A Quick Note on Viewing Photo Slideshows

I'm sure some regular readers of the blog are familiar with this already, but for those of you who are not, you'll appreciate the info...

With the little Flickr slideshows on the right margin of the blog, you can easily go from the small size view to full screen by simply clicking on the 4-arrow icon that appears in the lower right corner of the slideshow when you scroll your cursor to that area. I couldn't get a screenshot with the icon visible, but I've added a reasonable facsimile in Photoshop to show you where it is and basically how it looks.

Click play, click on the icon, and your slideshow will convert to a wonderful full-screen view without leaving the blog. Once it is finished, simply click the Esc key at the upper left of your keyboard, and "Voila!"

Something Light

Life is chugging back toward a normal rhythm after all the excitement of the build-up and big splash of Christmas. Another short week at work and this long weekend helps with the re-focus I always try to make at the end of each year.

I've spent part of today clearing the Christmas trappings and finding places for the presents we received and being excited about longer days and warmer weather to come.

This year two of my favorite gifts came in the form of light...

The V3+ got Jack and I each an LED deck light for our kayaks, so now when we stay out on the lake until sunset or later, we'll be more visible to passing boaters. While we're safe and careful and haven't had any problems the times we've stayed out late in the kayaks, there's no reason to take chances, and these lights are perfect. They're lightweight and very bright, and the batteries last for hundreds of hours with the LED bulbs. A weighted suction cup on the bottom allows you to attach the light wherever you want on the deck or hull of the boat, and there's also a lanyard with a caribiner on the end, so you can clip it to your rope or one of the side bungees to keep it close should you drop it in the drink. Now, I'm all excited about getting back out on the water again.

My other favorite light gift is the flashlight Santa left in my stocking. It's a compact LED that's super-bright and the perfect size to carry in my purse. When Jack and I were on vacation a couple of months ago, we had need for a flashlight, and Jack picked up one sort of like this at Target. It's the best little flashlight we've ever had. We keep it on the key hook by our front door and use it all the time for trips to the basement or out to the car; or (most recent example) when we need to locate a specific pan in the dark bowels of our poorly-designed kitchen cabinets. Handy as it is by the door, there are times I really need a sweet little flashlight in my purse. Now I have one. Thanks, Santa! You really hit the nail on the head.

And while we're on the subject of "light" - has anyone else noticed how much more light we have in the afternoons now? At 4:30 today I'd just gotten in from a stroll in the yard with the camera, and we still had enough daylight that if there'd been anything worth taking a picture of, I could've done it.

Jack and I are settled-in with the dogs for a quiet New Year's Eve at home and happy to have no big plans for the evening. As far as we're concerned there's no better way to ring in the new year.


On another note, I hope everyone likes the new look of the blog. I decided that with the change to a new year, I needed to step out of the rut and try something different, and this is it. Cleaner. Brighter. (Hopefully) easier to read with the white background.

I also activated the mobile version, so you can easily read from your phone or other device now. My friend Jeff has already tried it out and says it works like a charm. YAY technology!  I'm not sure what happens when you visit from a tablet or something like a Kindle Fire, so if someone who reads the blog visits from one of those devices, please shoot me a comment or an e-mail and let me know how it looks now.

This is Christmas!

***Click here for the photo album - Christmas on the Farm 2011***

Merry Christmas, and oh, what a wonderful day it was...

Jack and I started out early and on a roll, prepping food for the late brunch-ish kind of thing we've "always" done for Christmas at Mom and Dad's house. With everyone contributing a bit of this and a bit of that, we had a significant feast. Years ago it started out as more of a breakfast meal, but as time has gone by it's evolved into more of a midday snack-fest with a nice assortment of all our favorite things.

Much as I hate to turn "blogger" into "bragger", I have to share the menu - Mom's delicious sausage and egg casserole, Nova lox with capers, red onion and rye bread, sausage balls, country ham with biscuits, buffalo chicken dip (compliments of the lovely Kristi Hammond who spent the day with us), honey ham and turkey with rolls, Sis' Beale Street Roll (a delicious dilled cheese log covered with a sweet and savory pecan sauce) and lovely pastries with herbed-cheese and fresh vegetables and a selection of cheese and crackers and nuts. Mom made two cakes from scratch - Ma-Ma Harris' Italian Creme Cake and my childhood favorite, Mom's Prune Cake with Caramel Frosting. Kristi brought homemade fudge, Chris made Crispy Coconut Date Balls, and Jack and I brought some confections from The Sweet Shop.

At this point I have to offer my apologies to my mother, my sister, the lovely Kristi, my husband and anyone who expected to see food pictures. I didn't take any. I took a couple of photos of the cakes, but that's it.

Sorry, but a lot was going on at one time. We were prepping food, entertaining Lucia, sweating like hogs and feeling the Christmas spirit. There are only so many photos that can be taken, you know?

Once we'd finished eating, Lucia was the only one of us who didn't want a nap, and she was fighting the urge with ever fiber of her being. At one point later in the day, Lu even refused an opportunity to snuggle with Papa in his big chair, "because I might get sleepy and take a nap."

Her exact words.

We rolled through the opening of the gifts with a lot of gusto, and as expected, Lucia's pile of boot was huge. Among the toys and clothes and goodies, she found some favorites.

Every little girl needs a new tractor with a wagon to haul her baby dinosaurs. Jack took this beautiful photo that is perhaps my very favorite one from the day...

When Lucia opened her art kit from NanNan and Papa, she first asked, "Is it a potty?" After she realized it was full of paints and markers and a little pad of construction paper, her creative self suddenly declared, "I want to do art."

At this point I should probably issue another apology. Every year since the beginning of time and even before I had a good camera, I've taken a beautiful picture of the Christmas tree with all the gifts underneath. Not this year. Sorry.

And before I go any further, I also want to go ahead and let everyone know that I almost threw up on the trip home when I realized that despite the presence of an extra (and excellent) camera-woman at Christmas on the Farm 2011, we forgot to take a family picture. It's something I've actually learned to not dread and something we started the year before Lucia was born and something I really wish I'd remembered to do today because I put on makeup and stuff. I brought the tripod for just that very purpose in case Kristi wasn't able to join us. Boo me...

Tomorrow Jack and I will be visiting with everyone at the farm at some point during the day, so perhaps we'll get a second chance. It won't be exactly Christmas and some will be wearing different clothes, but nobody but *us* will have to know.

Even though there's no great photo of the whole gang of us together, both Jack and I managed to get some nice shots of everyone throughout the day, and I've already uploaded them to a flickr album that can be accessed here.

I'm glad I got money for Christmas, because this evening I hit the wall on my free flickr account and had to upgrade to the "pro" version, which is something I've been intending to do anyway. Flickr is one of the best places to put your photos for sharing and whatnot online, and twenty bucks a year for unlimited storage isn't bad when you've got files you can share with your social network (like facebook and twitter), get prints from the same day at Walgreen's or WalMart (or cheaper and better in just a few days ordering online for mail delivery), use in projects at snapfish (more on that in a moment) or just view as a gorgeous full-screen slideshow. For most people sharing snapshots and whatnot, the free space available on flickr is plenty - I put BIG files there so's if I want to print them big I can...

Please check out the full album of photos from today. It includes both my photos and the wonderful flashless shots Jack took throughout the day.

Despite my above-noted derelictions of duty as photographer, a bike crash (Lu is tough as a pine nut and totally OK), some slightly burned rolls, missed naps for at least three of us, and a forgotten present that Lu couldn't give a shit less about, it was a great day.

I mentioned snapfish in relation to the photos, and I have to say some of the "hot gifts" from today came from there.

Mom and Dad loved their snapfish coffee cups with individual photos of each of them with Lucia. I've seen my parents get emotional about empty coffee cups before, but this is the first time those emotions have been happy ones.

I also ordered them a calendar with photos of Lucia from (roughly) the last year, and it is beautiful. I got a one-day deal offer in my e-mail for 40% off plus free shipping on any calendar, so I put one together and was more than pleased when I saw the finished product. The paper/cardstock is heavy-duty and spiral-bound so that it can actually be used and written on and slung about and taken off the wall five hundred times in the coming year without getting ragged or compromising the excellent quality of the glossy images which represent each month.

Lu and Chris each got an 8x10 framed collage of photos from the last Cinco de Mayo celebration in their neighborhood. And no, Lucia doesn't appreciate a gift like that at age three. I don't expect her to. When she's thirty, it will be one of her favorite things. Write that down.

Mom has been working out at the "Y" during her weeks in town, and it shows. How gorgeous is she?

I can throw the little one further than I can trust her when she's conspiring with Papa...

This is what you do when you're three and haven't learned to "throw a bird" yet --

Love. Much love. To each and every one...

"Christmas Eve Gift"

Damn.

Sis just called, and even though I've been practicing all day for the phone to ring, I looked at the Caller ID to see who was calling, knew it was her and still answered with a plain old, "Hello" like an idiot.

My family has a tradition (or habit or mental illness) that we say "Christmas Gift" or, in today's case, "Christmas Eve Gift" as our preferred holiday greeting both in person or over the phone. There's no prize for winning a round other than bragging rights and there is no punishment for losing a round, unless the gloating of others really gets your goat. Points are not collected, but if they were my mother would win every year.

Some years she calls early on Christmas morning to spread holiday happiness, and you can hear her cheerful, "Christmas Gift!" from the earpiece of the phone before the receiver gets anywhere near your head. 

The thing started with my grandmother Page but is apparently part of a larger Christmas tradition in this neck of the woods, one we delightfully share with friends and relatives as we see and talk with them on these special days of the year.

"Christmas Eve Gift!" with love!

Happy Christmas, everybody.

I don't know if this will be my last blog post before the big day or not, but let me go ahead and say "Merry, Merry!!!" in case it is.

The the big day approaches, and the pile of presents for Lucia seems grows more disproportionately large by the moment, but that's OK. This is the only time she's going to be three on Christmas, and next year the new sibling will be here...

Our shopping has pretty much concluded and come together with ease. The shopping left "to do" on my list will be easily accomplished at the drive-thru ATM tomorrow while we're out playing Santa and delivering a few gifts to loved ones on our list.

Love your people, people. That's what Christmas is all about...

A Christmas Preview

Who's ready for Christmas? 

I still have a little bit of shopping to do, but for the most part I'm better prepared than I have been at this point in prior years. Sure, there have been years that I've been ready weeks and weeks in advance, but I haven't had one of those in awhile. I did have the foresight to make some of the critical purchases on "cyber Monday" and have quite the pile of goodies in the green Naugahyde "Christmas chair" that holds our gifts until time to load them into the sleigh.

No snow is in the forecast, and as nice as a white Christmas can sometimes be, I'm glad. Today's rain across the mid-state area is likely creating all kinds of problems for the folks who have to be out in it for whatever reason. Snow would make it ate least ten times worse.

Luckily the shopping I have to do between now and Sunday can all be accomplished without another trip to the city. 

Jack went with me to work yesterday and looked for Santa while I got things at the office squared away for a long holiday weekend. Lots of people are on vacation, so the commute both in and out of town weren't bad at all - seriously, the morning trip took less than an hour and a half, which almost never happens. The trip out in the afternoon had similar groove, and what could have turned into a time-consuming stop at a popular and busy store in Mt. Juliet took less than fifteen minutes. 

With that kind of mojo happening on the day of the Winter Solstice, I can only believe Christmas is going to be great, followed by a wonderful progression to spring and summer...

Other than picking up a few more goodies, the only thing left to be done is charge up the batteries for the camera and the flash!!

I can't wait.

A Birthday and a Surprise

It's hard to believe that another weekend is coming to a close, leaving us merely two weeks from Christmas.

Lucia's third birthday was yesterday, and we celebrated in fun style at the farm with a delicious spaghetti dinner cooked by Mom, salad tossed by moi, Mickey Mouse cake by The Sweet Shop, and fun Disney decorations and balloons by Sis.

If Christmas is even half as much fun as Lucia's party yesterday, we'll have a wonderful time.

I love that Lucia is old enough now to understand more of what's going on and really get "into" the spirit of the day, though her excitement about yesterday's present-opening was almost de-railed by a set of little trains Mom bought her as an afterthought at the grocery store. The trains were the first thing she opened and the only thing she wanted to play with for the longest time. We had to encourage her to go open more gifts, which didn't hold her interest nearly so much as the trains did.

Until, that is, she opened the gift Jack picked out for her during a trip with me to the city the other day. The little ballerina doll has a tutu sort of like the tutu I gave Lu a few weeks ago, and it was a real hit. Lucia loved her and apparently even had to sleep with "Priscilla" (named by her Papa) last night.

I wrote Lucia a story about the day she was born and had it printed as a photo book, which turned out great. Lu was a little lukewarm on it when she opened it yesterday, but with all the toys and activity I really can't blame her; and after I read it to her last evening before I left, she was very interested in the rhyming story and pictures. When I talked to Sis earlier today she said that even after just hearing it one time, Lucia had been "reading" it this afternoon and getting some of the passages pretty close to the way they're written.

She's a smart little thing.

I'm surprised she hasn't figured out that her mommy is five months pregnant...

Yes, Sis is expecting Baby #2 in April, and we're all so excited we can't stand it. Once again she and Chris have decided not to learn the sex of the baby until it is born - Surprises are great!

Sis looks wonderful and even completed the St. Jude's Half Marathon in Memphis last Saturday. She did a combo of walking and running for the 13.1 mile route and ended up raising over $800 for St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital. Everyone is really proud of her for her accomplishment, which means even more considering the baby on board and all!

YAY, Sis!!

There's a whole album of photos from Lucia's birthday at photobucket -- click here and it will open up in a new window for you...