so. very. cold.

i have no idea what the temperature is, but there was a thick coating of frost on the ground as i left for work at 7:20 this morning. as we rode through the city, you could see the same thick coating uniformly covering the tops of every house and building, making the city seem like a little display of porcelain 'snow village' houses. almost magical. except that, it's

so. very. cold.

it's a shame i have to walk to work in such "magic".

hope everyone had a lovely thanksgiving... matt & i got away, to my dad's for the weekend. we planned to come home saturday night, but changed our minds at the last minute, and stayed until sunday morning. dinner on thanksgiving was informal and brief, but a good opportunity to visit, albeit quickly, with family i don't get to see nearly enough.

friday, my stepmom & i braved the crowds to be at JoAnn's at 6:15am. 15 minutes after they opened, and it was an absolute zoo. i got a gorgeous $50 tree skirt for our christmas tree - i've never owned a real tree skirt, just a white sheet which vaguely resembles a "blanket" of snow... - for $16. and their open stock paper was 6 for 96 cents, so i stocked up on 8 1/2 x 11 DCWV cardstock. i love sales. also headed to target, for no particular reason and encountered two notebooks of my favorite kind. one has been altered for a publishing call (will post pics later) and the other has been altered for a christmas gift. i also made a trip to Scrapbook Zone in Silverdale, which was a fun little side venture for me. that's the only local scrapbook store that i'm aware of in my dad's neck of the woods, so i drop in every time i'm in town. they're pretty good at keeping the new, fun, hip stuff in stock, and they have a lovely collection of bazzill. bought stuff for my christmas cards, now finally getting excited about them. (it's about time.)

friday afternoon, matt & i trekked over to my grandmother's, quite literally over the river (okay, it's a pond) and through the woods. it was so nice to get to sit and visit with her. most of saturday was spent moving my grandfather & his wife into their new condo, closer to the hospital than where they'd been staying. i was so glad that the timing worked out that we could help with this. there were quite a few of us helping, so it went quickly.

the highlight, i think, of my weekend was discovering hundreds upon hundreds of 35mm slides that my grandmother gave to my dad to store. we viewed those that were in trays on the projector, and flipped through the rest, holding them up to the light. my grandfather always seemed to have a video camera in his hand when i was growing up, and when they came home from a trip, we would get to see much of their adventures on tape. the scenery, the locals, the freeway, the flora and fauna. apparently, this fascination with film was not acquired with the invention of the video camera. he's had this fascination for most of his life, and i have slides of scenery, locals, freeways, flora and fauna, dating back to 1958 to prove it.

our first mission was to weed out the inapplicable. so many pictures of cacti in arizona, the dog playing in the river, etc. we narrowed them down to photos of family, memorable events, and any photos that would help me "place" a group of images, for instance the "welcome" sign at the san diego zoo. we also took care to hang onto photos that were just really great pictures. grampa does have an eye for beauty. lots of pictures of moons, sunsets, sunrises, stunning snow scapes, glowing fall colors, impressive rock formations, etc.

last night, i spent a few hours sorting each event into it's own ziploc baggy, and noting the grouping on paper. tonight, i will go through them again to make sure every slide is in it's appropriate baggy, and that the date stamps on the slides roughly match the event. when i'm done with those, i have two smaller boxes stuffed full of slides that are not in trays. we've weeded through them already, but i've not yet sorted them into events, (thank goodness my grandmother was diligent in labeling the boxes) or designated them a label. finally, each slide will get a serial number ("anal, party of one? your table's ready!") and then i'll find some type of long-term storage system that will work for our family. last, i'm investigating the cost of scanning the slides, to preserve them digitally. this looks prohibitively expensive, so i'm hoping to acquire some parental financial backing. ;) hey, they're his slides too, right??

well, that's it for me, for now. hope you all had a smashing thanksgiving!