Hold Dear

What a day!

What a day I had yesterday! Things are usually pretty easy going here at Hold Dear, et al. But oh Momma...not yesterday!

I mentioned that we now have a third cat. Bastian. Cute cute and sweet sweet. Well, long story short, he's about 10 months old and hadn't been neutered yet. So an appointment was made and our plan to get the little guy's business all taken care of was in motion.

So let me set the stage a bit for what turned out to be the perfect storm. Since Bastian was going to have surgery yesterday morning, we had to remove his food by 8:00 pm. Okay...when you see a picture of him, you'll understand that this little boy loves to eat. My nickname for him is "Tubby!" By 10:00 pm, he was already scrounging around, finding any piece of stray kibble he could and gobbling it up!

By the time we all woke up on Friday, Bastian was pretty wound up. I'm sure because he was so hungry. We also had to cut off his water by 6:00 am.

Regrettably, it was at this point that Atticus decided to get in Bastian's face. I heard a ruckus and found them in the corner in the sewing room (formerly Miranda's room). Full on furball! Glen's been sick so he was still in bed so I decided to try to separate the two of them. That did not go well. I reached in and tried to grab Bastian by the scruff of his neck. He was still just way too "hot" and went after me, resulting in several deep scratches on my hands and arms. I couldn't tell if he bit me because for a second there, the there was one big blur of cat, my hands, and pain. I knew he got me good though because one of the scratches had one of his nails in it. Yuk and oh yeah, it really hurt! Glen came in and rescued me (thank you honey!) and got Bastian in his carrier and then helped get me all washed up. It was at this point Glen reminded me that Bastian hadn't had any of his shots yet and I should probably call my doctor to let them know what happened. That's when I started crying.

I got myself together, took Bastian to the vet, and made my way to work. Once at work, I called the vet to request that in addition to neutering and shots, to PLEASE trim Bastian's nails! I also called my doctor. So another long story short, I spent yesterday afternoon at the doctor's office getting a Tetanus shot. Oh boy! More fun for ShellShell! I was happy to do this though. Bastian is a healthy kitty but since he hadn't had any shots, including Rabies, I just didn't know how that was all gonna play out. The other good news was that the scratches all looked pretty good and so I don't have to hassle with antibiotics.

So yesterday was one crazy, long day for me. When I got home, I went to the local Japanese restaurant, got two orders of Tempura Udon, another 30Rock DVD, then came home and sat on the couch with the recovering Glen until 11:00 pm. Sigh. Reminded me that sometimes, I like boring!

To show you there are no hard feelings, here are a couple of pictures of Bastian boy. The first one is the night before is surgery and then second one is the debut of the new and improved Bastian! He's a cutie and now that he's home, all is forgiven. :-)

So if you know me at all, you I believe that stuff all happens for a reason, good and bad. So after this crazy day, I kept thinking, "Okay, why is this happening? What is this leading up to?" I did end up having lunch with my very dear friend, Leah which was supremely cool. We were both wondering around at Pioneer Place with our lunches, both having equally challenging days so we sat and had lunch and a GREAT conversation about goal-setting. That was awesome but there's more. I also picked a card from a deck of ZEN cards that my friend Heidi let me borrow. I was hoping that the card would have a message for me and give me something to focus on. It did. Big time. The card read:

What happens to you does not matter: what you BECOME through those experiences is all that is significant. This is the true MEANING of life.

Merry Christmas!

Sigh. So I never did get around to taking pictures of things Christmasy around our house this year. There's not too much though. With me being away early in the month and then with Miranda being in Hawaii, we seem to be layin' real low this year. Never did do more than this to our tree...

Can you spy little Atticus under the tree? :-)

We have been out and about doing stuff this holiday. Last night we went to Glen's brother's house for the evening. What a fun evening! I didn't want to stay too long but we ended up hanging out for 4 1/2 hours! Dang board games! :-)

Friday night, as I mentioned, Glen and I went to the Queen Anne Victorian Mansion and I'd like to share some pictures from that with you. This place is absolutely breath-taking. (We'll go there next year Miranda!!) There's LOTS of inspiration in these pictures. Maybe these will get me planning for the holidays next year...now! :-)

On the way home from the Queen Anne, I took this picture from the car. I've ALWAYS wanted a picture of this sign! You can barely make it out but during the holidays, the nose is red!!

Today Glen and I went to the Willamette National Cemetery and The Grotto. What a lovely, lovely afternoon. I wish this to be what I do every Christmas Eve. Between visiting these two places, I am filled with love, gratitude, and peace. I feel completely blessed and renewed and ready to set my intentions for 2008.

After WNC and The Grotto, we stopped by Miranda's old place of residence and picked up Bastian. Bastian is Doug's cat and Doug's living situation is in transition so it was agreed that the little furry guy (Bastian, not Doug) would come live with us. We are now a three cat family! Yowza!

Okay...time to go put on my jammies and cozy up with Mr. G while we wait for Santa. We got the fire and grapefruit martinis going and have some DVDs to watch. We have 30 Rock and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. We'll be keeping the laptop up and on noradsanta.org so we can watch Santa as he makes his way around the world. This is something we've been doing for years! Oh and since I've been talking A LOT about grapefruit martinis, I thought I'd share the recipe with you. Be forewarned...it's a yummy drink and goes down real easy like so plan ahead! :-)

Holiday Grapefruit Martinis for Two

1/2 cup grapefruit juice (I use Odwalla but fresh squeeze would work!)

1/4 cup fresh squeezed satsuma mandarin juice

1/2 cup Vodka (my Vodka of choice is Ketel One)

2 tbsp simple syrup (or granulated sugar to taste)

Shake in martini shaker with ice.

Pour into sugar rimmed martini glasses, wine glasses or jelly jars. :-) Enjoy!!!

And with that, my dear family and friends, I will say Merry Christmas to you!

I wish you and your loved ones peace, happiness, and good health.

XO,

Michelle

happy birthday miranda!

Happy Birthday Miranda!!! My sweet girlie girl of a daughter turns 21 today! Pretty incredible to think that 21 years ago today at approximately 1:06 pm, I became a mother. To this day, I still consider this to be my greatest accomplishment.

Glen and I called Miranda this morning to wish her a happy birthday. She told us of the amazing way she ushered in her 21st year the night before.

Miranda and her friend/roomate, Jessi went to a friend's house in Paia where there was cake and presents waiting for her. They then made some grapefruit martinis (okay...there's proof that she's MY daughter! :-) Afterwards, they went to Hookipa Beach for a midnight swim in some tide pools. She said with the full moon, the crystal clear water, and the white white sand, you could still see the bottom of the pools even though they couldn't touch it with their feet. She said she noticed something dark moving in the water and got scared at first but then she realized...it was three sea turtles each about the size of a garbage can lid. She said they just started slowly swimming around them.

So to sum this all up, Miranda spent her 21st birthday in Hawaii, swimming in a tide pool of warm crystal clear water under a full moon in the company of good friends and three wild sea turtles. Hmmm...not sure how she could have improved on this. With all the not so good adventures Miranda's had on Maui, I'm SO happy for her that her luck is turning around. :-) Happy Birthday Girlie. I love you and miss you like crazy!!!

Oh and just briefly, I have SO much catching up to do with you! Ever since I got back from my Mom's, I've been a bit fried. Between the usual "post-being with my family" blues that always comes and then all that driving and then having to do some catch up at work, I've been exhausted and have just wanted to go into seclusion. Kinda not like me but I'm not fighting it. I never did get my Christmas cards made and sent out and I really didn't do much as far as presents go. I picked up a few things for Glen but other than that...zippo. There were several cards and packages waiting for me when I got home...some very special SWEET SWEET thoughtful friends sent treats my way and I thank you SO much!!! I will absolutely make sure I share them with you!

I think the fog is lifting a bit because last night, I was motivated to go out with Glen on a "date." We went to the Queen Anne Victorian Mansion and then had a fabulous dinner at Bernie's Southern Bistro. SO good!!! So I'm slowly getting back into the swing of things. Tomorrow we're planning on going out to the Willamette National Cemetary and then to The Grotto. Last year we did those two things the same day and I remember how very renewing and invigorating that was.

Okay, I'm a gonna go get...I'll be back to visit you real soon. I really do have LOTS to share with you!!!

XO,

Michelle

12 Days of Christmas Swap

Hi there...so I finished the project I've been working on for the 12 Days of Christmas Swap that Michelle is hosting. The dear Lord only knows why I would choose to take on a project while I knew I'd be away from home. Guess I really wanted to challenge myself in a big way. Can you say overachiever? :-)

All that said, I am REALLY happy with what I created for this swap!!!! Each participant in the swap was assigned a "day." You know how the song goes..."On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me..." Anywho, I was assigned day"4" so I was "Four Calling Birds." Okay...so picture me scrambling with what to do for this. I brought my inspiration book to work on, Christmas cards making supplies, my soldering iron just in case I got motivated to work on charms for a Valentine's Day swap I'm in, my stash of fabric scraps, ribbon and my sewing machine but that's it. BTW - this stash of "that's it" supplies completely filled the back of my station wagon! LOL! Anywho, so with the supplies at hand, I decided to make four calling birds out of fabric. And now that I'm done, I think having limited supplies actually turned out to be a good thing...it pushed me to be more creative and not to over think things.

I made a bird template and started cutting fabric.

Then I sewed the little wings on to the bodies and then sewed that to a length of ribbon.

Next I glued on beads for little eyeballs. At first I started sewing the eyes on but then I remembered, hey! I have to be back to work next Wednesday! :-)

I've seen pictures from other 12 Days of Christmas Swaps and I saw how lovely the packages were wrapped, with a little tag indicating the day number. That set before me a challenge since I didn't have any stamps and the usual assortment paints or inks. Thankfully, my Mom did have potatoes and a few acrylic paints she bought for craft time with the grandchildren. So I carved a "4" in a potato and stamped on some cut cardstock to make some tags.

So here are all the little birdies wrapped up and ready to send off today, totally meeting the deadline for mailing! Whoo-hoo!!!

So just a couple more days here at Casa Hip. Tonight my sister is coming over and we're going to hang out and partake in one or two of those lucsious grapefruit martinis. Sigh. I hate this part...when things start winding down and I have to start thinking of packing and the journey home. The good news is that Sunday when I leave my Mom's, I'll be going to San Francisco to spend a day with my sister Renee and while I'm there, I'm going to Britex Fabrics AND I'm going to get a chance to meet sweet Malou! She is one of my VERY FIRST blogging buddies. I met her the same time I met my BFF Lilli. And then...when I continue on my trip heading home on Monday, the plan is to stop and have a visit with dear Tricia! (I've decided to just count on the weather cooperating so this can happen, Tricia!!!) I'm just so tickled with the thought of meeting IN PERSON these very special people that I already consider friends! I also wanted to visit with Jana along the way but she lives just a few hours from me and so there really is no reason why we can't get together to hang out without me being on my way to somewhere...it's just a matter of planning!!!

Take care and hope you have a lovely weekend!!!

good days.

Hi! Just thought I'd peek in and say howdy. I'm having a fabulous time with my Mom and all my family. Saturday night I went with my bro, his daughter and my sister to the Vine Street Victorian Christmas Showcase, as previously mentioned. Afterwards, we made grapefruit martinis and then I sprawled on the couch with my two sisters and we watched Notting Hill.

Sunday, in addition to my my brother, both sisters, and niece, my nephew and his wife came over with their two little girlies - my grand nieces! It was magical! Sunday night, I went into town with my brother and sister for appetizers and drinks at F. McClintocks. Afterwards, we wandered around town and made a lot of noise. VERY fun. Paso Robles has changed SO much. It's definitely shifting into a destination kind of place for the "wine country" tourists.

By Monday 11:00 am, everyone had left my Mom's and I had her all to myself. Now quite sure how long it's been since this has happened!! We had a pretty easy day...just one Physical Therapy appointment for Mom and then my sister that lives in the area come over for a bit. Later in the evening, my Mom and I hung out in her room, snacked and watched Dream Girls. Have I mentioned I have been sleeping SO good since I've been at my Mom's. TOTALLY catching up on my sleep!

Today was spent helping out my Mom with a few meals, two appointments, some housework and yardwork. I did get to get in a bit of reading...I'm reading Julie and Julia right now. I also got to work on a 12 Days of Christmas swap that Michelle is hosting. I'm looking forward to tonight...my sister is coming over and she's going to make a Chinese Chicken Salad. Of course, mine will be sans chicken.

Sigh...it's just SO nice to hang out and get in a whole string of the "best day ever"! as my nephew Nelson says.

Okay...I'll be back by in a few days to see ya...I'll leave you with a few pictures I took around Paso Sunday evening...

I just had to get a picture of the infamous weather station at Paso Robles Inn...

There's usually a rock on a pedestal just below the sign...we think maybe the rock is covered by the bushes.

ETA: Tricia offered up that the rock is gone because, just like the sign says, there was a tornado! LOL!

And then I just couldn't resist the PERFECT photo op!!

See ya soon! XO!

celebration of traditions

Ahoy there! I am blogging from the far flung isle of Paso Robles on my Mom's computer! Pretty s'weat, eh??? My one woman road trip down here was perfectly uneventful, just the way I had planned it. :-)

I'll probably be off hanging out and visiting with my Mom, sisters, brother, nieces, nephews, and great nieces but I did want to pop in today to join in the fun that the talented and fabulous Jill is hosting over on her blog. She's doing a "Celebration of Tradition" party today. Ever since she mentioned this I have been thinking so much of the traditions that my family has had for the holidays. It was kind of eye opening because I realized we just don't have that many that have stuck around. But the ones that have stuck, are pretty powerful.

Since most of my family live in different states, I don't get to see them most holidays. For the last 14 years or so, our traditions have been things that Glen, Miranda, and I have grown into. And then this year, with Miranda living in Hawaii, it won't even be the three of us. It'll just the two of us. That's going to be so strange! But so far there are two Christmas parties on the schedule with one of them being Christmas day. That will be nice. Otherwise, it might be tempting to just do the Thanksgiving thing and stay in my jammies all day again!! :-)

Th traditions that Glen and I will still do this year will be going to The Grotto to light a prayer candle or two. This event absolutely sets the tone for a new year for me. Here are pictures of last year's trip to The Grotto.

Even with Miranda being away from home this year, we'll still do our Christmas stocking tradition of hanging them on the fireplace to open Christmas morning. Ever since Miranda was little, the deal was that she got to get up early and open her stocking while we caught a few more Z's. When she was done, she would then come in wake us up and then presents would be opened! Miranda's stocking opening would always take a bit of time because it would be full of little treats, including a roll of Bubble Tape and lots of little gifties all individually wrapped!

This year, being at my Mom's, I got a chance to participate in a tradition that has been going on in Paso Robles for 30 years or so. The Vine Street Victorian Showcase. This is the first year I got to go and it was marvelous. Cold, but marvelous! :-) I got to go with my brother Neil, niece Meagan, and sister Simone. SO much fun!!!!

The "showcase" is a section of Vine Street that gets closed off and all the Victorian-style houses are brightly and cleverly decorated. Lots going on...musicians, dancers, a marching band, and many of the residents provide hot chocolate, coffee, popcorn, and cotton candy. Oh so fun.

I took a few pictures of the houses but most came out fuzzy but here's one a couple...

This one came out nice though. :-)

I will try to come out and play a little bit while I'm at my Mom's, but I have a feeling I'm going to want to spend all my time staying real close to my dear family. I haven't spent nearly enough time with them in my lifetime, so I got lots of catching up to do!

Lots of love to you and your families!!!

distractions...

Okay so I am leaving on Friday to go visit my Mom and to help her along post-surgery. Plus, while I'm there, I get to visit my two sisters and then my brother who is flying in from Minnesota for a few days. He's bringing his oldest daughter with him too! To say I am excited would be a serious understatement! So in order that I don't go BONKERS and implode or explode or do any kind of ploding, I'm going to distract myself and discuss a few other things...like the weather!

We are getting some torrential rains here in the Portland area! It was windy and rainy all night last night and all day today! I live on a hill so we're safe from any flooding but check out the little street at the bottom of our hill...

This is crazy stuff, man! We can still drive through it in our cars but wow! Another little spot in our neighborhood that always floods when it rains real hard was closed!

Something else that has been happily distracting me is the Round Robin journal I've been working on. I got it all finished up and got it handed off to Melissa today! Yay! Melissa and I work at the same company so I got to have lunch her with and another friend, Leah. Always a pleasure having lunch with those gals! :-) So the journey has begun for my little book! Oh boy! We don't get our books back until July, 2008 so that's kind of wild to think about! I hope I'm skinny by then! :-)

The theme of my book is "bird, nest, egg, and feather images." Odd, I know, but when Elise, our lovely hostess, first began discussing this round robin, she was referring to it as the ArtNest Round Robin since several of the gals doing it had just attended ArtNest (lucky!). I immediately began finding all kinds of lovely bird images so when it came time to pick a theme, I just kept it real simple.

Here are a few pictures...the cover...

The inside of the cover...

...and then the pages...this first page has a transparency over it...

Here is the instructions page and a little pouch with a goody bag for each participant!

Here's a closer view...but not too close! :-)

And then more pages...

   

 

The poem on these pages reads:

If I were a bird, I'd sing a song and fly about the whole day long,

and when the night comes, go to rest up in my cozy little nest. Jackie Silberg

Just so sweet! And then here's the last page of my pages.

The whole book put back together...

I am in line to receive a journal from Malou each time. I can't wait to see what that clever lady did with her book and pages! :-)

Okay...I'd better get...I need to set to work on the task at hand (and another good distraction)...putting the lights up on the Christmas tree! I like to do it a certain way and so Glen knows that's MY thing! :-) Boy, do I love havin' that tree in the house! Hmmm... the whole house smells like pine! I think we should keep a tree in our house year round...oh and speaking of trees...did you see that the storm brought down the largest Sitka Spruce Tree living in the United States??? Here's the story. I'm SO glad we got to see it before it came down!!!

Later, my lovelies, ta ta!

fun weekend and blog giveaway winners!

What a fun weekend! We didn't get the snow they predicted in Portland (at least not in our area) but man o' man, did we get rain and wind! So what did we do at Chez Geller? We spent a good portion of the weekend outside! Sheesh! Good thing we have our skin to keep our insides dry! :-)

Before I go on and on about my weekend, I want to announce the names of the winners of the little giveaway for the bags of "assorted candy" aka ribbons and embellishments!

The winners are...

Cheryl - From the Pines

and

Melissa Danner

Yay!!! Congratulations!

Thank you SO much to everyone for leaving such heartfelt and kind birthday wishes for my Mom. I will be leaving on Friday to go visit her (and the rest of my family!!!) so I can't wait to show her all your comments!!!! Thank you, dear, dear friends.

Melissa and Cheryl - I will send you an e-mail asking for your address!

So now on to my weekend adventures...

Friday night Glen and I went to the Holiday Ale Festival at Pioneer Courthouse Square downtown. Once I settled down from how crazy crowded it was, we ended up having a VERY good time. And by VERY, I mean I drank too much beer. :-) We met up with a friend of ours who just happened to know lots of brewers and event organizers so it turned out to be a very fun evening. That Scott is one cool dude. Also, I had some of the best beer I've ever tasted. It's called Hallucinator and it was this year's winner from the Widmer's Collaborator Project. I also got to meet the brewer. Another cool perk of hanging out with Scott. After the festival, we went to Widmer Gasthaus (it was a beer-themed evening, what can I say?) and I had the BEST gardenburger I've ever had!

A few pictures...

Glen and our friend, Scott.

This was taken INSIDE the great big giant white tent that they set up in the square. Pretty cool. And like I said, it was crowded. At first, I was ready to turn around and leave but once we found a little corner to hang out and just visit with people, all was good with the world.

Our Saturday was spent doing all of our errands and stocking up on provisions, just in case it snowed! (A girl can hope!)

Then Sunday, Glen and I went out and got our Christmas tree! Remember I mentioned that while I was away at Silver Bella, Glen went to the Neuberger Banquet? Well, at this event, there is always a silent auction. Glen surprised me (gulp!) and bid on and won several items including a trip to a friend's home and  Christmas Tree Farm where we got to pick out and cut down a Christmas tree. Even though a pretty penny was spent to go cut down our tree, we still took our friends a gift...a magnum of beer! I thought this was the funniest thing! And it was very well received!

Here are a few pictures of the view from the living room window...

If you click to enlarge the above picture, you'll see the vineyards in the back. So breathtaking. And then here's a view of the house from down where the Christmas trees are...

Our friend's house is GORGEOUS...I mean, like, the most beautiful home I've EVER been in. It's actually been in Architectural Design. There weren't the best of circumstances as to how our friends came to have such a spectacular home, but none the less, it's beautiful. I couldn't find a link to that story but I did find this.

A picture of my cutie. Even though this is a Christmas tree farm, it is not a farm that's open to the public. It's not a U-pick kind of deal so the trees are EXTREMELY dense. It was really fun because we walking through areas where there was only a sliver of light between the trees! I know if Miranda had been with us, she would have absolutely gone nuts!!! The trees were VERY inviting and it totally felt like they were hugging us! :-)

Our gorgeous Noble Fir in the back of the ol' Rodeo. We're gonna let it dry out tonight and then tomorrow night, we'll set it up and put some lights on 'er. We've got eggnog and my favorite Christmas CD at the ready. Now if only we'd get that snow!