A Christmas Welcome

With all the activities that come with moving, Dale and I have been too distracted to jump into the Christmas season. Until now. We live in a family-oriented neighborhood. Many of the houses are decorated to the nines with lights and Christmas scenes. So today I decided to join in the season in the most simple and minor of ways.

I started by sweeping the seed pods off the porch and cleaning all the bugs off the siding and out of the overhead light fixture. There were so many bugs in the fixture, and there was such a poor light bulb, that even with the porch light turned on, it was barely noticeable. Cleaning out the light fixture helped, but putting in a nice new LED bulb made a world of difference.

I then added two permanent hooks to either side of the door. I love to decorate for most holidays, and this will make changing out the decor simple.

This snowman may look familiar. My mother-in-law made him for us years ago. Even though we don't live in snow country anymore, my favorite buddy had to come with us. Since we have a new color scheme at this house, I may switch out his scarf and paint the stars silver instead of gold.

The new color scheme? Blues and silver. And lots of sparkle. I found this wreath at Big Lots which perfectly fits the bill.

I also found this doormat at Big Lots. It is full of glitter and sparkles so prettily in the evening light.



When I finished with these first steps, Dale came outside to admire his castle gate.

We'll likely add a lit tree to the porch. Dale plans to put up a few strands of lights, too. Jodie and I have begun to talk about getting together to bake some Christmas cookies.

So far, I'm still waiting on FedEx to deliver our new cookie sheets. It's a process.

I Lost My Streak

Oh, fudge nuggets.

I guess something had to give. My inability to maintain a routine through this move has taken a toll. After about 935 days in a row, I forgot to meditate yesterday.

I'm really not that surprised, even if I am disappointed. Over the last month I was lucky to get even three minutes in a row to stop and calm my mind. I'd been "calling it in" for days.

So, there's that.

I lost my streak.

:: sigh ::

Thankfully, meditation is not a competitive sport. Statistics don't much matter. Meditation is a practice that's easy to resume.

I'll simply sit.
Close my eyes.
And breathe.

Assembling My New Studio

Turning my room into a working Studio is going to take some time and ingenuity. The Studio in our Post Falls home was b-i-g. Maybe 12 feet by 18 feet. I had lots of room for a lot of stash for a lot of handcrafts. My new Studio is 10 feet by 10-1/2 feet, plus a large closet that's 6 feet by 2 feet. Now, this is still a good sized room, but I lost a LOT of square footage. Even with downsizing quite a bit, I still have stash in all these boxes that need to find a home.

Not only do I need to fit my handicrafts into the room, but also my photo studio equipment and my office! Since Dale now works from home, I can no longer share office space with him. Let's just say things are tight.

To be honest, we think that most of the alcove (shown above with the boxes) will also eventually become permanent storage for some of my stash. Most likely the photo equipment and maybe fabric. But figuring that out is an evolution or 10 away from this now.

Today Dale and I completed a good job. We installed the shelves in my closet. This gives me quite a bit of storage for craft supplies, plus some room on the side for tall items like an ironing board and bolts of fabric. I like standing back and looking at all that gorgeous space, ready to fill.

But turn around, and this is the current cluttered state of the rest of the Studio. I've got a big job ahead of me!

(no sound)

Still, the progress does feel good. I'll take what I can get.

The Fog Comes In On Little Cat Feet

Eugene, Oregon sits at the confluence of the Willamette River and the McKenzie River. Along with many streams and wetlands - and a copious amount of rain - the air holds a lot of moisture. Our home is on the edge of wetlands. Before moving here, I'd been in the area mostly during Spring and Summer. Now as we near Winter, some of the area's other colors are being revealed to me.

It's been very foggy this week. This morning's view from my bedroom window revealed these ghostly shapes just east of the wetlands.



Colors revealed at this time of year are subtle and grayed. Nature feels cozy in her heavy fog blanket. Unearthing delicate variations of tone is an unexpected pleasure.

Turkey Soup

OK, so this isn't one of the more interesting posts I've ever written. I'm taking note for the sole reason that I'm proud of myself. Today I cooked some soup from scratch. It's the first meal I've made in this kitchen.

Dale and I were inspired by our local Albertson's. They have $5.00 meals in their deli. We've been eating a fair amount of them. But in among the prepared foods was some cooked and pieced turkey. We bought a tub along with a carrot, celery, onion, potato, and a bag of frozen veggies.

I started by pulling out the big soup pot, then dicing the veggies and meat. I softened the carrots, celery, and onion in peanut oil since it's the only oil in the house right now.



Then I added the diced potato in its water. After a half hour or so, in went the turkey and veggies.

Check this out. Our stove glows purple when the heat is on! Weird.

I still don't have staples in my cupboards. I had salt, pepper, and Emeril's Essence. Those are the only spices I brought to Oregon, so I used them all. The broth looked a little thin, so I made a roux from butter and flour to help thicken it.

For as simple a "recipe" as this was, it came out fairly tasty. A little bland, but some extra salt and pepper helped.

Mostly I'm proud of myself for my start in cooking here. Cooking is not one of my favorite activities, so that I was inspired by a few ingredients in the grocery store and followed through by completing the dish allows me to pat myself on the back.

Welcome Baskets

Now that we've lived here a week, we thought it was time to meet our neighbors. Dale had the chance to shake hands with our two next door neighbors, but I had not. We wanted to make it a little more formal. So we put together these fun welcome baskets, and went knocking on the doors of our four closest neighbors.

I drew some inspiration from Pinterest, then put my own spin on the ideas. I gathered the items and put them together, starting with a popcorn bucket from Dollar Tree as the base of the basket.

I found these blank notes that say "hello" in a bunch of funky colors. The message was right, but those colors! Blech. Wish I could have found cards in red & white ... or more like me, made some. But my Studio isn't set up yet for creative work, so we made do with what we could find.

Together we came up with what to write in the cards. Dale's the one with the great handwriting. (He used to be a graphic artist. Did you know that?)

Next I propped up a box of microwave popcorn in one corner.

And a candle in another. We bought the candles in Post Falls before we left. They smell heavenly of huckleberries. I bought candle holders, and wrapped them in the aromatic purple paper from Huckleberry Thicket. I tied the paper to the candle holder with silver Christmas tinsel. Then I nested the candle in some white tissue paper and snugged it into the candle holder. (Wish I'd taken a photo of that).

The final touch was the gift tag in the shape of a house ... red house with white trim to mimic the popcorn bucket.

I must say, it felt awfully good to make a creative project again. I've been missing this kind of handicraft!

We delivered the baskets one at a time. Both of our next door neighbors were home. We were invited inside to one and met the kids and dogs. Gosh, what nice people. The 9 year old daughter is learning to embroider! I told her we'd be good friends. The kids gave Dale and me a gift of handmade salt-dough Christmas ornaments. So sweet.

Our neighbors across the street weren't home. We did meet the teen at one home. The other neighbor was at work, but he has a "Ring" doorbell camera, so we got to wave and explain who we are to him over the speaker. We left the gift on the porch.

I love that we are starting off on good terms with our neighbors this way. We hope to build deep roots here.

Pink Sunset

Tonight's sunset brought to you through our kitchen window.

Can you believe that color? It's nearly fuchsia!

Sunset, December 2 Eugene Oregon

I doubt I'll ever tire of watching the sunset outside my Studio window. It's something I never saw when my Studio was in the windowless basement of a house in a gully.

It was a foggy foggy morning today which burned off into beautiful sunny weather. Now the fog is rising again to blanket the valley.

Click for larger image

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Methinks my blog will hold many a sunset over the coming years. Get ready.

Peek-a-boo Moose

On November 18, a couple moose took a walk in our neighborhood, through my back yard, and hopped the fence into the neighbor's back yard. I shared a couple of these photos on Facebook already, but Jeanne took some shots at a closer range than me. I'll let the photos speak for themselves.

Checking us out

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Walking the 'hood

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Playing Peek-a-boo from the neighbor's back yard

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Mama leads baby home

Bu-Bye & Hella-yes!

Due to Dale's persistent work, the Pod was cleared out yesterday. Today it left the building. Or the front of the house, anyway. Dale and I can now both park in the driveway. Hoh-yeah.



We got a couple new additions to the family today, too.They're not living and breathing, but they do crawl around the floors, upstairs and down. I'm incredibly grateful for these purring babes (and Black Friday sales) because now vacuuming will no longer exacerbate my back injury. We haven't named them yet. We'll have to think about that.

Also ... we got an offer on our Post Falls home. We'll have to think about that a bit, too.

What's For Dinner?

Well, THIS happened today.



Jodie spent the day with me and Dale. Her friend Jana helped Dale haul bookcases and boxes upstairs while Jodie cleaned my bathroom for me. Then we started figuring out how to set up the kitchen. It started with sticky notes on cabinets, guessing where pots, baking supplies, and food would go.

We opened one kitchen box just to get a jump start. Before we knew it, all the kitchen boxes were unpacked and items found new homes. We're not DONE-done, but we are done for now. If I have to cook a meal, I can do it now.

Dale is the bomb. He completely unloaded the Pod (truck) and it will be out of our driveway by tomorrow afternoon. There's much more to do, of course, but today felt like a BIG leap forward in getting settled.

My Lovely Birthday

Here's how the sun set on the end of my 61st trip around the it.



My daughter Jodie and her husband Ken cooked an excellent Thanksgiving dinner for me and Dale. For a first effort, they did a wonderful job! It was such a nice way to spend our first Thanksgiving in Oregon.

We had a chance to Skype in to Julie's family in Moscow, ID. Jeanne joined the Thanksgiving celebration there. Thank goodness for the technology that allows us to be in touch this way. We got to wish Jeanne a happy birthday, too.

Jodie knows me well. Instead of a birthday cake, she made this spectacular pumpkin chiffon pie ... and sent the leftovers home with me.




Thanks to Jodie for taking these pictures!

Remembering Summer

Guest blogger Jeanne here!

Waaaaay back in July, my mom and I went for a walk at the park. We'd taken her nice camera with us in case we found something we wanted to photograph for a blog post.

I'd used the camera before, but my mom decided to give me a refresher course on macro-photography. I found this interesting flower I decided to practice on.



But what's that in the corner? A tiny inchworm was crawling along a blade of grass!



It practically glowed in the bright sunlight as I zoomed in closer.



Time for your close-up! I love the way you can see all it's fuzzy little hairs!




Next time we go for a walk in the park together, it's probably going to be in a completely new state!

Crispy Around the Edges

No, not in Oregon ... this was from before I left Idaho.

Light and Shadow

One of the interesting things about moving into a new home for a photographer is watching how light and shadow play on the walls at different times of day. This is a morning photo taken from the second story near our foyer. There is light coming in from the east from a window to the right of this window which faces north.

The walls forming this corner are the exact same shade of grey, but they look quite different due to the light. The window casing is a stark bright white, but appears grey here. The tree's shadows seen through the window are dancing on the grey of our next door neighbor's house.

I love all these variations of tone. With the high ceilings and the many windows, the light changes in the house throughout the day. It's going to be fun to find these nuggets of beautiful lighting throughout the house and then use them to my advantage. In our Post Falls house, it was morning light in the dining room that I exploited, and the twilight light on the front porch. We have many more windows here, and both sunrise and sunset light to play with since we no longer live in a gully.

What great exploration I have ahead of me!

A Little Lovin'

Some would say this home's previous owner left us a little love note in the master bedroom.

Others would say there's a chink in the baseboard.

I prefer to think of it as the former.

Home!

We made it to Eugene, Oregon!

Anyone want to buy a beautiful house in Post Falls, Idaho?  😉

309 S Ridgewood Drive

Interior photos will be added on Tuesday.

It's Official

Our house is for sale. The sign went up in the yard today.

Dale and his brother are loading the last few items into our temporary storage area as I write this. We give his mom a hug in a few minutes. We head out of Post Falls tomorrow.

Bye-bye, house! Thank you for holding us in care for the last 26+ years!

Birthday at the Bay

We were freezing, so we turned around.

My daughter Jeanne and I took a day to play today after our weeks of hard work and cleaning. We started by heading out to the Cougar Bay Preserve for a hike. It's a place I wanted to visit before leaving the area. We found one geocache there, then started on a hike.

But it stopped being fun when we got too cold, so we turned around and went back into town for lunch, more geocaching, and a little shopping at local gift shops.

But the frost did make for some nice images. It was a lovely way to celebrate our mutual birthday -- one week early. It was hard to say goodbye to Jeanne at the end of the day. We're not sure when we'll see each other again.

Time Here is Waning

The sun is setting on my time in Post Falls. 

I'm feeling as wonderful about it as this image is beautiful.

900

Another milestone.

It's been a bit of a challenge to keep meditation up during this life change. The number of minutes each day has diminished, for sure. I'm looking forward to being in a place where I can resume my morning routine and increase my time in silence. In the mean time, my intention remains and a little meditation still happens every day.

Grandbaby Time with Annalee

Annie is nearly 7 months old and has learned quite a few new baby tricks since we last saw her.

She can crawl now, and then sit up like a pro from the crawling position. She also likes to tease Melody by trying to take Melody's balls.

Annie also eats some solid foods now. She's teething, so chewing on anything that fits in her mouth is a high priority.

Grandbaby Time with Melody

We went south to Moscow today to visit with my daughter Julie's family and cuddle those grandbabies one more time before we move. Her family is also on the cusp of moving. They were able to have the realtor show us their new home today. It's a beauty.

Melody helped out by measuring - a lot.

Then she showed us how the mirrored closet doors work downstairs.

Get Out the Popcorn

Doing my civic duty and watching the impeachment hearings.

Classic Game Pieces - Part 16

The final Clue game piece I uncovered is the rope. I like how this is the only plastic weapon in the game.

I sure do appreciate all the details that were put into the game piece designs.



The dagger and the lead pipe were nowhere to be found.