I hope everyone has the best day today, and gets to spend it with all of the people they care about.
I am hopefully either on my way to Mazatlan now, or I’ve already landed and I’m enjoying a margarita with my family.
Merry Christmas!
I hope everyone has the best day today, and gets to spend it with all of the people they care about.
I am hopefully either on my way to Mazatlan now, or I’ve already landed and I’m enjoying a margarita with my family.
Merry Christmas!
Last weekend we volunteered at a Winter Wonderland put on by the Foster a Dream foundation. Foster kids from all over were able to come and have some holiday fun, and leave with lots of presents and treats.
I wasn’t really sure what to expect, but this time of year especially makes you feel like you should be doing something for other people, like it should be about more than just getting gifts, so I signed up, and the boy decided to join me.
We showed up for our four hour shift, and we were really impressed. An entire warehouse had been transformed into Santa’s Workshop, there were tons of decorations, and lots of different stations for the kids to go around to with different activities at each.
They didn’t tell us ahead of time what we were going to be doing, there are lots of different jobs for volunteers, but both of us were assigned to be elves, meaning we were paired with a foster family with from 1 to 4 kids and we took them through the Wonderland, and helped them have fun along the way.
The kids got their pictures taken with Santa, decorated cookies, made crafts, played games and did science experiments, and at the end of each activity they usually left with a prize. Experienced foster parents came with trash bags and extra strollers just to carry all of the different toys the kids got to take home.
Most of the kids’ favourite part was the Toy Room, they got to go in by themselves and other volunteers inside helped them pick out any 3 things they wanted from inside. One of the first little girl’s I was paired with walked out with an American Girl doll, and she was absolutely on the verge of a panic attack she was so excited.
Another family I was paired with had identical twins, a boy and a girl about 7 years old, they were probably the sweetest and most polite 7 year old’s I’ve ever met.
The little boy was missing part of his left arm, but he went up to the basketball game and scored 12 out of 20 times. His foster mother was almost in tears, as she whispered to me that she had been nervous that he wouldn’t be able to make any of the shots.
I was wearing an elf apron, and Derek was wearing an elf hat with ears. The same little boy and girl were decorating cookies when Derek walked by and they both looked at me with huge eyes and whispered excitedly “It’s an elf, a real elf!”. Derek came over to talk to them, and answered all of their questions about what it was like to work for Santa.
It was a very tiring day, between carrying bags and bags of toys through the toyland and corralling groups of excited children through the stations, being an elf is hard work.
But it was also a really great day, the Christmas season is so exciting through the eyes of a child, and I felt very lucky to have been there to be able to make their day as much fun as possible. It’s a really great cause and I’d like to keep working with the Foster a Dream foundation throughout the year, as much as I can.
I recently bought a book on Amazon called Joie de Vivre. It’s written by author and chef Robert Arbor who grew up in France. In the book he describes the simple joys of life in rural France, and how to emulate the attitude of simplicity and find happiness in the mundane tasks of everyday life.
He describes visits to the market, the butcher, and the patisserie, and the small garden plots that many people in rural France use to grow flowers and small amounts of veggies and fruits for everyday use. He depicts traditional meals, idyllic dinner parties, and simple, delicious ingredients.
He also provides simple, delicious recipes, like this one for simple strawberry jam. It’s only fruit and sugar, with a little bit of water added, simmered for a few hours to break down the berries.
I almost never eat jam, I find that it tastes strangely artificial, but this is delicious. It’s a bit more liquid than most jams, but scooping it with a spoon onto a toasted baguette with a cup of fresh coffee, a very traditional French breakfast, was delicious.
I am excited to try this with other fruits, I think nectarine jam will be amazing.
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| Lovely, lazy day breakfast |
We heard about a house in Pleasanton that was crazy decorated for Christmas, so we went to check it out. I don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t this.
There were over 500,000 lights, it was madness. They had a mini-golf course set up, and Santa’s workshop in the garage where kids could come to get their pictures taken.
I should have set up a hot chocolate stand in front, I would have made a killing. It’s great that people are so into the holidays, the electricity usage made me a bit nervous though, but the kids were loving it.
A lot of their neighbours had joined in and decorated every house on the cul de sac, except for one house that was completely decorationless. I felt a bit bad for them, it must be kind of annoying have thousands of people driving by and parking and hanging around your house for a full month, and their complete lack of decorations might have been their way of protesting.
Or maybe they just don’t celebrate Christmas.
It helped get me in the mood for the holidays though, I’ve been skating, and drank egg nog and been to tons of Christmas parties, but it never really feels like Christmas without snow to play in.
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| This was clearly my favourite one. “You guyth, it’th jutht lemon”. |
I received a Barnes and Noble gift card for my birthday about 5 years ago, and I set off to the store to claim my prize. I have been known to spend a good chunk of my time at bookstores, once I accidentally spent 6 hours in Chapters and didn’t even realize it. My frantic mother almost killed me, but I had just been browsing through all of the wonderful books and completely lost track of time.
I spent hours searching through every section trying to find the perfect book, it’s really a lot of pressure trying to make a decision like that. Or as Drew Barrymore put it in Ever After, “I could no sooner choose a favourite star in the heavens”.
Eventually after a lot of indecision and minor panic attacks, I came to the photography section, where I found this little gem. It’s possible I had been living under a rock, but I hadn’t ever really been exposed to Life magazine before, and I was completely blown away by the photographs inside. I bought it immediately, and have some of the images hanging in my room to this day.
Today I was creeping around on Amazon looking at Christmas gifts, and I happened into the section on photograph books. It’s taking every ounce of will power I possess to remember that I am supposed to be buying things for other people, not for myself, but there are a few I’ll be keeping my eye on until the new year.
Lillian Bassman: Lingerie
Jerry Schatzberger: Women Then
I love the Holidays for tons of reasons, one of the main ones is holiday parties. They do tend to stack up though, this last weekend I had 3, starting with my work Christmas party on Thursday night. They rented out a nightclub, Temple, and we partied and danced until the wee hours, followed by an obligatory 2 a.m. trip to In and Out.
Friday I had to work, it was a rough morning but they brought in McDonald’s breakfast and Bloody Mary’s to get everyone motivated.
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| I brought in my own bottle of pickle juice, I like to plan ahead. |
Derek’s work party was that night so I left work early, changed in the car and went for dinner and drinks at Rickey’s in Novato. I did pretty well off the start, I had a few martini’s to perk me up, but by the end of the night I was fading fast.
Saturday night we had a White Elephant party with friends, it was a bit more low key, but still lots of fun. I have three more parties this week, Friday is my last day of work, and then we’re off to Mexico next Wednesday.
It’s great to spend so much time with friends and always have something fun to look forward to, I kind of wish it was Christmas all the time, but at this rate I’m not sure I’d survive it.
We booked our tickets for Christmas in Mazatlan with my family yesterday. I am so excited to go, my grandpa has a house there and I used to go all the time, but I haven’t been since I was 18.
Most of the memories I have of being a kid are in Mazatlan, and it’s kind of weird to think I’ll be going back there and bringing my husband. I still very clearly remember stealing quietly from my bed and creeping down the stairs in my Aladdin night gown to see if Santa had found us in Mexico.
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| Lazy beach day, before I realized that I should be scared of sharks |
I remember swimming at the Granada pool and playing mermaids with my sister, and then stretching out on a lounger to eat Oreos and Ritz crackers that my grandma stocked by the closet-full when we came to visit.
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| A palm tree started on fire and we forcibly adopted two iguanas. Mine was named Princess. I was terrified of her. |
I loved driving my grandpa’s golf cart, visiting the crocodiles that lived on the first hole, and spending days at the beach jumping over the waves until I was too exhausted to move and then laying on the beach looking at the wares of the beach vendors and trying on jewellery.
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| The money keeper around my neck is both a great place to keep your pesos, and a stylish fashion accessory |
My sister and I would creep around the house at dusk and try to catch iguanas and geckos, and spend our days trying to sneak into the pool at the El Morro so we could jump off the highest rock in the waterfall, and then reward ourselves with a dip in the hot tub.
As we got older we’d go out drinking and dancing and maybe to a foam party or two. I know people who won’t go to Mexico because they are scared, but I’ve only had wonderful memories and met great people there.
I can’t wait to be back there with my family again and to show all of 5 year old me’s favourite places to 26 year old me’s favourite guy.
A few lovely things for this very cold San Francisco day.
A few weeks ago I was struck by inspiration, and as usual, a burning need to get started at that exact moment. I decided my house was boring and needed something really special, and that I would like to be surrounded by beautiful words at all times. I decided to pick my favourite piece of writing and transcribe it and paint it onto the awkward stair wall in my kitchen.
This was a bit of a predicament because I wanted to get started as soon as I had the idea, but also I couldn’t decide which quote or poem to use. I thought about just choosing one quote, but then I pictured myself writing that out over and over 400 times and decided against it.
After flipping through a few of my favourite books and bugging some friends for inspiration, I decided on one of my favourite poems, I Have Loved Hours at Sea by Sara Teasdale, and set to work. Coincidentally (or completely on purpose, if it’s not him reading this) the boy was at work so I was determined to finish it before he got home so I could surprise him. And so that he wouldn’t be able to stop me from doing it. But mostly so I could surprise him.
I realized quickly that one poem wasn’t going to be enough, since I was less than half way down the skinniest part of the wall and was almost finished, so I picked another poem to add.
It quickly became apparent that that wasn’t going to be enough either, so I added in my favourite Neruda Sonnet, one that was read at our wedding. In the end, I also added in my favourite Alice in Wonderland quote, and finally made it to the end.
It only took me about 2 hours to get all of the writing on the wall, so I figured I was well on track to finish before the boy got home from work. It turns out, painting takes a lot more time than just scribbling with pencil, who knew?
I finally finished painting almost a month later, although after the first weekend of almost 6 hours of working on it, I took about two weeks off to regain my will to live.
Derek walked in on that first day and found me on the floor tired, stiff and covered in pencil lead and paint.He took one look at the wall, one look at my bedraggled, exhausted face and proclaimed “I love it! And I love you! Let’s go take a nap.” He is nice, I like him.
It was definitely worth all of the work it took to finish, it makes me happy every time I look at it, and makes me feel like this is really my house. I am basically Harold and the Purple Crayon, but older and a girl.
It’s definitely not perfect, I generally have serial killer handwriting at the best of times, but nobody will ever be able to think it is a stencil, or that I didn’t put my own blood, sweat and tears into it. It’s kind of amazing to be able to just randomly draw all over the walls whenever you feel like it without worrying about getting in trouble with anyone. Sometimes being a grown up is a pretty great.
They say a picture is worth 1000 words, although in our modern society of selfies and food-stagrams, most pictures seem to be worth far less.
But every once in awhile you see an image that makes you remember that photography is an art form, and that some people have the ability to capture an amazing story with just the snap of a shutter.
Reuters released their top images of 2013, and they are awe-inspiring. You can check out more of the images here.
loveliness. 