Tis the Season

(Posted by Kyle)

Sorry about the lag in blogging (which I will now call a 'blag'), just haven't been feeling like it lately. But now with our furnace being out during a cold snap, I am looking for excuses to move my fingers.

I made up my annual batch of fruitcakes today for a treat exchange this weekend and also as a way to warm the house up. (Last time I will bring up the furnace thing. Promise.) I am pleased with how they turned out. The best use of three cups of rum I can think of. I'll be making persimmon bread tomorrow, which takes one of those little airline bottles of Jack Daniels in the recipe. So I've got the booze bread covered for the season.

Steph and I put the tree up the other day. The 'tree' is actually the top of a fake tree. It's sturdy enough to hold up that star though.

Here it is with the star lit.

Dracula does not get out of holiday duty just because Halloween is over. We have him propped up in the window by the tree.

In a related vein, I finally put up some of Steph's birthday presents. Here are the two Day of the Dead figurines that Lance gave her. They join our other Mexican folk art on the living room wall. (The fish coconut was actually purchased at Goodwill, so it's origins are not known.)

Here is how happy Steph was when she got these:

This is the wood mounted panorama photo of the Portland skyline at night that I got Steph for her birthday. (I may do a retro post of more pictures from Steph's birthday yet.) Everytime we went to the local grocery where this was hanging on the wall, Steph would go over to it, point it out among the other photos, look at me and tell me "I like this one. I really like this one." Who says I can't take a hint.

Okay, I said I wouldn't mention the broken furnace again, but I will bring it up one more time. The house is not actually that cold. The combination of space heaters and cooking keeps us in the 60s most of the day, and it's going to start warming up outside in a couple days. And maybe the furnace will even get fixed. Who knows. Anyway, I bring this up because the slightly lower temps in the house have made the pets extra snuggly. We caught Willow and Cleo spooning on the couch yesterday.

This picture isn't even half as cute as they were being.