thoughts

november 9

~ tuesday42 ~ Leave a comment

396 years ago today, the Mayflower spotted land.

This morning, I feel afraid. My initial instinct is to turn inward. To focus on like-minded friends and family; to spend more time in books, in nature; to huddle up and wait for the next four years to pass. But that, of course, is no solution. If there’s anything to learn from this day, it’s that we don’t know our neighbors or ourselves as well as we might think we do.

110 years ago today, Teddy Roosevelt was the first U.S. president to visit another country.

What must now be done is this: we have to find our common humanity. We have to focus on our communities and build strength and love and caring in those places. We have to identify and cultivate the values we share with those around us and continue to fight against racism, misogyny, and hate. We have to challenge one another to be accountable for our words and actions. Most necessary of all, we have to protect and hold dear those most endangered by our government and our world: people of color, people of limited ability, LGBTQ friends, women and children.This is nothing new, but the stakes feel higher today.

92 years ago today, Miriam Ferguson became the first elected female governor.

Though we very often don’t live up to it, the United States I believe in is a place of great prosperity and ingenuity and welcome. A place where there is enough room, both physically and emotionally, for people who are as different from one another as the landscape of Arizona is different from that of Maine. But the United States is also a place of enormous fear and hurt and shame where many innocent bodies are buried, where the realities of an impoverished populous in both rural and urban areas are glossed over, where there are more people incarcerated than any other nation in the world (a number equivalent to nearly the whole population of Houston, Texas), where our lives — the food we eat, the water we drink, the air we breathe — are infiltrated by the interests of corporations, where almost 70% of people have less than $1000 in savings, where we cannot collectively and confidently say the words “Black Lives Matter”. All of these realities must be confronted in figuring out what kind of country we want to live in. And we have to do it together.

40 years ago today, the UN General Assembly condemned apartheid in South Africa.

This November 9, we elected Donald J. Trump to become the 45th President of the United States. But these facts about our country would have been true regardless of who was elected to be our president; they are issues of human rights and morality. We all deserve to live in a safer, cleaner, more just and welcoming nation, and we’re the only ones who have the power to build that space. And so, on to November 10.

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book club calendar

~ tuesday42 ~ Leave a comment

I really love a good book club. So much so that somehow, over the course of the past year, I have involved myself in not one, not two, but THREE of them. You don’t have to be particularly bright to realize that three book clubs is way too many book clubs and fortunately for the sake of my sanity, I’ve now whittled it down to about 1.5 book clubs. Which is probably still too many. But for now, this will have to do.

One interesting thing about these book clubs is that none of them have happened in person. I’ve spent the last year doing a lot of moving around and thus, inconveniently, the people I love to read with have not been near me. No monthly dinner party book chats shared with a glass of wine happening over here.

But fear not, because the brilliant and highly literate Tuesday has come up with the perfect and most aesthetically pleasing solution for a long distance book club in the form of my Christmas present last year: A book club calendar. AKA the gift that keeps on giving.

Last November, Tuesday and I created a list of six books we each wanted to read in 2016 and she compiled them into a beautiful calendar with quotes from the books and seasonally appropriate images. Each month (sometimes twice per month if we’re really on top of it) we have a phone call to discuss the book and it’s such a fun and special time to share ideas and to stay caught up, both on our reading and our friendship.

Five months in, I have to say it’s one our better decisions of the year. Though there have been times where I especially have gotten really behind on the reading, it’s been such a beautiful experience. Everyone should make one of these — highly recommend.

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Here’s what we’re reading this year:

  • January – The Adventures of Augie March, Saul Bellow
  • February – Notes from No Man’s Land, Eula Biss
  • March – Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston
  • April – The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison
  • May – Ishmael, Daniel Quinn
  • June – The Warmth of Other Suns, Isabel Wilkerson
  • July – A Widow’s Story, Joyce Carol Oates
  • August -Purity, Jonathan Franzen
  • September – Truth and Beauty, Ann Patchett
  • October – Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides
  • November – Slouching Towards Bethlehem, Joan Didion
  • December – The House of Spirits, Isabel Allende

on creativity

~ tuesday42 ~ 1 Comment

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I grew up strongly believing that I was not an artistic person. Through grade school art class I came to understand, albeit falsely, that the creative kids were those who drew images of families that resembled something near to actual humans. Mine were lines connected to other lines with squiggles for hair. From this realization forward, I tried to avoid situations in which I had to physically make anything that might be judged on its pleasing or not-so-pleasing aesthetic. Some of this sidestepping almost certainly came from a fear of criticism, but it also came from entirely convincing myself that I did not enjoy making things. I’ve always liked to sing and took to cooking in late adolescence, but anything that my teenage brain classified as art? No, thank you. I wasn’t good at it and therefore I didn’t like it.

As I’ve grown older, I’ve become less firm in my self-classification as “uncreative”, though I still wouldn’t jump to the term “artistic” or any of its synonyms if asked for five words that describe me. I’ve also become vastly more willing to participate — and even to find enjoyment — in activities that I’m not immediately good at.

What might have been the last necessary push toward action in my years-long ruminations on creativity and my relationship with it was reading Elizabeth Gilbert’s Big Magic while I was in Hawai’i. I am a Gilbert fan (and not because of Eat, Pray, Love in case you were wondering; read her fiction and I think you will understand my fondness) and when her most recent title came out, despite my initial uncertainty on the topic and fear that it might be a bit too woo-woo for me, I picked it up at the airport. It’s been a number of months since I read Big Magic, but as I remember it, the mantra of the book is that each and every person alive is innately creative. It isn’t a trait that only a select few posses, but a function essential to the human spirit.

Gilbert writes, “Are you considering become a creative person? Too late, you already are one. To even call somebody “a creative person” is almost laughably redundant; creativity is the hallmark of our species. We have the sense for it; we have the curiosity for it; we have the opposable thumbs for it; we have the rhythm for it; we have the language and the excitement and the innate connection to divinity for it. If you’re alive, you’re a creative person. You and I and everyone you know are descended from tens of thousands of years of makers. Decorators, tinkerers, storytellers, dancers, explorers, fiddlers, drummers, builders, growers, problem-solvers, and embellishers–these are our common ancestors.”

When I arrived back to the mainland in January, I started taking a pottery class. My first pieces weren’t anything to write home about, but I couldn’t believe how good it felt to have my hands around the clay. The class time was scheduled for an hour and a half each week, and I ended up purchasing an additional hour. The time felt sacred and meditative and it was so fun to be surrounded by others of all ages and skill levels who have chosen to prioritize creating. As the weeks passed, it came as a great surprise to me that I too was soon able to make things! This afternoon, as I dirtied my hands planting a succulent in a pot that I’d dirtied my hands throwing, I felt very thankful to have taken the leap into something that was — and still is — new and foreign. It is now so clear to me that each of us are makers, and what a powerful connection that is to share.

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cooked

~ tuesday42 ~ Leave a comment

“surrounded as we are by fast food culture and processed foods, cooking our own meals is the single best thing we can do to take charge of our health and well being.” – MP

Let’s take a break from our regularly scheduled programming to talk about the incredible production I spent hours enamored by last Sunday: The new Netflix series Cooked by author/teacher/activist and all around brilliant man, Michael Pollan. Some may have read his words in The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Food Rules, The Botany of Desire, or another of his intriguing and educational books (maybe even Cooked, the one this series grew from.) If you’ve done so, you’re probably already sold on how great this guy is and how smartly he communicates his ideas. If you’ve never heard of him, make this show your introduction.

 

The program is split into four episodes, and each episode covers one natural element: Fire, water, air, and earth. Below are some tidbits from each.

Fire features a pitmaster in the Southern US and aborigines in Western Australia who continue to hunt wild game. It will give you a new understanding and appreciation for human heritage, the original diet, and beautiful pigs.

Water delves into the ways in which climate change is impacting farmers and food production in India. It also explains how completely the act of cooking is chemistry, in both the home kitchen and the food processing facilities around the world which so many of us are increasingly eating from.

Have you ever heard the aphorism, “Man cannot live on bread alone?” Air, will give you all the details as to why that addage is false. You’ll also learn that the way we make bread in the U.S. is so spooky and that we should all start making our own. Needless to say, I began my sourdough starter on Monday.

Earth features an Abbey in Connecticut that I had the opportunity to visit a few years ago where they still make raw milk cheese out of a wooden vat. Not only is this methodology preserving a cultural tradition, it has created a surprising relationship with E. coli. Also, those dairy cows are called Dutch Belted and they are a critically rare breed in the U.S. and I want all of them!

I was feeling a lot of feelings while watching this show. I laughed, I had to blink a lot at certain moments to avoid tears, I considered that maybe I should procreate so that I could explain all of this information to my child, I was hungry, I was amazed that the human race hasn’t gone extinct, and my mind was BLOWN by just how much I still have to learn about food and nutrition, even after studying it at some length and feeling relatively confident about my knowledge of the subject. If you’re interested in food or cooking or food systems, care about what you put into your body or what your body does with it once you put it in there, or if you like looking at farmers and cooks, beautiful cinematography, or watching people enjoy the heck out of the things that they are doing, this is your new weekend plan.

If you don’t have a Netflix account, sign up for a free months trial (that’s what I did!) — just remember to cancel it before the 30 days end if you don’t want to continue your membership.

(I imagine this is obvious to anyone reading this, but neither Netflix nor Michael Pollan is in any way affiliated with my endorsement of this show and I’m certainly not being compensated for doing it. I just really really liked it and I think that you will too!)

squash and democracy

~ tuesday42 ~ Leave a comment

I voted today! Just got done and have my sticker to prove it. YAY! You know what tastes really great with a side of democracy? I don’t think you’re going to guess this so I’ll just tell you: The answer is squash.

Why, you may ask, does squash go so well with representative government? Here’s why: Squash, like voting, is a humble and not particularly exciting thing. People take squash for granted. They leave it in the corner and forget to use it and now, a year later, the squash is still sitting around in that same dusty nook. But lucky day! Squash, while not particularly gorgeous or exciting, is hardy. It sticks around for the long haul and if you don’t use it when you thought you might, there’s always next time. (Is this too far a stretch? Are you still following?) Furthermore, squash, like voting, comes in all shapes and sizes! You’ve got your butternuts, and spaghettis, and acorns, and kabochas. Similarly, there is election day voting, early voting, or absentee ballots. Pick your poison and go do the damn thing because if the squash rots, it’s on you, my friend. (Still following? Quite possibly not by this point, so we’ll just move right along…)

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Squash! You can find this stuff in countless varieties at farmers markets throughout the winter and it can be stored for an absurdly long time in the right conditions (maybe not a full year, but at least for a couple of month.) There are so many methods by which squash can be cooked and eaten. It makes a great pasta, can be eaten on its own, can be mashed, made into soup, roasted, etc. Per pound, they are very economical and if you can learn to embrace the process of breaking them down, there’s nothing to dislike about a good old squash.

I asked Tuesday last week if she had any recipe requests, and she mentioned that she’d been hoarding squash. To help her begin to get through that reserve and to add extra A, B, and C vitamins to her diet, here are two easy recipes that together use up all the parts of whatever squash you may also be hoarding. Just about any type of squash will work for these recipes, so give whatever you can get your hands on a go.

stuffed squash ingredients:

  • 2 small squashes (something grapefruit sized is good)
  • 1/2 lb turkey sausage links
  • small onion
  • handful of mushrooms (I used blue oysters)
  • two big handfuls of spinach or kale
  • 1/2 c kamut
  • 1/8 c shredded parmesan cheese
  • salt and pepper, to taste

This is a super flexible basic recipe which can be thought of as a model for making your own squash filling. Use a different protein, or none at all. Add variety in the vegetable department. Use brown rice or millet or quinoa or another grain in place of kamut. Whatever you choose to do, these amounts should provide a helpful guideline. Also, I was able to find all of these ingredients minus the salt, pepper, and kamut from Indiana farms.

Soak kamut in a pot of water overnight. The next day, drain kamut and refill the pot with fresh water. Bring to a boil and add kamut and a pinch of salt. Cook for 30 minutes. When done, drain kamut and set aside.

Preheat oven to 375F. Cut squash in half lengthwise and scoop out seeds and pulp. Set seeds aside. Place squash flesh-side down on a baking pan and fill with 1/4 inch of water. Place foil overtop and bake for 40 – 50 minutes, until tender.

Brown turkey sausage in a pan. Once browned, remove from pan and slice. Return to pan to continue cooking. Chop onions and mushrooms and add to browned sausage. (If not using meat, heat a few tsps. of oil and sauté veggies in it.) Once vegetables are translucent, add cooked kamut and spinach and adjust seasonings to taste.

Remove squash halves from oven and fill  with vegetable and grain mixture. Sprinkle with parmesan cheese and bake for 15 minutes longer. Allow to cool slightly, and dig in!

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baked squash seed ingredients:

  • rinsed squash seeds (I used seeds from 5 small squashes and ended up with approximately one cup of seeds; use whatever you have)
  • a few glugs of olive oil
  • 1/8 tsp. salt
  • 1/8 tsp. pepper
  • 1/2 tsp. cumin
  • 1/2 tsp. smoked paprika
  • 1/2 tsp. turmeric
  • 1/2 tsp. cayenne
  • 1/2 tsp. chilli powder

Preheat oven to 325F. Bring a pot of water to a boil and add seeds and salt. Boil for 10 minutes, remove, pat dry, and allow to cool. Put cooled seeds in a small bowl and coat with olive oil, spices, salt, and pepper. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and sprinkles seeds over top. Bake for 30 minutes, stirring seeds every 10 minutes.

These make some heavily-seasoned seeds, so halve the amount of spices if you’d prefer a less spicy batch.

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on giving gifts; painted spoons tutorial

~ tuesday42 ~ Leave a comment

Gifts can be a weird weird thing. When they feel mandatory, I’ve sometimes found it difficult to get inspired. Giving an unexpected gift, however, can be a lot more fun. I participated in a Secret Valentine gift exchange this year with a group of friends and wasn’t quite sure what to get the recipient, whom I adore, that a computer program had generated for me. Personally, I love nothing more than receiving a dozen home baked cookies, a hand-crafted ornament, or a thoughtful note. Here’s to hoping other people share this sentiment?

I think I first saw a tutorial for dip-dyed spoons on pinterest a few years ago — I used to really love pinterest — and thought that they’d make a sweet and simple gift. Fast-forward a number of years, and they are now in the hands of an excited owner! Here’s a quick how-to for making your own:

materials:

  • set of utensils (I found this bamboo set at TJ Maxx for $3.99)
  • one colored paint, one white paint (or maybe black? I didn’t consider going from light to dark — artists, would this work?)
  • dish to put paint in
  • paintbrush
  • painter’s tape
  • old cloth or wax/parchment paper

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Lay out utensils on wax paper/cloth/job rejection letter that you want to defile, and wrap painters tape at roughly the same place on each. (If you want to paint different heights on each, wrap the tape in a way that makes that happen.) Paint the first utensil with either the base paint color, or adjust the starting color with white paint first. Continue painting each subsequent utensil, adding white paint to the existing color to lighten it between each utensil. Below, I’ve accidentally made the paint lighter than I wanted it, so I added more of the original color to darken. Gotta work with what you have.

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Continue lightening the color and painting each utensil until the entire set is complete. It may be helpful to prop the utensils up with some object so that they dry without sticking to whatever is underneath them. I strangely happened to have many rolls of tape laying around, so I used those. I allowed the paint to dry overnight, though I’m sure it was finished within a few hours. Viola!

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on hobbies and busyness

~ tuesday42 ~ Leave a comment

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I’ve long dreaded being asked what my hobbies are, because, quite frankly, I’ve never had any. Up until recently, the only possible responses to the question I could have honestly given were watching tv, reading, and maybe running, if that were a thing I was actually doing. To excuse my lack of extracurriculars, I would use America’s favorite buzzword (phrase?) — I’m just so busy.

Don’t you hate it when people tell you how busy they are? It’s like, “No kidding! I’ve never met anyone with that particular problem before!” We are all busy. Of course, this phenomenon occurs to varying degrees, but vying for the title of ‘most busy person’ simply isn’t a contest I want to participate in.

I came to the conclusion that instead of lamenting to every curious inquisitor about how very booked my schedule was, maybe it was wiser (and more genuine) to say this instead: “These are what my priorities are, and aren’t.” Because isn’t that the truth? I know many people with what I would consider fully-booked schedules (and often children or other people they care for on top) who make time to train for a marathon, participate in a book club, or host a weekly dinner with friends. This assertion does not encompass all situations, but I think the argument can be made that what many of us do or don’t get done is more related to our priorities than to busyness. It is certainly the case in my own life.

A few years ago, I came upon this quote by Annie Dillard: “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.” And I thought, well shoot! When you put it that way….. A professor of English and an author, she made this statement in reference to writing, but I think it applies broadly and generally to the whole of life. With this new and empowering/frightening information in hand, I was moved to take a look at my priorities. Did I want to spend my life tired and stressed and finishing a long day by binging on Grey’s Anatomy, a not even good show? No. I did not. To be clear, this is not a rant advocating that people don’t watch tv. If that feels enjoyable and empowering to you and is how you want to spend your life, please watch tv. That is 100% what you should do. For me, it has become a thing that absorbs precious hours that I’d prefer to use differently and I usually walk away from the activity feeling regretful and unmotivated. It is not how I personally want to spend my life. I no longer want it to be a priority.

While visiting family for Christmas, I stumbled upon an ad in my hometown newspaper about a beekeeping class that was to take place nearby in February. It was a day-long seminar (nine hours in total) and as soon as I saw the ad, I knew I had to do it. That was absolutely how I wanted to spend my life. It will be at least another year before I set up a hive, but it has been so fun having a new project to research and be excited about.

In addition to my new interest in beekeeping, I’m also taking a pottery class, writing this blog, and working on a number of other projects that are just about me and not related to monetary gain in any way. Notice that all of these activities require my thought, creativity and energy. It is logical to assume that tasks of this nature would leave a person feeling more tired and less energetic after the aforementioned long day which might have previously ended in a Grey’s Anatomy-induced stupor. However, I can attest to the fact that these activities have had the exact opposite effect; I feel more focused, more in tune to myself, more alive. Holy moly has this been liberating.

So, here’s to taking a hard look at our priorities and to remembering that how we spend our days is how we spend our lives. Spend wisely.

 

a tree grows in brooklyn

~ tuesday42 ~ 2 Comments

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2015 was my year of books. I read voraciously, particularly titles written by women that I’d noticed were disproportionately absent from my existing repertoire. At the height of my performance, I was tearing through two novels per week. It was an enlightening time.

Though there are plenty of things I should be reading (more on that later), 2016 has been depressingly slow. I’ve been in a literary funk, working late many evenings and pouring over political articles or planning winter blues-busting activities. I’ve not been reaching for books — companions that show me how to live and have proven time and time again to be an enormous source of solace and enjoyment.

It’s time to jump start my reading habit. To do so, I wanted to reflect on some of the great things I read last year. I picked up several excellent new titles and also checked off books that had been on my to-read list for a long time. Some of my favorites were The Jungle by Upton Sinclair (read this while living on the South Side of Chicago and looking out my Canaryville window onto the stockyards — very meta), The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert (beautifully woven story about a brilliant turn-of-the-century scientist with curiosities and abilities far beyond her time), and Operating Instructions by Anne Lamott (Chicago Tribune says, “Anyone who has ever had a hard time facing a perfectly ordinary day will identify.”).

The absolute best thing I read last year (and one of the top five best novels I’ve read in the whole of my life) was A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith. As I was reading, I was constantly having my mind blown and reaching out to bookish friends with my total shock at how rich and relatable this story was. I continually asked fellow readers, “Have you heard of this book?” “Have you read this?” For many of them, the answer was “Of course I have! How have you not?!” So it appears that I am very late to the party on this one. But just in case there are any other readers out there who are also behind the times, you really must pick this one up. For additional encouragement, here are post-reading thoughts on the book from my journal, written last September:

“A Tree Grows in Brooklyn – LOVED. 10/10. Francie’s story felt incredibly real and true and heartbreaking and beautiful and I just loved reading it. In so many ways I could see my own coming of age in it, even though my situation was in many ways vastly different. Aside from a wonderful story, the writing was beautiful and descriptive — exactly the kind that I most love. Francie’s father and her relationship with him was so fraught with adoration and heartbreak. GAH it was all of the things and I felt so much reading it. Also, her relationship with her aunts and her mom and her brother, all of it really drove home the importance of family. The fleeting relationships with her friends and her struggle to find her tribe resonated deeply. Also her love for books and the importance of solitude and time spent outdoors. All of that felt so real to me. AND the disillusionment of being back in the place of your childhood and seeing things with fresh eyes. Like how the tins in the beautiful tea and coffee shop she enjoyed were actually horribly nicked and the lovely golden scale she remembered was in reality wonky and cheap. Man, I loved this. I will definitely read it again and recommend it to all the people looking for a good and true read. And I think Betty has a book of essays or something? Gotta hunt down her other stuff. Big love for this lady.”

So there you have it! All the people have been notified — you must read this. Pick up A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (and the other mentioned books!) at your local library or bookstore. Or, if those options don’t work for you, the books can be purchased using the imbedded Amazon affiliate links. (Or let me know you want to read them and I’ll mail you my copies.)

on being alone

~ tuesday42 ~ 2 Comments

20151209_133241Last summer, I decided I wanted to spend the fall in Hawaii working on a farm. I’d never thought much about Hawaii previous to this realization; I just knew I wanted to be somewhere warm where plants would be growing in December. It was surprisingly easy to find a farm and my travel plans were quickly set.

Very intentionally, I decided to take this trip alone. (Though even if I would have wanted a companion it would have been difficult to arrange — it turns out not so many people can/want to take a three month break from their life to move to a farm in Hawaii.) This was supposed to be an opportunity for me to be with myself. I wanted to spend my days in the garden. Reading and writing. Thinking. I wanted the space.

Upon arriving in Hawaii, I had a very sudden change of heart about this whole ‘solo’ thing. Though I thought I was prepared to be by myself, the level of alone-ness that greeted me was far greater than I’d anticipated. I was the only worker on the farm.I was living in a barn in the middle of a field with a horse as a next-door neighbor. The nearest town was more than ten miles away and my transportation was limited. I was very literally by myself 85 – 90% of the time and I needed to figure out how to deal with that.

It’s such a funny thing in life when you get exactly what you’ve asked for and then have no idea what to do with it. I’d thought at length about the free time this experience would grant me and how I’d spend it. I’d considered and re-considered the duration of my stay with great attention, determining three months would give me enough time to accomplish everything I wanted to. I had personally and solely planned and put together every bit of this trip, and now, on day two, I wanted out. I looked at one-way flights home for the next week. I used my phone’s limited data plan to search such entries  as, “i have three months off of work what do i do with it”; “how to fill time by yourself”; “what to do when you are lonely”. I then indulged in a large dose of pouting and wallowing and feeling generally very sorry for myself and went to bed before 8pm.

The next day, I decided that I had to get it together. I still wasn’t thrilled about this whole arrangement, but I’d yearned for this trip, so I was going to make something of it despite the unexpected circumstances. Naturally, I wrote a list. On that list was every single thing that I could think of that I might be able to do during a day. There was also a list for what I could do once the sun had gone down. The lists contained such items as: “go look at plants and locate them in an ID book and find out what they are and how they work”, “make a cup of tea and read”, “play with the dog”, “make jam”, and “work on crossword puzzles”. I wrote a note at the end that read, “The action is here.”

A few days passed. Being by myself continued to feel really hard. I looked again at tickets to fly home. I slept too frequently. I read Wild by Cheryl Strayed and felt an unfounded resonance at the thought of being trapped in the woods.

And then gradually — so gradually that I didn’t notice it happening — everything was ok. I was still alone, but I didn’t feel lonely. I would look forward to waking up early to watch the sunrise out of my east-facing window. I cooked nice meals for one. I journaled about my day instead of talking about it. I went on a lot of walks. The time passed, and I felt myself learning and expanding. The reasons I went on the trip in the first place were making themselves known.

Not every day was easy. There were still many many times when I wanted nothing more than to transport myself out of my often uncomfortable circumstances and into a bustling cafe for a coffee with a friend. But by day 90, as I was preparing to leave the farm at my pre-determined date, I felt a distinct sense of nostalgia creeping in; I knew before I’d even stepped foot off of the island that in so many ways, I’d dearly miss the small and solitary world I’d built for myself.

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merry christmas

~ tuesday42 ~ Leave a comment

To all who are celebrating, I hope your day has been filled with peace, love, and joy. I’m counting my blessings to have been surrounded by special people for the last few days as well as  the coming days. Here are a few very merry snapshots from a very happy Christmas.

45+ Ohio temps called for a long hike with this sweet critter.

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Sugar cream (with exploded crust) and chocolate-pecan pie graced our table today. Also did some up-cycling with this newsprint wrapping paper.

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“Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!”