November 23: Today I took the first step towards making Mom's scrapbook into a tangible gift that I'll send to her as soon as possible. I ordered from Costco a 12x12 print of the first page, and tomorrow I'll pick up that print and see if what they hand me looks like what I've created on my Mac. If so, then I'll have them print the rest of the pages (about 35 at the moment), and put the whole shebang into a book that will accept additional pages that I expect to finish sometime soon.

We took a break from "inside" projects today and went out in the drizzle to find a Christmas tree. For a $10 fee, we have permission to scout around in the Forest Service land for the ideal tree. With all the early snow this year, we figured that waiting might mean no access to the higher-up roads (above the cedar and Doug fir), so off we went in our raingear and snowshoes. It was a bit of a slog up a streambed to a steep open area where we found our ideal tree – we like one that's not too crowded with branches, so there's lots of room for ornaments. Being mindful of our personal scrapbook, I put my camera in a ziplock bag and managed to get a shot of George cutting the tree, and of the tarp-wrapped tree loaded on top of our Trooper (no small feat!) as we headed out at dusk. The most interesting parts of the trip went undocumented, as we were either in fairly steady drizzle, or burdened with a large, unwieldy bundle that required full attention and both hands.

But it'll be back to the scrapbook tomorrow, as I received this afternoon a big box of photos, the first of two that Rob and Gin packed up in Florida and sent to me to sort out and archive. Just looking through all the folders and envelopes and packets will be enough to keep me occupied till spring!