Drive Thru Holiday Lights (Vicariously)

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My husband and daughter drove through two light displays recently and sent me pictures --- another chance for me to enjoy the Springfield, MO area’s holiday decorations vicariously.

Candy Cane Lane at Rutledge-Wilson Farm Park can be experienced as a regular light display or with special glasses that make points of light into candy canes! My daughter is bringing the glasses she purchased when she comes to visit before Christmas; it will be fun to see how they work with the lights on the wreath and reindeer in my parents’ house.

Ozark’s Festival of Lights at Finley River Park is becoming a family tradition. We drove through it last year too. Kudos to Ozark for continuing the display.

Holiday Decorations

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This December is going to be a unique one for me…away from home….focused on other priorities…somewhat stressed by the situation. I am savoring the decorations two of my sisters arranged at my parents’ house:

The wreath on the door…

The reindeer and poinsettias on the mantle…

The big wreath on the wall…

These are all decorations that have been used in previous years…associated with pleasant memories of past Decembers, prompting us to prepare for celebrating an anniversary, a birthday, and Christmas that are all part of our family celebrations in December. The month has always be an emotional high…and this year there is the overlay of realizing that it is probably the last one for my parents in this house.

Gardens Aglow Vicariously

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I am in Carrollton, Texas this December working with my sisters as we increase the daily assistance for my parents. It is going to be a very different December this year. The yearly tradition (started last year…our first December after moving to the Springfield MO area) of walking through the Springfield Botanical Gardens Gardens Aglow display will be a vicarious one for me this year. My husband and daughter did the walk last week and sent pictures.

It was a drizzly night so they both just used their phones rather than more expensive cameras. There were not many people walking the garden (probably because it was wet) so the pictures don’t have as many silhouettes of people as we had last year. The pictures put me in a holiday mood….even while I accept – even savor - that I am where I need to be, doing what I need to do here in Carrollton this December.

Zooming– December 2022

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Kittens – holiday lights – plants in winter – a great blue heron….pictures made possible by the Zooming capabilities of my three cameras: phone (Samsung Galaxy S10e), small point and shoot (Cannon PowerShot SX730 HS), and bridge (Canon PowerShot SX70 HS). The one I have with me all the time is the phone; the point and shoot fits in a coat pocket so it is easy to take along, the bridge camera I need for the optics (i.e. the greatest optical zoom of my cameras). Enjoy the December zoomed images!

Ten Little Celebrations – December 2022

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Ten little…and big…celebrations for December 2022. The big ones include:

A 70th wedding anniversary. That’s a lot of years for a relationship to thrive….and for both to still be healthy enough to enjoy life and the celebration!

Winter holiday. They happen every year, but it doesn’t reduce the joy of the virtually back-to-back family celebrations that flow into January: a birthday, an anniversary, Christmas, New Years and then another big anniversary. I’m celebrating now and savoring the anticipation of more still to come!

And then there are the little celebrations that are more like the other months of the year:

Finding puzzles. When I first started looking for puzzles, I didn’t find any that I likes and then I found 2 at a thrift store and another 4 at a pharmacy….and celebrated the finds!

Gardens Aglow at Mizumoto Japanese Stroll Garden. Celebrating a walk-through holiday light display in Springfield MO. If we hadn’t found it, I would be missing the Brookside Gardens lights in Maryland.

Getting the wreath on the door. The kittens prolonged the time it took to get our house decorated this year (some trial and error with how they would respond). The wreath was one of the last things we did…and I celebrated that the decorating was done!

Getting to stay home on a rainy day. Celebrating that I can usually rearrange plans to avoid getting out on a cold, rainy day!

Hot tea with orange peel. Celebrating a little hint of citrus….and probably the vitamin C as well.

Macro photography at Springfield Conservation Nature Center. Celebrating the beauty of native plants through all the seasons…..particularly close-up.

New glasses. This is my first time to get transition lenses. I am celebrating not needing to juggle my sunglasses on and off on road trips!

The plastic vase works. I was a little skeptical that the flat plastic vases would expand and hold a large bouquet....celebrated when the one I tried worked great! Now I feel more confident giving them as gifts!

Happy Holidays!

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I don’t send cards anymore, but I’ve been saving cards for a long time. Every December, they decorate the house: attached to metal doors with magnets, attached to giant scrunchies with miniature clothespins, and under plastic mats on the kitchen table. The collection is large enough to always have a few extra and I’ve scanned some to share in a slideshow….wishing everyone a great holiday season!

Finley Park Light Display

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My daughter recommended the drive-through light display at Ozark, MO’s Finley River Park. She had gone with a friend and then had dinner at the Ozark Mill Restaurant on the other side of the river.

The park was not crowded when we got there, and we enjoyed a leisurely drive through the lights – many of them animated.

Ozark is a suburban community south of Springfield…population of about 22,000. Kudos to the community for providing this display!

Our short drive from our home and the park was a good experience too – on curvy two-lane roads in the dark. It provided the ‘over the river and through the woods’ vibe for the evening!

Gardens Aglow

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We walked through the Gardens Aglow event at the Mizumoto Japanese Stroll Garden in Springfield, MO last Friday. It was a wonderful way to celebrate our first winter holidays in Missouri…will become an annual tradition from now on.

We got there shortly after the opening at 5 PM. There were a steady stream of cars arriving but there were people directing parking which eliminated confusion; it was a short walk from where we parked to the entrance and there was no line although next year I will plan to buy tickets in advance.

My husband and I had enjoyed the Brookside Gardens lights during the many years we lived in Maryland and found ourselves comparing the two displays. The lights in both places used the gardens as a theme and the trees as scaffolding. The lights at Mizumoto seemed brighter (maybe slightly larger LEDs?) and they had more water to use for reflections/dark areas of the display.

In some ways it was easier to photograph the lights this year because the animations were changes in light color within a fixed grid rather than across a space. I liked the wall of color…watching as it moved through a cycle of colors.

There was a weeping cherry in lights; the tree underneath was probably a weeping cherry too!

The arched bridge over a water feature became magical with all the lights and a shed looked like a gingerbread house.

I managed to notice two Japanese lanterns and maybe next year I will try to photograph more of them. They don’t have lights themselves but offer a link to the place that is not as obvious looking at the lights.

There were several butterflies along the way that were photo opportunities…a person could become the body of the butterfly! This was something new to us…lots of fun; I was glad they had a small butterfly too (but didn’t see any children getting their picture taken).

We spent about an hour strolling the loop through the garden…enjoying the lights and happy noises of people around us.

Decorating for the Holidays – Part 2

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Once we made the decision to not have a tree this year (see part 1), there was only a little more decorating to do before we declared it ‘done.’

We hung a wreath on the door with a magnet hook (since it is a metal door). The hook worked very well and will be easy to take off when we don’t need it. This wreath worked well on our Maryland house, but its lights are not dense or bright enough to look good on our Missouri house with its covered porch. We opted to turn on the front porch light in the evenings and the wreath looks great.

I continued to add decorations to my office: a garland of silver bells around pinecones from the tree in our back yard, some red glittery swirls in a tall vase on the hearth, old Christmas cards attached to the frame of the fireplace with magnets, and a garland of red bells on the door to the outside!

Oranges!

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This time of year, I always look for (and usually find) a bag of organic oranges….and then proceed to use the whole fruit (peel and pulp)!

Usually, the first way I enjoy the oranges is to eat the pulp then process the skin in a small food processor and dry it to enjoy later.

This year I have already used some dried orange peel as an addition to the loose tea in the filter of the ‘coffee’ maker. My office smells of tea and citrus (and the flavor is good too). I can always use it as a seasoning in mulled cider or a stir fry…it’s not possible to have too much dried orange peel!

The recipe I like for cranberry orange relish uses the whole orange. I cut the ends off and any large areas of pith…but most of the orange is cut in chunks and put into the food processor along with cranberries and a little sugar. The relish is good on its own or combined with other things:

  • With tomatillo salsa and heated…used as a sauce for meatballs or stir fry

  • With some oil to make a dressing for salads…particularly for salads that include other fruit

  • In muffins

  • In soup

Cold or hot…cranberry relish is one of my favorite winter foods (I sometimes prolong the season by freezing cranberries and sometimes the cut up oranges as well)!

Oranges are one of the great flavors of winter!

Ten Little Celebrations – July 2022

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Like June, July was a high stress month because of our move to Missouri - but with much to celebrate.

Family holiday gathering. The 4th of July was our first ‘holiday’ celebrated in Missouri…having my daughter and son-in-law over for veggies with hummus, steak, corn-on-the-cob, and watermelon.

An easy drive home…and being home again. The drive to Maryland and back was long…but once back in Missouri we celebrated only having one house again…and clearly it was ‘home.’

Dragonfly posing for pictures in our back yard. We seem to have more dragonflies around our yard in Missouri and I celebrate every time I manage to photograph one. The closer location to a pond might be why we are seeing them more frequently.

Being indoors during the hot part of the day. Every day that gets above 100 degrees is one I celebrate being indoors! We’ve had quite a few hot days this July – more in Texas than Missouri.

Getting boxes cleared from the garage. Once the pile gets annoying we make a trip to the recycle center – celebrating that it is convenient and that the garage is clear…until the boxes pile up again.

Springfield Botanical Garden. This is probably my favorite place for a walk in Springfield. It is a place I want to see again and again…through the seasons…finding a little celebration every time.

Little fixes completed. There were some little fixes identified when our Missouri house was inspected. I celebrated when they were completeed – particularly the one in the basement bathroom (since my office is also in the basement).

Josey Ranch green heron and ducklings. I only walked around the place once because it was so hot while I was in Texas…but celebrated the birds that I saw there (blog post coming soon).

Getting car inspected/registered…and MO driver’s liscense. It has been a very long time since I moved to a new state and I anticipated a lot of red tape. I was relieved when we managed to get the cars registered, our driver’s liscense….and register to vote…celebrated when they were all done…and glad that the process was not as difficult as I thought it might be.

Establishing the compost circle. I celebrated finding edging that was high enough to make a circle  to hold the small amount of compostable material I have from my kitchen….just in time to start it off with watermelon rind!

Favorite Foods of December 2021

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November and December and January are probably the peak months for me to try some new recipes…and making old favorites…enjoy ramping up the foods we enjoy in winter!

Rice Pudding

I had a container of left-over rice from a Chinese food delivery on the Friday after Thanksgiving. I knew I wouldn’t eat it right away, so it went into the freezer. A few weeks later I decided to make rice pudding (recipe). It started out easy since the rice was already cooked. I used cinnamon instead of nutmeg and honey instead of white sugar called for the recipe and didn’t measure the raisins (probably added at least double the amount!). The results were yummy but could have used even more raisins (I added some to the top of the serving in the picture). Next time I make it I’ll round up on the milk as well. It seemed a little to dry for ‘pudding’!

Quiche

I made a quiche with what I had in the refrigerator and pantry…made up the recipe as I went along. It turned out to be high protein!

  • 6 eggs

  • 1 cup milk

  • 1+ cup ‘Mexican blend’ grated cheese (didn’t measure just make a layer of cheese that I mixed with the veggies before I poured the egg and milk mixture over it)

  • 1 red bell pepper

  • 1 cup shelled edamame

  • Pumpkin seeds on top

Yummy and colorful too!

Chocolate Mousse (made with avocado)

Yummy 2 servings of the dark chocolate treat (I made half the recipe…using honey for sweetener and cocoa powder as the chocolate) and ate it over 2 days for 1st breakfast rather than my squares of Lindt Dark Chocolate. It turns out that is slightly less calories than the Lindt! It appeals to me because the ingredients are so straightforward….not as processed as the commercial chocolate.

Red Velvet Pancakes with Cream Cheese

I started with this recipe but then modified it because I wanted to use beet root powder rather than red food coloring….and add a citrus note to the flavor….and avoid refined sugar. Here’s my markup of the ingredient list (I didn’t end up using any milk in the glaze even though I forgot to mark it off).

It was partially successful. I didn’t like that the pancakes turned brown on the outside (they were red on the inside). The big success was the ‘cream cheese glaze’ which melted very nicely over the pancakes and the orange flavor was wonderful. I will be using it on gingerbread cookies (and anything else I want a little touch of sweetness); it would be excellent on raisin bread toast, for example.

Hope you are enjoying old and new treats for the holidays too!

Holiday Plants

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I have purchased 2 plants this holiday month – not traditional ones. The first one is a tiny aloe with an ceramic pot that is a Zentangle pattern! The pot was the attraction for me…the plant just an added benefit. The plant is in an inner pot so I can repot it soon and start something small in pot. The other plant is lavender with the pot wrapped in red foil for Christmas. When I first bought it, the shape was more like a Christmas tree but the plant is already growing into more traditional lavender form; I’m thinking about ways to use the trimmings before I start cutting – just one time to keep it looking like a small Christmas tree until the end of the month; I like it at the kitchen window…plan to keep it there until it’s warm enough to plant it outside in the spring.

I’m not a big fan of houseplants -I like the view of the outdoors vegetation from the windows of my house better. But - a small plant on the window ledge in my office and a larger one in the kitchen window appeals to me for this winter.

21 Months in COVID-19 Pandemic

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And the pandemic continues …

Just as the Delta Variant seemed to be waning, the Omicron variant appeared…just starting its sweep of the country now; it’s too early to predict its impact over the next few months as the usual cold weather in much of the country and indoor holiday celebrations provide the ideal conditions for the spread of airborne infections (like COVID-19). It helps that more and more people are getting vaccinated but there are wide disparities in vaccination rates across the country.

Things are different than a year ago –

  • A year ago we were wondering when we would be able to be vaccinated…now we are have been vaccinated and boosted.

  • I wear KF94 masks now all the time rather than double masking with cloth masks like I was a year ago.

  • I am going to the grocery store every week rather than every 3 weeks.

  • My daughter came for a short visit at Thanksgiving (road trip from Missouri) – last year we settled for talking on the telephone.

  • My husband observed the Lunar Eclipse with the local amateur astronomy club…rather than just planning on going to some of their sessions. They are still doing virtual meetings.

  • We did some virtual birding events like we did last year but we also attended a Druid Hill Park (Baltimore) birding walk.

  • I traveled to Texas (road trip) to visit my family….something I would not have done last November.

Some things are the same:

  • We are still not eating in restaurants; we do get takeout occasionally…about the same frequency as we did last year.

  • My husband is attending the virtual AGU meeting.

  • We both enjoyed the Crane Fiesta from Bosque del Apache for the second year in a row.

From a mental health perspective, I am probably less anxious about COVID-19 than I was a year ago because I am vaccinated and my masks are KF94s…that protect me as well as others. I am frustrated that COVID-19 is still a pandemic. I acknowledge being uncomfortable in crowds….and realize that it could be years before I choose to go to a concert or fly on an airplane or go into a grocery store on a weekend. Maybe it is more than COVID-19 that has caused the feeling; there are so many events in the country that surprise me (not in a positive way) and avoidance, under the umbrella of being COVID-19 vigilant, is my way of coping.

From a physical health perspective, my cancer diagnosis and coming treatment are my priority…the health of my 90s-year-old parents is a close second. I’m anticipating trips to Texas – hoping that there won’t be an emergency trip to Texas before my surgery. My confidence in making road trips safely (from a COVID-19 perspective) is high based on my 3 road trips since being fully vaccinated in April: carrying all food with me, air purifier to run in hotel room, KF94 masking any time I am inside, making most stops at interstate rest stops.

I am anticipating a quiet holiday at home this month…and then a lot of action in the first half of 2022!

Decorating for December – Part 1

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We have made a slow start decorating for December. The evergreen swag I hung on the front door before Thanksgiving will last through December. I got out the Christmas cards from years past to display on door scrunchies and under plastic on our table. There were other cards backed with small magnets strong enough to hold them securely to metal doors (between the laundry room and the garage...the breakfast area and the deck). I like the holiday scenes in places we see them frequently.

The cards hold pieces if our history…getting older every year; we haven’t sent cards in recent years and are receiving fewer every year. People are more likely to communicate in other ways that don’t involve snail mail at all. Still – I savor the beauty of Christmas cards as part of the season…maybe even more that giving and receiving gifts…and certainly more that realizing I’ve eaten way too much!

Will I do more decorating? I’m still thinking about it…

Ten Little Celebrations – November 2021

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Celebrating a month of Thanksgiving…

A 90th birthday.  Both my parents turned 90 this year. I couldn’t be there for the 1st one (wasn’t vaccinated yet) but celebrated the 2nd on my last trip to Texas in 2021.

Coconut wind chimes. There are wind chimes outside the bedroom I use in Texas….and there were several days where the wind was brisk enough for their sound to be my evening lullaby….a celebration of the day.

Josey Ranch birds. The winter birds in Carrolton, TX are probably more exciting than the summer ones. I celebrated that I was there for their arrive this fall.

Fall foliage…and mowing leaves. The burst of color that is the last hurrah of summer foliage is always worth celebrating. This fall I saw more along the road as I travelled between Maryland and Texas than I did at my house….so I celebrated the effectiveness of mowing the still colorful leaves after I got home.

Narrow bridges over the Mississippi and Ohio rivers. A little driving adventure…a route not taken before. I celebrated an uneventful and scenic hour on two lane roads going from Missouri to Kentucky…particularly the bridges over the big rivers.

Cuddle socks. I love the thick socks I wear in the winter indoors; I celebrate the way they feel and my sister that bought them for me every time I put them on.

Hike with volunteer group. Celebrating being outdoors with people that enjoy it as much as I do…lots of shared field trip experiences before the pandemic and slowly starting up again.

New low weight for the year. Taking off weight requires a lot of focus so I celebrate every ‘new low.’ In November it happened just before Thanksgiving (which, of course, was a couple of weight-gain days!)

Daughter’s visit for Thanksgiving. Finally, we celebrated the holiday with a visit from my daughter. It was the first time she and my husband had seen each other since before the pandemic.

Yummy Haystacks

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I’ve missed the annual holiday gatherings with holiday cookies…and decided to make one that I always looked forward to eating but had never made myself: chocolate butterscotch haystacks. I did a Google search to find a recipe and bought the ingredients on my last trip to the grocery store. The ingredients are meltable morsels of chocolate and butterscotch (or other kinds of ‘chips’) and crispy chow mein noodles.

I melted a cup of each (dark chocolate morsels and butterscotch morsels) in my largest Pyrex measuring cup in the microwave, stirring to make sure they were thoroughly melted, and then folded in the noodles with a spatula. The coated noodles are dropped in small heaps on parchment paper and put into the refrigerator to harden the coating again. They store well in a tin or cookie jar….if they last long enough to need storage.

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They are easy to make and a very satisfying treat.

Next time I make them, I am going to mix peppermint candy chips with the dark chocolate for one batch and then make another group of haystacks with butterscotch coating. They will be different colors. The noodles I got seemed a little too long so I would probably break them up a little before I coated them. I also would round up on the noodles. My first attempt was too heavily coated!

If I were making them to take to an event, I would probably try different kinds of chips to give the platter a variety of colors. I also thought that for a nature related event  – maybe they should be called ‘brush piles’ rather than ‘haystacks’!

30 Years Ago – December 1990

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In December 1990, we were challenged to clear out my mother-in-law’s apartment after her funeral in late November and celebrate the holidays with our 15 month old daughter….but we made it.

We had several sessions to box up the apartment (usually while my daughter was at day care) – some to donate and some back to our house. Movers brought the things that came back to our house. My husband handled her last bills, and I did most of the unpacking at our house. The living room of our house was full of boxes for the early part of the month.

It was a lot to do overlaid on putting up holiday decorations and picking out gifts. Remembering it now – I’m sure the flurry of activity associated with the holidays helped lift our mood considerably. One memorable event happened at a shopping center where they had a roving Santa; our daughter’s response when he offered her a candy cane (even though she was standing between me and my husband) was to lay down on the sidewalk and cry….evidently traumatized by the Santa…or maybe it was the candy cane. I scooped her up and she calmed down almost immediately. We didn’t try to do anything else with a Santa that year.

We took her to the Christmas Party for children at IBM (where I worked); we attempted getting her face painted…but she only wanted to sit still for one small design; she enjoyed a large oatmeal raisin cookie…and she got her IBM bear (white bear with an IBM t-shirt) which was a good size bear for her to carry around.

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There were lots of things on Christmas that she enjoyed too – a phone (she was getting adept at pushing buttons), a panda bear that was about the same size as her (that was later named Mr. Zebra), and a Little Tikes grocery cart. I noticed in one of the old pictures that she must have used a small red basket I’d bought as part of our Christmas decorations years before she was born as a toy as well…just her size.

Even this early in her life, she’s already accumulated a lot of stuffed animals. We arranged them in her crib, and she liked to be there with them. Note that she was already adept at grabbing the big bears by the ear. She liked having them with her more than blankets!

9 Months in COVID-19 Pandemic

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The first vaccine for COVID-19 was approved in the US by the FDA on the 9-month anniversary of the WHO declaring the world wide pandemic. The rollout will take months but there is more hope now….if we can just get through the months until enough people get vaccinated to provide herd immunity. The US is not in a good situation right now with hospitals filling up, larger than ever numbers of people testing positive, and deaths per day about the same as 9/11/2001 – the trauma of that death rate repeated again and again instead of one day. Even a month ago, I thought there were more effective treatments that had been developed since last spring, but it now seems that either they don’t exist or they are in such short supply that they don’t make a difference. Even worse – the best treatments only seem to be available to favorites of the President…implying (or confirming) the corruption of at least part of the medical system in the US.

The psyche of everyone in the country is impacted by the pandemic – made worse by the leadership of the country, particularly at the Federal level and trickling down to some states. There is a lack of caring in American society that still surprises me. I limit the time I spend watching/reading news…stay more with stats and public health recommendations to guide the actions I take relative to the pandemic.

  • I have elongated my time between trips to the grocery store to every 3 weeks (rather than every 2 weeks like I did over the summer and fall or every week I did pre-pandemic). It takes more planning but is preferrable than going back to grocery delivery. I like to choose my purchases directly!

  • My husband and I celebrated Thanksgiving on our own at home and are planning to do the same for all the upcoming holidays. Special foods are still part of the celebration but we cook for 2 (or enjoy a lot of leftovers). I am intentionally trying some new recipes for desserts. We also do telephone calls/Zoom sessions with family on the special days.

  • We are getting take out every week or so. We haven’t eaten in a restaurant since back in February. It’s impossible to know how good the air circulation/filtration is in an enclosed area where 6 feet distance may not be adequate….and one cannot wear a mask while eating. Many municipalities/counties in Maryland are going back to take-out only because of the dramatic rise in cases over the past few weeks (although the rise might be more because of behavior around the Thanksgiving holiday than restaurants); whatever the cause - the likelihood of asymptomatic people in our community has increased and there is a need to respond to that to help avoid hospitals overflowing/starting to ration care.

  • My husband is still planning to do some amateur astronomy sessions with the local club…outdoors and masked and telescopes set up at least 6 feet apart….if the weather cooperates. He did some solar astronomy on his own from our driveway and backyard in November. The club meetings have been via zoom for months.

Over the past month, we enjoyed

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I am looking forward to cooking holiday desserts, watching a virtual Holiday House Tour being produced by my county and a session on Wild Birds in Winter from our state Department of Natural Resources, and filling up the porch with items for a charity to pick up…and continuing day to day activities that give me joy like Zentangle tile creation, photographing birds and wildlife from my office window, finding good books to browse, and writing a blog post….taking a walk in the neighborhood or watching the trees gently moving in the winter wind from my office window.

I am looking forward to cooking holiday desserts, watching a virtual Holiday House Tour being produced by my county and a session on Wild Birds in Winter from our state Department of Natural Resources, and filling up the porch with items for a charity to pick up…and continuing day to day activities that give me joy like Zentangle tile creation, photographing birds and wildlife from my office window, finding good books to browse, and writing a blog post….taking a walk in the neighborhood or watching the trees gently moving in the winter wind from my office window.

Over the next month, we might get a better sense of when we will be able to get the vaccine. My plan is to get it as soon as I am eligible. Once I’m protected by it and my parents are in the same state…a road trip to Texas will be my first post-pandemic travel.

At the 9 month mark – I am more hopeful for 2021….but very focused on staying hyper vigilant – doing everything we know to do to avoid getting COVID-19 until we are protected by the vaccine.