it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Better late than never. We are finally getting some snow. It is so beautiful I could sit and drink tea and watch it falling for the whole day. I'll have to settle for an hour. There are too many chores to do, including (later today) shoveling this snow so I can take one kid to a play date and then pick up another kid to come to our house for the same. In the meantime, before I start sorting laundry, I will listen to Joshua Bell play Tchaikovsky's Meditation in D Major number 1.

After taking a break to go scold the kids for wrecking my bliss, that is. They are downstairs playing Kirby's Epic Yarn on the Wii (AGAIN) and one of them (ahem, the youngest) is not such a good team player. That's okay, I will now turn again to the window and let the view do its work. Ah, so lovely. You know, I think one of my favorite things about snow is its cushiony silence. A rare treat around here.

pms?

I've been a bit verklempt today. Sugarbear brought me to the edge of tears with her superlative praise of the flapjacks I cooked for brunch. She called them "Outstandingly goody-awesome ".

Then I read an excerpt from Jacques Pepin's memoir. (Scroll down that page to get to the excerpt.) His nostalgic descriptions of childhood moments, some difficult and some sweet, caught me off guard. His affection for his still-living! mother ("beautiful, effervescent"), father and brothers is so apparent.   France during a world war? Wonderful food? Iconic and adorable chef? This book seems right up my alley.

Finally this afternoon, while I was cooking Bolognese sauce, I heard this wonderful story on PRI's The World. Soul Call is downloading now. Apparently I needed to answer that call. 

my uke!

I also got a music book to go with it. Jumpin' Jim's '60's uke-in: 25 really groovy songs arranged for ukulele. Awesomeness!

Looking forward to looking back

Wake up call this morning was at about 5:45am. I was up late wrapping packages and because the mr. Man has a cold and was up & down a lot. Thus I had been looking forward to sleeping until a civilized 6:30 or so. Didn't happen. One coughing, over-excited child + the excitement of visiting in-laws + a hacking cough = "Why is everyone still asleep?". When the child exits her room to get a drink of water or visit the lav, the dog wakes up. That is my signal to hurry him outdoors before he can run downstairs and 1. wake my brother-in-law and 2. evacuate his bowels (which happens every morning IMMEDIATELY NO COFFEE REQUIRED)

Today means cooking (pot roast, chocolate gingerbread cookies, normal, people-shaped gingerbread people), more gift-wrapping, and maybe even a nap, provided I can get them all out of the house.

Fingers crossed.

Mumford and Sons - Roll Away Your Stone

These lads look like fun. I wish I could see them live.

Hey, weather gods of Colorado's front range:

If you are determined to inflict cloudy skies upon us daily, could you at least throw some snow our way?
Please?

Jimmy Fallon - Born to Run - Emmys Opening Sketch - 2010 - Glee - Emmy Awards

Nellie McKay: "Mother of Pearl" and "If I Had You"

I just love her. AND...I really, really want a ukulele for christmas.

makeover

Yesterday, in an effort to make space for the x-mas tree, we completely re-arranged the living room furniture. The new layout has caused me to fall in love with my house all over again. Funny how that can happen, just by moving the same old things around. It's like a haircut for your house.

The bonus/punitive part of this exercise is getting to/being forced to vacuum and dust in places we haven't seen in 3 years. I found a piece of cat food. So yeah, it's been awhile.

deep thoughts

Sugarbear asked what it feels like to die. I said I don't know. No one can tell you. Then she said "When you are dying, you should stop dying for a second, tell me how it feels, then finish dying".