wandering sails

12.29.2005

a night of lines & lights.



activities with timber bay have been few and far between, so i jumped at the chance to do something when jennie emailed me. jennie did all the coordinating and picking up, i just showed up after work a few wednesdays ago. after cookie decorating and some pizza, we headed off to the marshall field's display.

i remember going to a few when i was younger, and that added to the enjoyment. i was still in awe of certain pieces. some things never change. the lines were long, but moving quickly, which i think was more of a blessing for jennie and i than the girls. patricia, dominique & kymesha took turns taking a few pictures and at the end, convinced jennie and i to take them to see santa. amazingly, the photographer there was willing to let me snap a few pictures, which was nice. now, we'd have a picture for the girls and we wouldn't have to pay ridiculous amounts of money for really crappy prints.

on our way back to the car, we spent a lot of time in the elevator. we couldn't figure out where we had come in, so we rode up and down and tried a new elevator, met a guy who couldn't remember what floor he was on, either and finally, we found it. we drove the girls home and then ourselves. i loved it. fantastic night.

posted by julie @ 8:50 AM 0 comments

12.27.2005

drunken toddlers.

so, this past weekend was christmas. we all know that, but what you don't know is how my christmas was. it was a lot of the same old, but much like thanksgiving, it is a good same old. a few things of note:

*i called my cousin jenny christmas eve morning to send greetings her way. i asked her what they were doing today and tomorrow and she says, oh, not much, just hanging out. i'm just excited that i finally have presents under the tree...

*jenny shows up on christmas day. WHAT?!?! turkey. when i talked to her and she led me to believe she was in rapid city, she was really in isanti hanging out at her parents! but what a great surprise it was!

*christmas eve afternoon, my brother bobby was passing out gifts at my parents when he suddenly laughed and said, 'i was looking at this and thinking, who's nikki?' to which his wife, nicky, gave a rather dirty look. turns out the mispelling confused him. poor guy.

*there were no wontons to be seen when i arrived on christmas eve. i did my best to hide my disappointment until kristi said, where're the wontons? and joe says, 'kristi said she was going to go home if there were no wontons.' we had wontons. mostly because there were two more people willing to help my mom make them. and somehow, i ended up the only person left upstairs finishing them. but who cares... they were good.

*the ham gravy was excellent, as usual. and my table of four made it through about twelve biscuits. i had one.

*my little cousin
nicholas informed me that he was going to marry me when he was old enough.

*i went sledding on christmas night with my brother, ben, his girlfriend, my uncle darryl and cousin tony. note to all: if attempting a train of sleds, do not position yourself anywhere near cousin tony, as he tends to be a roller.

*oh, yeah, and on christmas eve, my cousin kyra, being two years of age, partook of the egg nog rum while in search of an answer to her parched self. it didn't satisfy. later, we kept a close watch on her as she hung onto the stair railings and swayed. we were waiting for her to start a drunken toddler rendition of deck the halls.


and however your christmas met you, i pray it was merry and bright, with great reminders of why we celebrate each december. may this next year bring you infinite reasons to love your family and your neighbor. and may it be a year in which each day is a reminder of God's amazing love.

posted by julie @ 9:54 AM 1 comments

12.21.2005

poor judgement #14.

when i was younger, say about ten, i noticed a particularly odd looking gift for me under the christmas tree. when my brothers and i would sit by the tree, trying to guess what was in each package, i paid considerably more attention to this long, round tube. i had figured out that it was something rolled up, quite possibly of a thick paper, but i couldn't think of what it could be. i shook it and squished it gently, and held it in my hands to just look at it until i thought i would die. no one had any idea. all were baffled. none could venture a guess.

at the time, my two younger brothers were sharing the downstairs bedroom. one day, one fateful day, i took that present into that room with my youngest brother and attempted to carefully peel back the tape. oh, the angst of not knowing. i was so intent on the detailed work of cheating that i didn't notice my brother leave the room. i noticed, though, when my mom came into the room with ben in tow, just as i was about to reveal the treasure. sneaky little turkey. traitor.

my mom was incredibly upset. that puts it lightly. because she 'didn't raise children like this.' she did no yelling. no fits of angry motion. she told me she was incredibly disappointed (which is far worse than a good old-fashioned yell) and informed me that i would no longer be receiving that gift. she took the precious contraband from my hand and left the room. i fought back tears as i watched her leave. my little kid bottom lip quivered in sadness and guilt. i knew, i just knew, that i would never feel good again.

and the lesson was learned. i never looked again.

posted by julie @ 4:20 PM 4 comments

12.19.2005

mismatch.

i slept terribly this morning and i very much did not want my feet to find the floor. ever. eventually, they did and my face, looking a little off, soon met the mirror. once dressed, i ran out to the garage to warm up sophia and ran back inside to put lunch together. did i ever mention that she had a name? she does. it's sophia gray. one of my tb girls named her last winter and though i don't use it regularly, it's still there. anyway, when i went back in, i slipped my shoes off and finished getting ready. the light for my kitchen is not near the back door, it is on the other side of the room, so i shut it off and walked in the dark to the other side, having put my left shoe in my sights so i would know where to put my foot. mission accomplished. turn and put your foot in the shoe right next door. mission accomplished. it was a fairly quick ride to work, seeing very little traffic. on my way in, i notice pam also making her way to warmth, all the while kicking my shoes because they seem to be wearing funny. i looked down and after a second or two exclaimed, 'look, pam, i have two different shoes on!'

it's true. come and see.

posted by julie @ 10:17 AM 5 comments

12.18.2005

jan.

all i have to say is that i stink at this. i hate goodbyes. especially knowing that most likely life will go on for me and for you and time will see us farther and farther apart. because this is how it usually goes. and in my little world, i feel like if i just avoid anything to do with goodbye, it might not ever come. i hate to see it come. i feel badly that i haven't come to celebrate you and say goodbye. i will miss you more than i know. i am sorry. but i don't want to say goodbye.

posted by julie @ 12:35 AM 1 comments

12.17.2005

a little bit of heaven.

today was christmas cookie saturday. i spent the whole day making cookies with my mom. at one point, i asked my mom if i could please have an teeny little break and she said no. i think it had something to do with the fact that at that moment, she couldn't take one and there were still so many cookies to be made...

on the way home, i was overcome by the beauty of the world around me... of the snow covered trees and hills. of thoughts of sledding and skating and snowshoeing. and i thought of this: i have heard people talk about their thoughts on heaven. and that they believe heaven will be all of the things we love most, only more and better. i don't know what heaven will be like. and that's okay. i know it will be good and that is enough for me. but if what they say is true, my heaven will always be the beginning of a season. any season, just the beginning. that will be my heaven.

posted by julie @ 9:17 PM 0 comments

12.16.2005

five hundred dollars later.

i wanted to let you all know that though i've been away for a while, i didn't forget. in fact, i was still writing, just not posting. a lack of internet issue, really, but i wanted to keep you current. i'm backdating these so they match to the day i was thinking of them... nice to be able to do that. so what have i been doing? well, dear friends, let me tell you.

on my drive home from work wednesday, i kept hearing a sound, like my rear driver's side door was open. then, i caught a faint scent of burnt rubber. eventually, i pulled my car over, thinking i must have been driving on a really flat tire or something. all of my tires seemed sound, but that particular tire was caked with slush and ice. so i cleaned it out and went on my way, figuring that's what the noise was. that's not what it was. and the noise was still there.

thursday morning, i got myself out of bed early enough to get ready and go shovel my driveway. i went on my merry way, but the whole two blocks i drove, i heard that same sound, only louder. i just knew that something was not right. i pulled over in the parking lot of st timothy's and noticed that the slush and ice had accummulated again, after only two blocks. i cleaned it out and took my mitten off to do a little detail slush removal. lo and behold, i cut my finger... on the long metal wires sticking out of my tire. there seemed to be a bit of my tire missing. and it had disappearred quickly, as evidenced by the length of the wires. i decided that i was not going to work, so i cautiously drove the two blocks home, called my replacement and my sister-in-law. she promised to call me back once she got to work and had priced out some new tires for me. once she did, i had my grandpa follow me to the shop, just in case my tire blew out. i made it there fine, but my grandfather was glad that he had followed me... he was pretty worried about it after checking it out at my house. they put it up on the lift and i ran over to check it out. holy crap, i said. there was a solid one to one and a half inch swath missing from the entire circumference of my tire. one of the guys took a look at it and said, 'i'd give this tire another five miles.' scary.

turns out some disc thing on my strut had rusted through, causing the whole strut to fall and sit on my tire, scraping away the tread at a rapid rate. there was a delay in getting the new struts, so i had them check a few other things. like my brakes (new front pads) and my slight oil leak (new valve and something). i went home and waited the rest of the day out. the struts wouldn't be in until friday morning, so i really had nothing to do. it actually was really nice. i had to take two days vacation, and with the amount of money i spent, it's almost like i took a real vacation. only, i didn't go anywhere. and i took no pictures. so it wasn't like a vacation. but sort of. and, five hundred bucks later... she's almost like a new car.

and i'm quite disappointed that i missed sledding at work. but, the sled is still in my car, so i'm ready whenever i need to be. next week. next week we'll go sledding again.

posted by julie @ 2:24 PM 0 comments

12.13.2005

it's me, the popular girl.

i have to confess that i'm not necessarily in the mood to write. since it's been a while, however, i am. i have the remnants of a headache that kept me home from work yesterday, but friday is worth writing about.

i think, though i can't be sure, that someone sent a memo out to the world telling them to ask me what i was doing on friday night. my typical start to a weekend would consist of a brutally long drive home, the putting on of more comfortable clothes, a movie and a quilt or a book, followed by sweet slumber. i like it. one friday, though, i do remember wanting to hang out with someone, and after a call to my little brother (spending the weekend in brainerd) and the remembrance that joel and kathy were busy, i realized that i would have to be a homebody that night as well. my circle had gotten that small.

this past friday, however, was different. my mom called and asked me if i wanted to go see narnia, which i didn't really, but i told her i would let her know. two minutes later, my friend becky called with the possibility of taking in a show she had gotten tickets for. this was intriguing. i talked to my mom because i felt guilty until she reminded me that i hadn't really wanted to see the movie anyway and i hadn't committed. she promised to wallow in her loneliness with some ice cream and popcorn and i asked her to cry a bit, too. she thought she could pull that off. then, something else came up, but i don't really remember what it was because i was excited for the show. i never have things to do on fridays. it was like i was popular. very strange.

so we saw the boy friend. pretty funny, definately the most lighthearted show i've taken in at the ordway. but the real kicker was the realization, as encounters with ushers piled up, that we would be sitting literally front and center. we could not have been any more front or center. being a fan of the mezzanine, it was crazy to see actual facial expressions. didn't see many feet, though, just legs that ran into the stage. i wouldn't have minded being a few rows back, but i certainly won't complain about free tickets.

i do feel it needs to be mentioned though, that tall people should not sit in the front row. unless they're willing to slouch. but tall people with good posture? they make it awfully hard to see.

posted by julie @ 2:40 PM 2 comments

12.09.2005

all she could find.

may i read a bit of a story to you?

elizabeth was a beautiful princess. she lived in a castle and had expensive clothes. she was going to marry a prince named ronald.

unfortunately, a dragon smashed her castle, burned all her clothes with his fiery breath, and carried off prince ronald.

elizabeth decided to chase the dragon and get ronald back.

she looked everywhere for something to wear but the only thing she could find that was not burnt was a paper bag. so she pu...

the only thing she could find that wasn't burnt was a paper bag?

i laughed so hard at that line last night that i bought the book. i hadn't even read the whole story. such joy i received from that line. joanna and i laughed and laughed. and another thing i love about this line that really makes no sense, is that to a child, it very well could make perfect sense.

turns out it's a great little story... i highly recommend you find out what happened to elizabeth and her prince ronald.

i took the day off yesterday and spent some wonderful time with my dear friend joanna. helped her packed, move some things and run errands. we ate at a fabulous restaurant called prairie bay (soon to be the backlot bistro) in baxter. this comes to you highly recommended as well. i feasted on duck confit on focaccia bread and american style wood-fired pizza. joanna and i split some freshly churned raspberry ice cream on the most decadent brownie ever (which is huge for me, since i do not care for chocolate) with a raspberrry sauce that would blow your mind. it blew ours because we couldn't think of a thing to say until the whole thing was gone. at that point, we turned to the autumn creme brulee, which is this ingenious little dessert that puts the pumpkin creme brulee in the middle of an acorn squash. though we hadn't planned on this dessert, it came our way from matt annand, joanna and matt's good friend, who just happens to be this so-so chef at a little place called prairie bay. oh, wait. he's this fantastic chef at a little place called prairie bay. find your way to hwy 371 and head north. oh, yeah. and we did it all for 30 bucks. and that's not so bad.

okay, commercial over. it was a great day, only made better by this little book. the paper bag princess by robert munsch. go find it. we all need to laugh more.

posted by julie @ 8:39 AM 0 comments

12.06.2005

ashlin.

mid-november brings the birthdays of my two younger brothers. our very special guest that day was my cousin josh's daughter, ashlin. while the two of us were waiting for the rest of the gathering to join us outside for birthday pictures, we played a little game. ashlin runs in circles around julie and julie tries to "get her" with the camera. the tricky bit to it all, other than squatting in a skirt, was that every circle ashlin ran brought her a bit closer to me. a few rounds later, she'd be in my face, so i'd have to have her stop and back up. this was my absolute favorite picture from that day. just wanted to share.

posted by julie @ 4:21 PM 2 comments

gallons per mile.

about three weeks ago, i was driving to work when my speedometer needle went from 60 to 0 in about a second. of course my first thought was that my car was going to start on fire. that's always my fear. one of the few irrational fears i claim. everything seemed to be running fine, and as there would be nothing i could do on the side of the road if i pulled off, i kept driving. it was soon after i got on the interstate that i realized my odometer and tripometer didn't seem to be functioning either. this, was even more disappointing to me than not knowing how fast i was going. after taking the car to 222,222.2 miles, my obvious next goal was 333,333.3. my odometer stopped that day at 264,779. how would my reading ever be accurate again? how would i know when to celebrate?

have no fear, though, good friends. my odometer is working again. it now reads 264,780. yes, i have only driven 1 mile in three weeks. which is great, right? i should be saving on gas. but what i didn't know was that when your speedometer goes out, you start to get terrible gas mileage. this one mile has taken about thirty gallons of gas. i don't know if i can afford it. what i really need to do is call toyota city and talk to them. i've been meaning to for three weeks now, i just haven't remembered to do so during business hours. this is partly why i'm writing this... so that when i'm done, i can call. because i really need to. i tend to drive slower, i think, when i don't know how fast i'm going. and i haven't suddenly gained anymore time in the day than i had before. still 24 hours. still too many things to do.

posted by julie @ 8:30 AM 1 comments

12.01.2005

turkey day.

thanksgiving was much of the same old, same old this year. it's an amazing same old, but it's still the same old. we had just about 40 for dinner, with five out of state & unable to make it and six elsewhere for dinner (two of which came later). josh spilled no milk this year, which for quite some time was a tradition, but nicholas did. nicholas didn't actually eat much. he ended up sitting across from me at table 5 and spent the whole meal looking at me. this dear little boy, my cousin anthony's son, has a little crush on me. this is him at the apple orchard this fall:
it's sweet. at least someone likes me.

it was wickedly cold & windy out last thursday. those of you braving mn with me know how that was. did that stop us from running around outside? no. of course it didn't. pish and posh. just a little wind, right? right. my confession is this: i didn't run around at all, i just stood on the front steps and held my camera. that's pretty typical. at the old house, i used to take a few runs down the hill with a sled, but now there's no hill and there was no snow. ashlin, my cousin josh's daughter, was walking around with a pinwheel, somehow got caught in the middle of the football game, got mildly bumped, toppled over and broke her pinwheel. we had crying and wailing and sniffling and five minutes later, she popped her head back out of the house, handed us the pinwheel and said, 'it's broke.' soon after, jaime and i joined her back inside. it was butt cold.


see those shoes up top? those are some of last year's shoes. we had three separate piles this year, so a picture wouldn't have been as impressive. can you imagine if we had did family pyramid?

grandma actually let me come over early and help. i was stunned, but excited. she never lets anyone help. what was great, other than being with her, was that it qualified me to get out of dish duty. with my anal needs to rinse thoroughly before i start the dishes, i don't do so well. years ago, we used to make the guys do them. then, when grandma and grandpa moved, it switched to the girls. now, it seems, the powers that be have decided it's back to the boys. they have a whole plan for the next few years. woohoo! no more dressing pieces in the water! blech.

all in all, it was a day worth having and a day most worthy of giving thanks.

posted by julie @ 10:22 AM 1 comments

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