Showing posts with label yule. Show all posts
Showing posts with label yule. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Winter flowers, winter reading

Today I picked the first camellia blossoms of the winter. I love these flowers simply because they bloom and thrive during the deepest darkest part of the year. I made a small arrangement for our main bathroom.


There have been a lot of new books purchased around our house recently. I have ordered a copy of The Dark Is Rising series by Susan Cooper and am excited to read this again after many years. It was recently recommended by Cate at  http://www.beyondthefieldsweknow.org/ as a good yule/midwinter read. I had forgotten about these books, which I read when I was about 12, and loved. I am excited about reading them again!

In the meantime, I found this little gem buried in the Cultural Studies section of the bookstore where I work. I had to bring it home with me:


I am interested in native plants, and the use of them by early peoples as medicine. This is a nice little reference book to have and I'm sure I will refer back to it often.

Books and flowers--those are the simple things making me happy today.

Thursday, December 8, 2011

Holiday lights on a winter night

Tonight after dinner I took a quick walk around the neighborhood and snapped a few pictures of holiday decorations.  It's really cold tonight, with an icy wind blowing, so I didn't stay out long. Some of the people with really wildly decorated houses weren't at home, so the best lights weren't even on. I also had trouble getting good shots since it was so dark out.  I think I'll try again tomorrow, just before sunset, and see if the photos turn out better. 


That being said, here are a few of the pictures I took tonight. It's a very small sample of what's out there:






This is the porch and front driveway of a house two doors down from me. The glowing orb "gifts" are hanging from two bare crepe myrtle trees. This is also the house that has the racing green and red lights winding up and around the basketball goal. Unfortunately, my cheapo digital camera wouldn't take even a passable picture of that.



close up


Next up: Mickey Santa! Note the size of it in relation to the front door and the second story! There is also a smaller penguin to Mickey's left, and the obligatory lighted deer on the other side of the yard (this is the South).  And yes, children live at this house.  Ginger occasionally stops and visits with the toddler that lives there:



Look! It's the holy family! (And right behind them is a fence with blinking blue lights. Again, I  couldn't get a decent shot of it, but trust me, it looks like a disco. And what is it with random blue lights this year, anyway?!)



Most of the neighbors go for a more conservative, traditional look. Approximately 60% of the houses within a mile of us look something like this:





















And finally, nothing says "too much time on my hands" quite like a decorated tree under the carport.





More tomorrow.