I Like #45

Another week of likes!   Advent is proceeding apace, and I'm grateful that I didn't commit to any large art projects with deadlines at the first of the year.  I'm terrible about that, and it usually makes my December even crazier.  It's especially good this year when there's so much extraneous life stuff drawing my attention.

What am I liking this week?

1.  I love my friends (and choral music!).  Canterbury Voices, a large local choral group, teamed up with the OKC Philharmonic for a performance of Handel's Messiah, and my friend Linda and I went to see it last weekend.  It was a really glorious performance, great music, great companionship, and a lovely venue.  What a great way to celebrate advent.  They did both the Christmas and Easter sections. The soloists were really quite good, but as a choral music fan, the choir was the standout for me.

2.  I love that my bathroom is finished!  A couple months ago a bunch of tile broke in my bathtub and there had been plumbing problems in there for a while (this weird jet of water shot straight out of one of the fixtures) so it was time for a bathtub overhaul.  I had some trouble finding someone to do the project, but a recommendation from someone at worked turned up a phenomenal guy who wound up doing a great job.  My bathroom has this very busy 90s colored wannabe William Morris-style wallpaper that I used to hate, but have grown to adore, and I wanted to find some tile that matched the dark brown/dark green/dark red/dark blue look.  After much tribulation I found some gorgeous glazed brown tile which nicely complemented the leftover blue tiles my sister gave me (having saved them from one of her projects).  The whole thing is finally done and I'm thrilled.  It's a terrible room to take pictures in, so the colors are very sallow in the picture, but in real life they're rich and warm. 

3.  I love decorating (obviously).  This week we decorated at work; our department puts up a tree on the main floor, but my lab is on a sort of catch all floor with a bunch of mixed departments, so the last couple years, I've spearheaded the decorating.  My lab (and anyone else who wanted to) gathered up earlier this week and we put out lights and garlands, and cut a bunch of snowflakes, and generally had a festive time.  We even have a sparkly pink Christmas tree (because duh, I'm the one picking out and buying the decorations).  The second one is my tree at the house, just because everyone benefits from gratuitous dog pictures.

4.  It finally froze a couple nights in a row here so my outside flowers are really done, but my red Christmas cactus is at peak bloom and is just fabulous!  I love how the fully open blooms are red with white centers, very Christmassy.  My pink one is just starting to open up, and it makes me happy that the buds are very white but the blooms are bright pink.

I hope you're all having a great week!!  Thanks to LeeAnna for linking us up!