Bye-Bye 2011

You were a very good year!

Not always easy,

Not always peaceful,

Not without the occasional heartache...

But oh so good in all the ways that matter!

A Roasting Experiment

Today I cleaned out the refrigerator.

Since my summer trip to Italy, I've been into roasting vegetables.

So, I roasted up a huge cookie sheet of onions, a red pepper 

and several cloves of garlic that were languishing in the vegetable drawer,

and bagged them up in the freezer for use in future cooking.

Then, I spied the box of fresh spinach and 1/2 bag of shredded carrots,

wondering, hmmmmm...would that be good roasted?

So, I did!

 Here's the before...beautiful color, eh?

Then, here's the after...YUM! 

I highly recommend it.

Unfortunately, here's the after-that, as I was trying

to put the lid on the Tupperware of leavings.

It's not nearly as appetizing strewn across the kitchen floor.

Oh well...don't cry over spilled spinach!

Copy Cat

Grounded

Love is a temporary madness

It erupts like an earthquake and then subsides.

And when it subsides you have to make a decision.

You have to work out whether your roots have become

So entwined together that it is inconceivable

That you should ever part.

Because this is what love is.

Love is not breathlessness.

It is not excitement.

It is not promises of eternal passion.

That is just being "in love,"

Which any of us can convince ourselves we are.

Love itself is what is left over

When being in love has burned away.

This is both an art and a fortunate accident.

Your mother and I had it.

We had roots that grew towards each other underground,

And when all the pretty blossoms had fallen from our branches,

We found that we were one tree and not two.

Louis De Bernieres

Whirlwind Trip to Denver...

Karla and I will be heading to Denver a week from tomorrow

to celebrate our mutual birthday...
January 19th.

Stay tuned for adventure reports along the way!

Snappin'

I know I take way too many pictures.

(Says who?)

In fact, I've wondered if the day will come when I 

no longer reach for my camera, 

quite as often,

to capture the simple little moments of my life.

Like everything else in my life, this is a season,

and for whatever reason,

I am loving the "snap" of the camera that signals a moment

I might have otherwise missed.

Maybe for now my camera is just another set of eyes,

the ones that do not want to miss a single moment of this

amazing movie that is being shown day after day.

It just doesn't take much these days

to make my heart smile.

"Cheese!"

White Christmas Day

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Christmas Eve

 Farmer's Breakfast

 Butterflies & Snowflakes

Norman Rockwell's famous
Man with Pie

And then...

We celebrated 43 years with a movie,

The Descendants (excellent!),

and a lovely Italian dinner at Rain Uptown.

What a day!

And then...

 Santa's elves arrived to deliver and install our Christmas present,a big-screen TV. 

Those sweet elves are great about keeping us up to date with current technology. 

 Actually, we had to stage this scene,

since they were getting along so well during the installation phase,

something Rob and I confess is not our strong-suit.

 See!

Grateful giftees enjoying their super surprise!

And then...

Something got into me...perhaps all that cookie-baking...

and lo and behold, I made a pie!

(Rob took a picture, as we don't expect to see 

many of these in the near future.)

PINK

Rob has gone to the store for PINK ingredients.

It's a traditional dish at Mulkey holiday dinners.

You can see how "loved" the recipe is. 

It was one among many we received at a recipe shower in 1968.

Well, 43 years later, as of December 21st,

we're still married, and we're still making PINK.

Although the ingredients for both have remained mostly the same,

we've learned some tricks to making it much easier to prepare and serve.

Thank goodness!

Homemade, sort of...

 The one thing we didn't do while the boys were here

was make Christmas cookies.

So (yipeeeee!) I had to make them by myself.

I cheated and used the break-apart dough...so easy.

 Here are the personalized ones...

And I call these my Santa Fe Christmas cookies.

I was determined to use every squeeze out of those little icing tubes.

These actually could pass as kid-made cookies.

So ugly, they're cute.

I had fun!

Brotherly love

A Frosty Day

Customize your own photo album

Weather report...

43 years today!

And Rob is home. Aaah!

(We'll celebrate on Friday with dinner and a movie.)

Art School

 Caleb and I played Art School yesterday.

He set up the "art stations" 

as well as the "snack machine".

(Fruit Loops, Bliss dark chocolates, pretzels,

saltines, and sliced almonds gathered from the pantry.) 

What a clever kiddo...lots of fun!

Just in time...

Today was tree decorating day at Emmy's.  

Rather than getting out all of our Christmas decorations,
I decided to keep it simple this year.  

I gathered up lots of old "Little Zack" ornaments, 

plus some swirly star decorations Caleb and I made a few years ago  

and let the boys decorate the ficus tree. 

I asked Caleb for suggestions for decorating the tiny tree on the piano,  

and he suggested tiny ornaments, of course!

So I tied ribbon on some over-sized jacks 

the boys had been playing with and hung them on the tree.

THEN THE DOORBELL RANG 

and we were surprised with a box of delightful Christmas goodies
from my dear friend, Coco.
How could she have known?!  Enjoy...

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Fun Day!

 Starting with a gorgeous sunrise...

 meeting Marsha in Snyder for our annual Christmas lunch...

-

and lighting up the place!

Art Show in the Study-O

Surprise!

I love that when I bought this old chair and had it reupholstered,

I thought it was going to be a wonderful addition to an office 

I assumed I'd be working in for quite some time.

Well, I declare!

Looks like LIFE had another interior design plan for me.

Dear God, thank you for having plans

that I cannot even imagine!

Amen 

A Good Day!

Birthday Kiddos

December 10th

Sawyer Kris, Age 2

GG, Age 92