The presents keep coming for me this year! My parents thoughtfully let us decide what we wanted for Christmas, and just gave us the money to make it happen. Based on how frequent I take and post pictures, and the fact that my Fujifilm finepix camera was 2 megapixels, 4 years old, and slow functioning, a new digital camera seemed like the perfect thing to spoil myself. After much research and store searching, say hello to my new Canon Powershot SD600.

All were taken without a flash. Check out that dim restaurant! It was darker than it appears, I wouldn't have even tried to take a picture with my old camera. Thanks Mom and Dad!

I realize now that these images are taking way too long to upload. I'll fiddle with blogger settings to get them into more manageable sizes for posting.

My other present from my folks that I bought myself is . . . .
a little fishy! Mom got me this sweet wall aquarium at mod livin'.
She has no idea :-)

(a little late :-)

I have a lot of pictures that I never posted. Here they are in particular order (yes, because I'm lazy).



I painted a portrait for the big empty space on the kitchen wall. I pumped up the contrast on this picture, then used a projector to draw the outlines. A week of painting later, and she's done!




Bread pudding made from chocolate sourdough.




She really puts up with a lot :-)



Julia and I hosted a cookie decorating party. I forgot to take pictures of the cookies, but here's the braciole I cooked.




The fantastic No-knead bread recipe from NY Times.







My favorite holiday cookie - Big Soft Ginger Cookies




Lots of Scrabble. I had a 4 game streak of wins! This game was my favorite played, my winning word was koala.




Finally! We got rid of that extra washer in our basement. Hurrah!!!




Delicious Ham sandwiches leftover from Thanksgiving (I haven't posted photos in a while!)




Checkerboard cookies.




Yea for waterproof mascara when you're chopping onions!




An earlier snow storm, I layered up two pairs of socks, legwarmers, long johns, and waterproof pants to visit the library on foot.




I wish our neighborhood had better sidewalks.

Can you say Cabin Fever?? On the one hand, we're happy to be home safe and sound, on the other, WE'VE BEEN STUCK IN THE HOUSE FOR 36 HOURS, AND THERE'S NO END IN SIGHT. Roads are closed all over Denver, and those who try to drive on local roads are getting high-centered. Ben and I are wishing we bought each other snowshoes for Christmas.

So yesterday I didn't have work, all schools were closed. Today more of the same, all government, schools, retail, are closed. So even if you could get out, where are you going to go? We might give the grocery store another try today, just to get out of the house.

So what did we do? I made turkey stock, reorganized my kitchen pantry, cleaned, cooked, knitted, watched the news, and read. Ben worked from home and read. We napped in the afternoon and played some scrabble and hanafuda in the evening.

The day was long. How the heck am I going to keep occupied today?

Wednesday mid-day.


Wednesday evening.


Thursday morning.


Wednesday afternoon we trekked to the grocery store to get cookie ingredients (very important).




I also got brussel spouts to serve with dinner.


Wednesday afternoon we had an impressive drift in the front walkway.


Wednesday evening some workers shoveled the front walks clear. By Thursday morning it looked like this


This morning Ben shoveled our back patio for a second time.


It's light and fluffy, but DEEP! The levels shown here are non-drift snow.

December is busy! But it's all for fun. I had a cookie decorating party last night. Richard visited and we had dinner with Ben's extended family Saturday. My parents were up the weekend before, seeing the new house and shopping in the city. Mavi's visiting us en route to GJ. Tonight we're going to get hot wings at the Dark Horse in Boulder, just like old times.

All my Christmas shopping is done and wrapped up in silver paper and bows. I finally finished a little art project I've been working on for a few weeks. Pictures to come . . . sometime. Picasa is still annoying to use with this beta blogger I got roped into.

Some friends and I watched Dungeons & Dragons the movie this weekend. It was so deliciously bad. I haven't laughed so hard in ages. A couple months ago I came across this website, 64 reasons to watch Dungeons and Dragons. Lo and behold, the author was right on all accounts. I actually sort of wish I hadn't returned it so soon to Blockbuster*. Shoot, I may have to buy this one.

* What?! Blockbuster, you say? Yes, they've been running a deal where you can get a free rental by giving them your Netflix envelope flap. It's a marketing scheme to try to get people to switch to their service, but it saved us $5 so it was worth taking advantage of for this stupendously bad movie.

It looks like everything was dipped in sugar!





And it's cold. COLD cold. That sun isn't going to melt anything today.

(photos taken with camera phone at office parking lot)