BRRRRRR! It is very cold here in the Northwest. I mean freezing cold. I am getting good use of the hat, gloves and scarves I received for my birthday. We have been getting out for our walks every day, but it means bundling up in layers. We are due for some snow and freezing rain overnight and then, it should warm up in to the 40’s. Whoopee!

It does make it hard to get out of bed in the morning. I bought the wake-up light which starts getting light at 6:30 and by 7 am, it is at full brightness. Problem is, I pretty much ignore it. It goes off at 7:30 and then I finally get up. I love sitting by my happy light every morning. I think it really helps.

I have been fascinated with the changing light. It is pretty neat that the trees lose all their leaves just when it is nice to have more light in the house. Also, as the sun is lower in the sky, because of the location of our house, we get more sunlight in the afternoon. (That is, when the sun is shining!) It is interesting that we get more light in our house in the winter afternoon than we did in Santa Rosa because out house was in the shadow of Sonoma Mountain. We lost light at 3 pm in the afternoon. In our Portland neighborhood, I can go out for a walk in the afternoon and look across to the west and see the sun setting behind the west hills. It is quite beautiful.

3-D Creativity – I think I have mentioned the Wednesday night program at Trinity Cathedral. We have a nice meal followed by classes. Tonight, I started my 4-week Advent clay class. We are making Nativity figures. I had so much fun! My classmates thought I was nuts when I whipped out my camera to take photos. Here is what I have done so far.

Here is the raw material:

Here is a close-up of my Mary:

Here she is with Joseph:

I am trying to work abstractly without facial expressions. I want to have some fun with the glazing. Next week I will move on to the Christ Child and some critters. I might do an angel. This was very therapeutic for me. Robin, the instructor, is teaching a Raku class next summer and I am there!!

My Mary is reminding me of the Gingerbread Babes that I used to make. I would give them little boobs and frost them to look as if they were wearing bikinis.