holiday amusements

It has been quite awhile since I've written anything of consequence. It is, in part, because I never caught the Christmas spirit this year, at least not the decorate your house, wrap presents, send cards, etc variety.

This year I've lamented the necessity for those distractions and spent a lot of time thinking about the story behind it all. However, you must not think that the thinking yield profound thoughts or that the thinkin makes me particularly holy. In some ways it was simply the most obvious place to put my reflections since I did not care to participate in the standard Christmas celebrations.

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Some of you may recall that we have/had a greyhound named Willow. She has not been particularly active since shortly after I started this blog and I am not sure if any photos of her were ever posted here.

On Saturday before Christmas we took her to the vet for boarding. However, Hubby and I both had it in the back of our minds that maybe we would have her put to rest instead of boarding her. In the last 6 mos to a year, she has become very expensive and has failed increasingly. And, unfortunately, we did not have the financial or other resources to care for her.

We talked with Kevin, our vet, and he said something that helped me make up my mind. He said "Willow has been a good dog for you for nearly 13 years (she was 13.5) and you should not keep her so long that you hate her." The constant cleaning I had to do for Willow (she was in renal failure) was rapidly destroying my feeling towards her.

So we put her to sleep that day.

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On Monday before Christmas, we drove down to my parents and spent the past week with them. We enjoyed ourselves tremendously. We spent most of our time relaxing.

On Christmas Day we visited my brother's house and spent Christmas with his family. It was a nice slow Mxxxxxxx kind of day.

One of my main accomplishments over break was finishing Emma by Jane Austen and getting more than half way through Hard Times by Charles Dickens. In addition, I took tons of photos.

One afternoon, I took what I call a photo drive with my Mom and Dad. While Mom and I were wandering around a cemetery, I explained to Mom that I can lose myself in photography. It is very true. On that particular day my hands were swollen and sore and my hip was bothering me but when I was wandering around with my camera, I can forget it all.

As I begin to catch up after the first of the new year, I will share some of the photos.

I leave you with these of the girls sledding.

With Love, Melissa

revive my heart

Worth reading and thinking about: Revive Our Hearts.

lace and fru-frus

The lace in these photos comes from my MIL. Her parents used to keep a general store and the lace was some her Mom saved when they closed the store.

-7 F or -21.6 C

Yesterday morning, before church, it was nearly 32F and raining. This morning it was -7F with a -30 windchill.

birds of a feather doll

She turned out exactly how I envisioned her.

pollyana's lemons

This doll turned out how I expected except that the adhesive (which I was doubtful about to begin with, didn't work (see her arm, lying in the lemon drops?) so I dismantled her and will try her again after Christmas).

The beads read:

Rejoice
Be Glad
Give Thanks
Count Blessings

Mom can't read below this...

I got this idea from Recycled Rita. These will go to my Mom and to my MIL.

dance recital

This time, the girl's dance teacher performed - this is my favorite photo of her performance - the rest are my girls.











Someone asked about the number of photos. The reason for so many photos is there are five classes and about forty students. I photograph each class as a group and then each student individually. In addition, I take photos during the program.

Someone else commented on how mind-numbing it must be to go through them. It is.

irony

I foresee a series here. In the entry of our split-entry home, I have three old WWII prisms balanced on the ledge of a high window. This morning while my husband was eating breakfast he noticed the broken light shining through one of the floral frogs (from a small collection) I have on the ledge in our kitchen. He suggested I photograph it. I took photos of all the frogs on the ledge in the pools of broken light. In addition, I photographed one of the glass lemon juicers I have (from another small collection) and our butter dish in the pool of fractured light. I have plans to play with some salt and pepper shakers I own (that seem to be growing into another small collection) and some old jewelry from my grandmother.

I am a collector.

My hubby thinks this if fun because I will be producing color photos instead of black and white photos.











The irony is that he doesn't care to look at my photos.

(BTW for those who are sticklers about the definition of irony, I know this is in an inaccurate usage - but what word, would you use?)

cold and snowy

It has been a cold weekend with snow - not heavy snow - just enough to make things more difficult. Yesterday, at the dance recital, I forgot and turned the car off and removed the keys from the ignition from the passenger side.

Three hours later while I was doing individual photos of the dancers, a girl comes and tells me that my car's lights are on.

The battery was completely dead.

Fortunately, one of the high school girls who was helping with costumes said her Dad (hubby was home sick) was a mechanic and was going to pick her up after the recital. He had one of those special jump start systems so we didn't have to hook two vehicles up.

Slick.

extreme business

This past weekend was extremely busy. Grace had a party to go to on Friday night. On Saturday morning she had rehearsal for the church Christmas program.

Saturday evening Light had a party to go to. On Sunday morning, both girls had rehearsals. In addition, I helped Miss K the Sunday School teacher who I assist do a number of special Christmas projects, including helping each child wrap a cd with the Nativity slide show in it.

Sunday evening was the Christmas concert.

Below you see Light standing next to one of her favorite friends. Most of her really good friends are boys and these two are two peas in a pod. His older sister is a good friend of Light.





Now I am working through close to four-hundred photos I took at the girls dance recital yesterday.