Santa's been here!

This year for Christmas, we decided to forgo buying each other a lot of gifts, and instead got a few items for our home that we'd been wanting for years. Mainly, we wanted to get rid of our old bedroom furniture. The dressers and headboard we had were the ones my parents bought me when I was around 13 years old...that's some old furniture! It was sturdy but had gotten pretty beaten up. So we headed out to the furniture stores of South Puget Sound, and after some shopping, found a lovely craftsman-style set at Macy's. It was a little more than we wanted to spend, but so nice; we decided that we'd check one more store, then come back and get the set.


That last store was Dania. We've bought a few things from them and always had a good experience. So when we walked in to the Tukwila Dania and saw the exact same bedroom set that we'd already fallen in love with at Macy's, but for hundreds less, we were thrilled! It was so much less that we decided to get a new dining room table, in a matching style, and still spent less than at Macy's!




So we spent a few days re-organizing the rooms, and getting ready for New Year's. We're having a few people over, so I'm glad to have things clean and nice. We didn't get a tree this year; time just got away from us, with all of the other things going on, so we decorated our little ficus and strung a few lights at the last minute. Jupiter didn't seem too disappointed with the unconventional tree.



Today we'll go visit Brett's mom for a bit – I have to work tomorrow, so we can't stay late – and then, I have to admit, I'm going to be glad Xmas is over. I get very little time off around the holidays, so it's never the magical event I remember as a kid. But we do our best to make it special for each other; really, though, I think we do a pretty good job of making all our time together special.

Anyway, happy holidays and happy new year to all!

Two more wood block prints, done

And that should be the end of them, for a while. They were fun to do, and I'm not unhappy with how they turned out (the colors here are very bright, unfortunately). But I'm looking forward to getting back to more leisurely projects. I started a pastel painting a week or so ago, and I'm anxious to get back to it:




And it should take a good long time, too,.

In the meantime, I may take a break from classes for a quarter. I've committed to teach Introduction to Photoshop at SVC, and may have a lead on teaching a class at the Art Institute...if I feel like I have the time. If not, I may take one class, possibly online.


And, it's almost Christmas, and sadly, I work every single day of the holiday season except
Christmas day and New Year's Day. At least I'll have weekends free of homework for a while.


Ah well. We did get some snow this weekend! It turned to cold, windy, wet slushiness today, but it was quite pretty for a while there. By the time I venture out again tomorrow morning, it'll probably be a full-bore crap-weather day and traffic will suck. But really, I can't complain; I don't have to spend any time out in it, except the 10-foot walk to my car.

They speak French there

Oh boy...this is apparently some chick from American Idol, on a game show that purports to determine if she is smarter than a young child. Guess what - she's not.

I laughed a lot watching this, but afterwards, I felt really sad. What did we learn here?

1. If you're young and blonde and pretty, you get to be on TV! You don't have to be even as smart as a box of sausages, just cute.
2. According to the idiotic host, if she asks a question, yes, it is likely to be stupid.
3. Also according to the host, women aren't interested in anything but their own opinions. Not just her, mind you, but women in general. They only hear what they want. Apparently, this gal is fairly representative of all women.

This is why I can't stand to watch much of anything on TV any more. We really are approaching Idiocracy.