Christmas Eve 2013

Yes, that's the way to spend the afternoon of Christmas Eve. Sunny, 63 degrees, done with the hard work of the day, and my faithful dog beside me.

I walked to Walgreens this morning (took about an hour or so) for my last bit of Christmas shopping; inexplicably Walgreens always seems to have the best dog toys around. I picked out a couple squeakies for Howie and Sebastian, and then went to the next store in the parking lot, an automotive store, for a car wash mitt.

Howie has had a new wash mitt to mangle every year we've had him, I believe. I'm not sure why a wash mitt is so much fun to bite, but it would hardly be Christmas for him without one. The last few years I've sewn a squeaker into the mitt for added spice.

After my walk, I went out to the ranch to give Dink his Christmas gift -- a clean paddock. Opening his gate, I sent him out to the arena to roll in the dirt (which he did immediately) and then let his buddies Eddie and The Colt out to run, too. They galloped around rather crazily for a while, then settled down to graze on stray weeds and bits of Other Horses' Hay, which tastes much better than their own. I shoveled and dumped the wheelbarrow and shoveled some more. The horses all got a little treat when they went back into their paddocks like gentlemen.

Next, a casserole to assuage the hungers of all and sundry, a lasagna casserole. That is, a casserole with the sauce, the cheeses, the meat ... and mini-farfalle noodles. Then the sun, and the smile.

Such a smile -- the smile of a woman who knows that beneath the area rugs in the front room and the family room is tile, and it is DONE, and it looks lovely:

And with that, Merry Christmas to all, stay warm, and don't forget -- Christmas Shopping Season is the only thing that is over. The Christmas Season is only about to begin.

Catching up on Art Stuff

I'm still loving up the 15-minute art project idea. It worked really well for gift tags at Christmas time.

I started with some VERY cheap brown paper we scored at Lowe's, paper that is meant to be used as masking paper for painters to mask off windows and stuff they don't want to spatter paint on.

The paper -- in huge rolls for about $10 -- had a nice medium tooth to it. I don't know how it will hold up to light and age, but for 15-minute projects and practice pieces it will be fine.

I began by cutting my pieces of paper, no mean feat considering the dampness of the weather and the penchant for the paper to curl like Lillian's hair.

Then I soaked them on my polyurethaned watercolor boards, to stretch the paper and get it to lie flat. There's a slight finish on the masking paper, which I thought (correctly) the water would break down.

Once all four pieces were well and truly yummily wet and flat, I went at them with my cheap watercolor paints, swiping in broad shapes.

I kept the board with the papers flat, not wanting any runs if I could help it.

I'd decided on four seasons, one for each of my housemates, excluding baby Joan, who would only appreciate the art if she could munch on it.

After the initial splats of paint, I had to let each one dry a bit. Then I came back at them with additional pigment, thicker watercolors.

Another drying time had to come, and with it, the realization that the paper had held much more dampness than I'd expected, and most of the pigment had bled out into the brown paper.

The answer? More pigment, of course! I did some thicker blobs of color, and let it dry again.

And dry it did, and began to curl again, so I taped it down with little masking tape doughnuts (tape curled with the sticky side out, making it two-sided) and then had at it with pastels, just a bit here and there, to add texture and definitive lines.

I gave all four a quick spritz of fixative and set them out to dry yet another time.

With the Spring and Autumn ones, I also used an indelible ink pen to help with the trunk lines.

And then, I added a sentiment to each of my beloveds, to be carried on their Christmas gifts.

I photographed each of these against black paper; the angle of the camera gives them that not-quite-square look.

All in all, the project took considerably more than fifteen minutes, but each stage was short, and could be done in little bits in between other pressing daily matters.

I like the brown craft paper as a medium. The tooth is nice, and the color pleasantly neutral. Once our weather moderates, I'd like to cut a bunch more of it into manageable sizes and use it for pastels.

A Partidge in a Pear Tree

Merry Christmas!

Here is Howie with his newest toy, having just thrashed and bashed it and thrown it high into the Christmas tree. Today the dogs played tug o' war with Sebastian's new toy, mooched pieces of giblets in the kitchen, and napped after the excitement.

That is, indeed, a wash mitt, purchased in an automotive department. Howie has always loved biting them, shaking them viciously, tearing them to shreds. After he, as a puppy, mangled the one we used for washing the car, we've just bought them for him for Christmas each year.

This year, I put two squeakers (from previous dog toys that Howie and Sebastian destroyed within the first five minutes of receiving them) into a denim sandwich, and put the sewn denim sandwich into the mitt with a double handful of denim cloth scraps, and stitched it closed.

Best toy ever!

Sebastian even envied Howie so much that he stole the mitt for a while, tucking it close to his chest and lying down with his neck covering the toy.

And now for my yearly yip about the Christmas Season.

Contrary to the stores' advertising schedule, tomorrow is NOT Valentine's Day.


The Christmas season is not over when the sun goes down on Christmas Day. Today is the START of the Christmas season, which lasts until Epiphany on January 6th.

Though we have no pear tree, nor partridges in this area, we did have a hermit thrush, bluebirds, finches, two kinds of sparrows, and our scrub jays all in the lemon tree, waiting for their turn in the birdbath.

God bless us, every one.

The Nicest Christmas Gift

Last weekend, Bernie and I went for a walk, and while we ambled past a little farmyard, we watched finches in their drab winter color snacking on a seed-sock hung from the farmer's gate.

I've heard of the feeders before, and seen pictures of them, but never had one, as I didn't have a lot of finches around. Seeing the farmer's success in feeding goldfinches led me to pick one of those feeders up at the supermarket this past week. I hung it in over the back patio where we feed various other birds, and sighed. I figured it would take years to attract finches to the yard, and that the initial sack of seeds would most likely be wasted.

At this point I should relate that I have always loved goldfinches, from the first time I saw their flocks sailing above the summer grass in the lot across the street from my parents' house. I used to run through the grass, and see the golden flickers as the birds rose up from feeding on seed heads. They were so beautiful it made my heart leap. Goldfinches remind me of spring, of summer, of coreopsis, butter-and-eggs, and sweetpea hidden in the same long grass like jewels from a tipped treasure chest. And they remind me of Bernie, who was the first person I met who was interested in watching birds and clouds and The World.

This afternoon, after returning from shopping for Christmas dinner's ingredients, Bernie shouted to me to run, hurry up, hurry up! "Quick! You gotta see this!"

I stopped in the kitchen doorway, looking out at the patio, and the hung seed-sock -- and the swarm of goldfinches on it. They found it! How did they find it so soon?

I watched them as though my brain was starving for the sight, then grabbed my camera and took some pictures. This was the best one -- the rest were blurred from the dimness of the day and from me literally shaking with excitement.

One could say that I bought the local birds a lovely Christmas gift for them to find, but really, I'm the one who has been gifted, by extraordinary beauty of the world I live in, and by joy.