Phantom Whispers

Silent Night

I just wanted to wish you the merriest Christmas.

May your hearts be filled with love and joy and may you be surrounded with love and warmth.

Here is a view of our little tree and the angel that tops it.

God bless us everyone

(BTW, if you click on these pictures you will get a wonderfully clear picture rather than the pixilated thing you are seeing here). 

And Here We Go...

Oh, the holidays are almost upon us. And isn't it a glorious thing? Okay, I admit to being one of the worst about the holidays. I usually really get in the mood for them once they are over. I didn't used to feel that way but it u know the stuff.....buying the all the presents for our kids and both sides of the family (when asked to help, the dear Mailman would sigh quite dramatically and say he was tired after working all day long. He has vastly improved, thank you very much), the buying and fixing of all the food, the buying and addressing and writing of the Christmas cards and the decorating of the tree. All things I love, just not by myself when I have a family who could be sharing in the joys and burdens of the holidays.

And I so greatly miss my mom, gone 14 years now. I miss asking her advice on how to make Oklahoma Brown Candy or some other family dish. I miss my brother, Carlisle, bah humbug as he was during the holidays. And I miss, my other brother, Stanford, just gone, somewhere, and most hopefully not dead. I wish he'd call home, let us know where he is.

Yes, sometimes the heart hangs heavy.

So, I have learned to acknowledge the pain and sorrow and let it wash briefly over me when I am by myself. And then I place it firmly away from me so that it doesn't overshadow all the joys that are mine in the here and now.

I have also learned that the holidays are about gather friends and loved ones together, not about how I might impress them with my dynamic decorations or my spectacular cooking, both verging on Martha Stewart greatness. No, now, I know that I don't need to do it all and that isn't what is important. The dinner will be simple but heartwarming with every family bringing something. The decorations will not reflect on me at all as the dinner get together will be taking place at the decrated recreation room of my MIL's apartments. Our house is too small to contain the youthful exuberance of my nieces and nephews.

Food will be eaten. Games will be played. Presents will be exchanged. All will be warmed and loved by the sharing.

And sometime around then, my soul will swell with wonder of it all, my eyes will tear at voices raised in harmony, singing much beloved Christmas carols and my lungs will fill with the scent of balsam and pine. Then I remember the joy that had seemed forgotten in the rush to do it all. So, to all of you, my friends, I wish you the most warm and wonderful of holidays. May your dearest wishes come true and your hearts be filled with joy. Ain't it grand!

Ka...Ka...Ka...Kia!

Say it with me now, Kia. Yep, the Mailman and I talked about the car situation and realized that it was time to fish or cut bait, as they say. So we cut bait. We traded in my 1999 Hyundai Sonata (used when we bought it) for this 2006 Kia Sorento. Isn't a a beauty?

Oh, I told myself not to become attached to a car. I've been hurt before. They've betrayed me, they've quit on me, heck, I even had one try to become a tropical rainforest on me (honest, the thing had a hidden leak that left water sloshing in the glove compartment, trunk and a pool of water on the back passenger side.....oh, it was not pretty, let me tell you.) But despite my good intentions I am falling for this SUV hard. I now have the biggest vehichle of the three in the family. We had to have something with a better ground clearance than the old car, which cleared almost nothing. This past year we bought some undeveloped property towards eastern WA and the road to it would have wiped out the poor little Sonata. The Sorento will eat it up with its on demand 4 wheel drive.

I am grateful to the Sonata, though. It did what it was supposed to do, it got me from place to place, safely. And really, isn't that what you most want from a car? But soon we were going to have to sink major money into it. So, it was time. Thank you, Grey Ghost for your faithful service. Live long and prosper with a new driver.

Now, to get to work stuff. I finally got the large Traveler's Gate Journal bound. Here is a picture of the gates, pre-embellishing. By the way, you can click on any of these pictures to see them larger and clearer.

Here are the parts waiting to be put together.

And here is the bound journal.

I still have a lot of things I want to do to this journal before I'm done playing with it. I want to add a lot of tabs to it. I also want to tone down the white of the pages and antique them a bit.

Here is a picture where you can see the binding better. It is an experimental binding that worked out okay, but I am not totally happy with it. I'm going to let it sit a bit and if I'm not happy with it, I'll tear it out and do something else with the binding.

And, though this is late, I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving. The Mailman, Eldest Son, Produce Guy and his girlfriend and I drove down to Centralia to meet up with my sister and Father for a Thanksgiving buffet at the Olympic Hotel. The atmosphere is charming to say the least and the food was quite good. We didn't get to have any leftovers but we didn't have any clean up either. It was a nice compromise, meeting halfway and getting to enjoy each other's company. And my dad and sister got to meet the girlfriend. I was glad she bucked up her courage to spend so much time with us all as she is very shy. Tiny, wee thing, she is. Anyhow, I highly recommend eating at the Olympic Hotel if you are in Centralia. I'm looking for excuses to spend the night there as the rooms look to be a treat.

Hope you are all well and staying warm. The other holidays are fast approaching.......where does the time go?