Christmas Around Here

The holidays are a bit more mellow for us this year than in the past.  No place of our own, not much money for gifts, and dinner is being postponed a few days due to family travel.  But the timing of job interviews and so on has allowed us to relax a bit, which is all I can ask for.

Ashley over at The Accidental Olympian posted some (AWESOME) photos of what Christmas looks like to her, and set up a little linky doo-dad for folks to share their images too.  The apartment doesn't look like Christmas at all (right now, it looks like a pharmacy exploded in here what with all the cold remedies and kleenex boxes laying around).  

A bowl of Clementines and holiday beer caps is about as festive as it gets up here!

But downstairs in the main house the holiday spirit is in full swing.

And outside is the winter wonderland usually seen in NE Ohio this time of year.

Gimme a minute to catch my breath...

It's been a helluva time these past few days - we made it from Ohio to Washington unscathed, and have been spending the last three days down in Oregon.  B had a final interview in Coquille and we took some time to drive around the area - from Coos Bay to Coquille to Myrtle Point to Bandon - and, well... I don't want to offend anyone who lives down there, but there were times when I was saying to B, "Paddle faster, I hear banjos!"  I grew up in the country, don't get me wrong, but the vibe I got in SW Oregon was a bit... erm... uncomfortable.  It's hard to explain.  (Then we learned that Deliverance was actually filmed down there, and it made a lot of sense.)  The funny thing is, we struck up a conversation with some guys we met in Bend yesterday and mentioned we'd been down in Coos Bay, and they immediately were like, "Oooooh, yeah those coasties are CRAZY" so we felt a bit validated.  Anyway, we had a good long talk about it in the car on the way to Bend and decided that B is going to pass on this job.  Not just because of the area, but the job itself would only pay $14/hour and would be so fricking stressful for him, dealing with  close-minded, set-in-their-ways locals.  Plus, I wouldn't be able to find a job for myself either unless I want to work at the corner Gas & Go or something.  So, it's back to the drawing board... but at least we're out west now.

We did, however, absolutely fall in love with a couple of areas.  First, Missoula.  We stopped there to visit B's brother on our way to Spokane, and we both immediately felt at home there.  Young, hipsterish/hippieish, outdoorsy, comfortable, just a great town.  Unfortunately a great town with limited possibilities for jobs, but still might work out.  Then yesterday we drove to Bend via Eugene/Springfield along the McKenzie River, and Oh.My.Gawd. is that river valley AWESOME.  It's on our list now too, along with Bend.  B would probably be able to get a job up at Mt. Bachelor pretty easily too - or at any ski resort, really.

So, yeah.  We got all sorts of worked up about something that was so hugely disappointing.  But we've had some fun along the way!

My traveling companions - The cats were somewhat easy to deal with, except when they got tired of each other.  Of course it took me until the last day to figure out the best way for them to travel - Gyro drugged and in his small crate, Lily not drugged and in the big crate.  If they both were in the big crate, Gyro always drugged and Lily either drugged or not, it inevitably led to flying fur and yowling.  I had a nervous breakdown somewhere in South Dakota and nearly threw them both into oncoming traffic, but it all turned out okay in the end.

Wind farm in Minnesota

Sunrise in South Dakota

The storm we drove through in Montana (rainbow!)

The Rockies

The scenery - flat, then hilly, then flat, then MOUNTAINS.  Some ugly bits in South Dakota and some nasty rain in Montana, but otherwise pretty interesting.

Then. finally, my brother's place north of Spokane.  Which is EXACTLY what we needed after that crazy trip.  That's the Pend Oreille River.  Yeah.  My brother just built a new house on his property there, so my mom lives in the little mobile home they were in during the build, and we're in the RV right now.  It's surprisingly comfortable.

Oh, did I mention we stopped in Missoula on the way?

SHOT SKI!

Last week's @dailyshoot

Jan. 10 - Silhouette

Jan. 11 - Favorite Color

Jan. 12 - Music

Jan. 13 - Staying Warm

Jan. 14 - Scale

Jan. 15 - Converging Lines

Jan. 16 - Discarded

This week's @dailyshoot

So earlier this week, the creative and sweet Hip Mama B posted on her blog about this photography project she was participating in called The Daily Shoot.  I've been trying to use my camera more often (I have a Canon Rebel XT, which is pretty basic but I like using it) so I checked it out & started following the project.  It's been a lot of fun, and pretty easy to do around the house.

I've been posting my pics on Flickr and then linking to it from Twitter and Facebook, but here's what I've done for the project this past week.

January 4 - Circle

January 5 - Reflections 

January 6 - Light

January 7 - Snow

January 8 - Glasses

January 9 - Newspaper

Wordless Wednesday: Winter Fruits

Fall at Fort Meigs

We took a walk at Fort Meigs Park today - the sun was out, and it was a bit chilly but we had a grand old time.  Jake bounded through the grass like the boisterous hound dog he is, and even got in the river for the first time.  I got some great photos of seed pods & other fall foliage, and a nice one of the "Regal Beagle" too.  (Okay he's not a Beagle but he sure can pose pretty when his nose isn't going into overdrive!)

I'm also thinking about trying out NaNoBloMo or NaBloPoMo or whatever the hell it's called - basically November is National Blog Posting Month and the idea is to write one post every day.  I'm not sure if I'll really be able to live up to that but I might give it a shot - so here's today's, more pics than words, but still a post.

Wordless Wednesday

Antiques, part 2

I re-shot the beaded jewelry this weekend, among other things.  We think the necklaces and the collar belonged to my Grandma Jones, and the beaded flowers were Grandma Meredith's.

Antiques, in more than one sense of the word...(kidding Mom!)

My mom visited this week, and rather than packing a suitcase across the country and paying $20 in fees, she shipped her things to me.  I unpacked and hung her clothes in the guest room closet, and found a package among her jammies.  I had asked her to look for a patchwork quilt that I'd started in the eighth grade, made from fabric scraps of dresses she'd made for me when I was little.  She'd found it for me, but she'd also found a few other treasures... some beautiful beaded jewelry that both of my grandmothers had made, and some letters from my dad to his parents from when he was young.  Unfortunately the photos I took the other evening turned out crappy due to artificial lighting and my stubbornness about not digging my tri-pod out of the closet.  So I'll add some artsy-fartsy pics soon when I get over myself.

Mom had never been to Chicago, and neither had my mother-in-law, so we took the train on Friday morning and stayed until Saturday evening.  It rained and was windy (duh...) but we still had a good time.  Of course when I go to Chicago on my own I walk everywhere, and had hoped to do the same on this trip... but I failed to take into account the fact that my mom is... er... not as energetic as she used to be.  I had a hard time slowing my pace down so I didn't leave her in the dust, abandoned somewhere on Michigan Ave., and my plans for walking up into River North had to be changed to sticking to the Loop.  But we still had a great time and enjoyed ourselves at the Art Institute, Giordano's, and Millennium Park.

[caption id="attachment_237" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Mom & I at "The Bean""][/caption]

These are a few...

The Pioneer Woman does photo assignments on Flickr, and today she referred to I Heart Faces for more weekly assignments.  I'm excited to start doing these (using NEW photos, not just archived ones) to keep the creative juices flowing and get some use out of my fancy SLR!  (Although this first project is using archived photos.)

So this week's assignment on I Heart Faces is "My Favorite Things." It's ironic, every time I think about having my own shop/studio, I think about naming it this even though I've never seen The Sound of Music.  But I remember having a record with that song on it when I was little, which I loved.



My husband - Sappy, I know, but he's one of my favorite people EVER.  It doesn't matter what we're doing (or not doing for that matter), he makes me smile, laugh, roll my eyes, grimace, hide my face... but most of all he makes me feel good.



Gardening - I don't always have the best luck with my plants (poppies that took over the world & drowned coreopsis...) but I like getting out in the warm spring sun, digging in the dirt and making things pretty.







My Pets - I love having fur-babies to cuddle and snuggle and play with, despite how exasperating they can sometimes be.

Well, it's a start... and of course there are more things that I love, I just don't have any good photos of them on-hand.