Color of the day...

This is the window I sat beside today. It rained... a LOT. But that's not really big news for Oregon is it?

I know it will get sunny again, I just hope it will come soon. Sadly, the local forecast only shows more rain for the new year.

As we drove by the Willamette River yesterday, it looked like it was almost out of banks. The small Amazon creek that runs by our house looked more like the Amazon river, and the ducks that live there were not happy at all to be out on the bank.

Hope everyone has a happy and prosperous new year! I'm just wishing for one that's a little more dry. :)

Extra Holiday Fun!

Who knew that half a florist's shop and a chocolatier, along with several fabulous gifts could fit in a box size 9"x12x2""?

A package from our wonderful friends, Liz and P, came today and we were so excited by what was inside!

Beautiful silk poinsettias and holly shaped leaves only temporarily obscured our view of the gifts that were contained within. Soon we found mounds of sweet chocolate kisses (yum! yum!) and Emily the Strange fold-up stationery, a CD that Bug has been dying to get, and a gift card for our favorite sugar-fied deep-fried doughwads, Krispy Kreme doughnuts.

In her haste to get the box to us, Liz had left out part of the gift, but sent it ahead by email so I got a sneak peek at one of the great gifties the other day. I was blown away to find that I am now the proud owner of the pattern for the Sweet Mary Janes that I was yearning to make. Now, I just have to decide what yarn to use in their creation. Too many decisions!

Words cannot express how wonderful it is to have great friends who know you so well. Long distance thanks, hugs, and kisses will have to do for now.

(for more pictures of our cute package and Bug tearing into the gifts, hop along to our flickr site)

Happy Holidays!

We just want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas, Merry Yule, Happy Hanukkah, and best wishes for the New Year ahead!

Bug is looking forward to watching the Cats play, and I am excited to start some new creative projects. We both want to travel more.

Hope you enjoy your day, wherever you are!

Now for your entertainment....

Yule Log!

That's right, kiddies... for your viewing pleasure this evening, Oregon Public Broadcasting is presenting footage of a fireplace with seasonal music to enjoy. Occasionally, a hand will come from off screen and tend the fire with a poker to make the flames higher or drop another log on when it gets low.

Amazing. Only in Oregon.

Bug thinks this is hilarious, of course, and is doing a running play-by-play of the actions of the fireplace. Now she says, they've zoomed in for a closeup. She is making many witty jokes about how insane it is to watch this. I remind her that some people buy those DVDs of fireplaces and tropical fish. At least they show it for free here. :)

Oh, and for those of you searching for a something meaningful about this program, the fireplace getting so much airtime is located at the historic Timberline Lodge at Mt.Hood.

Thanks Alison!

Alison of the blue blog mentioned me today in one of her posts.

I am slowly working through my list of handknitted gifts, but when I heard that she would be giving some prizes to those who had finished all their holiday knitting, I wanted to help. So I put down my knitting (GASP!) and made some cute and nifty stitch markers. I had been itching to make some for a while and now seemed like the perfect tiem to start. Plus, it helped me bust out some of my bead stash that had been sitting idle for far too long.

There are still about 25 markers here on my desk that are one of a kinds. Maybe I will put them up on the blog a little later and see if I can find a home for them. What do you think?

sparkling with yuletide cheer

Okay, I know it's a day late, but better late than never, right? It makes me so happy to come into the house and see it all lit up and sparkly.

Now I just have to get the rest of the paper ornaments I am making on to it, and the other decorations up in the rest of the living room, and I think we'll be ready for the Holidays.

We bagged a tree!

We bagged a tree!
Originally uploaded by kyducks.

Saturday afternoon we went out and brought home our tree!

I was so excited to start really decorating for the holidays. Bug had already gotten our "Box of Decor" out the weekend before and put our red berry wreath upon our door, but I'm really not in the holiday spirit until the tree is up and decorated.

We went out to Jerry's, a local home improvement/hardware/lumber store and picked out a 5 foot douglas fir. It's much narrower and shorter than last year's tree, but that's okay, because we had to absolutely wrestle that tree IN and OUT of the house. I even had to cut part of the top off so the star would fit on top!

This one fits much better, and even holds all of our ornaments, so we're really pleased. Tomorrow I will post photos of the decorated tree...

hello again...

Sorry for the interruption, but we're finally back online after being subjected to some of the worst customer service I have ever witnessed.

Bug ordered DSL from the phone company and it was all downhill from there, whether we wanted to go or not. I have never seen anything like it. Well, that, and at last count, three ISP's later, we are online with a vengeance. YAY!

However, now that we're at light speed (at least it seems that way), I'm afraid that the processor in our trusty little Stella is not fast enough to keep up. At least whenever I try to run Firefox, it stalls on me and I have to quit the whole program and restart it.

Bah, enough of our computer speedbumps, it's just good to be back!