First, a couple more gift-time photos--new hats for Rachel and Dylan.
Two and a half guidelines that we try to follow for Christmas day are these: no traveling and no cooking (and we have "Christmas Story" going on in the background during some part of the day--that's the "half"). Yes, there's some food prep (like fresh guacamole). And some minor clean-up. But no big Christmas Dinner. 
No spending big chunks of time in front of a stove or sink. I usually try to prepare some finger foods in the days before and have assembly-only type meals ready to go on Christmas. Yes, there are only four of us, so it's easy to do. But I love that we can just be lazy and spontaneous that day.
This is a photo of one of our meals in progress. Sometimes we sit down. Sometimes we don't. We're just grazers, I guess. That's the way we like it.
There was just a bit "work" going on in the afternoon. Dylan was scheduled to fly to Colorado on the 26th to be with Emi's family. Her parents have cabin at Breckenridge; Dylan has spent time there before. He had tried, prior to driving out to see us Christmas Eve, to finish a name plaque he had carved for the cabin, but there just hadn't been time and his giant router machine was acting up. So, in the afternoon, he and I took the unfinished piece out to the shop and, with some of the tools we have and materials he'd brought with him, we were able to get it done. I should have snapped a photo, forgot.
Here's a picture of the three of us as we're splitting up early afternoon on Saturday. Tom's taking the photo. Rachel had to get back to SF because Mike was arriving the following morning from Chicago. We had to get Dylan to the airport in Reno. Our only concern had been that there were storms coming in and Donner Pass (over which we have to drive) is always tricky in the winter. 
As it turned out, we had time to drop him off (eventual arr. in Denver: 1am), have a tasty dinner at Fresh Mex (while we waited to see if Dylan's reroute was going to work) and get back to the pass before chains were required. Here's a shot I snapped out the window on the way back over Donner, Nevada in the rearview.
It all went by quickly, but we'd had a fun Christmas. We hope you did too!
On Dec. 23, Wed., I finished decorating the tree. Today, Dec. 30, Wed., I'll undecorate it. In between, I took these pictures:
Dylan had so much shop work to do in San Francisco, it was all he could do to get away mid-afternoon Christmas Eve to drive out with Rachel to our house. In the end, however, they arrived in plenty of time to enjoy the two kinds of cheese fondue I'd made for dinner. 
The last several years, our tradition has been to do some sort of "central cooking pot" meal--the choice for most recent years being asian hot pot, which is broth-based. They are lovely, slow kinds of meals to share.
In fact, the nearly-two days we had together were nice and lazy, for the most part. Eye of the hurricane. We mostly just eat, talk and laugh at Dylan. One example of Dylanstuff we find amusing is illustrated here. That would be he at the computer on Christmas morning, having gotten up a half-hour or so ahead of Rachel around 9:30.
It gave him just enough time to do all his Christmas shopping for her online. He'd given it some good thought, but hadn't quite managed the act of, well, doing it. A new standard for "last minute", but, a very short time later, well-appreciated.
Gifts were fun, as always! Rachel came through (again) with great choices of clothing, including shirts, shoes (!) and slippers for us. She's really the only one we trust with that kind of responsibility. We don't know where it came from, but she has an uncanny knack for choosing clothing for people. And books. Well, and everything else, too, come to think. Dylan got us an amazing e-reader, which is already getting lots of use. I mentioned that I had made some personalized tote bags for some people, and Rachel is seen here posing with hers (and some lovely ribbon-hair). Dylan is working out some serious ninja moves (so common on the snowboard slopes) in his new outerwear.
Next post: more Christmas...
From Dad and Jean's, we drove north to La Verne, a little community near Pomona east of LA. Tom's mom lives there. I didn't take any photos, but we stayed there and ate cookies for lunch awhile before we all left for Joy and Marcus's house in Monrovia. Monrovia is a very cute town set against the San Gabriel Mtns. full of wonderful craftsman homes. We enjoy the hospitality of the Stenzels often for the larger family gatherings.
It was an extraordinarily clear and beautiful day! We've driven through at times when the mountains might as well be mythical, for all one could see of them.
There, of course, their house decorated to a fare-thee-well (did I mention our tree didn't even have lights on, yet?), was more great food and rather a lot more activity. Starting from Lisa's oldest, Ben, who's in his upper teens, somewhere, down to Gracie and Griffin, each four-ish, there were 6 boys and one girl comprising the youngest generation. Lisa has three boys (Ben, Luke, Joel), Joy and Marcus, three boys (Wesley, Colby, Griffin), and Eric and Rachel T., one girl (Grace, with one more girl on the way in February, or around there).
Jeremy and Jacob, Ken's boys, and Christina, Jeremy's girlfriend, were there, as well. That's the three of them sitting with Mom, there, in the first photo.
Then, in the next picture, you can see a table chat with Tom, Eric, Dick and Ben, followed by a kitchen shot of Joy in the foreground organizing dinner logistics, assisted by Rachel T. After dinner, the big activity centered around the new Wii game of Beatles Rock Band taking place in the next room. Yours truly had to join in on the harmony parts a couple of times. Hey, these songs are in my DNA! I don't need Rock Band to tell me that I got an excellent score! Here's a cute pic of Gracie, Griffin (a little more "Rolling-Stones"), Colby, Luke, Joel and Wesley learning the essential classics of the Beatles canon. Warmed my heart to see it. (by the by, you don't see Diana or Marcus in any photos because it turns out I didn't have any with their eyes open. I'll do better next time!)
The Stenzels kindly offered the use of their guest room that evening and we gladly accepted. So comfy! Next morning, after a quick jump on the trampoline, we went into the kitchen to find amazing waffles (made on the new, Alton-Brown-recommended waffle maker) waiting for us! Sheesh! Marcus, master kitchen elf, had made just lovely, brown, crunchy, warm waffles and we just melted into the chairs and scarfed 'em right down along with the fresh fruit Joy had cut up (with great style, I must say!).
Wow. Hard to leave. But, even more glad for stretchy clothes, we waddled out to the car for the long drive north, vowing not to eat again before, say, the end of time. Yet, somehow, somewhere along the way, we did stop for something-or-other. Can't remember what. We arrived home just as a storm rolled in (we watched it creeping up behind us as we drove up the hill from Sacramento) and unloaded the car as the first drops fell.
We so enjoyed the visits with everyone! Conspicuously absent were our kids. Dylan had a crazy-busy week of woodworking and couldn't peel himself away. Rachel was also working and trying to beat down one of her signature colds. We'll work out other times of year to get everyone together again. From the two of us, though, deep thanks to everyone for the fun, food and hospitality! The drive is longer, these days, but always worth it.
Next, our merry little Christmas at home...
I haven't spent too much time in front of the computer, of late, but it's very quiet and rainy here, at the moment, so the next, oh, three entries will be a quick pictorial catch-up of our Christmas fun...
Weekend before Christmas found us driving southbound on I-5 Friday afternoon. Our first destination was San Marcos (north San Diego County) to visit with Dad and Jean, which meant getting through LA on the Friday afternoon prior to Christmas week. We knew it wouldn't be pretty. It wasn't. Having left a bit after 8am, we slogged through traffic, rarely moving faster than 20mph from Burbank to Santa Ana.
Was it 6 or 7pm when we rolled up, looking like pretzels? I can't remember, but after greeting Dad, Jean, Abby (cute fluffy small doggy) and Shu-shu (cute unfluffy even smaller doggy), we were whisked off to Encinitas/Leucadia/Or-Somewhere-Near-There, for a fabulous meal at the the amazing museum (masquerading as a home) of Fran and Don Diehl--long-time dear friends of Jean and Dad whom we have had the pleasure of knowing for quite some time, as well. Don and Fran travel a lot. Everywhere. They buy such interesting art and keepsakes of all those travels and Don takes the gorgeous photos. We're not talking t-shirts and casual snapshots, here.
Their lovely home is arranged and lit to display all these wonderful things. In addition, somehow they managed to add a thick layer of Christmas over the top--enough to challenge the entire inventory of most Christmas shops--that would leave Santa light-headed (of course, I forgot the camera!). How much time to set up (and take down)? No one was willing to say, exactly...Of course, our tree wasn't even decorated, yet.
After a fun visit and too much excellent food (first overkill of the season), we stayed the night at Dad's and hung around in the morning to chat and cuddle animals (oh, and eat some more). Near Jean's feet in the photo, you can see a tote that I made for her (check out the cooking theme). I made some others(different themes), that I'll probably post later. Other photos are: Dad, Tom and Shu-shu, Shu-shu and Tom.
So, glad to have brought stretchy clothing, we departed with a fa-la-la, Dad and Jean planning to drive up our way in the near future. Next stop was La Verne...
Distinguishing between Victorian Christmas, which is a street fair held in Nevada City most Wednesday nights and two Sunday afternoons in December and Cornish Christmas, which occurs in Grass Valley (a stone's throw away) on Friday nights between Thanksgiving and Christmas, is a key question on the Nevada County Official-Citizen Exam. Of course, they're nearly identical, just like the towns (I'm still confusing certain stores as being in one or the other). Grass Valley and Nevada City are gentle rivals and, though they do have a few distinquishing events, most of their street fairs throughout the year shadow each other. So, instead of Christmas Street Fair One and Christmas Street Fair Two (or "Also"), we have Cornish and Victorian (studying to be "Dickensian" in the future perhaps--I'm sure that will rock our world).
That said, we love going to all of them, almost no matter what the weather is up to. This year, however, having been out of town or singing with the chorus, we've missed the first couple of each. So, it was about time that we hit Nevada City night before last for the Victorian edition.
It was chilly. About 25, I think. But festive! The chestnuts-roasting-on-an-open-fire guy was there (as he always is for Cornish, as well). He has a chestnut tree in his yard, and for years he has harvested bushels of of the nuts. Then, after carefully sorting them, he builds a big fire in the street, roasting and distributing chestnuts to anyone who wants one for free. It's a poor photo, but you might be able to see him giving his chestnut-tutorial to a newbie (he's the beard). Chestnuts are, IMHO, overrated as a tasty snack, but I totally appreciate his charitable spirit, not to mention the hot fire on a cold night.
Then, there's Christmas-tree Lady, as usual. She passes out candy. I think I included a shot of her last year, but this one's better.
Otherwise, there's a brass ensemble (Salvation Army), Victorian-garbed carolers (warmest costume prize), a men's barbershop group in Santa hats (singing that old Christmas standard, "Hello, MaryLou"), and various and sundry harpists, violin duets and guitar players. How they make their fingers work in the cold, I can't explain. The music is all quite lovely, of course, and complements the aromas from the booths of hot cider, crepes, kettle corn, and tamales.
As always, under the canopies, one finds the usual array of fancy soaps (again with the soap!!) and candles for sale (required). A little more unusual would be the guy blowing glass ornaments with his torch, the hand-carved-big-rocks guy (the set-up for that one must be no fun) and the spiritual-crystals lady (it IS Nevada City, after all). And, where else can you see giant rusty mining equipment all decked out in colored lights?
The trip from and back to our parked car on the snowy, icy road and walks is a bit treacherous, I must say. Along with the chill, not for the faint of heart or weak of knees. We look carefully for certain light reflections on the ground in the dark (avoid shiny), or hold on to parked cars as we inch along. No worries in the downtowns, themselves, but there are no flat surfaces anywhere around here, so frozen ground is always an adventure.
Tonight is Cornish Christmas (where, now? This is a pop quiz), but I think we've decided that rain is less fun than snow and cold. It's been raining all day (and will continue for a few more days, we hear). However, the festive singing and the selling and the eating will happen on schedule. Maybe we'll get our Cornish on next (alas, the last) week. It's possible I might cave in and buy some fancy soap (alright, alright, already)...
...fifteen degrees was the temp when I walked to get the paper/mail this morning. Very brisk. It's the coldest since we moved here 2 1/2 years ago. Keeps the snow looking nice and fresh and, with my Yak Trax (studs I strap on to my snow boots), there were no worries about slipping on the ice. We'll see, but it might not get past 32 today. Well, that's about all I have to say about that...
So, I thought I'd post a few photos of some artsy stuff I was working on a couple of weeks ago.
When I first saw our future house on the internet from San Diego, I was intrigued by the architecture and the comment in the realtor's notes that it was designed to resemble a stamp mill at a gold mine (this being gold country, after all). At the time I didn't get it and wondered what sort of stamps. Well, not postage, for sure. But what? Google to the rescue. It was usually the largest building in the mill/town housing a phalanx of huge iron rods mounted on cams turned by water power to crush the ore into powder as it was conveyed on belts underneath to better extract the gold. They were big-time noisy and ran 24/7 (the one at the Empire Mine in Grass Valley housed 100 stamps).
Stamp mills had a certain look about them (slanted roof, side of a hill) because the belts moved the ore downhill. So when I mention the architectural theme to visitors, most have the same blank look about a stamp mill that I had. So I thought I'd better draw a picture. And here it is. This is from a photo I found of the stamp mill at Bodie, CA, a cool ghost town about 75 miles SE of Lake Tahoe near the Nevada border. I've hung it near the front door.
Click to enlarge.
Next is another of the quotes I decided to write out. I love Mark Twain's humor. And I think fake nose and glasses are always funny.
And finally, for now, 
I've puzzled as to what kind of hat rack/coat peg to put near our front door and I had an idea. We have lots of manzanita around and I'm crazy about the bark and the twisty forms of the branches. A big one fell over in a snow storm last Christmas time and I had Tom help me haul it into the shop where it's been drying out. 
When Tom was away for a few days recently, I went out and cut it down a bit and then sprayed it with some varnish. Voila! A hat/coat rack! It fits just right in the entry way. I have some plans for a little table nearby, too...
I have grown dependent. Working (or not) from home as we do, many of our connections with the outside world occur by phone or computer, which is wonderful. I love it, really. But now that I have been a part of the Music in the Mountains Festival Chorale for a little more than a year, I find that my facing a break from the group and the music for a couple of months, is more difficult than I would have predicted before I joined.
Our last concert of the season was yesterday, so we must let everyone have a bit of a rest, now, I suppose (especially after five days straight). During the season, I love having the music bouncing around in my brain all week. I enjoy the challenge of the difficult pieces and the amazing variety of music chosen for us. Almost all of it is new to me. In a year and a half, we've performed Beethoven, Mendelssohn and Brahms is coming up soon. There has been contemporary high church to Christmas carols. Modern dissonant composition to opera choruses. We've sung in Latin, German, Hebrew and Italian-a lot of Italian.
The Music in the Mountains organization includes an orchestra, chorus and auxiliary group and has been active (beginning with the chorus), year-round for 30 years. It was, for most of that time, under the direction of the founding conductor, who retired mid-08, just before I joined up in the fall. He, among others, had set the bar very high for a rural music organization. The chorus is now under the direction of Ryan Murray, and the artistic director/orchestra conductor, brand-new to us since summer, is Gregory Vajda (Hungarian). Both are young and brilliant and fun. Ryan, pictured here as I snapped it after yesterday's performance, is 24. Is that crazy?
Besides the music, the people are great. They're interesting folks, fun to be with and also terrific musicians. Some quite amazing, indeed. I had only a few minutes to click three or four shots of the chorus during intermission yesterday, Tom having been told on Friday (the night he attended) that he couldn't use his camera while we were singing. I think we're pretty cute in our black outfits. Especially fellow tenors David and Fred, seen here in their tuxes and discussing, I don't know, B flat, or something.
One other things about it is, that it is a place where I can go that has creative energy and momentum that I don't provide. I just show up and happily go along with the flow. I love that. Just for a change, since I'm working every day to generate my own flow, which is wonderful, but difficult sometimes.
So, I'm addicted. February 3rd seems a long time from now. But it isn't. I plan to learn all the German lyrics to the Brahms Liebeslieder before we meet again, but I have a feeling that along about the end of January, I'll wonder how the time went so fast and I learned so little of it. That part's predictable.
(ps. I've included a photo of the gorgeous roses brought to me by our fabulous neighbors, Lorri and Scott the night they came to the concert with Tom--is that the coolest, or what?!)
We love weather you can see. It's one of the reasons we moved here.
Today, we woke up to about 14 inches of visible weather on the ground and in the trees, and, well... We knew there'd be something to show for the cold front that passed through these parts the last couple of days, but I, for one, certainly didn't expect this much snow so early in the season.
Yesterday morning, we saw the first falling snow of the season in the form of those little styrofoam beads that stuff bean bags. I believed it to be all we would get from this first storm of several that were forecast for this week. A half inch, if that. Then, upon walking out of the building around four pm after performing our last of three Christmas concerts, actual flakes were coming down. Exactly like last year...
Last year, as we were singing the last concert of the series (a week later than this year's), serious snow began to fall. It was a perfect backdrop for the music swimming in my head as I drove home, sad that it was over, but glad to have been a part of something so beautiful. On one of many twisty parts of a country road near home, I was enjoying it all a little too much and was going about 5 mph too fast to take one particular curve and hit--a well-placed guard rail (the only one along the entire length of the road) which bounced me right back onto the road and on my way. Our little Sube (as well as my pride) still bears the evidence.
This year under nearly identical circumstances, I chugged on home, feeling the same sad/glad way as before, but traveling a little bit slower (giving a little glance in the direction of that guardrail as I passed by--ha!) and arriving in tact.
By morning, we had these amazing scenes! I walked my usual 3/4 mile to the main road to pick up the paper, but the tubes were empty. Still, a wonderful walk, right?! One casualty of this storm is that, since the snow levels were so low (Sacramento!), my rehearsal tonight and performance tomorrow night of the Messiah with the Auburn Symphony (which is 1000-1500 lower than we are here) was, sadly, canceled. Several of us from the chorale up here sang with them last year and were planning the same this year, as well. But there's no power at the concert facility and the roads from here to there are still dangerous.
Beyond that, though, a great thing about this storm is that, and this is very unusual, we have maintained internet, satellite and power (light, heat and water) uninterrupted. Sweet!
So, I'm not sure what's coming next (and I like it that way).
The photos are: our house, the front patio, the mailboxes and newspaper tubes, a view from the back deck and part of the driveway.
Rachel was in Chicago with Mike for Thanksgiving and Dylan had so much work to do, that he decided he shouldn't take the time to go over the river and through the woods, etc., to our house for a meal. So we took it to him.
It's rather liberating to wake up on Thanksgiving morning and remember that the whole meal is already done because I'd prepared it the day before. It's the one day a year that I cook meat, so there's always a bit of squish in the timing and I love just letting each part of the whole be done when it wants to be done. Turkey done at 2. Potatoes done at 5:30. No problem.
After battling a bit of holiday traffic, we arrived at Dylan's shop a little after one to pick him up, then went to his place where I threw the rolls in the oven (having risen overnight) as I heated everything else in the little microwave. One of Dylan's housemates, Stephanos, joined us for dinner. He's here on a student visa from Greece (this is his fourth year) and is studying in the industrial design program at San Francisco Something-I-Can't-Remember. His background doesn't include Thanksgiving, per se. Our celebration, though smaller than some, did however include all the usual traditions, including ignoring the green food at dinner and vegging in front of football games. You'd have thought he'd been doing it all his life.
Dinner went fine. There's an unusual glassed-in greenhouse structure on the deck in back and we enjoyed the view of the city at sunset (pictured) as we ate inside it, all toasty warm (also pictured).
Friday and Saturday were spent at Dylan's shop. They're at full capacity, now, and Dylan had just begun to build a huge shelf around two sides of the main work room when we'd picked him up the day before. 
It was needed in order to create more space on the floor for projects and consists of lengthwise half-sheets of 1 1/4" plywood supported by steel support bars that are screwed into either concrete or 1/4-inch steel. My job was to help Dylan, while Tom went upstairs to Dylan's office to continue to work on his website (see below) and set up a more efficient email-response system for the business.
So that's what we did. It turned out great. We learned a lot about drilling into steel over and over, for one thing. One whole wall was unable to support anything like shelving, so we hung those support bars from overhead steel by means of lengths of allthread (rods threaded the entire length). For every problem (and there were a few), Dylan figured out an elegant solution, usually involving some cool tool or other they have sitting around. Now I'll know what to do next time I'm asked to help out with, I don't know, the building of a new football stadium somewhere.
I'm so happy to report that Dylan's business is beginning to gather some real steam. He has several orders, more recognition from design mags and blogs and retail outlets and quite a bit of activity on the website. Here, you can be one of the site visitors, if you haven't checked it out in awhile http://www.dylangold.com . Tom has been working very hard on all the computer-based tooling to make it all flow smoothly and Dylan continues to design amazing furniture.
So, we had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend! Hope you did, too!
It's probably a predictable activity of the practitioners, but calligraphers are continually making art from the alphabet. No actual words, just the letters. We might use anywhere from one to all twenty-six (and our favorite, the ampersand--so lovely, those ampersands!) to make a composition. I've seen hundreds of these pieces and many are truly beautiful/interesting/inspiring and worthy of very expensive framing!
I am a calligrapher. However, to date, my alphabet-play has never made it past the practice paper. A few weeks ago, I figured that it was high time to organize some letters into various formations on good paper as a self-imposed exercise. I decided to work small (about 8"x 8" image area) and to make several pieces of various styles, colors and media to be displayed as one arrangement. Nine pieces seemed a good number.
There really is no limit to the choices to be made and I am just the worst decision-maker. I could have been paralyzed for months! But, somehow, here they are. It was fun, and I'm sure that this isn't the end of it. Of the numerous blank walls on which to display this little business, I decided to put them in the entryway near the front door.
So, here's the overview shot, then there's a closer shot of each piece, to be continued in the next post. See what you think. What I think is that, in this case, $6.99 (the cheapest I could find) was plenty to spend on each frame.
The first enlargement is freestyle, asian-sort-of look.
The second is a treatment of the blackletter (sometimes called "old english" or "gothic"). I used gold paint behind the capital letter, which is technically in a "versal" style typically used with blackletter in medieval manuscripts. By the by, though I didn't use real gold in this case, the use of real gold and it's reflective qualities is the reason those old manuscripts are called "illuminated".
The next one is an informal italic with white ink on black paper written with a "folded" nib--a shaped piece of metal folded to hold ink. Love this nib!
The last on this page is a square arrangement of freestyle italic lower case surrounding freestyle Roman caps on a background of color made with pastels.
Continued...
No spending big chunks of time in front of a stove or sink. I usually try to prepare some finger foods in the days before and have assembly-only type meals ready to go on Christmas. Yes, there are only four of us, so it's easy to do. But I love that we can just be lazy and spontaneous that day.
