Ten Days of Little Celebrations - December 2013

Over a year ago I posted about finding something to celebrate each day. It’s an easy thing for me to do and the habit of writing it down reminds me to be grateful for these and a myriad of other things in my life. This month has been full of ‘little celebrations;’ here are my top 10 for December 2013.

Quite a few this month involved food - but I celebrated them for different reasons:

Red Velvet Cake with Cream Cheese Icing was celebrated because the first one I bought did not have cream cheese icing (I did not suspect beforehand that Red Velvet Cake could have any other kind of icing!) and because is brought back memories of teen aged birthdays when my mother made the cake for my birthday. Oh - and I like the way it looks too!

Roasted Garlic Hummus as Stir Fry Sauce was celebrated because it was a serendipity experiment that worked! I needed something to give punch to a veggie stir fry and the hummus worked very well - stirred in just before serving.

Cranberry Orange Bread bought from the grocery store bakery was a treat to have with hot chocolate to celebrate being warm inside on a cold winter’s day - bought with a coupon and tasting so good I ate the whole round loaf in just two days.

Beans in Cherry Crumble Bars were celebrated because they were a pleasant surprise. The recipe was one I saw on the web and almost didn’t try!

Popcorn with Pumpkin Seed Oil was a celebration because it was healthier that store bought microwave popcorn (I popped kernels in a paper lunch sack in the microwave) and because the oil turned the corn a pleasant green color.

Another group of celebrations involved fund raising activities for non-profits:

Conservancy Holiday Sale was a celebration that combined food, happy people, and a good cause.

The lights at Brookside Gardens are a traditional part of our December celebrations. We always pay to park and enjoy the lights at least once during the season.

Weather prompts 2 more celebrations:

Declaring a Snow Day is always a celebration. It probably started when I was in school, went almost dormant until I had my daughter. She reinforced it; my husband and/or I always took a vacation day when the schools closed for snow. Now - I find myself celebrating a snow day at home even when I am the only one at home!

A warming trend is worth celebrating in December. When we walked around Brookside in the early evening it was in the mid-60s rather than the mid-20s as it would have been a week earlier. Yes - it did feel strange to be wearing a sweater rather than bundled up in coat, scarf, hat, and gloves ---- but it is a comfortable strangeness that I celebrated.

And finally - I celebrated all the build-up to the last week of the 2013.

Gleanings of the Week Ending December 14, 2013

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

Hummingbird Metabolism Unique in Burning Glucose, Fructose Equally - It takes a lot of energy for these small birds to live as they do!

The Use of Social Media in School - Infographic. Learn some ways Facebook, Pinterest, Blogger, and Twitter are being used in the classroom.

Estrogen: Not Just Produced by Ovaries - The brain can produce and release estrogen! So what does this mean for the hormone over the course of a lifetime?

Elephant Foster Mom: A Conversation with Daphne Sheldrick - It takes a tremendous amount of effort to raise orphaned elephant babies.

Man Walks All Day to Create Massive Snow Patterns - Art for the season!

Useful Infographic on Picking Seasonal Fruits and Vegetables - Sometimes we are so used to finding things in the grocery store all year round that we forget about the season. Cherries and pomegranates are the ones I notice that are only available during their season but almost everything has a season.

World Builder - This video was referenced in a Coursera course on Digital Culture. It is somewhat futuristic but not too far into the future….and thought provoking about technology, relationships, and cognition.

Supervolcanoes Discovered in Utah: Evidence of Some of the Largest Eruptions in Earth's History - Active 30 million years ago in southern Utah. The remains of supervolcanoes are not high cones; at their hear is a large collapse. The ‘Utah’ in this headline was what first caught my attention; I’m still gleaning items that are near our October vacation!

Incredibly Elaborate Illustrations by Victo Ngai - These illustrations are worth at least 1000 words!

Birth date popularity - An interactive data visualization of US births between 1973 and 1999. Move the cursor over the wheel to find how your birthday ranks. September 16 is ranked 1 (9 months from the end-of-year holiday season).

Brookside Gardens - December 2013

Brookside Gardens is the place for an evening walk through garden themed lights in December. I was there on a cold but sunny day when snow was still on the ground. The conservatory was lush with tropical plants (star fruit, bird of paradise, poinsettias, and bananas) and the model train display.

Outside, the dragon of lights looked relatively tame in the brightness of day and snow clung to the evergreens - and on some of the artificial flowers created with lights. There was a black squirrel sorting through the leaf litter. The Children’s Garden was cherry with colored lights on the white picket fence - but it was too cold to stay for long. There were very few people in the outdoors of the garden and the ones that were moved quickly along the path. It was a day for a brisk walk - or none at all.

Snow Day - December 2013

Yesterday was a snow day! I didn’t go sledding or make snow ice cream like we did years ago when my daughter was in elementary school. But I savored the serendipity of an unanticipated day at home.

The snow started falling in the early morning and made a beautiful wintery scene by the time it was light enough to see the neighborhood. The snow and the cold was just the incentive I needed to stay indoors and make progress on the ‘to do’ list for the house.

Writing notes for the Christmas cards

Re-caulking the base of the shower

Reorganizing the freezer

Emptying, cleaning and reorganizing the cabinet of plastic containers

I rationalized that shoveling the driveway made no sense while it was still snowing but it stopped shortly afternoon and I ventured out. It didn’t take long to do the shoveling but I realized when I went indoors that I was exhausted. I spent the rest of the day relaxing and cheering my accomplishments.

Monticello, Utah

We opted to stay in a vacation rental in Monticello, UT rather than Moab on our recent vacation. Monticello is higher (and cooler) than Moab and is further south. My husband had prioritized ‘Monument Valley’ as a destination for one of our days and the location of Monticello made it an easier day trip.

The small town turned out to be scenic too. The second morning, a dusting of snow became visible as the sun came up. It flocked the grass and provided a white backdrop to the fall foliage in the ‘rough’ of the golf course.

After the snow melted (it only lasted a few hours) - the green grass was visible again and the bright sunlight caused all the colors to glow.

Deer came to visit - seemingly used to people being near.

My eyes were drawn again and again to a tree that had lost its leaves already. The green of the golf course surrounded it - and I wondered if it was dead or just some tree that always lost its leaves early.

There were many birds around too - but only this one sat still long enough to be photographed.

March 2013 Snow

We got the best snow of the season yesterday in our area of Maryland. It clung to the trees until the little breezes and temperature caused it to plop to the ground or trickle away. One of the early pictures of the day was of the dense oak twigs piled high with snow (to the left). It looks like a black and white abstract drawing to me.

We went out for a drive to enjoy the beauty of the snow. I liked the way the snow clung to the dry grasses from last summer with the flocked spruce in the background. It was a shot from an open window - the car simply stopped in the middle of a country road.

When we got back from the outing, we made snow ice cream: fill a large bowl with snow, add milk (I used half-and-half that I had frozen from an early time when snow was forecast but didn’t materialize), 1 cup of sugar, and flavoring (I used 1/2 teaspoon vanilla and 1/2 teaspoon coconut). I add red food coloring so that I can tell when everything is thoroughly mixed. With an electric mixer it only takes a few minutes to create the treat.

By the afternoon the wind and melting had revealed red maple blooms and the hyacinth bed.

This was a year that the groundhog got it wrong….we are not having an early spring. With the snow scenes so beautiful and the streets cleared easily, I could simply celebrate the beauty of the day, take photos and remember that spring will be here soon.  

Ten Days of Little Celebrations - March 2013

Back in August 2012, I posted about finding something to celebrate each day. It’s an easy thing for me to do and the habit of writing it down reminds me to be grateful for these and a myriad of other things in my life. Here are some ‘little celebrations’ I’ve noted this month:

A day at home. Even though I am not away from home as much as I was at the height of my career, there are still times that I welcome just being at home for a whole day. It is probably my favorite place to be.

A winter’s day at Brookside Gardens. The conservatories were pleasantly warm. And the brisk walk to look for signs of spring afterward was rewarded with sights of daffodils and witch hazel.

Up-to-date on course work. I got overwhelmed for a few days with the Aboriginal Worldviews and Education course (Coursera) and celebrated when I was finally able to catch up.

Snow day. We got enough snow to make snow ice cream! It ended up being more like a smoothie because the snow was so heavy (i.e. not the light fluffy stuff).

Great Horned Owl. I’d seen pictures and read about them but had never seen one in action until seeing the raptor presentation at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. The owl was well trained to swoop down for bits of food within easy viewing range of the crowd….until it spotted a bunny nearby and disappeared into the cactus and brush to enjoy its lunch.

Kratchner Caverns State Park. Kudos to the people who found it and owned the property for protecting it until the state and researchers could sustain it. This is the place to celebrate the beauty of caverns.

Airport art. Airports are often stressful places - lots of security and lines and hurry/wait flurry. Noticing the artwork helps. Mosaics…painting on glass….tiles…etchings…lights. They bring back the notion that airplane travel can be enjoyable.

Home again. After being away for a week, coming home is always a little celebration.

A clean house. My house is always reasonably clean but gets even more so when I am expecting guests. It’s worth a celebration after the work!

A warm day. Typical of spring, there was one warm day sandwiched with cold ones. It was nice to feel the warmth.

Vanishing Snow

Last week it snowed overnight. It wasn’t more than an inch and the streets had retained enough heat from the daytime to melt what fell on them. The snow was lumpy on the grass and bushes. It stuck to the trees. I went out to take pictures as the sun was coming up and then several times over the next couple of hours. It was just below freezing at sunrise then warmed up very quickly. Surprisingly the last walk around was the one that interested me the most - and not for photographic reasons. It was the sounds - 

• bits of snow falling from the oak and fracturing on the driveway and
• water running down the gutters

The snow was mostly gone by noon.

Gleanings of the Week Ending February 2, 2013

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles I read this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

Masterful Textured Oil Paintings of Ships at Sea - from Polish Artist Justyna Kopania

Health and Environment: A Closer Look at Plastics - trying to balance risks and rewards

The Whirlpool Galaxy

Morning Glory Muffins - nutrition rich - to start the day

Population Density in the US from 1790-2000 - from Stanford University’s Spatial History Project.

Simon Beck Snow Art - this post is almost a year old…but I only found it recently

Test for Hormone-Disrupting Chemicals Gets Global Seal of Approval - both the international Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development and the US Government ….good that they are agreed on how to test for the chemicals

Silhouettes and Moonrise in Real Time - video of a moon rise from a New Zealand mountain top

Archaic Native Americans Built Massive Louisiana Mound in Less Than 90 Days - At Poverty Point…the largest mound was built between rains; the hunter gatherers must have been a lot more organized - and in larger numbers - that previously thought

Romantic Textured Paintings of Couples Walking Together - just in time for Valentine’s Day

The Magic of a Little Snow

We got a little over an inch of snow one of the days last week….and it made our yard a magical place:

The tracks of an animal (probably a cat) close to our front door; it didn’t stop to look in window.

The cedar holding a handful of snow - perfectly balanced until breeze should come along. 

The dried hydrangea looking almost like a cotton boll. 

The snowball held by pine needles.

And the deformed branches of the tulip poplar outlined by snow on every near horizontal branch.