A fabulous afternoon spent on Stevens Pond:

Not to give away my age or anything, but I graduated from high school in the year 2000, and from college in 2004.  So it seems hard to believe 2010 is already in progress.  A decade has passed since high school.  Really?  A decade?  Of course, high school does seem long, long ago (and for that I am thankful) and for that matter college seems distant as well, but somehow it is still surprising to be so far into this century.  But rather than think back over the last 10 years, I’d prefer to look forward.  There are many things to look forward to in this new year and I am going to enjoy it all thoroughly.  I do have goals — not New Year’s resolutions per se, but things I hope to do, see, work on, enjoy, etc.

Here are some pictures from the recent past.  It was a great holiday season and I enjoyed many days of relaxation.  My family did a handmade Christmas which was truly wonderful.  At some point I will post some pictures of the gifts we gave and received.  And I plan to put up a short series of 2009 photo collections.

December always seems to fly past me, leaving me a bit stunned when I wake up on New Year’s Day.  But this year is a bit different.  My family has decided to only give homemade/handmade gifts this year.  This is wonderful in many ways, but particularly because there is no pressure to rush around from store to store desperately trying to find a perfect gift under less than perfect circumstances.  The financial relief is nice too, but mostly it’s the lack of pressure.  I am planning my gifts and I still have things left to make and do, but they are things I can do in my own home, sitting by the fire, enjoying the glow of Christmas lights and music (or watching episodes of Battlestar Galactica…).  And that’s the best way to do it.

I was above the clouds for a couple hours this past weekend.  My view from Portland, Maine to NYC looked like this:

More to come soon…

Yes, fall is slowly fading and the brilliant gold and crimson leaves seem duller each day, transforming the landscape into one increasingly brown.  Now we begin the shift toward drab that I can only hope will be freshened with layers of snow before Christmas.  We had a thin layer of snow this morning but the ground is simply not cold enough for it to stick around long.  My view of fall has included these shots:

This week has been light in the sleep department, but for mostly good reasons.  I had a flurry of printing activity this week as I scrambled to get cd sleeves printed up for Pete Witham & the Cozmik Zombies’ cd release party for their new record, Full Tilt.  This was my first experience printing cd sleeves and I really enjoyed the process.  I hope more music related printing is in my future.  As always, the end result was a combination of foresight, happy accidents, physical and time constraints.  But I’m pretty pleased with them.  My last push on Wednesday night to print the back cover was made possible by the following: a bowl of moosemeat stew, a couple slices of bread & butter, one can of Barq’s root beer, half a brownie, encouragement from J, and lots of fabulous tunes that J cranked in the studio.  Cheers!

Last week was a blur.  J had surgery on his wrist and that meant general anesthesia…yippee!  Lots of waiting for me, but I had good things to read (I finished My Life in France by Julia Child while I was there) and I snuck out of the hospital and headed down to Standard Baking Co. to procure provisions for myself.  The provisions came in the buttery, flaky form of a ham and cheese croissant and a delectable pain au chocolat, plus a hot cup of coffee to wash it down.  Then we had a quiet, restful weekend at home, which included lovely visitors {armed with gooey cinnamon rolls!} many loads of laundry, house cleaning, movie watching, cooking, meal planning, and heavenly naps.  Just the thing for a couple chilly October days.

J broke his wrist last week.  He has a distal radius fracture on his left hand.  This hand is essential to his livelihood of playing upright and electric bass.  He fell on Monday, we went in for x-rays on Tuesday, found that it was broken and he was referred to Orthopedic Associates in Portland and setup a Friday appointment.  They did another set of x-rays to see how his wrist had changed over the course of three days and were not happy with how it seems to be healing.  After the use of an equalizing surgical traction device, which involved two of J’s fingers being placed in steel finger traps, the OTC did some manipulation and pulling on the wrist just before putting it in a plaster splint.  And in the splint it remains until Wednesday when we go back to Orthopedic Associates.  They took a third round of x-rays after the manipulation to see if the bone position had been much changed, which it had not.  The Nurse Practitioner with whom we met mentioned the possibility of surgery and this certainly spun us into a new frame of mind.  Navigating the seemingly murky waters of the medical community is basically new to us both.  Wednesday we’ll be meeting with the Nurse Practitioner again and a surgeon to consult regarding the possible outcomes for splinting/casting versus surgery.  Wow.  I’m trying to learn as much as I can before Wednesday so that we can at least ask the right questions.

The medical folks keep asking J if he is right handed, to which he hesitantly responds “primarily.”  His left hand is the one he needs for fast and fine motion when playing bass so it’s equally as important as his right.  The OTC callously suggested he consider the tambourine.  J didn’t laugh, but he is handling this all extremely well and we’re doing our best to be positive and hopeful.

Wish J luck. He doesn’t have health insurance.

Below are a couple of J’s x-rays…I was surprised at the difficulty in identifying the problems.  I suppose that’s why there are experts.  If you’re curious, this website shows a normal wrist compared to a broken one with a distal radius fracture.