My Small Corner

Christmas Tree 2011

Christmas Lights

We have a tradition of driving around and looking at Christmas lights a few days before the actual holiday.  This year I had picked up a few address off the internet, plus a few that either traditionally are worth seeing or ones I had noted in my travels. 

Christmas Snapshots

In church crying my eyes out, watching a little boy sidle up to his estranged mother, getting closer and closer and then crawling up her like a tree until she's carrying him and he's wrapped up around her as if he could never let go - that she'd vanish forever if he did.

Christmas Decorating

We put up the tree and all the decorations last night, so Christmas is finally ready to arrive around here.  One of my favorite things is to look at each ornament and remember where it came from.  There are ones the kids made, gifts from friends, handmade ones from relatives who are long gone, and ones we purchased to mark special events or occasions.

Each one is special and holds a memory.  There is something really wonderful about pulling them out once a year and going through all those remembrances.  The tree becomes more of a celebration of all the years.

Small Moments

I have a memory that makes me smile every time.  I was very young and on my way to see Hailey's comet.  Jefferson Starship was on the radio and my father and I were driving down the road, with it blaring, the windows open on the minivan even though it was freezing out, at 3am.

Haunted Halls Cast

Our theme for our station was The Wizard of Oz.

Some Things Are Better In The Dark

Sept 11, 2011

We had a moment of silence and then spent the day celebrating all the American values the terrorists are against:  gluttony, vice, debauchery, coarse joking and spending money for the sake of it:  at the Renaissance Faire.

Our Own Version of Celebrating

We didn't get to see fireworks this 4th of July and we didn't buy sparklers but a nice little grill fire certainly made up for all the missing excitement.  Just enough flames to get the adrenaline going a bit but not enough to have all the big red trucks.  All the food survived and the grill was still usable.

Haunted House

The Husband ran an event at the boys' school this past weekend.  Parents come in a set up sections of the hallways as a haunted house.  I have a bunch of photos of the event below the fold but here is a link to a friend's site with more photos, and a great video at the bottom of us blowing up bottles with left-over dry ice.  In the video, it was an ocean spray cranberry juice bottle.  We never found the parts.