Sunday Salon, December 20th

BELIEVE. Photo by D. Gorman, used with permission.

Weather: Dark and rainy. The snow level is at 2000 feet. That means lots of snow on the mountain passes between Western and Eastern Washington. The Washington DOT is predicting the snow level will fall to 200 feet for Christmas Day. Hmm. Could be interesting for us, but I won't hold my breath. It rarely snows in the Puget Sound area.

Fourth Sunday of Advent: It is hard to believe we are only five days away from Christmas Day. Today our choir sang a Christmas Cantata for the whole service. Don and both of our daughters are in the choir. Don said he was treasuring up the experience because it is unlikely that all three of them will be in a choir together again.

Where Are You Christmas? Have a listen while you are reading the blog post. I love this arrangement.

Visitors from afar: Wednesday I had two Christmas parties to attend. The first in downtown Puyallup with librarians, the second with staff members in Graham. As I swung by home between the two parties there was a van in our driveway which I didn't recognize. As it turned out it was friends Jean and Chrissy from Ontario, Canada. Needless to say, I never made it to the second party. I had a lovely visit with Jean (Tez), a friend from high school, and her partner even though it wasn't planned. They made an unplanned trip up from Oregon because an aunt had died and Jean wanted to bring her mom up to visit her other sister. They hadn't decided to make the trip until that morning and just dropped by in hopes of catching us.

School is out for the year (2015): It felt a little like running a marathon getting to this point in the school year. Time for two weeks of R and R around all the holiday celebrations.

Carly's birthday party: My youngest turned 24 years old on Friday. After a fun dinner at a favorite local restaurant, we came home for the typical cake and gifts. We played a fun game and got very silly. It felt like parties of old where laughter and games were common.

Book Club here: Sixteen of us from the SOTH book club were here for a discussion of The People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks. Don rigged up a movie screen out of a bed sheet so I could show a brief video of the Sarajevo Haggaduh, the prayer book which inspired the book. I asked the gals to tell me which of the 12 books we read in 2015 they enjoyed the most. The results: 1. The Boys in the Boat; 2. A Light Between Oceans; 3. The Invention of Wings. I wanted their input for my blog post on favorite book club selections. Stay tuned, I will get that written soon.

Christmas poem: 
Turn your heart to Christmas, come in from the night.
Gentle hope embrace you, find the promised light.
Give yourself to worship, reach for things above.
Turn your heart to Christmas, know that you are loved.
                                                          (Joseph Martin)

Currently reading:

• The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings...this is my Classics Club selection. I finally got started reading this delightful classic.
• El Deafo by CeCe Bell...a graphic novel about growing up deaf.

Finished this week:

• MARTians by Blythe Woolston...a short, little dystopian novel about a world transfixed on shopping and little else.
• The Shepherd's Crown by Terry Pratchett...the last novel by the author, who died in March. It is also the last of his marvelous Discworld series. It was as delightful as I expected.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all!

I AM IN THE MIDST OF CHRISTMAS PREPARATIONS. Photo by D. Gorman, used with permission.