Holiday Images

Last week I had Thursday and Friday off the Christmas holiday. This week I get Thursday and Friday off for the New Year's holiday, plus I took today off, so I have 5 days off this weekend! I've enjoyed a fairly lazy day today with a little work and lots of time with my family.

Everything is going really well right now. I've been enjoying the holidays and the extra time with family. My job is still great, if a bit busier than I'd like, but that will calm down in February once the woman who will be reporting to me returns from maternity leave. My boss is especially wonderful. She's calm, patient, and very reasonable. She let's me work and trusts me to get things done in my own way.

I thought I'd share a few of the photos from the last few days.

Christmas goose.

Christmas tree lights shining on decorations.

Snow on Christmas evening.

 

A couple of our stockings hung over the fireplace and a small tree (and a gift box).

Snow on Christmas evening; we got our White Christmas!

Snowy sky on Christmas night.

Christmas tree lights on the ceiling.

Fresh snow the morning after Christmas.

  

Sunrise through the clouds the morning after Christmas.

 

My son self-decorated with bows during gift sharing with my husband's extended family.

Moon shadows on the snow.

View out the window over the kitchen sink while I was doing dishes this past weekend.

Sunset this evening.

I know there are people who are already ready for summer (according to my Facebook feed), but I love winter. I love the snow we have right now, even if it is cold outside. I feel very fortunate to live in such a beautiful place and to be able to capture the beauty and share it with others. I hope you are enjoying nice weather and the holidays, and aren't in any of the places that have been hit with storms or flooding recently.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all of my readers out there who celebrate the holiday! We're enjoying a quiet, nuclear family holiday this year. My kids are both playing on electronics right now, and my husband is cooking our Christmas goose. We've never had goose before, but my husband loves to try cooking traditional items so we're going to give it a shot. He's also made Christmas pudding in the past, which was good but too rich for most of us. The biggest success has been sugar plums. We all love those and they're practically health food with all the nuts and dried fruit so he makes those every year.

Evolution of the Celebration
My parents moved to Colorado when I was 9 months old (so I'm not an actual native, but pretty darn close). Christmas for me growing up was always just the four of us (my parents, my brother, and me) and we always spent time relaxing and reading our new books.

My husband always lived near all of his family, so Christmas Eve was always with his mother's Italian parents celebrating the Feast of the Seven Fishes. Christmas day was always with his dad's parents, and when they lived in the area, his dad's sister's family.

After we first got married and had children, we continued to celebrate Christmas Eve each year with my husband's maternal grandparents. Before they had to quit hosting it, the event got pretty huge with all the grandchildren married and with kids of their own. My mother-in-law took over the event several years ago, and we actually broke into two celebrations with my husband's cousins starting their own.

Every Christmas day we'd go and see my parents and my husband's family. I finally put a stop to this one year when my brother-in-law was hosting Christmas and took his time with the meal so we didn't eat lunch until almost 4:00 in the afternoon, and I was practically screaming at my children to open their gifts faster after the meal since we were supposed to be at my parent's house at 5:00.

After that infamous year, we starting celebrating with only one family on Christmas, and the other family the weekend after, alternating years. Then my brother-in-law converted to Messianic Judaism a few years ago and stopped celebrating most holidays. They don't celebrate Hanukkah either, only the Jewish festivals found in the old testament. Once that change happened, we stopped seeing my husband's family on Christmas day and always see them the weekend after to celebrate with his paternal grandparents.

Since my brother and his wife still alternate Christmas celebrations with our family and his wife's family, that left Christmas every year other open with no family commitments or celebrations. My husband wasn't sure how he felt about that since he'd never celebrated Christmas that way, but I convinced him to give it a shot because that was how I had always celebrated it growing up. I think he was very skeptical about it until we tried it, and now I think even he enjoys the restful Christmas day every other year.

Christmas Eve at my in-laws

Christmas tree at my in-laws

Grilled grouper that my husband prepared for the feast.

Sibling love on Christmas Eve!

I hope that however you celebrate the day you are with people whose company you enjoy!

Snow Day!

Right after my morning workout (indoors) early this morning.

I'm fully aware that this doesn't look like much snow on the ground, but most everything is cancelled in Denver today. The snow started falling at about an inch per hour early this morning, and with a steady wind of about 15 mph and gusts over 30 mph, the roads are fairly treacherous. There have been all kinds of accidents already and all of the metro area schools are closed, which means my office is closed. Although the blessing, and the curse, of technology means that I can still work. I'm hoping to use the day to get caught up since all of my meetings are cancelled, and to enjoy extra time with my family.

Unintended Blogging Break

I hadn't planned on taking a break from blogging, but it happened nonetheless. I love my new job and am so happy with the decision to take this position. My days are flying by and I truly enjoy the work, the environment, and my coworkers. My workload is a bit intense right now because the woman who will be reporting to me went out on maternity leave three days before I started. Things are taking a little longer than they otherwise might have if she was here to help me understand how and why they set things up the way they did. She did come in when her baby was 4 days old to give me a quick orientation (I think managing her is going to consist of making sure she's not working too hard). I am figuring it all out and have received some kudos though, so I guess I'm managing without her for now. However, I am currently doing my work and some of hers, so I've been extremely busy at work.

Then I get home and I'm busy here preparing for the holidays. I am not ready for the holidays yet this year. I have got to get on it! We did get to watch my daughter's school band perform in the Denver Parade of Lights which was exciting. We also have both the inside and outside of our house decorated, with the exception of the tree which we'll get next Saturday. I'm definitely in the mood for the holidays, now I just need to get prepared.

I'm guessing that the time and energy to blog are going to hard to come by for the next couple of months. So I'll probably be posting pretty sporadically until late winter/early spring. I am going to try to put photos (good ones) up on Instagram, so if you're interested you can look for me there under darcylyndees.

We've had some lovely winter sunrises recently. The photos below are all from my phone camera, so they aren't great, but they're not terrible either. The colors were captured really nicely with no post-processing.

Winter Wonderland

We've had a little snow every day here since Thanksgiving. It's been simply beautiful, and has really started to get me in the mood for the holidays.

Early morning sun behind the clouds after the snow.

Glowing snow-covered trees.

The sun on the fresh snow

Snow on the Hawthorne berries.

My in-laws' snow covered yard.

The rabbits were frolicking in the yard at 1:00 this morning (when I couldn't sleep), and left tracks as proof this morning.

We had two wonderful Thanksgiving celebrations. We were with my family on the actual day, and with my husband's family the day after. My brother-in-law and his family had traveled in and it was wonderful to see them. My nieces are growing up so fast, the oldest just turned 13; I can't hardly believe we have another teenager in the family.

They brought their cats with them on the trip, so we got to enjoy the antics of a cat named Skywalker (my youngest niece is really into Star Wars). He's a beautiful Tuxedo who loves to climb, and he didn't mind hanging out with my son.

Skywalker up high on a beam.

Skywalker lounging with my son, soaking up the attention.

Happy Thanksgiving!

On this Thanksgiving holiday, I am thankful...

I'm thankful for my wonderful husband who has been my best friend and my partner for nearly 20 years, through good times and bad.
I'm thankful for our two beautiful, bright, healthy children who provide so much joy and light in our lives.
I'm thankful for all of our extended family who are always supportive and never overbearing.
I'm thankful for all my friends, near and far. Both the friends who I get to spend time with on a regular basis, and those who I keep up with on social media.
I'm thankful that we such an abundance of love and wonderful people in our lives.
I'm thankful for my new job which fits me like a glove, and all of my wonderful co-workers.
I'm thankful for our cozy home in a quiet neighborhood that keeps us warm and safe.
I'm thankful that my complaints fall into two categories: fairly inconsequential annoyances, or sadness for blessings that are no longer a part of my life. I am very fortunate that I rarely have to worry about life or death issues, unlike so many others in the world.
I'm thankful for the soft, beautiful snow that's falling on this Thanksgiving morning.
I'm thankful that I get to see my mom and my brother with his family today. I will still miss my dad at the holiday table, but that falls into the category of blessings that are no longer a part of my life; I'm grateful for the 40 years I had with him.
I'm thankful that I get to see my in-laws and my brother-in-law with his family tomorrow.
I'm thankful that my life is so full of blessings that I could make this list much, much longer.

I hope all of my readers have a wonderful Thanksgiving and are feeling as blessed as I am today!

Beautiful Sky

The sky has been absolutely stunning lately; so I had to share some of the photos.

I have yet to figure out how to take a good picture of the moon. I've read all about it on the Digital Photography School blog, and I still can't seem to do it. One of these days I'm going to tackle this! If any of my readers have any pointers I'd be open to reading them.

Relaxing Weekend

I haven't felt motivated to write much lately. Life has just been going on fairly well, but hasn't been too interesting. Which is honestly kind of nice for a change. This is the first weekend in a long time where we haven't had obligations. So I've gotten most of my weekend chores done already, instead of rushing to do so Sunday afternoon like I have been lately.

It snowed again last night and we had a beautiful sunshiny day reflecting on the snow. All of today's pictures are from my new phone camera. It's still a phone camera, but it's much nicer than the one on my old phone.

I've been doing a good job with my eating lately. I was feeling a little bit like giving up today with the Thanksgiving holiday coming up, but then I ran across a blog post that made me feel like I can stick with this. I can be the hero in my own story, and keep working on this goal.

Tonight we're having a lovely sunset tonight as I write this. So I'm going to relax and enjoy the view and my family this evening since I'm ahead of the game on my chores!

Hyperbole

We were under a blizzard warning last night, which my phone kept reminding me of. This is what I awoke to this morning.

This is less snow than we got last Wednesday which was supposed to be a non-event. In defense of the meteorologists though, had the rain we got last night turned to snow earlier, we would have been buried. It sounds like south and east of the metro area got hit harder, but my disappointed son has to go to school today!

I realize that my posts have been few and far between lately. We've just been so busy lately. This weekend we attended a bridal shower for a young woman my husband taught in fourth grade (which is making me feel old). We also headed down south to celebrate my nephew's 6th birthday.

The new job has been going really well and I'm really enjoying being so much closer to home. I haven't yet figured out the most efficient way to get there and back home yet, so I'll keep working on that.

We had a beautiful sunrise yesterday morning in advance of the winter storm that moved in throughout the day.