Christmas 2021 - snacks and trees and family-photo fail

Looking back through my Christmas pics, most are snacks or trees! After having to miss all the festivities last year due to COVID restrictions, it was sure nice to be together with my boostered family!

And because I was so excited to see everyone, I forgot to take many photos. Here are a few highlights:

Christmas Eve snacks with Brad's family. No pics of the family - just the food:

Jill and Maroof gave me this amazing felted Bernie ornament!

And post Christmas Eve zoom church snacks with Mom and Eryn:

Christmas morning...

Our tree:

Mom's downstairs tree (and penguin collection!):

And Eryn's upstairs tree:

We remembered to take ONE pic!

Then off to Ma and Pa's house:

I thought to take a couple pics just as Vicki and Jessie were leaving:

(Vicki went home to sleep before her evening ED shift. Jessie went along to wrangle the dogs so Vicki could sleep!)

KneeBlades!

My very first, very favorite ornaments - at Ma and Pa's house:

You can faintly see: ER 77 - Elizabeth Ruth 1977.

Cookies from Santa Ma:

We then spent two days with Brad's family in Vancouver and I have NO pictures of that celebration - except the ice cream we made and then ate.

Complete fail. No pics of Jill and Maroof visiting from NYC. No pics of the Wood tree or family at all. Oops!

I'll do better next year :)

Gizmo loves my Christmas quilt

Ma made me this Christmas quilt when I was a kid. I love it and look forward to retrieving it each Thanksgiving from my cedar chest.

Napping under my quilt is a favorite winter activity. Gizmo agrees! Whenever it's out, she finds it:

And if I cover her up, she'll stay snuggled there for hours...

and hours...

:)

A boostered Thanksgiving

With our entire family freshly boostered, we were able to have indoor Thanksgiving this year!!

Instead of gathering in small groups in our garage, we all met together in Eryn's house. She and Mom remodeled the kitchen/living room/dining room right when COVID hit. This was the first time they were able to host in their beautiful new space!

Brad and I baked some pies:

Their new kitchen island was perfect for this spread:

My first round. YUMMO!!!!

There was plenty of room for a big table and lots of room to spread out. It was so great to have people together.

The hostess!

We were also so glad to be able to do our Black Friday shopping early the next day!

SNACKS!

:)

No-TV Tuesday: Mass communication before the Internet

We stuck with our No-TV Tuesday plan. Two weeks in the row - WOOHOO!

We have a very small fourth bedroom filled with bookshelves. A vintage loveseat, coffee table, and lamp make a cozy reading spot. We call it "the library," but it also functions as a catch-all room, especially during holidays when we bring in bins (and bins and bins) of decorations from the garage and also move out some furniture to make room for a tree.

Now that just a "winter" bin remains, I really wanted to straighten up the room a bit and reclaim that cozy reading spot.

My first decision was finally parting with my college textbooks:

My degree is Communications/Video Production, and I held on to pertinent texts thinking I might someday want to reference them. 

But a quick scan yesterday showed that these books will never be referenced!  

"The Practice of Public Relations" has Bill Clinton on the cover. And "The Media of Mass Communication" was written before the Internet was really a thing. Do you remember mass communication before the Internet? Me, neither. "Mastering Communication in Contemporary America" was written in the early 1990s. "Contemporary"? Hardly.

And I worked in TV news for 9 years after college... and now I've been out for 15. Most everything I knew during my television career is already obsolete. Those production books are for technology that no longer exists.

So I decided to make room on the shelves for some other works - ones I will more likely pick up and read.

I did some other reorganizing around the house, and it felt soooo great. But then I couldn't fall asleep because I had more ideas! I'm going shopping after work today :)

 

I've done music all my life, but guitar is brand-new to me. And it's really hard - much harder than I expected.

Mom bought me a left-handed guitar earlier in the pandemic, and I just haven't had the energy to dig in as much as I'd like. But now I'm trying to put more time and energy into learning, and the Fender app is helping me with the basics.

I spent a few minutes of my Tuesday doing some warmup drills. 

While Brad thrives on learning new things and mastering new skills, I don't have a lot of patience for things I'm not good at. I don't like the learning curve. I don't like struggling. 

But on Tuesday, I set aside some time to work on it. We'll see :)

Birthday exploring: Oregon City

We explored Oregon City for Mom's birthday this year.

She debated big city vs. small town and decided to check out the historic part of Oregon City. Though we've lived here all our lives, we'd never checked out this town so close to home.

We found free parking and then walked to the elevator - a first for all of us! Sidewalk markings pointed the way to sights around town.

We didn't have a real plan and just looked to see what was around. A hidden waterfall along the path:

We all had mixed feelings about this part of our history - the colonization of a place already inhabited by Native people!

Speaking of... Willamette Falls, Tumwata to the tribes who already lived here, has been returned to the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde (read more). They are demolishing the old paper mill, and I'm so excited to see what they do with this important Native site.

Dinner was at Corner 14 Foodcarts - lots of options for everyone, and we each had a different dish from a different cart. It was a bit crowded, and we worked hard to keep away from other people and avoid sharing COVID germs. Unfortunately, I was preoccupied and didn't snap any pics.

Everything was really yummy. We'll go back for sure! 

We walked south and then north along the waterfront.

It was a gorgeous late November evening, and we walked across the Arch Bridge to catch the sunset:

Then Mom wanted ice cream from Lake Oswego Ice Creamery, which we ate outside despite the cold!

The birthday girl:

Then we warmed up with gifts back home. And the birthday hat:

Thankfully we were boostered and could have some birthday celebrating indoors after the sun went down :)

Holiday Half virtual, 12/11/21

I ran a grand total of ONE race in 2021.

I started running in 2004ish and ran my first race in 2006. I'm up to 153 in all! (all my races)

Marathon: 6
Half Marathon: 37
Quarter Marathon: 3

25K: 1
15K: 7
12K: 3
10K: 28
8K: 1
4 miler: 1
5K: 57
Relay: 4
Other: 5

 

Needless to say, I love to run and race. But COVID stopped all racing for a while, and I'm not yet comfortable doing in person races. So my count has slowed significantly, and I trained for and completed just one race this past year: The Portland Holiday Half Virtual Race.

The official virtual race window opened Dec. 12, but I wanted to do my 13.1 on Saturday. BUT then a nasty storm was predicted for Saturday, so I decided to do my run Friday.

I already had the day off for Christmas prep, so I laced up early in the morning and hit the road.

I did a big loop that goes through Tigard, King City, Tualatin, and Durham, pushing a bit harder than in training but not coming close to redlining.

My pace was steady except for the two times I decided to walk up from the river instead of run up the hills.

The morning was great for running, and I felt strong and proud of my performance. I was well prepared and had dressed well for the weather. A good running day!

Santa Mickey greeted me when I finished 🎅

After, I celebrated with a hot chocolate from Primo Espresso to drink while I did my Christmas errands:

I stopped by Foot Traffic to pick up my race packet - for the race I'd already run! I thought that was funny :)

Always cute goodies! (Though the medals were stuck in transit somewhere - probably on one of those freighters off the coast of California!)

Update: Finally picked up my medal on Feb. 5!

When my tummy settled, I refilled with a Beyond Burger, fries, and a Dr Pepper. 

By then the storm had arrived, and I watched the rain while listening to Christmas tunes and eating yumminess in my car:

Hit the spot!

It was a such a great day full of hard exercise and Christmas fun. I definitely made the right choice to "race" early Friday.

Hopefully next year will be in person :)

No-TV Tuesday is back!

No-TV Tuesday used to be a thing for us. It was a way for us to be intentional about our evening and choose things that weren't mindless TV watching.

The new year seemed like a good time to give it another try. 

We started with COVID PRC tests after possible exposure last week. (results pending). Then it was a short snoozie for me while Brad finished working.

Monthly union meeting:

I cleaned under our bed. Yikes - way overdue! We also reorganized our bins - one of my very favorite things! 

After all that under-bed vacuuming, it was time to clean and sanitize the vacuums:

After all this excitement, I did a short guitar lesson and then tucked into bed early and finished my book:

:)