December In Numbers

Clockwise from upper left: (1) Beach at Manzanita on the Oregon coast; (2) Covered with my sister's cats; (3) So cold in Oregon that you need a fire; (4) Back in Florida and wearing flip-flops; (5) Christmas tamales; and (6) Ringing in the New Year with a boat/camper crawl.

It's time for our usual monthly recap by the numbers. December was a fantastic month. I got to spend the first part of it visiting my family in Portland, Oregon and the latter part celebrating the holidays with friends at Indiantown Marina. It was brutally cold while I was in Portland. I had to borrow a coat from my mom and even wore real shoes. You know, shoes that don't expose your toes. My feet were confused by these contraptions. My toes didn't know what to make of being encased inside them. They were so glad to get back to the land of flip-flops in Florida.

So, enough with all of those words, here's the usual random nonsense recap by the numbers:

12+ - How many hours it took to get from Palm Beach to Portland. Such a long day, but worth it to see my family, who I don't see often enough.

4 - How many days we spent on the Oregon coast. I love the Oregon coast. The beaches are are so much more beautiful than those in Florida. Of course the weather isn't as good and the water is freezing, but the views are stunning.

15 - How old my nieces are (soon to be 16). They're smart, creative, and beautiful young ladies. Listening to their stories about high school and their plans for college made me feel so old. Was I ever as young and energetic as they are?

2 - How many cats my sister has. I loved cuddling up with them when I was staying at her place in Portland.

0 - How many cats I have. {Simon exists only in my imagination. Good thing, because he's obnoxious.}

17 - How many cats I want. {This is my inner crazy cat lady talking.}

0 - How many cats I'm going to have while we live on a boat. {This is realistic Ellen talking.}

2 - How many days I stayed in bed suffering from a cold when I got back to Florida. I caught it on my last day in Portland. Why do we say that we catch a cold? Normally, you chase after and catch desirable things. Like the ice cream truck that starts to pull away before you've had a chance to get an orange popsicle. Nobody wants to catch a cold.

1 - How many tamales I ate at the marina's Christmas Eve lunch. I  love tamales. Not only are they delicious, it's fun to peel the corn husk back before you eat them. It was a great afternoon. There was tons of food, the weather was perfect (yes, I was wearing flip-flops) and some of the guys played music afterwards.

2 - How many brownies I ate at the Christmas Eve lunch. I wanted to eat seven, but showed considerable restraint by only eating two. Of course, it probably had less to do with restraint and more to do with the fact that they ran out of them, but let's pretend it was restraint, shall we?

5 - Number of boats we saw on our New Year's Eve boat crawl, along with one camper. We had snacks, drinks, and a tour of each boat and camper along the way. So much fun! More about the crawl next Friday.

In case you missed them, here are some of our favorite posts from last month:

Library People on the Oregon Coast | Spindrift Cottage, Manzanita
Going for a Walk in Search of Ethiopian Food | Little Five Points, Atlanta
Five Fugal Things

How did last month go for you? What are you looking forward to this month?

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