I think January is the worst month of the year. It’s cold, and I usually dislike any month when snow falls. Our second snowfall of the year was last night. It was more of an ice/slight snow storm.

Instead of focusing on the negative when it snows, I like to look at the positive. Here are a few shots from my yard.

Here’s a picture of some of our Christmas decorations. The small silver tree came from my grandparents’ house. I believe it is a 1950s-era aluminum tree. I have all the limbs to turn it into a taller, more robust tree, but decided not to make it that large this year. My grandparents tied small antique balls onto the limbs decades ago. They are delicate and brittle now, and every year at least one breaks when I remove or store the tree in its box.

The snowflakes dangling from the chandelier were so much fun to make! Jesse’s mom gave me a kit years ago to make my own snowflake ornaments. I kept packing it away with the rest of my decorations because each year I never had time to make them before the winter holidays. I stopped doing that this year, and finally made the snowflakes in May. They really sparkle under the chandelier lights. Our cat was mesmerized by them the day we hung them up, but luckily (for safety reasons) she seems to have forgotten about them.

We wish our readers a warm holiday season and a bountiful new year!

Snow has been dogging me all week! I went to Denver, CO this week for a quick business trip. I was greeted with 29 degree air, falling snow and low visibility. I couldn’t even see the beauteous Rocky Mountains until the next morning. Here’s a shot taken from the 30th floor of the hotel where I stayed.

I spotted this great creature peeking into the windows of the Colorado Convention Center.

I was looking forward to returning to “normal” October temperatures in Washington, D.C., but today we had a very rare snowfall for late October. Throughout the day, rain progressed to sleet, and then to light snow by late afternoon. We have a light blanket on the ground now. I hope it doesn’t kill the remaining pepper and pumpkin crops in our garden!

Jesse surprised me with a butterfly birthday card, a chocolate bar with coffee, and 12 delicious cupcakes! The container consisted of red velvet, chocolate, s’mores, raspberry and chocolate chip cookie cupcakes! Delicious!

That’s right! Jesse isn’t the only budding photographer in this family! I decided to take the plunge and step into Jesse’s world of photography. I entered a photograph in the 12″x12″ Show at the artdc Gallery. I was tinkled pink when someone bought it on Saturday!

Here is the photograph that sold. I shot this in Chinatown during our trip to Los Angeles last September. It was a gorgeous day and there was no one around. I was intrigued with the lanterns and the shadows they cast.

On Sept. 10, Amy’s niece, Ciara, married her husband Rob at an outdoor ceremony in Pennsylvania. It was a gorgeous day, and a beautiful ceremony! Ciara and Rob really got lucky with the weather. There were heavy rains with flooding for 4 days straight. I think we got 12″ of rain at our house. About 24 hours before the start of the ceremony the sun shone again. By the time the ceremony began on Saturday the grass was dry and guests couldn’t tell that we had such a dismal week.

Here comes the bride…

You can’t see it in the photo on the right, but there was a bee in Ciara’s hair during the ceremony.

Carissa gave a fabulous toast to her big sister and Rob! We were so proud of her! Check out the DJ’s hair! We thought we were back in 1988 again! Hehe.

It was a lovely wedding! Congratulations and best wishes to Ciara and Rob!

Last week we had 4 straight days of rain–drenching rain, thanks to a tropical storm. How beautiful it was to finally see sunlight over the weekend! We took advantage of the glorious weather and visited Glen Echo Park today.

Glen Echo Park is a unique place. It is a defunct amusement park that still has a working carousel and cool-looking old buildings like the bumper car pavilion, the popcorn building (which is now an art gallery), and the “Cuddle Up” pavilion.

Glen Echo Park is now run by the National Park Service. It has a ballroom where you can take dancing lessons or attend concerts (Jesse played a concert there with his band when he was drumming in local bands), and several art studios where you can take classes and purchase artwork by the artists who work in the studios. We visited the pottery gallery and bought earrings and a vase. We also stopped by the the photography studio and the glass-making studio.

The highlight of the visit was riding the 90-year-old Dentzel Carousel. I loooove carousels! It was fun to feel like a kid again.

We are approaching the end of the time of year when our vegetable garden yields an abundance of vegetables and our water bill soars.

For the past 4 years Jesse and I have planted a large vegetable garden. We have really grown to love caring for our crops. This year we were a bit disappointed at the lack of quality vegetables that were produced. We planted early this year–April 24–with the expectation that if we got a head start we would get more bang for our buck. The local wildlife benefited more from this idea than we did.

The early girl tomatoes came to fruition in June. The green and red peppers are still ripening. We also planted jalapenos, squash and pumpkins. We have several pumpkins in the garden. We are hoping the bugs and other wildlife don’t eat them before October. We also planted herbs in pots on our porch–basil, oregano, cilantro, mint and chives. The cilantro died early but the mint, chives and basil are still thriving.

This year we branched out and planted red onions. I had no idea when we bought the bunch of onions that each 1 (of the approximately 60 that we had) has to be planted separately. That was mind numbing! I also neglected pulling weeds in the onion patch for months and it turned into a jungle! Yesterday I waded into the jungle to dig up onions. I dug up 3. Two did not grow bigger than a nickel. The third grew slightly larger and you can tell that it is actually a red onion, but it was too tiny to even cut up! I had NO idea it would take this long to grow an onion! Is this normal? How long do you need to keep onions in the ground before you extract them?

My experience yesterday generated these lessons we’ve learned from vegetable gardening:

1. We will never, ever plant onions again!

2. Cantaloupe cannot grow and flourish in the soil in our back yard.

3. Plant early so that the vegetables have enough time to produce before the fall frost arrives.

4. Plant items far enough apart to prevent overcrowding.

5. Pull weeds regularly! I wonder if the ground coverings that you can lay down on the soil when you plant the items prevents much weed growth?

6. Cover strawberry plants with a mesh net before the wildlife eat them.

7. Stagger planting. Stagger the planting of the same kinds of plants over the course of a few weeks so that when they ripen you don’t end up with 50 ripe tomatoes all at the same time.

What a week!

On Tuesday, Aug. 23, at around 1:40 p.m. we experience an earthquake that measured 5.8 on the Richter scale! It was a shocking experience and we weren’t sure exactly what it was. It was surreal to feel the low rumbling build into a more intense rumble, then drift off, and then…quiet.

Hurricane Irene stormed into town on Saturday, Aug. 27, drenching us with several inches of rain and high winds over an almost 24-hour period. It was  unusual for us to experience two major natural disasters in one week in our part of the country. We were fortunate to not have any home damage during either of these events, and did not lose power during the hurricane.

During the storm on Saturday we had a new faucet in the bathroom installed. This one is taller than our old one and it should make it easier to hand wash items in the sink. It sparkles too!

My niece, Ciara, is getting married in September. Her bridal shower was yesterday. I had a fun time at the shower visiting with my nieces, brother, sister-in-law, uncle, aunt and the other guests. We played some fun games, and I won one. Now everyone knows which household chore I hate the most and why.

Here’s a picture of Ciara’s gifts. Soon it will be time to eat more wedding cake!