It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

The house is finally decorated for Christmas! We tend to wait until around St. Nicholas' Day (December 6), because Dear Husband likes to keep the tree up until at least Epiphany (January 6).

Again this year we picked out a pre-cut tree from the Trees for Veterans stand in Homewood, where the sales guy makes friendly banter. This time he talked me into accepting a garbage bag full of clippings, some florist's wire, and a large red bow. After we got the tree into its stand upstairs, I made a mess on the kitchen floor fashioning a homemade wreath, to which I added some swag from prior years.

I would show you the handmade vintage Christmas tree skirt to which I treated myself from eBay, but it's stuck somewhere around Columbus. It's red and white with cardinals on it.

Also not pictured: the lights we put up on our porch and that of the abandoned house next door, to make the neighborhood more festive.

Spotted on the mantel next to the grand piano: the pinecone chorister I made in Brownie Girl Scouts.

On the shelf above the shoe caddy: a felt nativity from Palestine, our wedding invitation in stained glass, and steel map cut-outs of Pittsburgh and Baltimore.

On the entertainment center in the dining room: the poinsettia from Third Presbyterian Church, the straw nativity from the Czech Republic, and wedding photos.

In one of the cubbies: the glass nativity S.H. gave me in 8th grade, D. and B.'s wedding photo at the Inner Harbor, and the Kitty Godzilla birthday car DH gave me 2 birthdays ago. When you press the button, it "roars" and rocks back and forth like it's terrorizing the city.

There was a lonely middle section of Advent/Christmas, when DH and I spent 10 days living and sleeping apart after he woke up with COVID symptoms one day. (This was my view from the air mattress in the front room.) We aren't sure whether he got it from Best Buy on Black Friday replacing his laptop or if I brought it home from the clinic, but he tested "negative" and I didn't develop clear symptoms (everyone's a hypochondriac by now, right?).

TSPGH: Frick Environmental Center & Freedom Garden

During summer Dear Husband and I would normally have participated in a wide variety of fun activities but due to COVID have been largely confined [ha!] to the great outdoors. In particular, we have enjoyed walks in our neighborhood and through Frick Park. Here you can see the Environmental Center, which opened in 2017 as an award-winning Platinum-LEED "Living Building." It produces all its own electricity from solar panels, and the extra is donated to the main grid. It uses low-electricity bulbs that turn down when no one is in the room (like now). It collects rain water and recycles what it uses. It also uses ground heat during the winter. Although the Environmental Center is closed, the From Freedom to Slavery Garden is open. That's so Pittsburgh.

Looking down into the gully behind the Environmental Center. 

Looking up at the Environmental Center from the gully behind it. When we walked with J.H., we saw 5 chipmunks, 6 deer, a couple of bunnies, and a bunch of birds. When D.H. and I walked one Sunday morning, we saw a mother deer, a teenaged deer, and two little white-tailed twin fawns! Also a blonde squirrel and a toad that jumped when I walked by it.

Shady bench seat deep in Frick Park, and view from the top of the hill.

Editor's Note:  There are more pictures of Frick Park here; here's fun at Frick Mansion; and other fun we have had out and about in Pittsburgh.

What Residency Looks Like XCI: Food on the Run

Sometimes residency looks like meal prep in the morning before a 12-hour shift. If I get up before 7am, I typically need "2 carbs" to make it to lunch. This photo shows first breakfast (oatmeal with raisins, walnuts, cinnamon, and brown sugar); second breakfast (homemade oatmeal blackberry coffee cake and a hard-boiled egg); a mango-flavored bubbly water in case I couldn't make it to the water fountain to refill my big blue flask; and afternoon snack (homemade chocolate chip cookies and a sliced apple). I used meal tickets to buy lunch at the cafeteria, and I ate leftovers for dinner when I got home.

What I ate while on service: 3 pieces of veggie pizza (free), 6 squares of blackberry oatmeal coffee cake, 7 hard boiled eggs, 7 apples, 5-6 bananas, 1 orange, 3 bowls of oatmeal, 2 bowls of yogurt and granola, 15 homemade chocolate chip cookies, 1 piece of chocolate, 1 freezer-burnt pre-boxed salad from the cafeteria, 1 salad that was not frozen, 2 bags BBQ potato chips, 1 crab cake sandwich consumed 30 minutes after it was reheated for me, 1 large plate of very salty pasta with Swedish meatballs, 1 slightly soggy cookies and cream ice cream cone (free), 1 bag of Chex Mix party mix, 2 chicken tenders, 2 small salads, part of a high-protein cookie, tortellini soup that was salty from having cooked down, a 100-calorie baggie of Lorna Doone cookies, a bag of white cheddar popcorn. There definitely would have been more chocolate if I knew what had happened to the stash that used to live in the left-hand bottom drawer, but oh well.

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