Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

[Living across the street from Santa--who's willing to make house calls on Christmas Eve, his busiest day of the year!--is pretty sweet.]

A Different Ending (Part 5)

[This is Part 5 of a series of 6 (I think). Part 1 can be found here, Part 2 can be found here, Part 3 can be found here, and Part 4 can be found here. I fully realize that this is faaaaar more in-depth than most people care about, but I'm having a lot of fun going back over the past year and choosing photos and telling snippets of stories. I'm also realizing that some of these photos I uploaded to the computer and then never even looked at, so this is a good and much-needed chance to catch up and document our 2010. Thanks for bearing with me!]

Continued....

When she flew home from Orlando it felt exactly like someone had flipped a switch from summer to fall. She loves fall. Fall colors, and turtlenecks and sweaters and knee-high boots and corduroy and tweed. But especially fall colors.


Driving in the rain one day, she saw her favorite license plate ever. She is somewhat of a license plate connoisseur and her previous favorite had held the record for many years, so this was kind of a big deal. She pulled out her handheld camera and snapped without looking, hoping for a decent shot.

She says this several times a trip when she has to drive any distance here in Northern Virginia. "OhmuhGahd goooooooooooo!"

She and her husband decided to give their German friends, Danny and Sophie, an American experience by taking them to a corn maze.


As it turns out, Danny and Sophie had already been to that exact corn maze a few weeks before, but they all had fun anyway.

Afterward they went wine drinking wine tasting at a local winery and had even more fun.


She celebrated Thanksgiving with her husband at Danny and Sophie's house, and they all ate way too much food and drank a little too much wine and beer.


They played Wii, she fell in love with a Snuggie, they played Loaded Questions, and they laughed A LOT.


A few weeks later they went to a Christmas Market hosted by the German Military (for whom Danny works). It was great and made them miss European Christmas Markets so very much.


She continued making jewelry-jewelry-jewelry just as fast as she could.

Christ in the Center custom necklace.

She came out with some new designs.


She fulfilled custom orders and made ready-made pieces for her show stock.

Stamped & oxidized, before polishing & finishing.

She purchased a table at a brand-new Christmas Bazaar hosted by a local private school. She was still fairly nervous since this was really her first season doing shows, but she did really, really well, and was so happy and proud of herself for all her hard work. She loved connecting with everyone who loved her work, and it made her heart glad.

She showed for the first time, too, at a very cool show called Chick's Picks, where Hillary turns her home into a very very cool store for three days at a time. Artists bring their work and Hillary sets it all up in her house like an amazing boutique and women come in droves to shop. Because this artist features custom work, she was asked to come and take custom orders for one of the three days. Her table was in a corner in the basement. She had a lot of fun talking to customers


and shopping. And even though she was in a corner in the basement, she did very well.


Between the custom orders from her shows and from Etsy, she was working between 14 and 17 hours per day, 7 days per week, for the first two weeks of December.


She was glad and grateful for the business, but she was tired.


With the last of her orders dropped at the post office on the way to the airport, she and her husband were once again traveling to--where else?--Oregon.

They flew Delta because they are idiots haven't learned their lesson are masochists had some miles they could put towards the tickets. It took them a long time, but eventually they made it to Oregon, where everything seemed better because her mom had made butter cookies.


But it wasn't time to relax, no, not for her, not by a long shot! She was hosting two days of Open House jewelry shows at her parents'! She got to see a lot of old friends and somehow, magically, people trickled in and trickled out so it was never crazy and never dead and she got to chat and fulfill custom orders while people waited. It was kind of perfect!

That night she went on a double-date with her husband and his cousin Brad and his wife Ingrid. They went out for Peruvian food for dinner, and then they went to see an awesome taping of Live Wire, a Portland live-audience radio show. It was a tremendous amount of fun and made her want to live in Portland because it is such a cool city.

Even though it was less than a week before Christmas, she was still fulfilling last-minute custom orders because she's a sucker she's super nice and loves her customers. She took over her parents' dining table [and kept waiting for her dad to throw a fit but he never did].


Somehow, she managed to write their Christmas letter [it was not as good as in previous years and she wanted to rewrite it as soon as she finished it, but instead she just hit print and stopped thinking about it, mostly, except it kind of still bugs her] and got it copied and folded and stuffed and stamped and dropped them all in the mail.


The next day she headed into Portland to meet up with her husband (who'd spent the previous few days with his family) and go to their favorite Portland places. They had lunch at Kells


and they shopped at the Portland Saturday Market's "Festival of the Last Minute," where she bought some gorgeous handmade glass beads. Then they headed up to the very best bookstore in the world, and then over to Deschutes Brewery. [She would very much like to hear you all attempt to pronounce Deschutes.]

Pretty soon it was time to go to the home of Jenny (her husband's cousin-ish), where there was a big family reunion of their generation of cousin-ishes (maybe second cousins? Third? Second-once-removed? She cannot recall, can never remember, will not ask again).


[It was very fun and everyone is very nice, but she is an introvert and at a certain point would have very much liked to go play Legos with the kids in the other room. She may or may not have spent ten minutes hiding out in the bathroom, tweeting with friends on her phone.]

The next day she went wine tasting to many wineries with some of her husband's family.


The following day was a mostly quiet day at her in-laws' home, and she spent it catching up online and recharging and making earrings from some of the handmade beads she just bought at Saturday Market.


She decided she liked them so much that she called the artist (they had exchanged information) and set up a time to come buy more beads the next day, on Christmas Eve morning! She bought a lot more beads and hopes the glass artist sets up her online wholesale site like she's intending.

Then they went over to her parents' house for their annual Christmas Eve party. Somehow she managed to not take a single photo of the gathering! But she enjoyed her parents' homemade clam chowder, and the barbecued salmon that her dad caught and cleaned and cooked, and all of the other yummy treats her family enjoys every year on Christmas Eve. [It never feels like Christmas Eve to her without homemade clam chowder.] And she visited with cousins, and met her cousin's fiancé, and hung out with her favorite aunt (who used to live in Northern Virginia and now lives in Oregon), and missed her sister's family (who can almost never come home at Christmas because she's a nurse and her husband's a pastor).

Later that evening after everyone else left, her family exchanged presents. Her husband gave her a very cool fisheye lens, so of course she had to test it out right away.

Those are her purple-pajama'd knees at the bottom of the photo.

Then, like most photography buffs who get a new lens, she over-used it on everything, including breakfast the next morning. This breakfast is called Froobles, and it is a family thing and tradition and kind of weird but also awesome. She had it every Christmas and every Easter (and some other times, too) when she was growing up, and having it on Christmas morning at her parents' house makes her happy in a place deep inside, in a tucked-away spot in her heart reserved for reliving family traditions.


After breakfast they got ready and headed over to her husband's aunt and uncle's house for their big family gathering. She was put in charge of the salad.

She kind of loves this photo.

Everyone ate and then she took a photo of the table because they wanted to see how wide-angle the lens was.


After lunch everyone plays games until dinner, and after dinner everyone plays more games. Mexican Train is very popular. [She feels it necessary to say that they did not make up the name.]


As is Pinochle. She tries to make sure she's not standing around when they are trying to put together a game. [She's not very good and they are serious about their games; she doesn't like to let her partner down.]


While the grownups are playing games, all of the kiddos hang out and run around and play in the middle of the floor.


At some point, all of the middle generation of cousins and significant others might actually be in the same place at the same time, and everyone is rounded up for the annual group photo. Getting everyone to look at the same camera at the same time is like herding cats; she supposes that they are all actually in the photo is miracle enough.


The gaming continues and continues. This year they played a card game one of the cousins invented, and it was totally fun. Then she took advantage of the family sauna, and then showered and changed into pajamas and slippers (since her luggage was in the car). Properly buzzed and relaxed, her introvert self fell asleep in a back bedroom. She was woken up around midnight to drive home to her in-laws' house, where she exchanged gifts with her husband's parents and sister in a semi-zombie-like state.

The next morning when she woke up and got ready to head over to another aunt's house for their annual Ladies' Tea, she realized that she left all of her jewelry and her only shoes in the changing room outside the sauna. Whoooooops. Luckily that aunt hadn't left her house yet and brought everything with her to the Tea. In the meantime, she wore her slippers.

The Ladies' Tea was lovely, as it always is. They ate delicious fancy cheese and pear sandwiches, and cranberry scones with lemon curd, and curried chicken and pasta salad, and drank fancy teas, and sampled fancy desserts.


They all exchanged small gifts, and chatted & chatted & chatted. It's always a highlight of Christmastime.

The next day she re-packed suitcases, and packed boxes full of whatever didn't fit (which was a lot) and mailed them to herself, because it was time to leave home (where she's from) and fly home (where she lives).

They had quite an adventure getting home because, after all, they did fly Delta which might possibly be run by the devil's minions. She will not recount it here, but suffice it to say that 1) by the time they arrived home they had a collection of twenty-six different boarding passes (not all used, of course) to get them back and forth across the country, and 2) the priority mail box she shipped herself almost beat them home. [And then they signed up for a different credit card rewards program because they are just done-done-done with Delta.]

When she arrived home she did what she usually does after a Christmas in Oregon. She slipped into hibernation/recharge mode, and once she had quiet and time to think, she lamented and beat herself up for her fierce introversion, which becomes a problem sooner or later every Christmas. She laments that she is physically-mentally-emotionally-psychologically unable to keep up with the scheduling demands and socializing and huge groups of people, but she is a people pleaser and her very extroverted husband loves it, so she tries and sooner or later her brain is totally overwhelmed and can't take one more thing, and she snaps.

She does not like to snap, but it happens, and then she is embarrassed and frustrated and she doesn't know how to stop the cycle. She imagines what people think of her when they see her snap, and she wants to fold in on herself. Sometimes she get angry, because she tries to plan ahead, she makes requests for her needs (and they are needs, not wants) to be accommodated, to leave at a certain time... but in the thrill of the party it's "one more game" or "one more drink" or "ten more minutes" (which turns into hours). So she feels neglected and dismissed and misunderstood and angry.

She wonders if it will ever be different, or if it will always be this way. She feels frustrated and sad, and she wants Christmas to be wonderful and relaxing and not stressful. She wonders if this is delusional, if anyone experiences a not-stressful Christmas. She feels ridiculous and ashamed that she is loved by so many people that it is too many (or just too many all at once) for her and she feels selfish for needing and wanting to be loved in a different way. She vows to do things differently next year, to take care of herself better, although she's not sure how; she knows something's gotta give but she doesn't know what.

She tries to cut herself some slack and accept herself the way she is. She sinks happily, lovingly, deeper into her annual much-needed, post-Christmas hibernation.


At some point in early January she turns on the CD player in her bathroom as she steps into the shower, and Christmas music--leftover from before her trip--starts to play. She realizes, suddenly in a tidal wave that hits her smack in the face and rains down hard over her, that in her busy-ness, her preparing so many gifts of jewelry for other people to give, her checking Christmas things off her never-ending To Do lists, her working whenever she was awake and never taking a minute to stop and breathe, she never once felt the Christmas Spirit, not for a moment. She cries in the shower, and she makes a vow.

Somehow, somehow, somehow, next Christmas, things will be different.

Favorite {Photo} Friday--Yes, It's Red

If you follow me on Twitter or we're friends on Facebook or you've come within 500 feet of me while I'm trying to take photos, then you might've heard me complaining about my camera. It's a Pentax and nobody else uses Pentax, which doesn't bother me that I'm not a "cool kid" with the same camera as everyone else, but does bother me because there's no one else I can turn to when I have Pentax-specific questions, or to offer-up Pentax-related tips and tricks like so many people with Canons and Nikons do. What does bother me is that it takes forever to focus if anything at all in the viewfinder is moving; I can't use it to take photos of my nieces since those beauties never ever stop moving. As if that's not bad enough, the camera makes these really annoying noises while it's refusing to focus, noises that make me want to throw it, as hard as I can, through a wall. Yes, not even through a window, but straight through the damn wall and onto the lawn outside, like I'm Superman. And there are some other wonky things that piss torque me off about it; the more I learn about photography, the more my camera pisses torques me off.

Jason has heard, more than 18 zillion times once, about how much this camera annoys me. How I have to wait for just the right light and put the camera on a tripod and jump up and down on one foot while crossing my fingers and singing the Latvian National Anthem, just to get decent shots of my jewelry. And then run downstairs, upload them to my computer, see which of the 1400 I took came out okay and which I need to re-take, and start all over again. And then edit EVERY SINGLE PHOTO for contrast and brightness, because I just CANNOT make the camera do what I want, no matter which settings I try and how many practice shots I take and which Eastern European countries' national anthems I learn.

The problem is that I have all these nice lenses that I've acquired that fit my Pentax [like this one and this one, both of which cost a lot less when we got them than they're listed for now, holy crap cow, I'm glad I looked these up to link them, I feel rich now! :)]. And when I looked up the later-model Pentaxes, specifically the K20D, the reviews of it list the exact same problems that I have with mine (the ist DL). But when it comes right down to it, my camera is holding me back in my business; I hate listing new things because it's such a dang process to take photos of all my pieces. So I was just about ready to give up and go ahead and buy something totally and completely new. I decided on this back in, say, September.

Except I'm a Maximizer. I can't make a decision about a purchase this big without researching it to the Nth degree, and I haven't had the time or the mental energy to devote to an Nth degree search, so I just haven't done it. I've dealt with the annoying, I-want-to-throw-it-through-a-wall camera, and tried to focus on how lucky I am to have a nice camera, and how I'm learning to use it better, and blah blah blah I hate my camera.

So imagine--I mean, seriously, just try to imagine--my surprise when I opened up my Christmas present from Jason on Christmas Eve, and found this:


Yes, it's fluorescent red. I realize it's hard to tell in this photo, so here's another shot:


Here it looks sort of fluorescent coral. It kind of changes depending on the light, but if you remember the 80's, then you remember this particular color. Fluorescent red; in some lights it looks almost hot pink, except there's a little too much orange in it. That drink glass next to the camera, in case you're wondering, was to help dull my senses.

Here's another photo from the Internets:


So, I must admit, quite frankly, that the red freaked me the heck out. I love red, but aren't cameras supposed to be, you know, not fluorescent black?

But sweet, sweet, Jason did the researching for me; this is a brand-new model from Pentax. So brand-new that he didn't even know if it would arrive in time for Christmas!! The initial reviews are much, much better than the reviews for mine or the K20D. I didn't have any small children handy, so my awesome mom ran back and forth across the living room, and holy crap, this baby took her photo! And it didn't make any noises that made me even think about throwing it through a wall! It just took her photo as she zigged and zagged across the living room! [And really, how many moms of 34-year-olds will zig and zag across the living room late at night on Christmas Eve? Awesome.]

Obviously I have a lot to learn about this new doll, and I have to get used to the fact that she's fluorescent red, but I'm super excited to work with her and see how she does. And Jason's already promised that if I don't like it I can sell her on eBay, LOL! :) Actually this model is available in America in black and white, and limited edition colors of (fluorescent) red and navy; in Japan it's available in customization of I think 20 different body colors and 16 different grip colors... now that would be something to get used to! I guess our boring old black cameras are going to be a thing of the past... does that make me a trend-setter? LOL! :)

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!

Home For Christmas--By The Hair of Our Chinny-Chin-Chin

As you may know, last Friday night a huge snow storm blew into the entire Mid-Atlantic Region. And as I mentioned in my last post, as our flight was scheduled for early Saturday morning, this left me a tad bit stressed. So we decided to pack up early and head into a hotel next to the airport, to give ourselves that much more of a chance to catch our flight.

But first, we had Wine and Cheese Club night. Luckily Elizabeth's place was just a couple miles from the hotel, and normally it's just for us girls, but since Jason was with me the other ladies said he could come in. They even gave him a little bit of cheese. :)


By the time we left there was already some snow on the ground and sticking to the roads, and we were very happy to arrive at the hotel without incident. Once there, we learned that three airlines--American, Delta, and I can't remember--had already canceled all their flights for the next day. Alaska still showed our flight as scheduled, although they'd moved up the departure time by an hour.

The hotel couldn't guarantee that the shuttle to the airport would be running in the morning, so we weren't sure if we'd even have a ride; the cab companies had all just stopped answering their phones. So we decided that the shuttle driver would probably at least *try* to run the shuttle... at the very least, he'd try the first run at 5 a.m. If it was too dangerous then they'd probably not do any more after the first one, but we figured that our best chance to get to the airport would be to take that very first shuttle.

So we tried to catch a couple hours' sleep before waking up in the 4:00 hour (which should be illegal, by the way). There was probably 10 inches of snow at that point and it was still coming down; we were excited that the driver was going to give it a shot. Luckily, he was fabulous and we made it to the airport just fine. Then, Alaska checked our bags--another victory! Every little step towards us getting home was celebrated.

At the gate they told us to remain in the area because once they opened up boarding, we all had to hurry up and board because the airport was going to CLOSE and we needed to take off as soon as possible if we wanted to get out. Yikes! Then they came back on and told us that we were waiting for the crew--oh, for Pete's sake! Finally the crew arrived and Jason and I practically cheered. Then we boarded and everyone seemed very blase about the whole thing... I wanted to shout at them, "Do you want to be stuck at the airport? What is wrong with you? Hurryup hurryup hurryup!"


Once we were all on board we had to wait for the de-icing trucks, which were working on a Continental flight and were taking forever. Meanwhile it's still snowing, and they keep telling us that the airport is going to close soon, and Jason and I are trying to think good thoughts and not tell each other all the "we're going to be stuck at the airport" thoughts we're having. Finally the de-icers came over to us, hooray! Midway through the pilot came on and said that once they finished de-icing we had to hurry up and get to the runway because we only had 6-7 minutes after the de-icing to be cleared for takeoff. Jeez, could you please give us more of a sense of urgency, I'm not quite stressed enough back here in seat 20A!

After they finished de-icing, we backed away from the gate and then. just. sat. there. I had my eyes closed, trying to relax, and just praying for everything to line up so we could take off. Seriously, I was praying for the pilot, the flight attendants, the air traffic controllers, Alaska Airlines, the airport janitors, I mean everyone.

Eventually we started moving again, although I had my eyes closed and was trying to relax, so I wasn't paying attention until Jason said, "We're on the runway!" National Airport (aka Reagan) is right in the city, so it has a really short runway. And it was snowing so much, and the wind was whipping everything around, that there was a lot of snow on the runway. A lot. So as we were speeding up, Jason and I are holding hands, just hoping and praying for liftoff; neither of us would have been at all surprised if the plane had slowed down again, slid to a stop, and the flight was canceled then and there.

So when it lifted off, Jason and I both cheered, and fell in love with Alaska Airlines. We flew all the way to Seattle and from there a quick hop to Portland. A lady on the flight to Seattle checked her phone when we landed and told us that her friend was supposed to be on the very next flight out of D.C., flying to Portland via L.A., and that flight had been canceled and she couldn't get another flight until the 24th! So it might have been raining in the Pacific Northwest, but Jason and I were both walking on sunshine, soooo thankful to be at home!

The next day, Sunday, we woke up early (still on East Coast time!) and went to my home church. It was the Childrens' Program, so sweet and cute.


I love the tradition of the Advent Wreath.


Then we went into Portland for the Saturday Market and we grabbed a quick bite at the Thirsty Lion.


On Monday I finished up some jewelry projects/gifts that I hadn't had a chance to finish before we left, and we went to see Avatar in 3-D. [My review: The way they made the movie was fascinating; I really liked some of the surprising and creative ways that the "aliens" were different from humans; the 3-D glasses gave me a headache; the story was nice but very predictable; I think that it will revolutionize the way movies are made.]

On Tuesday we headed to Jason's parents' for the big football game pizza party, which I will not talk about because it was pathetic (the game, not the pizza party).


His parents live up on a hill and it gets foggy here; it's pretty (as long as you're not trying to drive in it!).


One of Jason's uncles made this and it's somehow lasted many years, coming out every Christmas! I love the little icicles.


Yesterday I wrote my Christmas letter, made copies, and put Jason and his mom to work folding letters and stuffing and stamping envelopes. So glad to have this crossed off my list!


Today we're heading back to my parents' for our annual Christmas Eve party, with homemade clam chowder and smoked salmon... yummmmm.

Merry Christmas!!!

December 11th

In about mid-November I had a big surge of Etsy orders from the plan-aheaders who do their Christmas shopping early, and then it quieted down. It quieted down so much that I started worrying about all the supply orders I'd put on the credit card. I had a feeling that there would be another surge from the procrastinators, but I just wasn't sure.

This past week orders have been coming in and I've been so thankful. Then yesterday I went to deliver an order at my hair salon to one of the stylists. It turned out that she left early, but I decided to show my stuff anyway, and I sold two pairs of earrings. Then as I was leaving I remembered that I'd told the owner of the salon that I'd stop by sometime with my new designs. She works across the street at the salon's training center, so I decided to pop in.

If you sell your own creations, then you probably understand how awkward it can be to do something like this. I mean, it can be awkward enough if you're hawking something like Girl Scout Cookies... you don't want to seem pushy, people can be rude and ignore you or give you a dirty look, etc. But when it's your own artwork, your own creations, it can be extra scary! If they turn down Girl Scout Cookies, you can just tell yourself that maybe they're on a diet or they don't like Thin Mints. But if it's your own labors of love that they turn down, well, it can bruise the ego a bit!

I've actually gotten pretty good at it, because I don't take it personally if people don't buy anything. I have a diverse-enough range (in my current stock I have about three times what I have listed on Etsy) that usually people will like something at least. I'm not pushy at all, and I tell people the truth--I love to know what people like the most, because then I know which items are most popular and I can upload those to Etsy first. So just by looking at what I have to offer and telling me what they like, people are helping me and I'm appreciative. And if they don't buy anything, that's fine, and I thank them for helping me out... I appreciate their input, and when I have some new designs can I stop by again for them to look things over? They always say yes, and I think it's because I'm not pushy or guilt-inducing! :) I usually give out a business card or two as well. :)

ANYWAY, that was a tangent! The point is that it can be intimidating to walk in somewhere with a basket of your creations and say, "Hey, would you like to spend some of your hard-earned money on some stuff I've made?" But I'm always glad when I do it, even when I don't sell anything. And I'm really glad that I did it yesterday, because at the training center I sold NINE necklaces! WOO HOO! And five of them were brand-new designs that I haven't listed on Etsy yet, so I need to remake those now! :)

Then I came home and found more orders in my Etsy and on Facebook and in my e-mail inbox! Yesterday was by far my biggest days of sales EVER... and it wouldn't have been if I'd been too scared to put myself and my work out there. My point is... put yourself out there, you'll be glad you did!

Since I spent so much time doing orders and sales yesterday I decided to make it my page for my December Daily album. I wanted to do a photo grid with photos of some of the things I sold... usually this takes me forever because I'm OCD about making everything exactly the same size and spaced properly and etc. But in a couple online classes I've taken I've been using Photoshop templates... and I decided to try to make my own. I know, like, woah. If you know Photoshop you'll say woah because this is so easy; if you don't know Photoshop you'll say woah because you have no idea what I'm talking about. :)

So I dove in and did it and figured out clipping masks and just made myself pleased as punch with this new tool in my arsenal! I added in the "december" and graphics I made before and changed the color (and the number, obviously). Then I printed it out to put in my album, and it didn't look right because the background of the page is cream and the white looked too glaring. Plus when I printed it, my 4x6 photo printer trimmed off a little bit of the outside edge, so it wasn't even all the way around with the white lines in the middle (OCD, I told you).


So I started looking for a "digital paper" that would match my layout. I don't have that much because I don't scrap digitally, so whatever I have has been obtained through free downloads. But I quickly tired of looking through my folders, because I don't have my digital scrapbooking stuff organized well (because I never use it). So instead I took a page from my friend Cynthia's book, and I scanned in the (actual, physical) scrapbooking paper that I'd used in the layout! Then I copied it into the background of my photo grid, and I made the background larger so that when the printer cut down the edges it would still be even.


Voilà! It printed out perfectly so that it matches my page and looks great!

I love learning new things that will make my life easier!

Jason is finally up and around so I can go tackle the things on my To Do list that make a lot of noise. :) Bang-bang-bang, lots of jewelry to work on today! :)

Have a great weekend! :)

Favorite {Photo} Friday--Christmas Markets

On Wednesday I was stricken with the worst case of homesickness for Italy that I've had in a long, long time; maybe even the worst case ever. I have a post mostly written about that and I hope to finish it up and "publish" it this weekend. But of course it made me think about being in Europe during this time of year, and how much I miss it! I've also made a friend on Twitter (I know, what a crazy world we live in!) who's an American living in Germany... I keep telling her to go drink some Glühwein for me. :) So that's made me think about it, too.

I wrote a bit last year about Christmas Markets. I love European Christmas markets. Looooove them.

I mean, hello? How could you not?


Beautiful beautiful. Every time I get frustrated with my photography I should look back on my photos from five (or even three) years ago... oh, the things I could make my camera do to these babies now! But still, I love it.


And another one just for some color and variety. :)

Tonight I'm off to cuddle on the couch with Jason and watch a movie... he's been waiting for me so I'd better not keep him waiting any longer! Have a great weekend!

Oh! And I'll be taking Etsy orders through next Tuesday only... so if there's anything you've been meaning to order, now's the time!! :)

Home For Christmas (Almost Only in Our Dreams)

[Allow me to start by saying that I got about 4.5 hours of sleep last night; that might be plenty of sleep for the Energizer Bunny ever-ebullient Katie, but I assure you it is not enough for this redhead. So forgive me any and all errors; I'm sure there will be plenty. But this post has been bouncing around for days and if I don't get it out now it will be the new year (2009! OMG!) and then I never will (and I know at least two kind people want to read it). :) SO. On with the post.]

The Sunday before Christmas Jason and I loaded our bags into the car and headed off to the airport, bound for Portland, Oregon (PDX). As I mentioned in a previous post, it almost never snows at Christmas in Oregon. The few times I remember having a "White Christmas" when I was growing up it was either a dusting or just a few flakes that us kids used to be far too excited about. So although Jason and I heard, from family members as well as actual certified meteorologists, that it was snowing in Oregon--and was going to keep snowing--somehow it didn't quite really sink in. I still planned to pick up Starbucks gift cards at Costco and run a few errands. Saturday Market and Powell's (City of Books--OMG it's heaven) were still not entirely out of the question in my mind.

When we landed in Salt Lake City, they immediately informed us that our flight to PDX was cancelled and we were rescheduled the next morning. They gave us our boarding passes and (upon my request) a hotel voucher. Having never been in this situation before, I asked about our bags. The kind but obviously stupid customer service rep told us that we could pick up our bags in baggage claim, and if we didn't claim them they'd be forwarded to PDX the next morning with our flight. This didn't make a whole lot of sense to us, but we made our way to baggage claim anyway. Obviously, our bags never arrived. The line for the Delta Baggage Office was about 40 people long and there appeared to be one person working. By this point it was around 8 p.m. SLC time, which meant 10 p.m. East Coast time, which meant we were starving. [Usually I'm better about planning our eating schedules but I was fairly crazed and was lucky just to get my bags packed in time to get to the airport--I literally mailed out my last etsy orders on the way to the airport.] So we opted to head for the hotel and grab some dinner, since I had a contact case and lens solution in my carry-on (thank God!).


We actually made the most of our short time in SLC; our hotel gave us a shuttle ride over to another hotel that had a good restaurant, we ate and talked with another couple stuck for the night, and our Bosnian restaurant manager was delightful and very generous with his pours of wine. We heard that a big snowstorm was supposed to be blowing in around 2 a.m., so with hearts and minds full of dread we slept a few hours and were pleased to discover no new snow when we woke up! So we caught the hotel shuttle back to the airport.

Luckily we had our boarding passes, and since we only had our carry-ons we skipped the Delta counter and went straight through security towards our gate. There we realized how lucky we were to have boarding passes; the airport was full of people sleeping on every possible horizontal surface, not because they couldn't afford a hotel, but because they were afraid if they left the terminal without boarding passes they'd never get put on a flight! OUCH!

The Pilot came out a few times and warned us of the weather in Portland, so when they started boarding us just a few minutes late we were all excited and pretty hopeful. By this point Jason has missed his ski day with his cousins and I'd missed my PDX day, which was a bummer, but we were both excited to just get home to Portland.

So it didn't bother us too much when they delayed our takeoff for a half-hour--it was early, after all, let's give the PDX airport guys time to clean up the runway, right? And then another half-hour slipped by fairly quickly, filled with reading and short dozes moments of drifting off into some weird kind of half-sleep. :) By the time they announced the third half-hour delay, most of us were just praying we'd get to Portland, especially when the snowflakes started to fall and we all had visions of being stuck in SLC through Christmas! So when they announced takeoff after 90 minutes of waiting, we were all pretty stoked! We sent our last-minute texts/tweets and made our last-minute phone calls to the people coming to pick us up and then we were in the air. Woo hoo!!


We settled in for the quick two-hour flight and breathed a collective sigh of relief as the plane started to descend over Portland. And then we collectively gasped slightly when we started to ascend again. Huh? The Pilot came on and announced that Portland's long runway was totally icy and wouldn't be cleared for two hours (which makes me wonder why the heck we were ever cleared for takeoff in the first dang place), and the short runways were too short for our plane, so up we went to Seattle. GAH.

Obviously everyone figured we'd head up to Seattle, wait around for two more hours (or an hour and a half by the time we got there), and then head into Portland on a freshly-cleared runway. Right? Doesn't that make sense?

Nearly upon touchdown in Seattle the Pilot jumped back on the horn to say that the plane was heading back to SLC. We could get off in Seattle if we wanted, but the crew and all of our luggage was heading back to SLC. Further, we would be responsible for our own transportation from Seattle; they weren't going to book us through to Portland. And, we had about two minutes to decide what we were doing, because they were refueling and heading straight back.

Oh. My. STINKIN'. HECK!!!

Decisions, decisions! All of us were immediately on our cell phones--Jason and I were actually each on our phones to different people, which struck me as comical even at the time. Everyone on the plane was trying to figure out if there were any busses or trains running, if small chartered planes could get into the shorter runways at PDX, or if rental car places had any 4-wheel drives still available--all this in about two minutes! Meanwhile we're remembering the snowstorm blowing into SLC even as we sat on the runway and imagining being stuck there for Christmas, and of course wondering if we'd ever see our luggage again if we let it go back to SLC without us! [Especially since I had only two weeks previously laughed by ass butt off at this blog post from comedian Eugene Mirman about his luggage which Delta--the very airline now responsible for our luggage--lost. I spent most of our vacation trying to not think about his post. Which is hilarious, by the way, and you should check it out.]


Jason was on the phone to my Dad, who was at the PDX airport waiting to pick us up, and he told us to call my Mom. I'm unsure of the details but somehow she'd found out that her doctor's son (she's a nurse, she and Dr. Ellerbrook have worked together for almost as long as I can remember) was driving from Portland up to Seattle to pick up his father-in-law, who also was being re-routed to Seattle. So we got Jon's phone number and Jason called him to make sure he'd have room for us. We even managed a moment of levity when Jason said, "Oh, yeah, what about our stuff?" and I said, "Uh, babe, we won't have any stuff!" :) "Oh. Yeah!" :)

So the decision was made. About 75% of the people on the plane ended up getting off anyway, despite not getting any luggage and being unsure of how they'd get to Portland. (Further proof Seattle is a zillion times better than SLC, ha!) I don't understand why we couldn't have our luggage, or why we couldn't just hang out in Seattle for a bit, but at this point whatever, right? At least we were within driving distance of PDX, we had a plan, and at the very least (if Jon couldn't make it up), I know a ton of people in Seattle and I could start calling everyone I know to see who was still in town. :)

We had a crapload of several hours to kill in SeaTac (Seattle-Tacoma) airport before Jon arrived (he hadn't even left yet for what is normally a 3+ hour drive in perfect conditions and we all had no idea how long it would take in the ice and snow). So we did the best possible thing in these types of situations: first I cried a bit, and then we found a bar. Luckily we didn't have to go too far, it was just across from the gate we flew into. :) We ordered lunch and two big beers. A suitable time passed and we ordered another round (although I switched to wine since they were out of dark beer--another painful sacrifice due to the weather :)). We sat and made lists of all the good things that happened in 2008 and all our goals for 2009, although truth be told we were feeling pretty sleep-deprived and torqued-off and pitiful not to mention buzzed, so our lists were more hilarious than real (especially the 2009 goals--topping the list was "NO F***ING SNOW"). (Ha!) But it helped us pass the time. :)


Eventually Jon called to say he was arriving, and he really made remarkable time! So good, in fact, that his father-in-law hadn't even arrived yet! But since he was there he swooped us up in his Subaru all-wheel drive; it was remarkably easy to meet him, since I've heard things about him most of my life and he looks incredibly like his dad, so it was sort of like I already knew him a bit. He took us to another tavern near the airport to eat, since it was now dinner time. It was so nice to be out of the airport and it was also nice to not pay crazy airport prices! We ate and got to know each other and killed more time and pretty soon his father-in-law called and we headed back to the airport, and then soon--about 8 p.m.--were on our way back to Portland!

I am ashamed to say that in the cozy luxury of the back seat of the Subaru, safely on our way home with most of our worries past and our stomachs full of food and beer, Jason and I fell asleep almost immediately. I woke up about an hour outside of Portland and I think Jason woke up when we were almost in Portland; needless to say we didn't make the best travel companions, although maybe Jon was thankful for the peace and quiet. :)

The worst part of the entire drive was the distance from southern Portland through my parents' exit on the freeway (about 20 miles of pure ice with huge berms in the road). Luckily my parents were able to drive up part way to get us so poor Jon didn't have to drive us all the way down--we're sooooo thankful to him anyway, we were calling him our Knight in Shining Subaru, ha ha! :)

So we arrived at my parents' and fell into bed. The rest of our remaining visit was wonderful and fairly uneventful, at least in comparison, and I will post photos later this week/weekend of all the fun. But the good news is that we were able to get to a store to restock on essentials--I even found a pair of jeans that sufficed!--and we had a renewed sense of what was truly important about the holiday and our visit. Jason and I handled everything well and were a great team, we had a great visit with most of our family (except my sister's family who couldn't make it down from Spokane, which is a major bummer, and I'll work hard to see them soon!), and (thanks to my parents driving up to PDX on Christmas!) we even got our luggage back before we flew home (only by about ten hours due to our schedule at Jason's family's house, but still, what a relief!).

On that note, I will close out my last post for 2008. Tomorrow will be exciting, with a post about my One Word for 2009 and a special necklace offer!