I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas

After all this snow maybe we'll get a shiny bright white Christmas out of it. I'd like that. 

School is cancelled in Walla Walla today and yesterday so Christmas break has started here. The schools in Portland, same thing. My teacher sister is home there playing catch up with her Christmas plans.  Her daughter Sophie is arriving (we hope) Saturday from school in Fort Collins, Co. Shortly after her boy friend will come. Another niece, Miranda, got to spend 3 hours on the tarmac at Dulles airport before they could take off. Freezing fog.  Her boy friend is visiting too.  First they go far away to school and then they return with "friends." Slowly they are returning home, but swiftly their lives are changing.

Got out to the Post Office Tuesday and mailed away gifts to my Oregon relatives.  People in line were so happy to be out of their houses they were all smiling and chatty.  I did my banking, bought a few extra groceries and picked up some stuff at BiMart for a neighbor.  It was sunny and bright and fun to be out and about.

Still have five grandkids here to buy for. If I can't find what I want they will get a Christmas card with money in it. So I suppose really I'm done. Although I think I can get out tomorrow and swoop up a couple of things for the five year olds.  The other three are teens and I suspect, they would rather have $ anyway.

My sons are picking me up to go see "Rogue One" tonight. I took them to the first Star Wars in 1977 when Chris was 6 and Dave was 4. I'm delighted they still take me along.  We like a lot of the same movies.

Yesterday I made a big beef stew and did several loads of wash.  Generally tried make home habitable.  Today I'm baking cheese muffins to go with the stew. All the goodies I ordered for my big kids gifts showed up in one big delivery yesterday so today I am wrapping those. If I ask pretty please I think Dave will take them home with him after the movie tonight and I won't have to haul them over Christmas morning.

This is the street in front of my son's house today.

Out my backdoor.

Dave won't need a cooler for fish in his drift boat today.

Stay warm and dry. Merry Christmas.

A Tiny News Bulletin

Snow plow in our parking lot clearing a path out and making snow mountains that won't melt for weeks.

Around 10am most of the credit card terminals in town became terminal. Cash only kiddies.

Schools went on 2-hour delay and then closed entirely. Daughter-in-law Heather trapped at home with 9 offspring.

Eldest son Chris' doctor appointment was cancelled because of snow. Its 1/2 a mile to Urgent Care so he walked and got foot care (diabetic) and they filled in other care for his snowbound doctor.

On his way to work youngest son Dave pushed people back onto the road and dodged a slow spinning bus.

Fifteen people hospitalized from two nasty accidents on SR12 right outside of town.  Lifeflight couldn't get off the ground because of ice and fog and our wonderful medics, EMTs, firemen and police got every one out and to care.  On days when I won't go out the door they are right there.

Me, staying home, trying to make myself clean house,not working. Neither am I.

David and Heather's ginormous Blue Christmas Tree. 

Lucid Dreaming

Brig asked me about dream books. After June of 1974 when I was taking the Dream Course thorough the Experimental College at the University of Washington I found two books I really liked.  I have neither anymore.  A more recent one was Lucid Dreaming: The Paradox of Consciousness During Sleep by Celia Green, 1990's vintage. I probably remember her as we share a first name.  The second I can recall neither the title or the author only that his first name was John and he wrote many self-help books in the '70's and early '80's. I have reached that time in my life when many facts that were at my finger tips have faded beyond my reach much to my irritation.  I remember the class date well because I was the only one in line with a 2 1/2 year old Chris, and a newish May baby - David, in a sling on my chest.  The other students, young men and women played with Chris and when we were done he didn't want to go home.

I found this online World of Lucid Dreaming and have read through some of it.  I know nothing about the author but a lot of her material seems similar and its clear she is pushing her online class which I know nothing about either and don't plan on taking her class. You have to dig a little but there's information there. Goggling Lucid Dreaming brings up a pile of stuff. Use your judgement.

These are not the books where you look up an object to get a meaning. You have to do a little digging and find your own meaning for yourself. I found some of my own "objects" were similar to those of others but we also had similarities in life experience or culture and interests.

At the time I was also making art at home. I used the dreaming process to create ideas.  I've always had vivid dreams, full color and very active. I used to remember them or at least pieces of them.  You start out working on recall partly by keeping a dream journal. My only remaining journal is made up mostly of dreams from the last 10 years. Before sleep I'd think about finding a solution to (for me) to the creative block I was experiencing. For me it was design, color, or subject.  After I got the hang of it I would often have an answer in the morning even if I had to wait to get the babes to bed before I could begin.  Many years later in the mid-80's I became a computer programmer and found I could use the same process to discover why some code wasn't working. I'd look through it in the evening and often awake with the answer.

My husband and my best friend dream quite differently, they remember some of their dreams but they are not 3-D and color, they dream in numbers, letters, and what sounded to me like real time thought processes!? Totally foreign to me. 

I hope this is useful information. I am trying to put it to use again, along with a new journal of day to day stuff and dreams.  My brain is not what it used to be but I am discovering useful things.  I'm trying to tune how I view things and I see that some of my photos are better than they were.

Stay warm you all.  It's supposed to be 15° tonight here.  Could be worse the sun is out.