glitter.

love this shot of our neice at her dedication last sunday:

she wasn't really sure why she was on stage, or why there were cameras out. but while the pastor prayed for her squirming sister, she did think to point out (loudly) that there were "all those people taking pictures of me".

and this little monster squirmed and fussed the entire time the pastor was praying for her... we made more than one joke about what causes a child to react that way...

{i call it "seasonal self portrait". ;) }

with the wedding behind me, i'm diving headfirst into christmas. only 10 days (!) left of my favorite season, and i want to be sure i enjoy it.

monday night, matt & i had our annual "Christmas date". the activities vary each year, but we always have one special date in December that somehow incorporates a seasonal activity. sometimes it's driving through the local Candy Cane Lane or painting Christmas ornaments at the local ceramic shop. this year we went to dinner and to Wight's Nursery in Lynnwood to experience the "Wonderland of Christmas" that takes over their store from November 1st to December 24th each year. crazy. i've never seen so many decorations, so much variety in themes and shapes and colors, and i quickly lost count of how many times the phrase "that is so stinkin' cute" left my lips. it's a good thing i don't live in a bigger house and have more disposable income - because i could see myself turning into the Crazy Christmas Lady with a tree in every room, etc, etc, etc.

other than that, life continues as normal as can be for a holiday season. i only have a bit of shopping for matt left to do, and nearly all of the other gifts are wrapped and under the tree. i have some baking to do - namely a few batches of my traditional magic bars (ooooh, i sense another blog post coming on), and i'm aching to make a gingerbread representation of our house (it's a disease!) but i don't know how feasible that is, given how much work goes into making the dough alone. my only real regret this season is my christmas journal, which lays wildly neglected on my scrapbooking desk, having fallen in place behind the other adventures of the last few weeks. perhaps i can make some attempt to catch up, though i don't even want to think about how long it would take me or how many pages i'd have to do each day to finish it by Christmas...

happy wednesday!

presenting...

Mr. & Mrs. Marvin Lunde
(aka - Grama & Marv)

since early october, i've been coordinating and preparing for my grandmother's wedding. she asked me to help with the planning, and i was pleased and honored to do everything i could to make this day extra special for her. i had almost as much fun planning her wedding as i did my own - but boy, it really is a lot of work, especially when you're emotionally invested. anyway - here's just a few of my favorites.

{i loved being able to add handmade touches to her day.}


{my dad, looking rediculously handsome in his mobster suit, waiting to walk the bride down the aisle...}






{dancing barefoot... who could resist this cute shot??}


{the wishing tree - guestbook alternative.}

lots of photo-proofing going on right now - the wedding, my neices' dedication last sunday and still finishing up the choir shots from the week before... lots of other stuff going on right now, not to mention the busiest time of the year.

pensive, today...

it seems that, as of late, i am often reduced to tears over the blessings God has poured out on my life. though, i guess that's the best thing over which to be reduced to tears.

choir of the sound

volunteering during concert weekends for the Choir of the Sound has become a little tradition for me, and a great opportunity to spend some quality time with my mom, who sings 2nd soprano in the choir. usually, i "call the show" for the video crew. this job itself is for only one of the shows, but because i have to know exactly who will be where and when, it means watching the dress rehearsal and earlier shows, and taking some very good notes.

this last weekend, i had another opportunity. the choir was in need of photos for promotional use, and my mom readily volunteered me. friday night, i spent the entire dress rehearsal photographing the choir, soloists, sets & props, and dancers. i shot 3 full gigabytes of memory, knowing that the more i shot, the better my chances were of having tons that i loved. i'm about 50% done with the proofing, and i can honestly say i'm thrilled with the results. here's a handful of my favorites:

{i was so pleased with the photos of maria, the ballerina that danced during the choir's performance of "O Nata Lux". she dances so beautifully, and seeing the photos the next day brought back the same feeling i had when i saw her perform.}


{renaissance dancers}








{maria, again, as mary in the choir's rendition of "mary, did you know?"}


{mom in her renaissance costume}

feeling a wee bit like superwoman.

it's december 4th.

my christmas shopping is finished. (except for matt's gifts - but those don't count, because he's not likely to get overlooked!)

my tree is up. and decorated. (thanks to my super-hubby who went out to find my perfect tree on friday and had it home and in an upright position, ready for me to decorate by the time i got home.)

my christmas decorations are proudly on display.

presents are wrapped and under the tree. (that's aaaall me, baby.)

the COTS 30th Annual Christmas Concert is over and done with. (i spent friday evening photographing the dress rehearsal and all day saturday working with the video crew.)

the house is adorned with christmas lights. (another super-hubby feat.)

my christmas cards are created and signed - just waiting for their envelopes and postage.

the wedding is 5 days (5 days!) away and we are as close to 100% ready as we can be. (there are a few little things left to be done - but not until just before the big day.)

yep, i'm feeling a wee bit like superwoman... made possible entirely by my super-hubby, of course.

{oh, and the photo above has nothing to do with anything today. i took that last week after matt finished building his snowman. frosty looks far less like a snowman today, thanks to the the rising temperatures and the wild creature who made a half-eaten meal of his nose... i'll post pictures from the choir's show tomorrow - didn't get as far as i thought i would in proofing yesterday!}