Best laid plans go awry. . .

So I spent late Christmas eve and all of Christmas day emptying my stomach from the flu instead of visiting family and eating treats. Two boys shared the experience with me and still have lingering flu-like symptoms. Doug chose to feel fine until midday Thursday when the flu found him and Josiah spent most of the day on the sofa with a fever. They are all sleeping now. I'm feeling somewhat better, although I'm a little tired since Jayden spent last night emptying his dinner into his bed and then he only wanted to sleep right next to mama. My house is still pretty messy and as soon as I'm done checking emails, I'll be frantically working to clean up a bit before they all wake up.

I suppose this sounds a little like a "glass half empty" sort of story and a little pity party for my hope for a quiet Christmas at home - but really other than the obvious unpleasantness of the flu, it did force us to stay home and rest, which is apparently something we all needed. Oh yes, would the rest been nicer without the stomach aches and constant laundry - sure - but I guess rest is rest:). Hope you all had a more pleasant Christmas holiday.

My baby

Merry Christmas

Tomorrow begins our celebration of Christmas that will end sometime next week with family and friends. Merry Christmas to you all and have a wonderful relaxing, Christ filled holiday!

Downtown Christmas Celebration

If you are going to be in River Falls tomorrow night

(Thursday, December 20th) from 5 - 7 pm visit the studio for treats, photos and snowflake crafts!

Mandelbrot Set

thought for the evening:

I have decided our life is very similar to a Mandelbrot set; officially designated as chaos but certainly contains order hidden in a complex mathematical formula hard to understand but producing a colourful and interesting pattern. (that is not an official definition by the way and if you understand the math formulas, well you are a geek but I still love you)

I guess most families could say that but it only occurred to me today that the seeming chaos we find ourselves in produces the beautiful colours and patterns - an interesting metaphor for how we handle our chaos. I need to remember this more often when the chaos frustrates me.

Ok, enough philosophy - unless you are on the West Coast you should be sleeping at the time of my writing this so I'm off to bed too as my Mandelbrot set begins rather early tomorrow morning:).

Fun

I've been so busy with orders I haven't had much time to post and when I do, it's from home where I have no client photos. But I thought I'd add a few of the boys happily playing at the studio. We are there a lot and have made it pretty child friendly for them - they even get to do some of their homework there. I'm looking forward to a quieter week next week with people picking up orders only.

The studio will be CLOSED Christmas Eve through New Year's Day but will be checking our email and phone messages occasionally during that period.

December Snow

I worked today at the studio to try and attempt to catch up - meanwhile it was a blustery, wintery day leaving us with about 3 - 4 inches of snow (when I last looked outside after coming home).

Outside of the fact of having to be IN the cold wind and snow, I am glad it snowed as winter is sort of a waste without snow to play in. And it gives you this "hot chocolate, curl up on the couch with a good book or play a game with your children" sort of feeling. When morning comes and the blistering wind dies down, it will be beautiful to look out and see the crystalized white world all untainted except by maybe a few paw prints.

I'll try to post some photos tomorrow - I'll be honest, I'm a little tired and my creativity is sort of at a low point (which occurs every year at about this time). Once the holiday rush subsides, winter will be a good time to recharge and refocus.

Have a wonderful evening - And hey - if you are looking for a sustainable, local source for holiday gifts, check out LocalHarvest.org (see my CHECK IT OUT section). They have created a wonderful resource for local producers of natural and organic products on the web.