A Garden of De-Lights!

If you love Christmas lights as much as I do and you live in the Seattle area, the Bellevue Botanical Gardens has a display that just gets better every year.
Last night it was brrrrr cold but we bundled up and walked through the gardens...it was so much fun.

This is a shot of the mixed border, every year they add something new...I can spot sunflowers, daylillies, hyacinth, tulips...the details are amazing - can you imagine the effort that goes into this?


This spider and the fly cracked me up.


This arbor was yellow wisteria, there was another one done in purple...so pretty.


This walkway leads down to a tropical garden, my photos of that area are a little sad...chilly girl = shaky camera.


Maybe someday I can have a little display in my own garden like this one...
I'll add it to the list of "stuff I wanna do".
Oh dear me...that list is getting long.

This Chicken Doesn't Care

This is where I should be checking in today at about noon.
But I'm not.

Oh my goodness.
Blogland is humming with what I'm calling "Pig Flu Posts".
Everyone has quite the opinion on what everyone else should be doing, goodness gracious!
Here's what I say.
Use some common sense people, settle down and settle in.
Play it smart...or play fast and loose and suffer the consequences.

Today was supposed to be departure day for a family adventure with my mom, sister and sister-in-law. We were flying to San Diego, staying at the Hotel Del Coronado tonight and then going on a little cruise to Mexico for four days.
We're not going.
Mom has a kidney condition that has left her with a seriously compromised immune system. She's finally off the chemo and steroids...yayyyy! But she needs to be careful and avoid putting herself into risky situations.
We've rescheduled for September.
Call us sissies, chickens...say we're overreacting to the media hype.
I'm tough, I can take it.
I'm protecting my mama...it's what all good daughters should do.

I feel the need....the need for speed

The last couple of weeks I've been working in the office, cleaning out files, catching up on my filing system that has been sorely neglected for far too long. It's amazing what you find when you dig in and pay attention. Items from 2006 kept turning up in strange places, finally it dawned on me...that was when dad was failing - and when he passed away. Sometimes we just click on auto-pilot and carry on...sooner or later the pieces will get picked up and put away.

One of the boxes up on the shelf contained an assortment of cards, photos that friends had passed on from wonderful shared ski adventures in the mountains. An unfortunate series of injuries has kept me off the mountain for a few years. As I flipped through the photos all of the memories came flooding back, getting up early to make first tracks, brunch with friends at the top of the mountain - a girlfriend who shows up at said brunch with a whole roasted ham, still warm from the oven. I think that's my favorite story...you just gotta love a girl who roasts a ham, stuffs it in her backpack and gets on a chairlift to meet her friends for lunch at the top of the hill, and yes....the ham was still warm, and yummy!

I miss gathering for apres ski to share a pitcher of beer and laugh and brag about who had the best crash, best saved crash or who hasn't crashed for three days running.

I miss it, I miss it all. The big swooping turns taken too fast..that fleeting thought that "if I crash this could be really bad", but not slowing down because the rhythm of the dance with slope of the hill is too beautiful to abandon.

I think it's time to dust off the sticks and make a few turns....
just to see if I still can.



Some of my favorite ski buddies.


Apres ski...always best when you can sit outside, waiting for the gang to trickle off the hill.


"The Red Rascalls"...
the best day ever
sunshine and snow
brunch on the mountain...
the stuff memories are made of.