It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like...

The holiday season is upon us! Rich hit the ground running as soon as we got back; it's time for all the local parties and banquets so he's been working very long hours. I'm back at work and trying to tie up a bunch of odds and ends before the end of the year. My friend Melanie and I were talking about how much we love Christmas music and comparing our very long list of tunes on our ipods. We then decided we should do a Christmas show on the radio. We kicked it off last Friday with an hour of classics, oldies, rock, country, Texas swing, new artists, and Bob Dylan singing "It Must Be Santa," which we considered to be part of the "funny" genre. Above you can see our very cool newly remodeled radio studio. We love it!

I'm not very festive but Melanie is wearing her sequined Santa hat.

We had a blast playing some of our favorites and taking a few requests. We'll be on the air every Wed. and Fri. at 1 PM till Christmas. You can live stream at www.kucb.org if you want to join the fun. :)

The hotel held its annual "Moonlight Madness" arts and crafts fair on Saturday night. Rich had to work a banquet so I took care of his booth till he was able to come and join me. It's always fun to see lots of people and catch up, especially after being gone for a month! We had a good night, selling quite a few of Rich's photos and some of our homemade jams (local salmonberries with pomegranate, salmonberry/ginger/lime jam, or salmonberry/meyer lemon marmalade).

It's a great place to buy Christmas gifts from local artists and vendors. Sonia and Melanie stopped by while they were shopping. I got so busy chatting with people that I failed to take any more photos. :)

I ordered Christmas cards so I'm anxiously waiting for them to arrive. We've received a few cards from friends but I fear that sending holiday greetings by snail mail is becoming a lost art. I get the whole thing about not using resources like paper and fuel but there's still something about opening the mail and finding greetings from family and friends near and far that makes me happy. :) If you're debating whether to send us a card or not, please do! :)

Never a Dull Moment

Another weekend gone! Saturday we spent a few hours at the Senior Center hawking our wares at the Arts and Crafts Show. We've been printing, matting and framing Rich's photos a little at a time and then, of course, the mad rush on the day of the event is just a given. It wasn't super busy but we sold quite a few photos and enjoyed chatting with everyone who stopped by.

Here's our friend Max, who got every bit of enjoyment possible out of his cupcake!

After the fair, we had a scrumptious dinner at the Chart Room. We have not gone out to eat in a long time! I had a spiced sangria which I really just wanted to chug-a-lug, it was so good. They're now having rotating specials and a "Top Chef" entree which includes three different preparations of the same item (this time it was beef, last time it was halibut). You get to try all three and then vote for your favorite--a fun little twist! Not only did we have a big dinner, but dessert as well (chocolate bread pudding for me and red velvet cake for Rich--aren't we bad?!) Anne and Jeanette came in and ended up sitting next to us so I donated the rest of my dessert to them. I was way too full.

Saturday night I could not sleep. I got out of bed and literally spent the whole night researching family on ancestry.com. Amazing what you can find on that site. The census records are pretty comprehensive and many relatives have been easily found, though it's getting harder the further back I go. I finally went to sleep from 6:30 to 9:30 AM! Crazy. Talked with my mom later and she filled in some more gaps for me, enabling me to find my ancestors Kunigunde and Johann Brumbach on a passenger list arriving in New York from Bremen, Germany in 1878. Pretty exciting!

I should have been finishing my book club book instead of trolling old census records and draft notices and passenger rolls. Off to book club anyway, where I was not the only one who hadn't finished, so it was all good.

Tomorrow is the National Day of Writing. My friend Susan set up a gallery for those of us who want to contribute a piece on the topic of "culture, geographic location, a sense of place, and relationship between and among people and communities in the pursuit of social justice and equality." Click here if you want to join our gallery: http://galleryofwriting.org/galleries/511900. You may also set up your own at the Gallery of Writing http://www.galleryofwriting.org Although folks are encouraged to participate in the day of writing tomorrow, the galleries will be open for submission till June so you still have plenty of time!

It's a busy week at work--our radio pledge drive! Support community radio and join or renew your membership in KUCB 89.7 FM! We'll have live musicians in the studio all week, then a big ONE DAY drive on Friday, the 23rd. See KUCB's website at www.kucb.org or blog at www.kucb.wordpress.com for more info. You can even pledge online on the website, talk about EASY!

Happy Monday!

Time Passages

It's cold and rainy today.   Perfect day to stay at home with a good book.  

Rich had a busy day yesterday with preparations for the City party and then stayed with me till the end of Midnight Madness so he was a tired guy by the time we got home.  Midnight Madness was fun and we sold some more photos; I think we might actually be making a profit by now.  LOL   We also finally got some greeting cards done, though they did not sell as well as we thought they would.   Next we have to make arrangements to leave the rest of our inventory on consignment at the hotel gift shop while we are on vacation.  

The Unisea holiday party is tonight so Rich has another long day in store for him.   Although the weather is miserable, I went over to Anne's house earlier so we could discuss the music for the radio play.  Ended up cooking some breakfast for lunch, chatting about a number of things, and trying to figure out some future community projects.   Had a great time and it just made me think about all of the memories with my women friends from Texas.  That has definitely been a little bit hard for me here; starting over and trying to make new friends in one's 50's is not the easiest thing in the world.  :)

Sittin' here listening to  Neil Young's "Live at Canterbury House-1968" that I just downloaded. Boy, do those songs bring back memories, too. How did Neil get so old?  How did I get so old?!

Happy weekend, everyone.  Hope you are staying warm and dry, wherever you are.

Random Thoughts on a Thursday Night

I added an Einstein Quote of the Day but it's at the very bottom of the page so you won't see it if you don't scroll all the way down.  Today's, which is "Never do anything against conscience, even if the state demands it,"  makes me think of all the people who have spoken truth to power and taken a stand against wrongdoing in our own country and elsewhere.    Theirs are my favorite stories, inspiring and uplifting moments in time when something shifts and the collective consciousness is raised.  

So that's my profound thought for the day.  Otherwise, we are having a busy week with work and activities.   My coworker Darcel and I, along with radio news director Anne,  are helping a group of teens with a project, recording "A Christmas Carol" to be broadcast for the holidays. We all shouted "Merry Christmas!" and Anne added "God bless us, every one!" as we finished up.   We did it twice for good measure.   The dj, Daniel, knocked on the door to the booth to announce that someone had called to ask him what was going on because we were heard on the air.   Oops!    Just a little early Christmas cheer.    The kids did a great job and will also be presenting a read-through at the Senior Center next week.

Rich is having fun with shrink-wrap tonight.    We are finishing up photos for Midnight Madness and he is shrink-wrapping the trios since we did not have any clear bags big enough to hold them.   He thinks it's the coolest thing ever and I have to say that they do look very professionally done.    This project is becoming a bit time-consuming but we are still  having a good time.  Apparently, tomorrow night I have to show up at the hotel at 4:30 and wait in line till the doors open, when I am supposed to elbow people out of the way and sprint for a table in a good location.  Wow, I guess some folks take this thing really seriously.   :)    

It was a pretty day with the sun shining on the snow.  I meant to take some photos around town but just didn't have time.  Maybe this weekend.....

We Begin our Photo Enterprise

Rich gets lots of compliments on his photos and we have often discussed the idea of matting them and/or making greeting cards for sale.   With the annual arts and crafts fair coming up, we finally got ourselves organized, ordered photo paper, ink, mattes, backing, clear bags to slide them into, card stock and envelopes, and set out to have a little photo business on the side.   We were completely shocked when we seemed to have no trouble whatsoever getting the photos to print out just the way we wanted them, as we tend to have issues with any kind of project we undertake.  We even started out in plenty of time so we would not be rushing at the last minute (hard to imagine, I know).  

We were working steadily when we had the first glitch: although I had ordered what I thought was LOTS of ink, we started getting low when producing 8x10's.   Putting those on hold, we commenced to finish up the 5x7's and what we are calling "trios," custom made mattes with openings for three 4x6's.   We then moved to the greeting cards, which did not seem to be printing out in the right dimensions and didn't fit on the paper properly.  Okay, we don't need greeting cards this time, let's just work on the rest of the photos.  

What's this?!  We are completely out of cyan ink?  I thought we still had another cartridge!   Big mistake #1 shut down the whole process as there is no one on the island who sells the kind of ink we need for our photo printer.

Luckily, we had plenty of photos already finished, so we just had to get them matted and would still be ready for the arts and crafts fair.    Matting is easy and no big deal, just a little time consuming.   Next we had to put backing on the mattes for a more professional look.   This turned into a major hassle as Rich had to go to the store two or three times in the wind and rain to find the right glue to hold the backs in place.  Meanwhile, we discovered that the backs that were sent with the "trios" were just a little bigger than the mattes. Big enough to be obvious but not big enough to make cutting them down an easy task.   Of course, we did not order any extras.   Rich finally had to go back out into the wind and rain to get a box cutter, which eventually did the trick.  Whew.   

Whose idea was this anyway?

Yesterday we made our debut at the arts and crafts fair.    It's always a fun event with local artists and crafters and bakers and jam makers and knitters and crocheters selling their wares. We  had a lot of fun chatting with people, Rich got many compliments on his work, and we even made some money!  A great day, all in all.   Now we have to get back to work on the greeting cards and reorder some supplies so we can set up for Midnight Madness at the hotel on Dec. 12!   

The top seller was the photo we call "Fireweed Mountain," the first one above.   I am including a few more that also garnered positive comments from the crowd of shoppers.     Rich had a little trepidation about putting himself out there for public review but was constantly validated and encouraged to continue with his venture.   Nice!    Look for us in our retirement years hawking photos at your local flea market.   :)