Christmas: Inside Out.

First of all, it is Friday before the holidays so many of you may not be around again until after, so let me take this moment to wish you all a very Merry Christmas. Peace on Earth. Goodwill towards all men. And now, Photo Assignment Nanaimo : Christmas, Inside and Out. I have lots of photos so I will try to rein in my wordiness. It will be my gift to you.
Inside Christmas...it's really just my tree. We don't have a lot of decorations and all our "gifts" arrive on Boxing day, when we open the door to friends for turkey and trimmings and wine and desserts and... Well, you get the idea. If you are in the area, honestly, please stop by. Honest. You'll be welcome.

My ornaments are mostly souvenirs from travels, my travels and those of my friends. When someone wants to bring me something from somewhere they are going, I ask for a keychain. Then when I put them up, I can have a special thought for them each year. Or more than one thought, if they travel a lot....or buy lots of keychains!!! It's like a guaranteed Auld Lang Syne...and a very encompassing thing to behold, both geographically and spiritually.

This one is from New Zealand but reminds me of when the Brady Bunch went to Hawaii.

These are real ornaments. My good friend bought them for me the year I decided to participate in life again. Kind of fitting, eh?

I love this dragonfly...and the Eiffel Tower from a friend who visited there.

One of my dearest friends made this dreamcatcher for me while I was in Colorado. I miss her like mad and though we have drifted a bit in the past few years, I still consider her one of my bestest. I like seeing this up. Auld Lang Syne, see?

Navajo Ghost Beads.

This little Snoopy with the mailbox arrived this year from Biddie...in my mailbox. Cool, eh? The other little disobediant Snoopy with the hockey stick is an ornament I got the first year Michael(my Canadian hockey player) and I were together. Did I mention that my tree leans to the left?

Actually, I think the whole house leans to the left. The teddy bear there, Michael's mom made me from an old thrift store coat. A bobblehead Christmas Beagle...cuz what's Christmas without a beagle at your Charlie Brown Christmas Tree? Did I mention that we got this tree from Rain's kids' scout troop?

Christmas outside...the mall parking lot. Miserable.

Christmas Tree Jail.

Sometimes the only colour you can find in a west coast winter(besides grey) is the decorations.

This is Christmas both Inside and Out. The truck parade is lining up outside my window. Woot woot.

Yup. The Christmas TRUCK Parade.

MMMMM....gingerbread latte, anyone?

Eem-er was intrigued by one entry in particular.....

this one....

and that's it. Gotta go walk the dog, make an second appearance at Hick Chick's Christmas Party, run a couple of errands and get an early dinner started so I can send Michael and the rest of the boys out to see the Clippers play Victoria tonight(an early present for us gals!).

Photo Assignment Nanaimo: Snow

Well, snow is just one of those things, I think. You either LOVE it... or you DON"T. Except for me, because I am a Libra and I can't really make such a strong decision...at least not about snow.

Thing is, it's beautiful...I can see that. It's scary, too, though. We were out running errands when the snow started last weekend. We were trying to get home before it really got going...but it got going in a big, fast way here. No messing around this time.

So, we got home and parked the car and left it, so our walks were just around the neighbourhood here...and the snow just continued falling. It wasn't easy to take my "Precious " out into this weather while the big, fat, wet flakes kept falling. I am still in that very protective stage of new love.

Everything looked "pristine," in that tried and true wonderment of a winter wonderland...well, not everything, really. But, most things.

For a little while, anyway.

The thing about snow on the west coast is this...it won't stay pretty long. Hell, sometimes not even for five minutes. Our snow is wet and heavy, backbreaking to shovel...because all it really wants is to be RAIN!!! And when the rain starts, there is a sneaky layer of slick slush beneath the crust of snow, waiting to take you down...hard. Overnight, that may freeze and then you should just stay home. Really. Don't go out.

Moments like these will not last....and did not last. Get out and enjoy it when you can here. Quick. Two days of heavy snow turned to downpour and record high temperatures. All that snow mixed with all that rain and all that warm weather created flooding here...and have you seen the news about Washington state? Holy cow. We are places designed to take water, but we were no match for this storm.

It did paint a pretty picture for a minute, though.

Another thing about a west coast winter snowfall is that we don't have enough of it to be "good" at it. I know we sound whiney out here when it snows, but snow takes practice.

Somebody's moving day today. Hey, Em, what does this photo remind you of? See how snow can really ruin your day?

No, I mean, really ruin your day! Did I mention we don't have enough snow around here to practice? We can't drive in this stuff!!! And even if one person CAN, twenty others can't, so it doesn't really matter.

Someone drove/slid into a power pole up the street here...and two transformers blew. Yikes. We were a little worried about having no heat(our pellet stove IS electrically powered!), but the power was restored a couple of hours later. Thank goodness. We were lucky.

We've had blissfully blue skies the past few days and the drier weather has helped lower the water levels. Dog walks at the Nanaimo River were astonishing this week, watching huge trees rush past us down the river, roots and all. The water was roaring, ten feet higher than normal on the "high side" of the river, while the "lowlands" were simply gone and the trees seemed to be growing straight up out of the water.

All of this is under water now. Incredible. Literally overnight. Scary.

But, it's sunny and blue again today...cold, but sunny and blue. I gotta get out for dogwalks in about fifteen minutes. Michael and I head down to Victoria today to see the immigration attorney again. Lord, I will be happy when all this is done. Broke, but happy. Wink. So, better go eat some toast and put on my shoes, grab my camera and head out. Have a good weekend.

slackers

We're all just being a bunch of lazy slobs around here since NaBloPoMo. I used up all my posting ideas.
Tomorrow is Photo Assignment Nanaimo, though. I haven't even gone through my photos yet! Hahahaha...typical.
Talk to you tomorrow....we'll take a snowy walk together, k?

"Neither snow,

nor rain, nor heat,

nor gloom of night,

stays these crackheads from the swift completion of their appointed rounds."***

You know how when it snows everything is supposed to look prettier? Well, Crackheads, Dealers, and Vultures do not look prettier. It's all still an ugly mess...ruining our clean, white winter wonderland.

In the snowstorm we had over the weekend, traffic was pretty much at a standstill. At some points, it was like white-out conditions due to the wind picking up not only the falling snow, but the fallen snow, and blowing it around in great gusts of fury. BUT still, there was one path worn down to bare earth....the alleyway to the Crackhouse on Milton Street.

You know, the city seized property from the Hell's Angel's not too long ago...something to do with property laws and illicit money....the homeowner LIVES in this CRACKHOUSE on MILTON STREET that backs onto the alley between VICTORIA and HECATE....and ALL of the neighbours know the address, but I don't want to get into trouble here so I won't list it...but(and follow my logic here), if the City of Nanaimo is willing to seize property from the Hell's Angel's, what is stopping them from seizing property from just some Joe Schmoe crack dealer and bicycle stealing chop shop? You see where I am going with this? And if they don't want this property? It could ALWAYS be donated, after the fact, to Habitat for Humanity. Surely, if things like this happened, you could ensure re-election for quite some time...don't you think?

By the way, if you live down here...don't just lock up your bikes, BRING THEM INSIDE. Trust me on this.

***as the daughter of a retired U.S. postie, I do not take that oath lightly, nor in vain...it's just that no matter what the weather, the posties arrive with the mail and the crackheads arrive for their high...and I do believe that I CAN do without my mail for a day or two...just saying.

and also this...there will be snow pictures on Friday, as part of Photo Assignment Nanaimo....do not fear.

Photo Assignment: Nanaimo Waterfront

I know you've all been waiting for this, right? We all decided to take two weeks between assignments so that we would have more time to work on them...I waited until Thursday to even get down there. Go figure. And, again, I went totally photo gaga and took so many I can barely choose what to post. And, again, go figure. The Nanaimo waterfront on a cool, crisp November morning. The waters were still and calm. The docks were salted but it was still slippery...and cold. Winter is here. There were no tourists and very few folks out strolling...pretty quiet down here. That's fine. That's how I like things.

When Michael and I get old and want the ammenities of condo life, we hope to have a place like this...one of those upper floor "garden" apartments. Some of these patios are bigger than the yard we have now! Not to mention the view.

Mostly all of my photos....okay, ALL of my photos were taken down on the docks and not on the promenade. I didn't like any of the photos I took up there...but the boats! Oh the glorious boats...fishing boats and sailboats and rowboats...canoes, dragonboats, pontoon boats, tug boats, yachts and ferries...kayaks...and even some seaplanes.

Boats for the trendy(get it?).

Boats for hippies.

Boats for rednecks.

Boats for traditionalists.

Boats full of colour and texture and history...I want to know all their stories.

I want to know where they went. Don't you?

I want to know who sits here. I love their colour choices.

All the charm of any waterfront for me is on the docks themselves, and under them. It reminds me of some of the good things about growing up here, where I wandered the docks and Percival Landing for years, feeding the seagulls warm, overly salty popcorn bought with pocket change from the Yard Birds/Seamart store...

So that's it for me here...but there's more on Flickr.

Who picks next?

Morden Mine

We have decided to take two weeks between Photo Assignment Nanaimo so that we don't run out of stuff to take pictures of in the first month... no, not really, but it does take the pressure off a bit. I couldn't have made it down to the waterfront this week at all. There was a bit of a frenzied rush to make something happen around here. And, in case you hadn't heard, Rain has been sick, too, so please drop by and make her feel better. Before my car broke down(twice) this week(ask me later, it's too painful now), Michael and I got out to the Morden Mine for a walk.

It's a park that we have been meaning to get to for quite a while... there is a lovely trail there, but I will save those photos for another day...cuz(did I mention?) my car is broke down and we may not get out for any dog walks other than town walks for a couple of days...but there are some cool, old historical things here in the southend I could show you... and some GREAT old houses, too.

This is one of those places that Nanaimo should preserve/restore, but hasn't.

We have lots of shopping, though. And apparently, more malls to come.
So much for revitalizing downtown...dang, did I just say that?!?

The lighting could not have been more perfect the day we were here. It was amazing.

And despite the fact that this is history that maybe should be preserved, it is very cool to see that Nature, in the end, wins all.

That She can, in fact, take something so stark and ugly and actually transform it into an art form in her own fashion is pretty amazing, isn't it?

I thought so, anyway.

And that's that. It's all I got. Really. I'll show you the trail tomorrow, eh?

Have a good one. G'nite.