It's the day after Christmas, I'm at work whilst my family plays at home, and I think I'm coming down with a cold. How's that for a fitting end to the Christmas season?

On the upside, it really did snow on Christmas Day! We were driving to points South to spend time with sister #1 and sister #2 and their families, and low, the rain became colder and didst appear to thicken. And suddenly it appeared unto us the wetness on the windsheild became a host of white flakes apparently saying, "Drive not too quickly, nor tarry too long in one spot, for families of young children wait with dearling noses pressed upon the window panes for your jolly red wagon to appear upon the horizon".

Okay. I've gotten my stories crossed. But I do drive a red wagon, and it did snow, and the kids were waiting for us to get there to open gifts! And it was the perfect snow. Pretty to see falling, settled on lawns and trees, but did not build up on the route returning home. Perfect!

Good Christmas Eve one and all!

I want everyone to know that I have you and you family in my thoughts and hope that the upcoming holiday will be everything you look for the Christmas season. I will add my Christmas photos to my site in a few days, but I'm a bit pressed for time today as I still have a few gifts to wrap and fruit cake to make!

As a parting message, I thought I'd post this e-mail that was sent to me that made me smile:

WHY GOD CREATED CHILDREN (AND IN THE PROCESS GRANDCHILDREN)

To those of us who have children in our lives, whether they are our own, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, or students...here is something to make you chuckle.

Whenever your children are out of control, you can take comfort from the thought that even God's omnipotence did not extend to His own children after creating heaven and earth. God created Adam and Eve, and after showing them Eden and praising them, the final warning he gave them was "DON'T!"
"Don't what?" Adam replied.
"Don't eat the forbidden fruit." God said.
"Forbidden fruit? We have forbidden fruit? Hey Eve…we have forbidden fruit!"
"No way!"
"Yes way!"
"Do NOT eat the fruit!" said God.
"Why?”
"Because I am your Father and I said so!" God replied, wondering why He hadn't stopped creation after making the elephants. A few minutes later, God saw His children having an apple break and He was ticked!

"Didn't I tell you not to eat the fruit?" God asked.
"Uh huh," Adam replied.
"Then why did you?" said the Father.
"I don't know," said Eve.
"She started it!" Adam said,
"Did not!""Did too!""DID NOT!"

Having had it with the two of them, God's punishment was that Adam and Eve should have children of their own. Thus the pattern was set and it has never changed.

BUT THERE IS REASSURANCE IN THE STORY! If you have persistently and lovingly tried to give children wisdom and they haven't taken it, don't be hard on yourself. If God had trouble raising children, what makes you think it would be a piece of cake for you?

In the interest of further explanation, I thought I'd clarify the blog links to the right of this post. A few of my friends I've nagged into taking a look at my blog are blog newbies. They weren't really sure what a blog was all about, let alone how to find and read one.

The links I've posted are other writers and photographers around the world that I discovered through surfing that write in such a way that amuses, educates me or has another view that I had never considered before. I've read these for a while, I've enjoyed them and I'd like to share with the those of you who might be interested.

I know a fair amount about the Pacific Northwest with all of its many faces, but I love to branch out. I have been to Australia, New Zealand, Vanuatu, Fiji, Mexico and parts of Europe. (Very small parts! ^_^) Interestingly enough, I haven't been to Utah, much of Montana or Arizona. Weird how you look farther away than your back door, isn't it?

Currently I do my traveling over the Blog-sphere and the library system as I find raising children on a part-time job with the help of my full time husband keeps me from much international travel.

Rosina's Road Trip was a fortunate find. I had just been going over geography with my nine year old and was once again reminded that there is a beautiful, complicated, culturally vast continent that I have never visited relatively close to home. South America.

It was the beautiful pictures that drew me into the blog as they are of Brazil. But the saga of Rosina's true trip to health that keeps me reading. But for the grace of God, that could be me in ICU. Keep fighting Rosina!

I'm sad to say that I pulled off The Mad Momma's blog this weekend. She is a wonderful professional writer who documents her trials and tribulations of raising a young family in India on her blog. She closed her blog to casual readers, so you can't see for yourself. Sadly, I've lost her address, so I can't write to her either. I'm so sorry for that loss!

And welcome to Waiter's Rant. His is a well written, well thought out blog with three + years worth of writing documenting the life on the other side of the apron. My first paid job (besides babysitting at 14) was helping to care for a stable of show Arabian horses. Most of my time was on the business end of a pitch fork. (And I had the callouses and muscle to prove it!)

My second job was busing tables at a local restaurant. In general, I found the horses treated me better. Enjoy your surf!

I'm constantly tweaking my blog.

It's much like my living room. Just when I have it the way I like it, I rearrange it, adding new things or re-discovered things that I uncover in the basement.

Lately I added a book review column as my dear friend Courtney and I formed a book club a couple of years ago and I miss it. Its rather difficult to meet as she is teaching in Thailand right now. But this is the system we used:

* = Didn't finish it because it was so objectionable. Fire-starting material.
** = Maybe worth reading if you are stuck waiting in a bus station, or it's assigned reading.
*** = Enjoyed this book. I'd recommend you borrowing a copy from a friend or the local library.
**** = Strongly recommended. I have a copy, will keep my copy forever and I'll get you one too because I hope you like it as much as I do!

I hope you join in and I'd love to hear what you are reading about and enjoy.

Christmas in the Northwest is damp affair. A friend in Australia remarked that she would love to come up to experience a white Christmas, since the holiday in the land down under is translated to picnics in the park and searing heat. I didn't want to discourage her, but Christmas is rarely decorated with the real white stuff here even though the latitude would seem to be condusive to the white stuff. Rain is much more likely!

Having said all of that, we were delighted the first day of December, to see buckets of snow falling out the window. We all threw on our winter gear and went for a walk. Big, fat, feathery flakes fell around us and we threw wet snowballs for the dog to catch (and eat) while we walked. The new Wauna cats, gifted to the girls this last summer, insisted on joining us for the ramble. They were less than impressed. Unless fat rodents and fluffy birds fall into their paths, they don't see the exercise worth the effort.

Naturally, none of the snow stayed around, and we had record-breaking rainfall two days later that flooded this half of the state. Great brown plumes of storm run off tracked out into the sound, visiable as I made my way to work. I worried about the returning salmon. They are faced with such an apparently impossible task of replentishing the sound, and development and poor netting practices threaten to wipe out the natural runs. But we never have wildfires whip through during the summers....

I had no idea what it stood for, but I was intrigued with this MEME that I saw on a great blog. If you click on the title, you'll see her blog. It seemed harmless enough, so I took a few minutes to come up with answers that sorta reflected me at the moment. So here it is:

And, Another Meme
Your answer has to start with the first letter of your name.

1. What is your name? Mara
2. 4 letter word: Mook
3. Vehicle: MGB
4. City: Malibu
5. Boy Name: Maurice (Wheet wheew)
6. Girl Name: Monica
7. Alcoholic drink: Molson Draft
8. Occupation: Mason,
9. Something you wear: Monocle (not me personally….)
10. Celebrity: Mel Gibson
11. Food: Mango
12. Something found in a bathroom: Mascara
13. Reason for Being Late: Mumps
14. Cartoon character: Mighty Mouse
15. Something You Shout: Move it! (My Mom reads this blog!)
16. Animal: Moose
17. Body part: Mouth
18. Word to describe you: Mellow, maundering, morose, manic, (Depends on the time of day and coffee consumption)

I tag Courtney and Keely (And all of you who want to give it a try!)

PS. Fresh from Wikipedia: The term Internet meme (IPA: /ˈɪntərˌnɛt mi:m/) is a neologism used to describe a catchphrase or concept that spreads in a faddish way from person to person via the Internet.[1] The term is a reference to the concept of memes, but is used loosely to refer to things that are not necessarily memes in a technical sense.

There you are then

As I might have mentioned before, up here in Waunaland, what tends to motivate me to blog are walks on the beach with the Wauna dog. A couple of days ago I was taking in the low winter sky pressing down against the high tide, and I remembered my Gram talking to me as a child about wishing stones.

From what I got was during the ice age, a huge glacier carved out Puget Sound. The icy behemoth tumbled rocks, dragging them all the way through Canada and into the native soil around the bay. After melting, they left rocks. Lots of them. Brown stones. Grey stones. Black stones. Cool shaped stones.

Occasionally though, you might run across beautiful stones in the shades of sherbet, and sunset, and mermaid to add to you coat pocket collection along with the gum wrapper, damp tissue and dog cookie.

We also would be on the lookout for the elusive agate which can be found glowing on the beach, back lit by the low winter sun. Agates the shade of deep red, bright orange or Sunkist orange and white. Some are the color of good suede. Some aren’t that great color wise (think of puddle water brown). But all worthy of collecting and placing in the glass salad bowl with a candle in the center...

According to Gram the best are the wishing stones--ones that have a white stripe all the way around it. If you are lucky enough, you will find a rock that's complete with a cummerbund wrapped all the way around a tuxedo black stone. I was told you have to hold it tight, close your eyes, make your wish, turn your back to the waves and throw the stone over you left shoulder. If it hits the water, then your wish will come true. (I suppose the closer to the water, the better the chances!)

I'm not sure it really worked. I never came home to a mountain-load of candy in my bedroom closet, or a pony. But so many good things have happened to me in my life this far, things might really work out after all!