I asked my friend from school (Grad ’89!) to go skiing one day this week. We got together on Thursday out here at Mary Lake. Temperature: -16C. Warm for Yukoners. I was getting chilly by the end though.

We skiied half-way around the lake in one direction, then I noticed we were skiing into the shady side of the lake. We changed directions and skiied back into the sunny side. Once we were through, we did it again. That time though, we skiied all the way around the lake.

At this time a year in the Yukon, the sun rises for about 5 hours (10h am to 3h pm). It’s low in the sky and hits the tops of hillsides or the tops of the trees. So, unless you find some open space (like the lake), you may not feel the sun on your face for a few more months.

Here is an action shot of my friend (perfect form, but since I was the photographer, it’s a bit blurry).

We decided we were going to have a ski party sometime out there sometime. Hot drinks, fires, and hotdogs. I’ll have to get organizing that!

This is my favourite Christmas album. . . next to Father Christmas in Smurfland.

It looks like Sunday, 03 January 2010 will be the Urban Yukon Bloggy Brunch. Put it on your calendar. Tell your blogging buddies. Most of all, come on out and meet everybody in person. Put a face on the blog!!

Time: 11h00 am to whenever (probably around 2h00 pm)
Place: Mary Lake subdivision. I’ll send the exact address later.
Bring:

• Your family (kids, pets, significant others, …)
• Something to eat and something to drink (I guess it’s a bloggy brunch potluck).
• Skis or snowshoes (if you have them). Around 2h00 pm, we’ll head out to Mary Lake for an apres brunch ski.

I’ll get my cookbook out. I think I’ll make stuffed French Toast. I bet my Dad will be on top of the crepes. Maybe, I’ll add a bit of homemade Bailey’s to the coffee.

For those who can’t make it, let me know. We’ll have to figure out how we can stream some video.

When I was home in the Yukon in December 2007, I met up with Fawn and Michael for a bloggy brunch at their house. Then we went tobogganing down that huge toboggan hill behind Hillcrest to Patty’s Pond.

Is anybody around on Sunday,03 January 2010? Shall I host a bloggy brunch out here at Mary Lake?

Anybody interested? If not the 3rd, when?

This song was on my original favourite Christmas list. Grace over at CellarMistress also recommended it. 

I met Grace in Facebook. She’d asked me something about the online magazine I had started and that map I was creating. Then, one day she announced that she was bringing a wine tour group out to Sonoma County. We should meet up. Which we did. We met out at Truett Hurst winery where we met another social acquaintance: SonomaWineGuy (who now works at Michel Schlumberger I think).

I like meeting my blogger buddies. I think I’ll organize a bloggy brunch for Urban Yukon. Is anybody around on Sunday, 03 January 2010?

My mum and I are upstairs. I’m working on my websites, Mum is writing out Christmas cards. 

My dad walks upstairs: “Dorothy, if I wanted to look this thing up on the internet, how do I do that?” 

I am in my bedroom, but my ears perk up. I wonder if he wants to research his arthritis medication I’ve been wanting him to learn more about. 

My mum looks at the tube of paint he’s holding out and replies: “You’d just type ‘artisanal paint” in the Google bar.” 

She walks over to the computer to show him. My dad sits down at the computer, places the cursor in the Google search field, then hunts and pecks to find the letter keys. 

He finds the paint site. He finds the paint he is missing from his painting palette. He marks it all down on a piece of paper.

My dad will be 70 in January and didn’t use a computer until fairly recently. I am really proud. 

Now we just have to teach him to point-click-buy.

Happy birthday to my blog. With this post, I have 365 published blog posts on YukonJen since 2005. I’m not sure what that says about me as a blogger (one blog-year equals four person-years maybe?). But I am extremely pleased as a writer. I’ve always wanted to be a writer. Throughout my life, I’ve always started writing projects and let them fall by the wayside. This blog is the first writing project that I’ve started and I’ve kept up (through multiple, multiple changes in my life). I love this blog. I am Jen. And Jen I be. Blogging is my therapy. 

I thought I’d publish a few interesting stats.  

I wrote my first post on 09 April 2005. It had seven words.

I think my longest post is the one I wrote on hiking the Chilkoot Trail with my sister and my niece in 2005. We did it over four days just before my parent’s 40th wedding anniversary. 

My most active posting months seems to be a tie between April 2005,  April 2008 and November 2009. 13 posts for each of those months. I am sooooo motivated to break that record though. Now I know why statistics are so important!

My least active months are March 2006 and July 2009.

My most viewed blog entry: My life-saving butt.

My most viewed blog category: All about my butt.

My personal favourite blog entry is my entry on the perils of using hand sanitizer (an entry in the All about my butt category). 

I have readers in 33 different countries (they don’t always comment, but I know they are out there). Some of them are new visitors (usually finding the butt blog). I like the 50% or more who are returning visitors though. 

Thematic is the fourth WordPress theme I have used on my blog. I started with the plain vanilla and WordPress 1.2. I had IMJTK design my first custom theme for me. I don’t have any screenshots of that, but I did like the rotating quotes at the top of the page. Last year, I found this crazy, flashy, Notepad Chaos, a free theme from Evan Eckard over at Smashing Magazine and I liked that for a long time. 

This year, I’m starting with plain white. A blank canvas. I’m going to decorate it as I go along. 

In the life of my blog, I’ve worked at Turin Networks (now Force10), Bush-Field Estate Vineyards and Winery, Dilithium Networks, and Intuit. I started two vacation rentals: HealdsburgBungalow.com and FitchMountainLookout.com. I’ve started a number of my own websites and helped a number of other people start theirs. I am finally consolidating all of my helping into a personal consulting business: 9068Creative.com (am still working to launch that site though). Still, I keep coming back to YukonJen. 

In the life of my blog, both Facebook and Twitter were born. WordPress graduated to a dynamic web-publishing platform. Social media exploded. Online communities exploded. (At a seminar I attended the other day, I heard that Fortune 500 companies are paying $200/hr for people with my skills.)

All I can say is bring it on 2010. Bring it on.

A few days ago, I asked for your favourite Christmas songs and now I have a few submissions from my social feeds. Here are the first three:

You can’t go wrong with a Newfie carol. This one is submitted by Kara in Faro. I love the Great Big Sea.

My friend Peter James sends this upbeat alternative from France (er..Britain?). He’s a Brit (the husband of my good friend Vicky) and they live in a tiny village in Brittany, France. Regardless, I think it will get you moving.

Ludo sends me one from Switzerland. He says this song is the song they sing at Mass on Christmas Eve before they drink vin chaud outside the church and visit with everyone in their village that they haven’t seen since the previous Christmas Eve. He says it sometimes snows when they are all milling about visiting. It certainly gets me wishing for some mulled wine and Christmas snow.

I remember when I first heard this song. I was making dinner. I don’t know who I was making it for or what I was making. But I heard this song on the radio and it stopped me in my tracks. I turned up the volume and looked out the window over the sink.

This song wasn’t about Santa. It wasn’t about babies and mangers and wise men. It wasn’t commercial. It wasn’t about snow. Or reindeers. It wasn’t funny. But it affected me. It made me stop and think about what my Christmas season should be.

I’ve never heard that song again, but every Christmas I say to myself I should look that song up–that one that tells the story of Christmas 1914. Today, I’ve gone and done so. It’s called Christmas in the Trenches by John McCutcheon.

I am humbled by history.

Do you have a song that makes you stop what you are doing and think about Christmas?

Just a note to explain because a few people commented. It’s December again. I usually give my blog a make over in December. This year, I’m going to try a few new things (new features, new functions) so I’m reverting back to a simple theme with lots of whitespace for awhile as I try things out. Dennis over at Fastpipe introduced me to this theme: Thematic. 

I thought I’d try it out. I am in Whitehorse, Yukon: a landscape covered in frost and snow right now. Hence the title: snowscape. It’s appropriate I think. 

And bbbrrrrr…it’s cold. 

I admit. I am a wuss.