It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like....well you know

I don't know why it's taking longer each year for me to decorate but it does.  The first day the house looked like it exploded.  I could have opened a gift shop with the amount of knick knacks that were in the livingroom. You see, I'm one of 'those people' who has to lovingly wrap and store the every day decorations while the holiday ones are out.  That means the time consuming task of transferred the every day stuff from the Halloween box to the Thanksgiving/Fall box to the Christmas boxes.  The other reason it's so time consuming is that this house is pretty small, and therefore cannot accommodate every single decoration and tree that I own.  So I have to go through four or five boxes/totes full of tree ornaments and knick knacks to decide what I want to put out.  

Started with the outside lights and added a second strand.

This is the first year I decided to put stuff in the kitchen window.  I realize it's pointless because you can only see if you are outside and it's daylight.  This is not a street-facing window, and with the curtains always shut, we can't even see it inside the house.  I put my 3 homemade snowglobes in it, plus some fake greens, white lights and a bunch of vintage glass balls that I got for a steal at a junk shop a couple years ago.

One little tree, on top of the stereo speaker

Two more little trees and a bejeweled bottle.

Putting these out each year gets more and more bittersweet as time slips by.  Each piece has a special memory or two associated with it, from my childhood to my last few years in Washington. We are making new memories too, of course, but this is only our 4th Christmas together.  So when I put stuff out I have a tendency to linger over it.  

Like the little free silver Santa bell that came unexpectedly with a catalog order in California.  I remember my delight when I saw it in the bottom of the box.  The Peace on Earth pom pom lion & lamb that my dad picked out on his own for my stocking when I was a kid cause he thought I'd think it was cute.  And the time I had a Christmas bonus burning a hole in my pocket in 2007 and I splurged on a large set of Rudolph figures.

And all the cross stitch projects I've done.  The gold tinsel tree that was in my dollhouse when I was little.

How I worked on this Santa day and night for months to get it done in time to show in the 2002 Puyallup Fair, destroying my eyesight in the process.

Fans of South Park will recognize Mr. Hankey the Christmas Poo on the left.

I was digging around in the bottom of one of the boxes and pulled out that ceramic Seahawks ball! I forgot I had it and I also thought I left it behind.  

That's our first ornament hanging on the brass hanger, from 2011.  Behind it is a musical trio of mice that winds up and spins slowly to 'Santa Claus is Comin to Town'.  My Aunt Glady & Uncle Yimmy gave that to me when I was so little that it seems that I've always had it.  The 2 stained glass candle holders were bought at a cool shop in Orinda, CA called McWhorter's. I bought them in 1997, when I was working for Gillin Jacobson.  And that ceramic crescent Santa was bought on rainy Friday night, day after Thanksgiving, in San Rafael, CA in either 96 or 97 when we went downtown for the annual tree lighting and Christmas market. Someone on the street was selling it for like $4.00.  It's one of my fave decorations.

The Putz houses I got off ebay 2 years ago, to replace the ones my parents had and either lost, gave away or were stolen (I made the pink trees).

In the archway and w/o flash to show the lights in the garland.

Another angle.

Next to my chair.

Some of my friends decorated before Thanksgiving but that's a little too early for me.  I will probably leave these up till New Years, or whenever we are able to have Christmas with the kids.  Have you all decorated?  How long do you leave them up?

Where Has the Time Gone?

Been back now for two years.  It's anniversaries like these where I reflect on how much time has gone by, not just since the event, but in general, and how fast the time has gone.  Two years into my new life in San Francisco, I was working at a law firm downtown and my life revolved around all things Grateful Dead.  That would have been 1991.  It was a really fun and special time in my life.  I had a lot of friends and everything that I thought living in SF would be was coming true.  Two years into my new life in Washington, 2001, I had just started working for Steve, the Seattle Mariners were tearing up baseball and the worst tragedy to ever hit our country was about to happen.   

I don't even think of 2001 as being that long ago, but it's 12 years ago already.  Sometimes when I think '10 years ago', the 90s come to mind first....when in reality that was 20 years ago.  Twenty. Years.  How is that possible?  Time's going by so fast.  I still think of my 'recent past' as when I was going to Tacoma Rainiers games all the time, working for Steve, and going to Victoria every year.  It's a surprise to also remember that I haven't always had a blog, followed blogs or had a Facebook page.  What did I do before them?  It just seems like I've always had them, and I often forget that I haven't met most of my blog & Facebook friends in person, but these social platforms have put us all in touch, in real time. 

My fave show, "Friends", went off the air nearly 10 years ago, and went on the air nearly 20 years ago.  I was watching a bunch of  LOCI repeats recently and was so surprised to see the air dates on the episodes.  It was so long ago but also seems like just yesterday.  Back then, before the Vincent Vixens started their own blogs, all we had was that Molly Chatroom to talk about the episodes.  It feels like I've been with the show since it's first season but I only discovered it in 2005 after it went into reruns.  

Recently, I was watching some dear friends of mine (I consider them nephews) graduate from high school, streaming live from Oregon.  I thought about the two times I went to Portland. Why didn't we get together? It hit me that I met the family on Facebook playing Hatchlings in the late fall of 2008, and my trips to Portland predated that.  It never occurred to me that I would ever leave Washington, so I figured I would get together with them eventually,  then I ran out of time.

But two years ago, time seemed to have come to a complete standstill that winter and spring of 2011.  Those were the longest 6 months of my life.  It moved so slow, yet the past two years have flown by.  Back then it felt like I was never gonna leave that house & life, and Russell was never gonna get to Seattle to drive Pepper & me home. He & I were counting down the days, hours and minutes till his flight, which I monitored obsessively from my hotel room in SeaTac.  None of it became truly real till I saw him standing in front of the Arrivals terminal.  Here we are, two years later, engaged, still really happy and crazy about each other and rebuilding our lives together.  I love his kids & his family.

The newness of my being back has worn off.  I've figured out how to drive rotaries again (for the most part, and I still hate them).   Those of you not from New England know them as 'traffic circles' or 'roundabouts'.  It's where like 4-6 major roads converge in a circle and it takes some serious skill to enter and exit without getting hit.  I'm not at all amused by the lack of use of turn signals.  I can't decide which state has the worst drivers, Rhode Island or New Jersey.  I'm still figuring out how to get around on Cape, but that's nothing new because I never really ventured outside of Sandwich and Barnstable much the first time I lived there.  Still haven't been to up Boston or Provincetown.  That's mostly an 'uncooperative weather and lack of funds' issue.  Seems like it's either raining or too hot, or if I get a perfect day I just don't have the cash to make the trip worthwhile.  I try to stretch a tank of gas for 2 weeks, and road trips really take a bite out of that.

The first six months of this year have flown by, not that I mind, since it got off to a really rough start for so many people besides us.  I was not sorry to see the door slam shut at the end of June.

I do miss Washington and I still feel very connected to the Pacific NW.  I probably always will.  My heart aches when I see pics from out there; stuff my PNW Facebook friends post of their day trips around Western WA, Oregon  and BC.  I wish I could have all my friends and family, but living out there.  I saw that word, 'hiraeth' posted somewhere a few months ago and it totally described the nostalgia I'm feeling for Washington from time to time.  Not that I don't love it here, because I do and it's great to be back.  But that Mountain, that whole breathtaking region, is branded on my brain forever.  It's the polar opposite of coastal Massachusetts.  Everything's just bigger out there.  I know it bugs Russell that I'm still thinking about Washington, and the west coast, but I spent almost a lifetime out there.  22 years!!!  It's the only current frame of reference I have for anything or my life experiences. I talk about it a lot because it's all I know.  The last time I lived here, I was 24 years old.  I really only have fragmented memories of my life starting around age 4.  Technically that's only 20 years of memories of living here most of which are early childhood, vs. 22 years of adult memories on the west coast.  But I force myself to remember the awful commute to and from work, the stress of working in family law, gridlocked traffic day after day, the crushing loneliness of having no real life friends and an mentally ill, unemployed, alcoholic husband who was at the bar every day.  When I look at it in those terms, beautiful scenery isn't enough to make up for a shitty quality of life.

And then there's this.....

That is the Pauline Baynes illustration from CS Lewis' The Last Battle, when Aslan oversees the end of Narnia.  Everyone is urged through the door into a new world.  When Father Time rises up and extinguishes the moon, Aslan slams the door on the old, dead Narnia.  Sometimes that's how I feel when I look back at my old life.  It's like a movie that I'm watching from this side of the door, of the 1989-2011 time period.  Every now and then I'll have a flashback to an old, long buried memory of those times and it's weird.  Like how the afternoon light looked in my old apartment in San Francisco.  I feel like, 'did I really spend that much time away and do all those things?'  And part of me is kicking myself because I feel like I didn't do and see near as much as I should have, for the amount of time I was out there. Brian's even dead, further slamming shut the door on that part of my life. Did I really do and see all those things?  I must have; I have the pictures, memories and journals.  It's....creepy and weird. I left Cape Cod so long ago vowing to never return, came back to the area, and am engaged to someone I knew in high school.  I mean seriously, colour me surprised.

I used to have a recurring dream which was always one of my faves.  It was the beach combing dream, which took place at Spring Hill beach, or another unknown beach that was set on Cape Cod.  I'd be finding the most amazing glass pieces, in-tact vases and boxes and perfume bottles, some painted like Fenton Glass,  with jewels & crystals, and all in beautiful colours.  I would be digging them out of the sand near the water and greedily stuffing them in a large bag.  There was a never ending supply of treasure in the sand.  I haven't had that dream since I got back.  I think it means that everything I ever wanted was here the whole time, but I had to go out west to find that out.

If you'll indulge me another analogy, it's a lot like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, when she wakes up back in Kansas.  'This was a real, truly live place.  And I remember that some of it wasn't very nice, but most of it was beautiful......Oh but anyway, Toto, we're home! Home!....And I'm not going to leave here ever again, because I love you all! And - Oh Auntie Em, there's no place like home!"

Indeed. 

First Annual Resurrection Blogfest 2012!!

Mina Lobo at Some Dark Romantic is hosting a Resurrection Blogfest, which will take place on November 7, 2012.  This is an opportunity to resurrect a post from your very first year of blogging.  

If you'd like to participate, please click HERE to add your blog to her Linky List.  Initially I wasn't planning on participating, since my first blogging year was 2006 and I wasn't sure I wanted to revisit my old life of 6 years ago just yet.  But I figured what the heck, I can take a quick look through my posts from that year and see what I can dig up resurrect.  Hope you all can join us!!!!