Fight to the Finish

359/365
1:52 p.m.

Dear Saint Nick brought Jack this long-awaited Checkers game on December 6. Here it is, Christmas Day, a mere nineteen day later, and Charlie's dinosaurs are filling in for lost pieces already. Sigh. But he gets points for creativity.

The Wisconsin-Illinois weather thoroughly thwarted our travel plans, and it was necessary to stay put, cozy at home, for another day. We spent these extra hours playing countless Checkers, Uno, and Sorry games. Countless, I tell you! At one point late in the day, Jack exclaimed, "I'm still in my pajamas!" And my reply, "Isn't it wonderful!" If there's ever a list of days to spend in your pajamas, your childhood Christmases should be first and foremost.

Merry Christmas!

Ho, Ho, Ho!

358/365
8:13 a.m.

John is lucky to have several ornaments he made as a child adorning our tree. [See above.] I've had to nip/tuck and provide surgical repair to a couple along the way so they maintain their composure, but overall they've held up quite nicely for several (ah-hem, three) decades. I hope we can say the same for the fragile little trimmings we're producing; there's not enough glue in the world to keep Charlie's glittery sequins from embellishing the floor.

Merry Christmas!

357/365
5:18 p.m.

I was so tempted to use this shot, and I still wonder if I used the right one this year... Either way, we send wishes for a holiday that is merry and bright and all things wonderful.

Like Mother, Like Son

356/365
12:48 p.m.

A boy after my own heart. He takes a paddle of chocolate cookie batter and devours it with ardor. Both boys seem to relish time baking, but Charlie has an unadulterated zeal for it.

Clue: Wisconsin Winter edition

355/365
5:02 p.m.

Ooo, ooo. I got it! It was Colonel Mustard. On the porch. With an icicle.

Allium Sativum

354/365
6:19 p.m.

Castley Goodness

353/365
12:09 p.m.

Oh my. Our neighbors delivered this absolutely delicious buttery pound cake with the perfect amount of slightly caramelized powered sugar. Again, oh my.

Food For Thought

352/365
5:21 p.m.

This lovely cabbage was among our items in our very last CSA box for the year. As I've delved even deeper into the culinary world this year, I've realized I continue to thoroughly enjoy, no, thrive, on not Making the Same Thing Every Single Week. Sure, it's necessary to have recipes in your back pocket that you can throw together with a cursory glance in the cabinet and freezer. But, man, I really do get motivated about doing something new.

That said, I've been been deeply intrigued by Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food manifesto and the recent documentary, Food Inc., this fall. It's based on the idea that you can take any diet in the world, except the processed Western diet, and any diet will help foster a healthy, prosperous life. Processed food-like items are the health culprits of our existence. You can have a 100% whole-grain, double fiber bread, but it contains 36 ingredients, most of which your great-grandmother wouldn't recognize. On the other hand, my next door neighbor is teaching me to make sourdough with flour, water, and 1 teaspoon of salt. True health, according to Pollan, is not the idea of a glossy "health" food slam-packed with chemicals, it's actually food.

Just something to think about.

In Celebration

351/365
7:38 p.m.

You see, every year we buy a couple Christmas tree ornaments that signify something meaningful in one of our lives that year. I bought a gorgeous white pear with a thick green velvet ribbon the year Jack was seven months old because, aptly, it was his favorite food. We have two Hawaiian ones, a trolley from San Fransisco, and a brand-new bright yellow school bus. We have a shiny red ball with the numbers 26.2 proudly stamped in white iridescent paint. We have a butterfly to remember the summer Jack charmingly called them B-B-Byes. Charlie got a dinosaur this year because he's obsessed with things like Giganotasauruses and Troodans, and can correctly tell you that Pteranodons are, in fact, not dinosaurs.

I didn't go out searching for it. But when I saw it, I had to have it. This motorcycle is dedicated to Uncle Tom. His death continues crack and peel my heavy heart, but there are these evanescent moments when the warmness, the joy, the fullness of how he lead his life becomes my defining memory. And then the hurt hurts a little less and there's a meager, yet determined trace of light penetrating the cracks.

Perception

350/365
4:54 p.m.

After a couple late and then early hours, I finally managed to create six gingerbread, albeit FEMA trailer-like, houses for half of Charlie's preschool class. This is all the sweet adornment he could muster on Decoration Day, but luckily, he had the same enthusiasm as if he created this.

Kid's got real spirit.

Christmas Lore

349/365
6:25 p.m.

And the stocking were hung on the banister with care because we don't have a chimney and then have to explain how Santa breaks in every year.

Christmas Ballz

348/365
1:09 p.m.

Like Confetti

347/365
12:32 p.m.

Tracking the snowfall......

A: SO MUCH

346/365
5:18 p.m.

Scene: Writing the annual Letter to Santa.

Q: Charlie, measured in hands, how good were you this year?

{Debatable.}

Captivated

345/365
6:39p.m.

I do the exact same thing.

Gear

344/365
4:27p.m.

Day 3: We're permanently in the snow.

The Morning After

343/365
9:15a.m.

Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,
Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er the fields,
Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air
Hides hill and woods, the river, and the heaven,
And veils the farmhouse at the garden's end.
The sled and traveller stopped, the courier's feet
Delated, all friends shut out, the housemates sit
Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed
In a tumultuous privacy of storm.
Come see the north wind's masonry.
Out of an unseen quarry evermore
Furnished with tile, the fierce artificer
Curves his white bastions with projected roof
Round every windward stake, or tree, or door.
Speeding, the myriad-handed, his wild work
So fanciful, so savage, nought cares he
For number or proportion. Mockingly,
On coop or kennel he hangs Parian wreaths;
A swan-like form invests the hiddden thorn;
Fills up the famer's lane from wall to wall,
Maugre the farmer's sighs; and at the gate
A tapering turret overtops the work.
And when his hours are numbered, and the world
Is all his own, retiring, as he were not,
Leaves, when the sun appears, astonished Art
To mimic in slow structures, stone by stone,
Built in an age, the mad wind's night-work,
The frolic architecture of the snow.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Snow Storm

Onward

342/365
3:56p.m.

I heard a bird sing

In the dark of Decemeber

A magical thing

And sweet to remember.

'We are nearer to Spring,

Than we were in September.'

I heard a bird sing

In the dark of December.

Oliver Herford, I Heard a Bird Sing

Mesmerized

341/365
12:30 p.m.

Swirl

340/365
1:16 p.m.

Christmas Photo Shoot 2009: Shoot 5, Take 23

339/365
1:09p.m.

Me: "C'mon guys, show the good people of the world how much you love each other."

Merry Christmas.

Impediment, albeit Cute

338/365
4:45p.m

As if it's not difficult enough getting the damn lights on the tree.

Oh, Snap!

337/365
4:19 p.m.

Jack's new obsession is learning how to snap, but he wants to do his way. Understandable because, you know, at the ripe age of five and a half, he's questioning the collective intelligence of his parents. Since he won't take our word for it, we're hoping this video will help support our case that you snap with your thumb and middle finger, and not your thumb and pointer.

This is what parenting resorts to in the 21st century.

Predicament

336/365
5:58 p.m.

Charlie manages to get himself into this position all meals, and then cheerfully belts out, "MOM! I'm in a predicament!"

And, therefore, I'm only half-sarcastic when I say, "Thank you, Sesame Street, for your wonderful vocabulary introduction." They don't get my full high praise because they omitted the part when you solve your own predicament, and left me to untangle my child from this position for three meals and two snacks a day.

John

335/365
5:12p.m.

Next year, if I do anything remotely similar to this enormity of this project, I'm going to have themes or projects within projects...or something. However it comes together, for sure, there will be an Ode to John category.