a holly jolly week full of tiny christmas trees, little anniversary parties, family, friends, gifts, and camping out in our new house

so far, our holiday season has been absolutely lovely.

we celebrated our seventh (yes, seven years!) wedding anniversary with

family, food, a museum, and a little cake and gelato.

mmmm.

christmas was wonderfully busy, hopping from one family to the next...

everyone has been so generous and creative this year.

our little old home has been cozy,

though we have been basically camping out

with all of our things still back in california.

we were quite pleased with our little christmas tree,

hanging by twinkle lights as we do not have a stand for it,

and we adored our one little babushka nesting doll ornament.

today our new washer & dryer arrived...we are finally grown-ups.

slowly, our home will come together

and soon we'll be resting on the couch with a familiar book

and watching the sunlight hit the piano keys.

can't wait!

the snow is falling...i never tire of its wonder.

i love it here.

how have the holidays been in your little world?

hoping you are warm and cozy and spending your days with loved ones.

flying

everything is going so fast...

and not according to plan.

with a big storm coming in

the moving van won't make it on time...

so we're taking off tomorrow

trying to beat the worst of the storm,

leaving our little apartment a complete whirlwhind of a boxy mess.

we just might be able to make this move...

eventually.

i'll be throwing a couple of christmas decorations into the car

to make our new little home feel somewhat festive...

maybe a few twinkle lights will do the trick.

hoping you are safe and warm with all the storming going on this week.

$5 yoga...starting january 3rd...vote now for your preferred class times

i can hardly wait to start teaching in salt lake city!!!

i'll be teaching in our new home

{in the area of 2700 South and 2000 East}

each class is $5 {cash only please}

BUT your first class is FREE!!!

that's right. free for you upon your first visit.

classes will be for all levels of experience,

from those of you who have never even seen a yoga mat

to those who have been practicing yoga since your previous lives.

for years i have been perfecting my teaching style to accommodate

all of you, all levels, all ages, all genders

{that's right, boys are definitely invited}.

i teach an amalgamation of yoga styles:

combining ashtanga, flow, restorative, and yin yoga.

i'll be putting together the class schedule within the next couple of weeks,

and this is where you come in:

if you are in the SLC area, and are considering attending my classes

please comment here or email me as to which

class times would most suit you

{keep in mind classes will be 60 minutes long}

AM classes: 6:00, 7:30, 9:00

PM classes: noon, 5:30, 7:00

{or you can let me know if there's a time not listed here that you would like to see}

{also, let me know if you'd like to arrange a special class time for you and your friends...same price}

so, vote now via comment, email, or facebook

can't wait for classes to start!

you're gonna love yoga.

{p.s. posting will be rare these next couple of weeks, but i'll stop by now and then to say hello!}

buy handmade hats, gloves, and pretty circle scarves...and meet holly jo, the cutest kid on the block

if you live in the salt lake city area
it would be probably the best thing you ever did
to go to holly jo's
this saturday, december 18th (2:00 pm - 5:00 pm).
she makes the sweetest crocheted beanies
(for you, sister, hubby, boy, baby)
with the darndest cutest apliques this side of the mississippi.
she'll also be selling the warmest fingerless gloves you've ever spied
and the hippest fabric circle scarves.
(yes, it's all superlatives here!)
this, my friends, will be shopping that you'll actually enjoy...
because holly jo is worth meeting and chatting with all afternoon,
and she'll have treats to get your blood-sugar up for the rest of the afternoon and evening
for all those holiday parties you'll be attending.

get the full details by clicking here.

telling stories...

i started writing a story yesterday
about a girl, a tree, and the sky...

can't wait to see where it takes me.
could be a short story or a novel.

love writing.

still thinking of our perfect trip to yosemite...

it really was the perfect trip:
heated tent, fall leaves, frosty mornings, hot cocoa,
cuddling in sleeping bags, conversations about being better,
lots of laughing (mostly at ourselves),
and a very good companion to share it all with.

made-by-hand christmas and wishing for days when listening to stories on the radio was such a thrill

is there anything better than knitting by the fire
while listening to a child's christmas in wales or little women?
i could do this forever.

i'm making fingerless gloves for nieces who think the gloves are elegant and pretty,
and a cowl-neck scarf for celia jane because the cold constantly grips her...
and others that i won't mention here to keep some gifts a surprise.

are you making anything by hand for gifting this holiday season?

checking off lists

i'm feeling quite productive this monday...nothing like a new week!

my list isn't long...it's hard to keep it short...but i try to keep it simple

making it easy and stress-free to cross things off my list.

one thing on my list has got me feeling absolutely giddy today:

school.

last summer i was in asheville, north carolina.

next summer i'll be in oxford, england.

i'm thinking about roaming around oxford's lincoln college campus,

browsing through their world-renowned library,

and attending class with my peers in my professor's quarters.

it's going to be a dream come true for sure.

within the next month or so i've got to make a big decision:

which class do i take?

i only get to take one. one!

how does one choose?

i've narrowed it down to two choices:

one:

early romanticism.

This course will chart the evolution of romanticism by locating its

origins in earlier eighteenth-century writing and by examining a number of key texts from the “first generation” of romantic writers of the

1790s and early 1800s. The course will explore early romanticism from

a variety of perspectives—political, social, literary, aesthetic. We will

focus in particular on the following topics: sensibility and sentiment, the

sublime, landscapes of the mind, rudeness and primitivism, the role of

women. The list of texts below is not comprehensive. Students will be

encouraged to pursue individual lines of enquiry and to read widely for

their written papers.

two:

pre-raphaelitism to decadence: literature and vision

The Victorian art critic John Ruskin once thundered that

“Hundreds of people can talk for one who can think, but thousands can think for one who can see. To see clearly is poetry,

prophecy, and religion—all in one.” This course explores the

intersections, borrowings, and clashes of verbal and visual cultures in Victorian Britain, from the birth of the Pre-Raphaelite

movement in the mid century to the Decadence of the 1890s.

We will discuss issues such as the place and value of art in the

second half of the nineteenth century, pre-Raphaelite poetry and

painting, aestheticism, art for art’s sake, ekphrasis, ghostly visions,

sexuality, Symbolism, Decadent writing. Our focus in class will

be primarily on literary texts, but there will be opportunities

for integrating visual material and for exploring Oxford’s superb

late-Victorian heritage. A course pack with additional reading

will be given out at the beginning of the course.

which one would you choose?

falling asleep in the tree tops

ceej is flying somewhere over the pacific for a business trip,

and i have stayed near our mountains.

last night was my first night alone in bed...

i pulled the covers back, laid down on my side,

pulled my pillow under my head,

and grabbed cj's pillow and tucked it close against my back

trying to convince my body that i was not completely alone.

i stretched my arm and barely reached the lamp to switch it off.

darkness was not complete.

i could still see the tops of the apple trees out my windows,

black branches scratching the purple night sky.

i slipped my earphones onto my head and listened

to a song about a rose blooming in winter...

i simultaneously ached for ceej

while knowing that this moment alone was spell-binding.

i truly felt as if i was falling asleep in the tree tops

in the mid-winter...

what awe filled my entire being...

thoughts were both racing through my head and settling in slowly.

i like falling asleep in the tree tops.

snow had fallen, snow on snow

snow on snow on snow has fallen on us here...

it makes it feel like home,

like magic.

i've been thinking so much about how magical this time of year is.

like nothing else.

we visited my grandma, celia jane, today.

she seems to be fast approaching her own winter.

she quickly loses life with any ailment,

her eyes close and she slumps over-

we're always on edge hoping her eyes open again.

so far, she keeps opening her eyes after her stomach rejects meals now and then.

today she opened her eyes

and she sang carols with us,

singing of mountains replying to angels.

she doesn't always remember who i am,

but somehow she remembers all the words to her favorite songs...

i don't mind that she doesn't remember my name,

or wonder why i, a stranger, wipes her mouth and nose for her.

i am grateful that she remembers how to sing.

and she certainly remembers how to laugh.

some days she is the grandma of my youth.

other days she seems as if she was quite ready to move ahead.

it's winter.

and it can get very, very cold.

i will sit with this and remember it all.