Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

It's been a very busy month here on Mars!

A friend from work, Masha, returned from a trip to Russia, and brought back a new little (about a foot tall) resident for Mars. This is Kuzya:

 

In Russian homes, Kuzya keeps an eye on things, helping to prevent catastrophes and assorted bad things from happening. Masha thought that Mars could use a little help in this department. Indeed. Thank you, Masha!

We also did some more tidying & decluttering this month. I tackled the kitchen Junk Drawer, which really should have been called the Drawer of A Thousand Pens:

How did that happen? I would blame Kuzya (who is apparently also responsible for low-level mischief around the house), but I know this happened before he came to stay.

We got rid of a medium-sized box of old kitchen utensils and mugs and things, as well. Progress!

Our friend Jon has been taking a pottery class, and offered us some of his beautiful work. I have been wanting something to display some marbles and pieces of broken ceramics that came up out of the excavation under the house, as well as my grandmother's wedding ring, a couple rings of Jack's, and Jack's father's ring. This bowl works perfectly:

Thank you, Jon!

The week or so before Christmas, we finally got around to some decorating. First, we put up our stockings, and some cutouts of reindeer that we made in previous years:

I made a stocking for Pickles, as well as one for Joan the mouse, and one for her friend Hunca Munca (as it turns out, Hunca Munca is actually the most appropriate name for a house mouse, per AJ & Beatrix Potter).

I subsequently caught both Joan and Hunca Munca, and returned them to the wild.

Anyway, as usual, Pickles helped us decorate with her characteristic holiday cheer and enthusiasm:
 

Here's what we did for a tree this year:

One string of purple Christmas lights, with assorted festive paper things as ornaments, and more cutouts at the bottom. Here it is at night:

On Christmas, Brian, Susie, and Paul came over for food and movies (Denzel Washington marathon this year) and good times. I totally forgot to take pictures of everything except Brian's famous homemade cherry and chocolate rugelach, and his cranberry nut bread:

That was breakfast. We also had mushroom spinach strata for lunch, and cioppino (San Francisco seafood stew) for dinner. Salted honey pie with homemade crust for dessert. It as a wonderful, relaxing day.

And now it's New Year's Eve, and AJ, Pickles, and I are in Sonoma with Amanda, watching Miami Vice and looking out over this view, glass of champagne in hand:

This certainly bodes well for 2016.

In the meantime, Happy New Year to everyone from the four of us!

Tidying like crazy

We are on a massive tidying and decluttering rampage.

The house isn't overstuffed with junk, but we both have had it in mind for a while to go through our stuff and get rid of things that we aren't using anymore. Recently, we learned about Marie Kondo, a Japanese cleaning consultant, and her method. Essentially, the idea is to only keep things around you that you really like, and instead of going through the house room by room, work through specific categories of items across the whole house because most of us have stuff in each category scattered in various rooms (ex. books, jackets, mice). Pulling everything in a category out into one central room for sorting helps you see just how much you have (she says most people who hire her are surprised to see that they have twice as much as they think they do) and helps you get through the process faster. Her book is short & practical, and is actually a little bit deep -- her method is ultimately about changing your relationship to your things.

After reading the book last month, we unleashed a whirlwind on the house. As she instructs, we went through easier categories first (it gives you a chance to hone your decision-making skills) over the past several weeks, & by this weekend, we were ready to tackle one of our largest & most difficult categories: nonfiction books. After bringing them all into the dining room, the pile was daunting:

There are something like 400 books here. We cranked through it in only a couple hours, though, getting rid of five paper grocery bags full of books.

We're only about halfway through all the categories, and have already filled up the 32-gallon recycling bin three times and assembled this 5'x5' monster donation pile:

Just as predicted, we can't believe how big this pile is & how much paper clutter there was in the house. The closets aren't bursting open and the cabinets aren't jammed full, but yet look at all this. Where did it all come from?

As usual, Pickles has helped our efforts by making sure to stay squarely in the sunshine all afternoon:

On Sunday, while parked in this spot, she got the rare opportunity to actually chase Joan across the floor, instead of just having to settle for barking at scritching noises behind a bookshelf. Luckily for all of us, she's slower than Joan.

All this tidying and the airy feeling it brings to the house also inspires decoration.

We have been compiling a photo wall in the living room, and AJ recently had a dozen photos printed to add to the collection. Last week, we finally got them up along the top of the wall:

She also decided it was time to trim her ancient ivy plant. Here is the end of the vine:

And here is the beginning -- that's AJ standing on the couch at the front of the house, holding it up:

I did some things with photos, as well. I picked out photos of my grandparents, Jack, and Dad, and pinned them up on two pieces of redwood board left from the fence replacement a couple years ago, and put them up. Here's the first one, in the newly dubbed "Rumination Room" (thank you Daddy-o Johnstone & Amanda for the help with naming this room!):

And here is the second one, in the dining room:

Next weekend, we're going to borrow a car and take all of the stuff in the monster pile out of the house. And then on to more tidying!