Happy New Year's Eve

Music Monday - actually, Buddha's Hand

Not a music video, but fascinating description of of this funky Asian fruit that resembles hands, squid, or the head of Cthuhlu!

Crazy, isn't it? Saw one in person for the first time today when browsing the Asian market. They do smell divine. I brought home one that looks like an octopus. :-) Wanna see more scary Asian market finds?

Bin of 'fingered citrons'. 

Cthulhu head....

Double-layered jelly-fish?

Many, many large and frightening fish....

(of which you can purchase the frightening part only...).  There was every internal bit of pigs (even parts that I couldn't identify), dried and frozen bits of seafood, steamed purple tentacles of octopus, live lobsters, crabs and shellfish....

and of course, it wouldn't be a PNW Asian market if there wasn't a selection of our indigenous, vaguely obscene, geoduck (pronounced "gooey duck") clams...

I think they need at least a PG-13 rating... Maybe an R...? *shudder*

Merry Christmas...

(Editor's note; Due to internet issues, this did not post yesterday as planned).

I hope your day was warm, lovely and filled with love and loved-ones...

(one of my favorite songs of the season...)

Happy Christmas Adam!

(isn't that what you call the night before Christmas Eve?)

(my Christmas mailer for this year. Does it count that it's 2 days before Christmas?)

Also - one of my favorite songs off of Jewel's Christmas CD. I love finding new, original songs to add to the cannon of my traditional Christmas favorites.

Warm wishes to you!

WIP Wednesday - Christmas prep, and Happy Solstice!

I find this compilation by Tori Amos strangely compelling and addtictive...

(plus, in the Holly and the Ivy choruses, you can kind of get a vibe of it's pagan origins...)

(Oh, and Kim, I found a version with visuals *entirely* by Thomas Kincaid! With Kincaid bubbles!)

While marking the longest night of year and the return of the light, I am finishing up my lingering Christmas gifts...  It has been a treat for me this year - it's the first Christmas in about 5 years that I haven't been slammed with deadlines.

I've been able to make use of my bounty of herbs - both the ones I've dried throughout the year and the ones I am able to harvest fresh in the winter-weather....

 I combined those with my small harvest of apples to make herbal jellies (this year, sage, marjoram and rosemary), along with intensely scented pomander balls made from the apple pulp (see above. They look kind of like truffles :-).

 I also squeezed in some homemade sugar-scrubs and herb-infused scouring powders...

 Recycled tins holding the most aromatic mixed mint/lavender/rosemary/thyme potpourri imaginable!

 Add in some herbal-scented bath-salt and 'gingerbread' facial scrub and I had the makings of some delicious smelling gift bags. :-)

A few more bags to deliver. A few more presents to wrap. A few late cards to address. Then maybe I can put my feet up and do a puzzle or something.

Tonight, I am meditating over my "Solstice resolutions" however. It feels like an even more significant and appropriate night than New Years in the quiet darkness of it all....

I hope you are warm and reflective where ever you are.... :-)

Music Monday - Carol of the Bells, by Libera

Such angelic voices....

Sunday Sketching...

 Only one spread left in this Moleskine. Looks like I will fill it up this year after all.

In the teensy purse Moleskine balanced upon my knee...

Figure Friday -

Last life drawing session of the year -

Looking forward to 2012!

WIP Wednesday - Book Dummy

There aren't enough Mondays in December to post as many Christmas music videos as I'd like, so I'm squeezing in another lovely version of one of my favorite holiday songs:

In addition to listening to Christmas music and making herbal seasonal treats, I've been working through my initial pass on the Troll book dummy (manuscript by the fabulous Jane Yolen):

It ultimately is a huge, multi-character proposition - 

-but oh! what fun characters! :-)

Music Monday - River

A little seasonal melancholy from Sarah McLachlan....

It doesn't snow much here and it does stay pretty green -

a thing which is very apparent in December in the PNW......

I got to visit The Hermit's Grove this week to pick up some herbs I do not have... It is lovely even in the middle of December.

Their woods are full of ferns and moss...

Even the trees are full of moss and fern...

(this is looking up through tree branches..)

Happy green December!

Sunday Sketching...

 Only a few more pages left in this Moleskine...

Only 2 more Sundays in 2011 however, so I probably won't quite finish before the end of the year (good goal though!).

In the teensy purse Moleskine balanced upon my knee...

Succulent Saturday - winter mushrooms

When coming back in the house this afternoon, I glanced at the large bed underneath the conifer trees in my front yard....

It was *covered* with mushrooms - 

-all different kinds, sizes, shapes....

Don't think I've ever seen so many out there....

It must mean *something*... Intense pre-solstice fairy activity?

Figure Friday - Historical drapery fun

 Had a really fun costumed model today for life drawing.

 Five minute poses.

 15 minutes (conte crayon).

20 minutes (conte crayon).

40 minutes (charcoal).

I think I'd rather draw big, froofy dresses than almost anything!