I know we’re squarely in January. God has been reminding me of this fact with our continuous days of rain (less continuous than I expected). It’s MLK day, in fact. We’re not even close to Epiphany. Yet, bits of Xmas float around my life.
Today, we are enjoying a family holiday together. We went out early to do errands. We embraced a Seattle tradition that we have ignored, breakfast out. We went to Portage Bay Cafe by 8:15am. I normally drive by brunch places on Sundays and see lines. Church sort of discourages casual mornings waiting for someone else to make our breakfast. Uncluttered Saturdays are rare and require efficiency. We often do pancake Saturdays and rise slowly on our own. Rising slowly and eating out would mean no work would start until nap time.
Portage Bay was a roaring success. Laura declared, “I like this restaurant!” Dining is always a gamble with my girls. Sometimes they eat pancakes, sometimes they don’t (if the place is new). So I am slow to spend my dining dollars on them. We try to save McD’s for travel and infrequent visits. I like to frequent local places. But there is less reliability in ways for the kidlet palette. So we try in small, careful stabs, here and there. We make note of popular places.
PBC had mickey mouse shaped pancakes and a fun fruit buffet. Huckleberries, pears, and peaches in winter times. The hot chocolate was popular (not always a home run either). I tried the swedish pancakes. They were good, but I will probably venture into french toast territory next time. I like my swedes more crepe like. Wayne got mussels and eggs. Wayne nirvana.
So where is Xmas in any of this? The next stop was Target. After a few weeks of settling in from a long trip, organizing, we felt ready to use gift Target cards. Generous cards. It took me a deep breath to think about bringing more toys into the house. It feels like we’ve had Xmas’ many times over. But once I breathed, I had fun. There was some gentle steering. I walk into the Bratz aisle and see Barbies in a whole new light of appreciation. We did not take home a robotic dog that was out of stock. Instead, we increased our Barbie population. The vet has an assistant. There’s a bike and roller skating Barbie. We did the obligatory, wrestle the toys from packaging step that take 30 mins. Now there is happy play.
Our wreath is still healthy. Our nativity scene is still being played with. The crazy Xmas tree is still stuck to the window. We’ve been decluttering, but slowly.
Epiphany is my holiday. I feel like it’s at the right time for me to get around to celebrating it. Sure, we read the Xmas story, but in a nodding way. The kids were distracted by relatives and cousins and toys. It’s different when we’re in Seattle. I craft the holiday a bit differently. We just have a different focus when visiting relatives. But by Epiphany, toys are all unpacked and we were squarely home. There was the threat of rain, so out came the chalk. The playmobile nativity wisemen roamed. Sara and Laura weren’t as enthusiastic as I expected as breaking up the nativity band for a brief time. We read about the wise men and paused in that. The chalk made Bethlehem stars and crosses and houses. I wrote 20 C+M+B 11. There’s a better translation of that here. It was all washed away by the predicted rain. But it happened and I remember it.
Bits…
Wayne has ruled the blog. Twitter and blog connection has been restored. I’ve been silent and thoughtful at this transition back to real life. We haven’t gotten around to addressing the 3,000 pictures from the holidays. We’re starting slow.
We enjoyed a second birthday at pump it up. More bouncing. I had the best time with Sara, being her personal companion thru the maze of boucy houses.
Book club continues to bless me. We read Come Ashore and We Kill You and Eat You about New Zealand colonization and a Maori/American family.
Wayne and I watched Whip It and Scott Pilgrim. The girls have been fixated on Scooby Doo with the advent of Netflix being more accessible. TV can get very addictive when I have it on my iphone and the TV and netflix bookmarks my place. It’s worse when 2 seasons of a TV show are available in a continuous form. Way too much access for me. I’ve backed away from that is recent days.
I’ve gotten to bike. I’ve been clever about finding a way to exercise almost everyday with this rain. Biking, swimming, pilates, weight lifting at the gym, walks. It’s challenging to get super aerobic with hurting joints, kids, bad weather, and limited schedules of childcare at the gym.
Rain fouled up my attempt to snowshoe. The snow has been light and fluffy and abundant in the mountains. I had a whole group trip planned. Then it rained all week and temps rose. Just like last year. I still have hope that El Nina will give me more snow and more opportunities to snowshoe.
I’ve had good time with friends. One fabulous, unexpected evening seeing the King’s speech with Kjrsten and staying up late over deserts at Il Forniao. Lunch with Carolyn. Games and pizza with Burke and Cindy playing San Juans.
Work has changed back to the beginning of the year. More of what I was originally doing. Kind of fun to shift schedules a bit. At least not boring. Sad to not see a patient population I enjoyed.
Sara has started art. It works by lottery and only turns out into once a year. She enjoyed the first session. We’ve been doing swimming and lessons for Sara for the past few weeks and look to continue for now.