Winter Song

The mountains to the east are covered in snow. I can see the white mist of cold breathing outside. My neighborhood streets are lined with trees of sparkling white lights. And tomorrow it will be December.

So it is now winter.

Such is the season change; until next year we are done with orange spice and pumpkin carving, trading them for peppermint sticks and ski resorts. I like that each season has such a personality and that winter has come with it's blue colors and nighttime snowstorms. It has me pulling plaid fleece blankets and snow shoes out of my storage trunks and looking forward to the excitement of the next few months. There will be holidays, the beginning of another year, hot cocoa, slopes to speed down and fireplaces for defrosting frozen beaks and noses.

I love so many things about the winter.

What do you love about the winter?

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Rough Gem

Magnus recently arranged a field trip of sorts to the Great Salt Lake to visit Antelope Island. Lately, he has been very interested in researching the lake's prehistoric predecessor, Lake Bonneville. After all, it's not everywhere you've got access to such rich geological evidence right in your backyard (his words, not mine). Everyone jumped on board for various reasons: Black Jack was hoping the island would yield a treasure of undiscovered dinosaur bones; Yvette heard its full of birds and was looking for a new love; Stilts wanted to meditate at sunset. I just wanted to see somewhere new.

And I think that even though all original goals weren't met (BJ found no dinosaur bones and Yvette found no new love), we were still taken by the beautiful landscape and the scope of Antelope Island and it's wildlife. The American Bison you might catch here and there carry in their genes a history thousands of years old. The grasslands that provide rest for migrating birds have been around for generations and generations of the same patterns. The sun that sunk behind Stilts spread out on his yoga mat has risen and fallen everyday for the whole world's life.

I realized that it is nice sometimes to stop and feel a place that is so much older and wiser than me.

I hope you stop and feel it sometimes, too.

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Jolly Halloween Costumes, 2009

We really like Halloween and have already got our costumes ready. Penny's love for anatomy made her skeleton costume a breeze. The Twins had been reading Shelley's Frankenstein and fought over who got to be who (I'm still not sure who is who). Black Jack didn't want to make too much of a fuss this year, so he added bat wings and red contacts. Yvette had recently seen a broadway musical about Oz and the witches so besides singing every second, she painted herself green. Magnus really got into this year and wrapped himself, chanting something anciently Egyptian. Stilts had to be all zen and opted on being the full moon (I actually wouldn't be surprised if he got real moon-glow somehow). Al...? Well, he could only find a white sheet. And as for me, Wolfman was the only way to go.