Sister time over Christmas

 

My sister Kathleen flew down the 24th from the rainy Pacific Northwest to catch some sun over Christmas. Here's my view as I waited for her in the cell phone lot. It was sunny and about 76.

As soon as she got here, we arranged all the homemade holiday sweets on plates and worked our way through most of them over the next 72 hours!

Here we are Christmas Eve before having our green chicken enchilada dinner.

On Christmas morning we had our coffee and spinach quiche, then set out for a little hike on the Bridle Trail at Catalina State Park. We saw a lot of horses and saguaros under a beautiful blue sky. Then it was back home to open presents and call family.

The day after Christmas was unusually chilly and overcast, so we skipped the hiking and spent several hours at the Ted DeGrazia Gallery In the Sun, one of my favorite art spots in Tucson.

This is the gallery for visiting artists, where a wonderful weaver from Silver City, NM, had a show.

"Desert Portal" by Donna Foley

Donna Foley uses natural plant dyes and wool from rare breeds of sheep (which she used to raise) for her contemporary Southwest weavings. Her artist statement says: "I weave my tapestries as maps of my spiritual journey. The topography is both an external terrain of the mountains, desert and wilderness where I live as well as an internal landscape of meditations and dreams. ... Many of my tapestries incorporate symbols such as petroglyphs, runes and I Ching hexagrams as well as found objects of stones, feathers, roots and beads." 

"Incantations At Dawn" by Donna Foley

Her website: www.fourdirectionsweaving.com

The rest of the 10-acre compound, which was built by DeGrazia in the 1950s with materials from the surrounding desert, shows the artist's touch in every detail.

Here is his adobe Chapel In the Sun, an open roof building with his colorful murals on the interior walls and narrow rough-hewn benches. 

This is one of DeGrazia's mosaics of native Indians, displayed outside.

This is the adobe home where he lived with his wife. The walls are a soft turquoise color, as are the kitchen tiles.

For more photos of the Gallery In the Sun, see my previous post here: more-color-with-julia-and-jade.html. 

By the time we finished we were hungry, so we headed over to the Eclectic Cafe for my favorite enchiladas, with red, green and white sauces. Delicious!

That evening we toasted the Arizona sunset and I discovered how cool it looks through a wine glass. The next morning, before Kathleen left, we spotted a vermillion fly catcher on our walk in the park near my house. It looked right at me, as if it were posing. Now it's just me at home with the rest of the cookies!

Have a colorful day

Solstice, birthday and scary cookies

 

I didn't get around to posting on the Solstice, but I did celebrate it with a hike with Barb in the Tucson Mountains on a very non-wintery day here in the desert. We hiked the Mosaic Trial with a side hike up to Bactrian Summit at Barb's urging. I read the sign as "bacteria," but Barb remembered that "bactrian camels" have two humps and we had to climb two hills to get to the peak. 

 

The night before we tried a new Mexican restaurant, Victoria's, for my birthday and it was excellent! They served some of the best green chicken enchiladas I've every had -- and I've had a lot. The cilantro rice was also delicious.

Then they surprised us with a free slice of birthday cake because Barb mentioned that it was my birthday. It was a chocolate version of the traditional Mexican tres leches ("three milk") cake with sweet whipped cream and it was wonderful.

Not so wonderful was my latest attempt at a pretty holiday recipe. I rarely make cutout cookies and these ones were scary! I have no piping skills, but I did manage a decent squiggle. 

Today was lunch on the back patio under blue skies and warm temps. It's going to cool off for Christmas, but only into the 60s. I'm not complaining! My sister is coming down from the chilly, rainy Northwest for Christmas and I hope the blue skies hold out for her visit.

Have a colorful day

Red!

Normally you'll hardly see a speck of red in my house because I lean toward lime green, pinkish orange, turquoise and yellow. But at Christmas I break out the red and love it. The first sign of a transformation is the yucca in my front yard tipped out in red ornaments.

Then more red on the front-door wreath ...

... my coral fountain by the front door that blooms this time of year ...

... and the doormat inside.

I bring out the red dishes ...

... and sprinkle poinsettias around the house.

The red and green quilts come out ...

... and red pillows and couch throws replace the lime green ones.

All around the house, I deck the rooms with touches of bright red.

Even my hand weights, by the fireplace, fit in. And that's my post for today, which is also my birthday.

Have a colorful day

Poor Christmas tree!

I hosted book club last week and my stuffed crescent roll tree appetizer (above) didn't turn out exactly like the one in the recipe (below). So I threw some cranberries at it, hoping that would help the presentation. Ha! But it tasted good, because it was stuffed with spinach artichoke dip and you can't go wrong there.

 

It inspired Beth to make a pizza crescent roll candy cane, and hers looked a lot better.

But my decorations turned out well, and setting a pretty table is for me the best part of hosting a party.

Here we are! We had lasagne, meatballs, stuffed mushrooms, fruit salad, Caesar salad, a veggie tray, wine and a decadent Texas chocolate sheet cake for the December birthday girls (Judy, Kristina and me).

I have my beloved little white lights everywhere, and I turn them all on first thing in the morning and at dusk. The ones over the window stay up all year and I turn them on every evening because they remind me of stars and make it feel cozy.

Last night I got into cookie baking mode and made chocolate crinkles and ginger molasses cookies. Next up will be sugar cookie cutouts.

And speaking of holiday decorations, people here hang ornaments from their outdoor trees because we don't have to worry about bad weather knocking them down.

Here's Juniper with her stocking that I made and some sentimental ornaments that I sent to her. I can't wait to cuddle with her soon! I don't think I'll let her go the entire visit, except when she cries and then she'll go to Mom.

Have a colorful day