Last Minute To-Do-ing...

My morning visitors...

This is a view of the kitchen windows by our table - in daylight, we look out on the woods - see below. At night, we see glistening, twinkling lights...

Well, today was much less about memory lane and more about doing the last minute chores prior to leaving to celebrate the holidays in Pennsylvania. The typical things - drop off a click-n-ship package at the post office, return a sweater to Sears, pick up some stocking stuffers (our family goes nutty over Christmas stockings - they're the size Santa might wear in triple X plus!) which required going to several stores (Staples, Michael's, CVS, Barnes + Noble). I also wanted a couple of silly/fun/gag gifts and I found them in the same 4 stores above, thank goodness! Then I needed to get some milk to last us two more mornings...

Tomorrow is laundry & packing day - and wrapping up all those little stocking stuffers. Yes, we do wrap even the stocking stuff! And tomorrow night we'll be celebrating the Winter Solstice at a friends home - with harp and song, prayer and thanksgiving - and snacks!

This is the little window by the kitchen sink...

This year, as in the recent past (since we have no room for a tree in our townhouse), I've decorated our windows with lights on the inside and hung clear glass ornaments from the curtains. It's a trick my mom taught us when Dad was sick with ALS and she couldn't put a tree up all by herself. She dragged the ornaments down from the 3rd floor attic and hung them in every conceivable place - but mostly in the living and dining room windows where Dad could see them from his hospital bed in the dining room.

And this is one that shows the glass ornaments more clearly.

Mom hung all our ornaments around the house that last year - every kind and color of the rainbow since she was a holiday decorating fanatic. She left them up until February or March that year. They were quite a couple - for much of their lives Dad had taken care of Mom and pampered her but in the last three years of their lives, he was too ill and Mom took care of Dad and pampered him with wit, love, humor and playfulness. They died 8 days apart from totally different illnesses - they stayed together after teaching us how to live...and how to die gracefully.

I guess I'm still walking down memory lane...