Trees Please!

After Christmas, my parents stayed a couple nights, and gave me a most generous and wonderful early birthday present, 2 glorious fruit trees for the back yard. They helped us select, transport and plant them, and I was a Tiny Shoveler. I dug the whole whole for the Avacado on my own, and a good part of the lemon tree hole too. David extracted one of our pesky palms, to his great excitement, no easy feat.

After some days, you just need to drink a whole bottle of wine, calm down, and say to yourself, "Tomorrow, I will do better."

Oh Christmas. The delight you bring.

Ari really liked her new leg warms and matching mittens, stuffed inside her new purse, along with cupcake & donut earrings. Kids are so fun to shop for!
I finally got to see and hold tiny darling McKenna, and was very amazed at how teeny and quiet and relaxed she was. And her feet are so soft you can barely feel them. Amazing.
Here's hoping the US postal service did it's job and got Warren his Xmas surprise on time.
He was supposed to receive this handmade stocking, stuffed with tiny presents to warm him with holiday cheer on the other side of the country, deep in Brooklyn snow. If it didn't come, Warren, don't look :) I want to thank all who contributed, it was wonderful of you to be tiny Santa's.


I'm wiped out right now. Just dug a hole in the backyard all on my own, to plant a new avacado tree, a very special and generous birthday present from wonderful loving parents. Photos to come :)

Why does Elwood want to lick the spine of my diary? While I was unaware, he has soaked the lower corner of the binding with his naughty hunger. I told him the book is not for eating, but he just looks mad.

Wheelies

We visited with David & Heather & Lily this weekend and delivered their Christmas presents. I made her a funny big-head kitty that I got a free pattern for from Amy Butler's site.
David gave a David a wheelbarrow, which turned into a wheelie ride. There were lots of wheelie rides yesterday, actually.Heather and I went to the Long Beach antique market, which is only 3 miles from their house (Lucky!) and we got a couple treats. I got this pretty mirror, and this funny plant in a shell, which I love. I saw one before in a Japanese restaurant and wanted to make one for myself, and now I've got one!
That place is full of good amazing finds, I was drooling over furniture, and can't wait to be able to afford some.

My December sounds like:I've been listening to this steadily for days and am no where near sick of it yet. It's very calming and peaceful and beautiful, and satisfies my hunger for festive but not annoying.

I am so very sleepy and tired. All the running around and Xmas shopping and wrapping and crafting and baking and driving across the city has pooped me out. I was too tired to wash my hair this morning, and now I regret it as it's time to go to work and I realized how bad it looks and now I'm hiding it under my bad-hair-hat. I love my job, but for sure, today I'd like to hibernate and play house all day, in my bed, in my jams, with Mr. Cat all the day long. Catching up on my pile'o'books. Too bad, time to go work it out.

Crafty Christmas

Yesterday I hosted a tiny craft day, to fill our house with Christmas coziness. David helped me bake gingerbread cookies until midnight Friday night, those are really hard to make. You have to re-freeze the dough every time you roll up the scraps to cut more pieces. But they came out well, and were tasty. I also baked a cranberry pear bread that was delicious and I ate at least a pound of.
Agata, Christine and Rachel came and it was so happy to have good friends talking and drinking tea and stitching and drawing and filling up the house with warmth. Agata has been working on these felt desserts which she's making into a baby mobile! So cute. I worked on my project, which is making little bags that I'll stuff with different holiday teas for the designers in the office. I carved a potato to stamp my design on the muslin bags. Then there's a secret Xmas gift we all worked on that I'll post after Christmas... but also amazing was one of my friends, Karen, from work, popped in at the end of the day and whipped out this fabric star for my tree! It goes with the little fabric birdies beautifully!

White Whale

I fought my old-lady urges to go home at the end of every day, and Friday night I stayed at the Fox Hills Mall (now turned Slauson Super Mall) until 8:30 or so, getting some Xmas shopping done, and then buzzed the bee-bomber to Venice to see my dear friend Josh Hart, who had some pieces in a show at a gallery called CAVE in Venice. It was so nice to be out, it was good to remind myself to not hybernate all winter long like a big sleepy bear. There was live painting by John Park out front under trees all a twinkle with Christmas lights, and it was just lovely to be enjoying it at the end of a long week. The show inside was good, I liked most everything there. My favorites were these tiny humming bird scuptures by LeeAnn Hale, and this painting of a nautilus creature dangling Japanese lanterns onto this girl by Dominque Fung.But of course, I'm a sucker for Mr. Hart, and he had this series of lovely paintings featuring white whales and Mr. Jinx.I just bought a copy of Moby-Dick a day before, my interest stirred by a recent podcast of Studio 360, and I decided it was an omen, so I bought the second painting, if you look closely, please note the tiny Jinx paw peeking out from the big heart. I've never bought a painting from a gallery before, and it felt fantastic to support a friend who is so talented, and spend hard earned money on something so original and beautiful for our home. I am also banking on the day when Josh is finally quite collectable, and I will have my own collection of his work to send my furture kids to college with :)