Happy Almost New Year

 As always, it has been too long. Perhaps some of you should give me a nudge to re-start the conversation! Yes, I am nicely ensconced in California at Mom's house. Yes, it's good to be back but I'm running hard to keep up with Mom!

Yeah, I know I'm weird, but ... I found this pattern of tree bark interesting. This was on a walk with Elaine.

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We had great fun watching Carlo for five days. Here he is after a bath. Yes, he was as soft and fluffy as he looks! The first day, he had to get used to us all over again -- while we learned his routine. Mom (luckily) took him out in the morning since he got up at 6 a.m. I took him out at various times of the day with his last time out at about 8:30 or 9 p.m. The second night, we were watching tv in the den and he looked at me and looked at Mom and finally lay down on the rug. A bit later, I said, "Where's the dog?" He had put himself to bed in Mom's bed (where he sleeps) because we were up too late for him. I guess that's how he got to be 17 years old. Early to bed and early to rise and all that.

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While playing Mexican Train Dominoes, we admired Carole's solar Christmas trees. Santa on the right climbs up and down a golden rope!

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My darling Deb left us a cookie decorating kit! I discovered that I may be the worst cookie decorator ever, but they still tasted good.

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This Friday Frolic (lunch) was at the Waters Cafe at the Agua Caliente Casino in Cathedral City. We were so happy that Deb could join us. Paul was working.

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It actually does rain in the desert! This day, we got about 0.42 inch of rain and this beautiful double rainbow. It was more colorful in person. I did not take the time to edit it and make the photo more colorful. Sorry about that.

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And our excellent Emily came to visit! As with Deb, the week seemed to go by in a couple of minutes.

Emily had decided that she would rather visit The Living Desert during the day than at night. She fed the giraffes and I loved being so close to them. A helpful game keeper reminded me, "Don't touch!" The giraffes know the drill and one came right up to me before anyone had any lettuce and he was looking for his treat. The keeper also told me not to turn my back on him. "Why? Do they bite?" "No, but they might nudge you." I was glad for the instructions because you just want to pat the giant beasts!

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Our neighbor's yard. The trees 'in real life' are multicolored but my phone camera didn't think so.

Here's the tree during the day. You can't see that there are lights on it during the day, so it was a pleasant surprise at night.

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Thank you, Carole for giving us amaryllis which bloomed right on time for Christmas!

This is Mom's.

And this is mine. It's on the only Christmas table runner that I ever made. I'm amazed when I see it that I followed the pattern!

My Canadian friends graciously gave me a ride to the Wild Lights at the Living Desert this year. We met up with Eric and his friend Ron. Eric took our picture.

Left to right: Lorne, Tina, Elaine, Robert

I didn't take any pictures of the lights this year. So here's "file footage" from 2021!

There were more lights this year, particularly around the model railway. Oh, gosh, I have forgotten the exact name but it is 'garden size' as opposed to in-your-living room size.

Here is a daytime partial shot of the railroad. New renovations and expansion are planned for the 3/4 acre installation. $200,000 has been donated for the project.

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Sunset

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Lighting of the Palm Springs Christmas tree. Hot chocolate and cookies for all!

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A neighbor's rose. Everything is flourishing even though it gets down to the 40s at night.

Our neighbors' lemon tree hasn't escaped yet!

If you throw in some lunches (every Friday), a musical concert, a trip to the casino, two trips to the Living Desert, dinner at our place, dinner at a friend's place, The Lunch Bunch Quilters' holiday party, and going to the gym, I'm ready for the hot tub and a day of doing nothing! Oh, wait. I have to finish the Sassy Cowgirls quilt! More on that later.

Meanwhile (as Stephen Colbert says), I wish you all a very happy New Year with new beginnings and health. Of course, I wish us all peace.