Life

Blue Bird

Posted on February 2, 2017 by caseykins

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The area we live in is rural.  It seems like it shouldn’t be because the Trader Joe’s is less than two miles from the house, and the nearest Target only ten minutes by car.  There is a Starbucks down the street.  But our neighborhood is bordered to the south by a fancy drainage ditch dug in the 1820s called the Mill Creek Zanja that is rimmed with eucalyptus.  There’s an empty field beyond.  To the west, we’re bordered by the orange grove side of the University of Redlands campus.  Add that to the manicured but still wild hiking trail, and it’s prime territory for critters.

We had gophers in the yard all last summer until I put chicken wire under the raised beds.  There is a hawk that makes his home in one of the eucalyptus trees nearby.  We had a family of doves try to nest in our tree last spring until they decided they didn’t like how often we used the front door.  Birds both brown and blue hop on our backyard fence. The hiking trail is forever littered with berry-filled coyote scat, and occasionally a white-tailed bunny will hop ahead of you into a bush.  House cats roam the streets. Occasionally you can hear the coyotes hunting one.

When I went out to go to work on Friday, I noticed a feather near the grapevine in our yard.  It was vibrant blue.  In fact, there was a stack of them, a pile of tiny down underneath.  No body, but obviously something got caught and torn to pieces in our yard – a bluebird.

I don’t know if it was a cat or the hawk, and there was no actual body to contend with nor any blood or gore.  But what struck me was how beautiful it was, that blue, blue pile of feathers.  The tips were striped black, and the ridge in the middle was pristine white.  They fluttered just a little in the breeze, scattering out of their neat pile and moving into hieroglyphics across the cement walkway, exposing the gray fluff underneath.

The detritus is still there.  I don’t have the heart to pick it up, and some small part of me likes to see the blue feathers, cheerful and not at the same time.  It makes me realize that even a small and unknown bird can leave something behind after it’s personal end of all things.

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A Bad Week

Posted on January 31, 2017 by caseykins

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This week has been a hard one, and I’m not even quite sure why except for the obvious.  The things that are happening in this country make me sad and worried.

 

Social media isn’t making it any better.  I keep waiting for the world to implode into WWIII or Civil War Part II, and my feed just confirms it all.  Whatever it is you worry about, it’s right there happening.  There are glimmers of hope of course, but not enough of them.

Couple that with my Jury Duty experience, and the world seems extra-bleak right now.

Yup, I had Jury Duty that started last Thursday and went through to today, my first time having to appear at the courthouse. I was placed on a trial almost immediately after arriving with 100 other jurors.  about 40 were excused post-haste since the trial was supposed to last until mid-March and they had conflicts or their work wouldn’t pay that long.  I found out yesterday that it was a double shooting murder charge.  The defendant wasn’t trying to claim he didn’t shoot the guy, either.  He was just claiming it was self-defense.  I ultimately was excused after jury selection was finished – I wasn’t even questioned.  That means I can talk about it.

It was an experience unlike anything else, and very interesting.  The thing I keep thinking about is this:

The prosecutor kept asking the jury panel if they felt sympathy for the defendant, who was sitting right there.  She pointed at him.  He was young and might have been handsome if you could think of him as anything but a giant accusation, in a thick mans-man way.  He had a buzzed haircut and deep bags under his eyes. He wore the same thing all 3 days of the trial, too – khaki pants and a khaki dress shirt, green tie.  And I just kept thinking that the entire panel must have been lying whenever anyone coldly said “no” to her question.

Maybe I didn’t feel sympathy, exactly, but I felt compassion.  This had to be one of the worst days of that guy’s life, and I think it’s maybe even needful that we acknowledge that he’s a human and so were the people who died before we set all that aside and make a cold determination of fault based only on laws and evidence.

It’s probably a good thing I wasn’t questioned…

But it all seems death and destruction right now, between murder and mayhem.  It also seems impossible to pick things up and go to work tomorrow like normal, though I’m sure I’ll find comfort in the routine of it when it arrives.  I would just like something to hope for, I think.  Something that is entirely pure and gleeful, and not the lesser of two bad options.

I’ll just have to keep looking until I find it, I guess.

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Courage

Posted on January 24, 2017 by caseykins

I do not know what it is exactly, but in the 2 work days since Trump officially took office it feels like Facebook is burning down with politics and horribleness.  I know we expected this, but I didn’t expect it so soon, guys.  I had planned to write a blog post about the women’s march, but I feel like people are fighting over even that these days.  And that, to be honest, was more fun, communal, and inspiring than the militantly hostile or revolutionary event non-supporters seem to think it was.

So I will spare you the politics and plan to write about the march another time.

Then I thought I would just put a photo gallery up of some nice things I saw last year, to soothe.  But I realized that I didn’t post much on Instagram last year or even take many photos at all.  The photos I take with my good camera are so much better than the crap I get from my cell phone that I was feeling like I shouldn’t post unless they were the awesome and fancy ones.  I know… I’ve cured myself of that.  I cured myself by realizing the thing I like most about my Instagram feed is that it’s a little record of all the positive stuff that has happened in the year.  So I’m trying not to care about quality and just going for affection.  Quality is bonus.  But most of the nice things that happened last year? Undocumented.

I cannot tell you exactly why I feel this way, but this year seems to be one that is gearing up for a lot of change, and not just in the government.  Nothing definitive has happened yet, but I feel it in the air… the pause before the thunder, the crouch before the jump.  I’ve been reading a lot of Brene Brown in the new year, and I came across this quote of hers, below.  I intend to take it as a motto for this year.  And in this time of tribulation, I especially recommend Rising Strong if you’re looking for some Neosporin for those political wounds.  I read Brene and my path, in life in general, seems a lot easier to bear.

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I’m Marching Tomorrow

Posted on January 20, 2017 by caseykins

In case you haven’t guessed it yet, this is a fairly political blog post.  You can skip if you’re not into that kind of thing.  Also contains rampant feminism.

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I am marching in Los Angeles tomorrow.  I don’t own any feminist t-shirts or anything, so I plan to wear my Suffragette white with the purple and green pin I made for election day.  I have a banner, too, if I ever manage to finish it.  It will say “No woman should wish or work for the success of a party that ignores her sex,” in as close a copy as I can get to the 1920s picture.  It will be fabric, too, for easy transport on the train.

I have had a lot of – well, not exactly fights.  Heated discussions? – with Trump supporters who claim that there was a HUGE backlash against him when he said he wouldn’t accept the results of the election, and now those same people won’t accept the results of the election themselves.  And that it’s stupid to go and protest.  What are we even protesting?

So I thought, since I think better with my fingers than my mouth, that I would explain why I’m marching tomorrow.  And that’s the first thing I want to emphasize.  I’m not protesting anything.  I’m marching in solidarity with the women in my community.

The reason is this:

Humans of New York went to Detroit and talked to a bunch of people there after the election.  The one that struck me the most was posted on November 20, with a woman in a green anorak looking out at a river.  The quote above the picture was this: “I’ve had friends reach out to me. They’ve told me: ‘I understand the reasons that you’re upset. But those aren’t the reasons I voted for him.’ And I’m just starting to understand that. I’m realizing that a lot of people wanted change more than they wanted kids not to cry. We all have our own code of ethics. My bottom line happened to be tolerance. Their bottom line was abortion. Or the Supreme Court. I guess we all have the right to choose our own bottom line.”

I was desperately aggrieved when Trump won, and part of it is because of what that lady in the green jacket said.  My right as a woman to exist safely in a public place was not the bottom line for many people.  The fact that Trump assaulted women and then bragged about it was not enough to disqualify him for them. They wanted change more than they wanted women to not be molested. That’s certainly their right to choose.  I don’t dispute that.  But the fact that my safety comes second to anything at all, and that there are a LOT of people who feel that way, feels like a death.  A death of progress, a death of protection from indecency, a death of the esteem I held for those people who I believed better of.

At the heart of it, that’s really why I’m marching.  I’m marching with women who are my friends and relatives to show them that I value their safety as MY bottom line. that we will stubbornly value each other together.  And I’m marching to say to Trump and everyone in his new administration that comments they have made in the past are unacceptable.  If they try and take my safety away from me or those in my community (regardless of gender, orientation, or color),  this is the polite version of what they can expect the future to look like.

I’m not protesting the election.  I’m not trying to say that Trump is not my president.  I’m trying to acknowledge that he IS the president, for better or worse, and that we now have to strive every day to hold him to the standards we expect of someone in that office, no matter how difficult or impossible that seems.

I’m marching because it gives me something to do with this grief, and it gives me hope that we are a people who are, collectively, better than our current government.

To everyone else who is going tomorrow: I look forward to seeing you there.

And to those of you who feel you must skip out: I respect that, and I hope that if things get harrier you will consider standing with us next time.

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Piano Lessons

Posted on January 14, 2017 by caseykins

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There are pictures of me in every album, at every age: fluffy white-blonde hair sprayed into submission, floral dress over white tights or frilly socks and black mary janes, smiling at the camera with the black and white keys of a piano stretching to my left.  In some, I bow with my knees locked straight.  In others, my face is in profile while my hands lay static on the keys.  Sometimes there’s a patient smile on my face as I look up from the bench, that my song has been interrupted by someone I’m fond of for pictures.

Piano was a religion for me.  3 hours a day, waking up in the mornings before school to sit and force my muscles to remember that tight, fast fingering on the right hand in in Mozart’s Rondo Alla Turka; or stretch my left palm a little farther to get a cleaner octave in Joplin’s Entertainer.  I spent hours poring over theory books and listening to intervals.

It centered me.

And then I was doing it less.  And then I wasn’t doing it at all anymore, my fingers putting up a revolt when I tried to pick up a piece after six, maybe eight months absence.

I missed it less than I thought I would, though I still missed it.

“Do you remember?” Brian asked me about a month ago.  “You once showed me a few chords on the piano.  It seemed like it made sense.  It seemed easy.”

It is both easy and hard.

“Would you teach me?” he asked.

I remembered, fifteen years ago, when I was thinking of giving lessons for extra cash.  “Just get a book,” Christine, who had been teaching me since I was 4, said.  “Work through it in order.  Someone who wanted to be a serious musician would eventually need more, yeah, but you could definitely start someone off.  And a lot of experienced teachers don’t take anyone who can’t read music.  You’d be a great in-between.”

So I said “Sure,” to Brian.

We walked to a practice room at the college where Brian works.  The music building is one of their oldest.  It’s at the end of a tree-lined lawn, frescoes in the eaves of violins and flowers in a vase.  Inside a tiny room on the second floor was a beat-up Steinway upright that was still mostly black.  A grimy window looked out onto the quad beyond, the fronds of an evergreen brushing the panes.  There was no place for a teacher to sit.

I stood.

Our lesson went so quickly, I couldn’t believe it had been more than an hour.

I have never seen myself in someone I wasn’t related to.  But last night it struck me with a vengeance, the way Brian gravitates towards foreign pianos even in public places now, wanting to feel the slick white keys under his fingers, to fool around with the notes for just a moment.  The way he taps his hands on the table, a look of concentration on his face, both hands crossing at different times like they should.  “I had a bad day, but I practiced tonight and I feel fine again,” he said last week.

I don’t know what changed, but I watched him sit there, the negative of the image I used to be: long denim-clad legs tucked over the pedals, the cowlick in his dark brown hair standing tall, the black and white keyboard stretching before him, look of concentration on his face.  Somehow the universe seemed to re-orient itself into new tiers of importance.  This was at the top.  Not Brian, exactly, or even the piano, but the knowledge, the sharing we give to each other as we move through existence.

I grinned.

“What are you smiling about?” Brian asked.

“Nothing,” I said.

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A Change, and a Vignette

Posted on January 6, 2017 by caseykins

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I’m all off this week because of the holiday.  Mondays off always throw me for a loop – not that I’m complaining.  But the Thursday blog entry is now a Friday blog entry since everything is a day removed.

Speaking of which… I’ve had some time to review this year in blogging and have decided to make a change and post book reviews here MUCH less in the new year.  Caseykins.com was always meant to be an author site, and I feel like it’s getting away from its purpose if all I do is post about books that often aren’t even in the genre I’m writing in.  So… I started another blog for the reviews.  I’ll likely still post the quarterly reading list here, and blog anything I totally fall head over heels for.  But in general I’m trying to keep all things novel to Book Dragon.  And that way if you like the book reviews, you can get that almost exclusively.  And if you like these little writing process and slice of life things, you can get that almost exclusively too.  This year was the first year I didn’t see a dramatic growth in people visiting the site, and I feel like the confused image might be some of the problem…

One of my tasks for the New Year was to incorporate more practice into my writing.  I’ll most likely be trying to substitute the book posts with these little vignettes.  I wrote this after visiting the Santa Monica Pier with Brian on the 1st.  It was crazy-busy down there, but still a good trip:

 

Brian and I sat on a concrete bench on the busy, bright pier for quite a while, just watching the waves crash on the thick barnacled supports beneath us.

A family came soon after we sat and took the other end of the bench.  They weren’t speaking English. I don’t know if it was French or what (I don’t think it was French really), but they were all older people, the men with close-cropped hair and the women wearing bright floral scarves tied under their throats. One of the men was pushing an empty stroller, and in the arms of the other man was a small girl with the curliest and reddest of hair. She was wearing a pink fuzzy coat with yellow butterflies clipped all over it. Their crepe wings fluttered in the ocean breeze. The family sat down next to us, and she threw herself backward in the arms of her father? Grandfather? And squealed every time the orange roller coaster swooped past with a rattle.

Eventually she started to fuss a bit, and the man started to sing to her. I didn’t recognize all of it, but one of the verses seemed to be a question about kilometers. And then he sang her Frere Jaques. That was her favorite, because she sang it back, her little voice not making all the syllables. She squirmed to get down, and continued singing while yanking herself backward on the steel pier railings, her little feet, in white tights, still on the wood deck.

It was sweet, and it made me smile.

The family took a selfie with the waves in the background, the shoreline stretching like a crescent behind them into oblivion.  And then they bundled their things and strolled away again towards the food booths.  The little girl was probably too young to remember her trip to California. Not through anything other than pictures of herself.  But I’ll remember her now.

 

Photo credit to Brian.  Thanks, dear!

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An Old New Year

Posted on January 3, 2017 by caseykins

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Well, it is a new year.  The one thing I like about new years is that they are, even if only for a second, completely perfect in every way.  I have a feeling that 2017 is going to be a hard one, so I was intending to savor the goodness for as long as possible.  We made it longer in perfection than we usually do.  I achieved it for a day and a half before I forgot to do my daily writing and then got into an inane fight with Brian over bookshelves.  I think that’s pretty good.

We celebrated New Year the old person way at my friend Emily’s house – by calling up the ball drop in real time, cheering, toasting, and singing at 9:00.  And then Emily, Brian, and I got to talking and accidentally also celebrated the real New Years at midnight.  It was fun, scrambling for sparkling cider in her kitchen filled with the detritus of the tasty pizza and carrot cake we had just eaten, clinking glasses and singing Auld Lang Syne lustily, but at a volume that wouldn’t wake the children (or Joey who had work early the next day).

It made me think of all the other new years Emily and I spent together.

Especially the one where four of my best high school friends and I went to Knotts Berry Farm with Liz’s youth group.  There was some sort of major Christian rock concert going, which was great with us.  No one was in line for the rides, so we gallivanted across the park riding everything.  In the days before security checkpoints, Emily snuck a bottle of Martinelli’s through the gates in her backpack. She forgot the churchkey.  We struggled valiantly to open the thing without making any headway before we finally managed to borrow a pair of scissors from a vendor.  With much brute strength and (miraculously) no blood, Becca eventually stabbed the metal lid through.  There was cider everywhere, frothing from the jagged opening, covering our hands in stickiness.  We toasted and drank in the night, the lights of the carousel shining over us, the rollercoaster rattling past, midnight come and gone.

And then months later when we all graduated, they presented the bottle to me as a present.  It was mostly cleaned up but the lid still held tight, the jagged scissor opening gaping.  It’s lost to time now. Gone in one of the many moves I made in the mysterious way that happens.  But I remembered it still as we sang in Emily’s golden kitchen this year.  We were, all four of us, such different people back then.  And now we are scattered to the winds; happy, still in touch, still thinking of each other, but hardly in the same city and most of us not even in the same state.

The year rolls forward, though, and so does the changing of ourselves and our worlds.  I know that 2017 will bring bad things.  I just hope it brings plenty of good along with it.

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Christmas Wrap

Posted on December 19, 2016 by caseykins

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I am ALMOST ready for Christmas.  Jams are done (by the skin of my teeth they all sealed properly), shopping is done, and now all that’s left is the mountain of wrapping and packaging to do.

We’re crazy in my family about the wrapping.  Everyone has a theme each year, and it’s possible to tell who gave you the gift without looking at the card at all.  My aunt goes for funky, natural, and shiny, in browns and blacks for the main bits, but with the strangest and most delightful ribbons attached, everything from lacy glitter orange to natural stuff printed with reindeer.  She hand-makes her tags, too. My sister usually sticks with white craft paper, but goes CRAZY on the bows.  She also usually has some sort of natural topper wedged between.  Last year was maroon, the year before was blue and sparkly.  My mom goes all out festival with novelty prints of which no two are the same, and large tags that give you a clue as to what’s inside, if you can figure out who it’s from (a drill from “Norm,” a cookbook from “Julia”).  I am usually a craft paper girl like my sister, but the colors change.  Last year was white paper, and brown ribbon printed with “Merry Christmas” in red.  The year before was red paper, black baker’s twine, and mini clothespins with trees attached.  The year before that was brown paper with red and white bows.  I usually have the wrapping before I have the presents.

Not so this year.  I have no wrapping paper yet, and I’m not sure what everything will end up looking like.  This is the first time ever that I’m so late.  I’ll be heading out tonight to figure out what I can find.  Whatever else happens, I’m pretty sure I’ll end up with gigantic red bows, though.  In velvet, if possible.

In other news, I have been doing this thing called 750 words where you write 750 words a day and it gives you prizes and puts your writing through an analyzer just for fun when you’ve finished.  I’ve been noticing that I clock major introvert when I’m writing about life.  But when I write fiction, it tracks as extroverted.  I don’t know what that says about me or my work.  It probably says something, though.  Anyway, I thought it worth noting.

I hope your Christmas is shaping up to be as good as mine seems to be.

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A Reading Challenge Wrap

Posted on December 8, 2016 by caseykins

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The year is feeling old, old, and I am looking at all the posts I need to post to wrap up the end of this year.  The season of introspection is upon us.  Let’s dive head in.

I would like to all remind you of a reading challenge I accepted last January.  Here is the original post so you can refresh your memory: https://caseykins.com/2016/01/15/a-reading-challenge/.  I read all books but one and then gave up completely.  Why, you ask?  The one I didn’t read is a classic I never made time for.  It’s because I pondered a million classics and none of them seemed to be something I wanted to delve into.  I have made time for all the classics I care about, and slogging through something I was sure would be depressing just seemed like too tall an order. I don’t know.  I stopped enjoying the challenge when I thought too much about it, so I decided that reading should not ever be anything except enjoying and I gave up.

All other books, though, I have blogged and completed.  You can find the reviews for them using the search box on the left, if you want.

Here is what I ended up with:

  • A book you bought long ago, but still haven’t read – The Darkest Part of the Forest, by Holly Black
  • A book with a character who is similar to you – Emily Climbs, by L. M. Montgomery
  • A non-fiction book on something you’ve always wanted to know more about – Steering The Craft, by Ursula K. LeGuin
  • A book by a female author – Lizzy and Jane, by Katherine Reay
  • A book you never got to read in 2015 – The Oregon Trail: A New American Journey, by Rinker Buck
  • A book that will be a complete mindfuck – Fragile Things, by Neil Gaiman
  • A book filled to the rim with magic – Daughter of Witches, Patricia C. Wrede
  • A book you’re scared to read when it’s dark out – The Dream Thieves, by Maggie Stiefvater
  • A book of which you liked the movie, but haven’t read the novel – Pitch Perfect, by Mickey Rapkin
  • A book that makes you want to visit the place it’s set – Blue Lily, Lily Blue, by Maggie Stiefvater
  • A book that’s on fire – Mine Till Midnight, by Lisa Kleypas
  • A book that makes you want to be a villain – Silver on the Road, by Laura Anne Gilman
  • A classic you never made time for – Never Read (I’m a delinquent)
  • A book that shows a different point of view – Girls & Sex: Navigating the Complicated New Landscape, by Peggy Orenstein
  • A book with short stories – A Knot In The Grain, by Robin McKinley
  • A book that involves a lot of mystery – The Raven Boys, by Maggie Stiefvater
  • A book about a person who inspires you – My Lucky Life In and Out of Show Business, by Dick Van Dyke
  • A book that makes you want to be a hero – The Sword of Damar, by Robin McKinley
  • A graphic novel – The Graveyard Book part 1, by Neil Gaiman
  • A book of poetry – Good Poems, American Places, by Garrison Keillor
  • A book by an unfamiliar author – Assassination Vacation, by Sarah Vowel
  • A book published in 2016 – The Raven King, by Maggie Stiefvater
  • A book with a dark and mysterious cover – Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman
  • A book from a random recommendationalist – Witches of Lychford, by Paul Cornell
  • A book with a surprising love element – Shakespeare’s Wife, by Germaine Grier
  • A book with lots of mystical creatures – English Fairy Tales, by Joseph Jacobs
  • A book that reminds you of another season – Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott
  • A book no one wants you to read – My American Duchess, by Eloisa James
  • A book you own that is the most beautiful thing you’ve seen – Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Illustrated Edition, by J. K. Rowling
  • A book that makes you a complete mess – Emily’s Quest, by L. M. Montgomery
  • A book you started but never finished – Aspects of the Novel, by E. M. Forster

In other Christmas news, I was feeling grateful yesterday that the kitten has never tried to climb the tree.  And then I came home last night to find that she had pulled several of my favorites off the branches and had strewn them around the living room.  Luckily they weren’t the ones with extreme sentimental value, and only one was worse for the wear, but I’m seriously going to have to think about anti-cat measures.  Chasing her away only works when I’m at home to supervise.  Jennyanydots: the reason we can’t have nice things.

Christmas jam is probably in the works this weekend, too.  I’m giving it out as presents this year, so that’s all I’ll say.  Flavors a tasty, tasty mystery.

We are racing toward the finish line.  I hope your season is looking as festive as mine is.

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Oh Christmas Tree

Posted on December 5, 2016 by caseykins

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I put the Christmas stuff up last weekend, but it never quite feels complete until the tree is in the house.  Brian and I bought the tree yesterday afternoon – a huge Nordmann fir from Home Depot that is bushy and beautiful in all the right ways.  We fell in love with it because the needles are this deep but fluffy green, silver underneath.  The branches are strong enough for heavy ornaments like the Noble fir, but it’s a little bushier like the Douglas fir.

I think we bought too big a tree, though.  We waited in line for the guys to cut the bottom off the trunk and then slip it through the doughnut of orange netting, but it wouldn’t go through the hoop.  It took 2 burly guys in orange aprons to tug the thing loose until it flopped free onto the black macadam of the parking lot with a swish.

We usually put the tree in the trunk, but it wouldn’t fit this time.  Luckily a 3rd Home Depot guy taught us how to tie it to the roof.  We don’t have a rack or anything and it wiggled up there every time I turned a corner driving home.

“That makes me so nervous!” I said to Brian.

“What does?”

“The way it wiggles up there.”

“The way what wiggles up there?” he asked.

“The Christmas tree!”

“There’s a Christmas tree on the roof?” he sounded shocked.

“There’s a Christmas tree on our roof,” I said, patting his knee.

He kept “forgetting” about it all the way home until I was laughing and cringing whenever I’d turn.

When we set it up in the house we realized it’s so big it blocks the entry until you almost can’t get through.

I’m still in love with it, though.  I can’t wait to see what it looks like with all the lights I bought on it.  Because we’re in one of those years where, of the 12 strands of lights in the box, only 1 strand isn’t half burned out.  I went to Target and bought twice as many lights as I thought I’d need so we’re covered, no matter how much girth the tree can boast.  Challenge accepted, Nordmann.  Challenge accepted.

 

I’m a crazy person about the lights, and that’s my task tonight.  I always wrestle with the tree to wrap a strand directly around the middle trunk before wrapping again from the outside.  It gives the tree a depth of twinkle that is unmatched.  It also, however, gives me sappy hands, needles up the nose, and scratched forearms.  Brian refuses to help anymore because he thinks it’s WAY not worth it.  But I’ll be enjoying my twinkling tree for another three weeks at least, baby.

The Floof, miss Jennyanydots, is on board with the tree too.  She likes to hide in things and jump out at you to attack.  Brian calls under the bed her murder cave because of the dust ruffle, and how many of his toes currently have puncture marks.  She’s already co-opted the tree for the same purposes; a yuletide murder cave of Christmas cheer.  Somehow, when the bible mentions making a joyful noise, I don’t think they meant growling cats fighting beneath the festive bows.  But that’s what we’ve got happening in my living room.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas at home.  In some ways I’m pleased.  In others, it makes me even more panicked that I haven’t done any Christmas shopping yet…

Also, have you noticed yet that it’s snowing on the blog?  My favorite thing of the season ever!

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