A Merry Thaler Christmas to YOU!!

This year I am spending Christmas in Tracy, CA with my husbands family. At this moment we are finishing up a 4 hour game of monopoly. Of course I am out! lol.. *I almost cried cuz this game gets SO intense* ANYHOW! I wanted to take the time to say,

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

I hope you are all enjoying your family, friends and loved ones.

 I am so grateful for everything God has blessed us with!

I am SO glad that God wrapped Himself in flesh,

Manifested His glory and majesty on this earth

Took on the sins of the world and died for me!

Today we celebrate our REDEMPTION

Jesus was EMMANUEL, GOD WITH US.

Jesus is God.

What a revelation :)

I am thankful for SALVATION!

One Lord, one faith, one baptism. Holiness.

Separation. I am proud to be a one God apostolic,

 tongue talkin', holy rolling, born again

 believer in the liberating power of Jesus name!! I

 believe in holiness and I suggest

 for you to do the saaaame!!! :)

 I am thankful for my awesome church!

Calvary Apostolic Tabernacle in Ontario California.

I have the best pastor and 1st lady!!!

I love directing the choir for the young people!!

I love working with the children!!

Ahhhh-mazing church!!

Wanna come??

I thank God for my incredible husband <3

Brendan James Thaler is the love of my life

He makes me believe in agape love.

I LOVE my family. My beautiful mommy, my super daddy, my mommy in love & step papito en amor, my daddy in love & step mommy in love! My awesome big sister Lakeisha, her husband James, and the AMAZING kiddos, JJ, Ms. Lynn, Joey and my little pumpkin princess cooking in my sisters tummy :) My super cool big brother Keith! My hilarious baby brother Jon who is way to far away from me now. I love my siblings to death! I love my sissy in love/twin Courty Boo Thaler and my little Seany Thaler!! Kisses and hugs to my baby brother Noah <3

GREETINGS from our home to yours!!

Christmas 10'

Tracy, CA

"Home is where the heart is",

my heart is with so many beautiful people!

xoxoxoxo

Celebrating the birthday of Jesus <3

Happy Thanksgiving!!

From our home to yours, 

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Take the time to give thanks unto the Lord! He has been SO good to us!!

Take the time to give thanks, love and kisses to you family

and all of your loved ones. This could be your last thanksgiving

with a grandparent, a parent, an aunt or an uncle. Don't take it for granted!

Take the time to NOT focus on your "diet" :)

God bless you all! I am thankful for YOU! For this ministry!

And for all of the love, support and kind words!

What are YOU doing today??

Update me about your thanksgiving when you get a chance

Celebrating happy, healthy and long hair :)

am I the only one....

Am I the only one who finds it frustrating that people giving their friends and family stuff they don't want -- and that will immediately be returned to the retailer -- for christmas, has become part of the business model for said retailers to turn a profit? What does that say about the role that gift-giving has become around this holiday?

solo christmas

I spent christmas lounging and enjoying. After waking up to a new half-inch of snow and more falling, I made a lovely scramble and toast for breakfast, made biscuits for Finn, continued to bind the red & white quilt (binding has been tricksy for this one -- not sure what I did wrong), watched no fewer than seven cars get stuck in the slushy snowy mess that surrounds the roundabout I live next to (I threw on my boots and helped one motorist get unstuck), called relatives near and far to wish them happy holidays, and then trekked down to what I am calling a make-shift off-leash park, but is in actuallity a pair of fenced in tennis courts. Finn and I stopped there yesterday on our way home from Penny's house, and I threw snowball after snowball for him. I knew the quality of the snow was degrading fast as the snow drifts become puddles, but I thought it might still be good enough for a few more snowballs. If his snoozing away after we got home is any indication, I'd say I was right....

I'll get it right next time

I just spent about two hours crafting an essay about how I don't celebrate christmas anymore (to speak of), at the end of which I declared that I will make it a 2009 new year's resolution to celebrate christmas the way I want to. I then started listing my favorite christmas memories, and once I was done with that, I realized that that was what I should be posting here today.... my favorite christmas memories.


Andrea with Grandma Alice, circa 1984

The advent calendar and stockings my mom made
The smell of the christmas season, which I have since learned, is actually the furnace coming on for the first time that winter
Cherry and lemon breads that mom makes (lemon bread was my favorite as a kid because it has this thick layer of sugar crust on top, but as an adult, I prefer cherry bread. with nuts.),
Looking up at the falling snow at Grandma Alice's house (this may not have actually been at christmas, but I sure think of it that way)
Emily and I stealing peeks at the bounty by the christmas tree by looking in the bathroom mirror, which reflects back into the living room
Christmas tree getting, which usually included a picnic, and Dad let me carry the bow saw
Dungeoness crab feast (much better than turkey, and way better than ham)
Aunts, uncles, cousins and family friends decending on the house for christmas brunch, and then Going over to another cousins' house in the afternoon
Said other cousins' christmas tree, which was decorated with dolls (?) or balloons (?!)
Helping my mom embroider a tree skirt festooned with penguins and tree ornaments (I still think of that when I embroider anything)
My mom's collection of tree ornaments from places she's been (her favorite, I believe, being a Venitian glass Santa propelling a gondola), and carefully writing the year of travel on it
The decades-old sandwich baggies the ornamens are stored in
Mom nudging me when I spilled the beans about Santa not being real to my sister
Realizing that Santa wasn't real
Going to the sing-it-yourself Messiah with my mom and aunt
Dad testing all the "xmas lits" before hanging them
The family dog, Daisy, was allowed into the living room on christmas morning
Calling my friends to wish them merry christmasses
The decorations: the angel orchestra my mom got in East Germany, the christmas pyramids, the stack of christmas story books, googly-eyed red bird and bumble bee ornaments from Japan, and of course, the partially-melted angel candles that belonged to Grandpa Reed
Going to see the decorations at Union Square in San Francisco
My mom tearing up at reading The Polar Express
Mom's christmas music tape
Charlie Brown Christmas on TV
Carrolling around the neighborhood one year
Zoe wearing sushi pants
Making treat gifts for all the neighbor's dogs and cats
Oranges and apples in our stockings
Mom's coffee cake at christmas brunch
Dad's singing... "christmas comes but once a year, here at last, now it's past!"

yeah, I'll do it right next year....

happy holidays!

From Finn and Andrea to you and yours!

Our very best wishes to you in the coming year and always.

dollars and cents

In my daily life, I collect all the discarded money I reasonably can. Pennies mostly, of course, usually on the sidewalk, at the a store checkout counte, the airport floor. When I was 16, I started collecting the pennies in memory of my late grandmother --- a sort of teenaged idea of being profound. In fond childhood memories, she had helped me with my math skills by rewarding successful rounds of flashcards with pennies (nickels for the harder ones). The habit stuck into adulthood, and about four years ago, I decided to keep track of my annual haul by keeping all of the coins I found (and rarely folding money) in a change bowl separate from the regular change bowl, and then count it up at the end of the year. I have developed quite a game at it -- setting rules and guidelines. My friend Matt plays along now, and we have even come to have moral discussions about the pennies (afterall, what would your mother do?). I admit, I get a little obsessive about it from time to time -- I find myself scanning the floor at the grocery store, nearly to the point of being rude to those around me. Not to mention that I probably look mighty suspicious to the guy watching security camera footage.

My first year, I collected something like three dollars, and then six the next year. Last year, I believe I had something like ten dollars. This year though, I found forty dollars in a crosswalk on my birthday, which brings my final collection* to (drum roll, please)......$50.37

Happy New Year!!

* One of the rules is that I don't have to place the exact coinage that I find into the annual haul bowl (i.e.: if I find a dime, I can put ten pennies from my regular change bowl into the annual haul bowl), so providing a breakdown of the coins spread before me on the floor as I write this wouldn't be accurate, but I will say that this figure includes a ten Euro cent piece (and applying the current exchange rate of 1 EUR = 1.45964 USD), no Canadian coins (surprising, considering where I live), and it does not include the two novelty stretched pennies I found (one bearing the likeness of a sea otter from the Oregon Coast Aquarium, the other with the ten commandments in teeny tiny letters).

winter holiday: part 2

We left Seattle on Friday night: I had packed up the car much later than I'd planned, because the clothes dryer developed a lint clog and wouldn't dry the laundry in the anticipated timeframe. So in the dark and the rain, I packed up Finn's crate, our luggage, gifts and dog food, headed south to pick up Eric from work, and we headed out from there. I drove us from Seattle past Portland to Wilsonville, where we stayed the night. Finn was quite funny running around the room crouched low to the floor and sniffing everything.

Eric did his homework earlier and the week and had indentified off-leash parks for us to run Finn around in Wilsonville and Roseburg in Oregon, and Redding and Sacramento in California. The dog park in Wilsonville is a work in progress and was covered in mud -- not just wet soil, but that kind of mud that cakes and creates little snowshoes around your feet. Slippery and really fun to watch the dog slide around in. It was a good thing we brought an extra towel for Finn.

The rest of the trip was largely uneventful, except that we found that Finn--who otherwise seems to have gotten over his carsickness--really hates windy roads. I-5 over the Siskiyous had him panting and shaking, but not actually sick, fortunately. We pulled over in Hilt, California, to let Finn walk off his queasiness, but as soon as we hit the road again, Eric discovered three deer ticks on Finn, and one on himself. So we pulled off at the next exit for a tick check. None found this time, but in Redding, we picked up a flea comb, a concoction designed to calm the dog down, and some extra treats.

We drove through Sacramento (and nearly vomited at all of the new development in the north end, where we used to live), and veered to the east, towards the Sierra foothills. We travelled the historic Highway 49 through the foothills, then highway 4 to Arnold, our final destination, after some 14 hours on the road.

We rolled in late, but Zoe was waiting for us the next morning. She loved her new sushi pants!

A nice relaxing weekend was had by all... games of multiple solitaire, Booby Trap (below) and play with the baby....

Family tradition is to have dungeoness crab for christmas dinner, after which we opened gifts and generally sat around, fat and happy.

We headed for the bay area on Tuesday so Zoe and her parents could catch the red-eye to Boston. But first, Eric and Finn and I headed uphill to catch some serious snow time... It was Finn's first time bounding through more than the occassional three inches we get in Seattle...

He loved it. Can you tell?

wish list

I thought I was going to ask for nothing this holiday season.... I'm not sure how long I thought that would last.

so if anyone has $50 burning a hole in their pocket, I found something I want.....

I am thankful for...

...Eric. I am thankful for having Eric in my life, and for the opportunity to share every day with him. He is all I could ever dream of in a partner, and I love him with all of my heart.

Eric and I had thanksgiving dinner at the Spiral Farm with Frank heading up the cooking with a menu of Indian food, and Matte deep frying a farm raised turkey. Company was enjoyed, nearly full moon on a cloudless evening was admired and we went home stuffed and happy.

turkey a-fryin'....


two pages of Indian recipies!


baby naan....


and by the time we headed home, it was pretty chilly out....