'Tis The Season

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

I hope everyone has a great and relaxing time today with their friends and families!

This year we had to purchase a new tree. A couple weeks ago or so I was getting the decorations out, and of course, the tree. Pulled it out of it's box and discovered that during its time in storage, it had managed to break itself. Will wonders never cease!

So to deal with the small tragedy, we got a small tree. It fits ever so nicely on our end table (which we have no room to move anywhere else, making it the only place for a tree) and we have loads of space under it for gifts! As you can see, Saint Nick loaded us up!

You can see here in this close-up that the ends of the needles have been scruffified (why yes that is a word, in my world), making the tree look frosted (not flocked) when lit. It's hard to tell from the pictures, but we have twinkling lights on the tree as well as regular ones. We didn't go all trailer park though, the regular and twinkle lights are evenly interspersed together.

Bubble lights are a must have in this house. I grew up with them on the tree every Christmas. The husband would love to pick up enough of these to decorate a tree entirely in bubble lights one of these years. I think that would be very interesting indeed.

Each year we also insist on having a few breakables on the tree as possible. With seven cats, the likelihood of the tree taking a nose-dive is high. I'd rather pick up whole ornaments than bits of ornaments.

Everybody have a Merry Christmas today and a Happy New Year!

Winter Raiments

We haz da snowz!

Again.

But this time more fell and it got a lot colder.

This was the view of the inner courtyard at my apartment building. Too bad you cannot really see the fluffy bits of crystal white floating down from the sky though the muted evening sun. It really was quite pretty. Sadly I am never really able to capture the beauty I see.

I need a better camera. One day.

Clicky for slightly larger picture.

'Tis The Season

One of the lovely things about being a stay-at-home mom and wife is that I have the mornings and afternoons to myself, to accomplish what I want or to take leisure time. Naturally my later afternoons and evenings are dedicated to cooking and looking after my family. I also have a sister who is able to stay at home, though her circumstances are slightly different, and her health dis-allows her from working too much outside of her home.

It is with this sister I enjoy spending some of my time with during the regular week (my other sister is busy and I can only kidnap her on Fridays and the weekends). However, lately, this has become a source of frustration. Not that my sister has done anything wrong, quite the contrary. It's me.

Twice now in the past month we have tried to get together to play amongst the pretty shops and sparkly things that catch our attentions. Twice now I have had to flatly refuse her.

Why?

Both hers and my own health.

I seem to be party central for the local cold/flu/virus. And it's not like I leave the doors wide open for these homewreckers either. They just seem to find me a rather hospitable host. And normally I appreciate that. But right now, it is just flat out making me mutter bizzarre curses in my little mind as I cough or try to swallow anything (sore throat). For this issue, I dare not expose my sister to my tenants, for she has a battered immune system as it is.

So alone I get to be tomorrow morning and afternoon. But that is okay. I still have a lot of cleaning to do. Well, there is always a lot of cleaning to do. It's like it multiplies in dark corners with the fertility of rabbits then crawls out in the predawn hours for me to trip over or stumble across later that morning.

Maybe the cats have something to do with it.

This is a picture I took a couple years ago. If you look carefully you can see this was taken in the city. Instead of 'Where's Waldo' it's Where's Stop Light'. I post this now because I love winter and I love snow, and it has been snowing outside this evening. Just a little. But I enjoy watching it fall from the murky cold skies to the earth.

Winter is my favorite time of year. I love the feel of things sleeping softly. If you pay close attention, you can actually feel the trees dozing. Well at least the ones of the non-evergreen variety. Though the evergreens to feel a little drowsy in winter because their sap slows down dramatically.

Now, hopefully that cough medicine I took a little while ago will kick in soon so I can drift off to my own rest without trying to expell my internal organs.

They really do need to stay on the inside.

Good Night? Good Morning??

I'm not certain if this is a sunrise or sunset. I was thinking it was a sunset, but now that I look at it more, I think it is a sunrise. I am up that early on a fairly regualr basis.

I hate mornings.

I Taek Pikumchurs

You really do need to click on this for the full effect of the larger size. I really like watching water drip like this. It moves in such fascinating ways. It's a challenge to catch it on camera without setting it up. I guess I'm obsessed with water partially because I'm a Piscean.

Yay fishies!

This is one of the railing posts at my apartment complex during a rainshower.

Shutterbug In Blue

I'm a regular visitor to Fark. In fact, I waste an awful lot of time on that site. For the uninitiated, it's a non-news site. News of the weird, asinine, and actual info gets posted there, as do photoshop contests, caption contests, and photo contests. Lots of various contests. Not the norm, mind you, but lots of stuff there for everyone.

And definitely not for those of weak constitution.

I decided to throw my hat into the ring on the latest photography contest. The theme was Blue, the difficulty in it being no sky. I immediately thought of some of the pictures I had taken when a gaggle of us had gone to see Blaqk Audio when they graced Denver with their musical genius. No, I cannot say enough good about Davey Havok and Jade Puget's little side project.

This is Davey and Jade as Blaqk Audio. No, I did not take this one. They had a professional do this. Sadly blogger likes to shrink pictures. Both of them are deliciously pretty.

This picture is one of the ones I submitted for the photography contest. Davey singing against a back light of blue. However, the lens glare and all that created a pretty cool effect. He was awesome.

This was the other photo I submitted to the contest. I was right up against the stage. I took this while we listened to the opening act, some hack techno wannabe, and we were all trying to kill some time. This was a tape line on the stage. I thought it would take a cool picture.

I'll make a post about the concert sometime later, and include some more pictures. What got me so excited about this contest is that people actually voted for my entries. No, I came no where close to winning. It's just cool that someone else liked my snappings.

It gives me warm fuzzies that croon Davey's lyrics at me.

Down Came The Rain

The hurricane that has graced Texas and Mexico has brought is some wonderful rain showers. It has cooled things significantly this afternoon, and it's luscious. I've had the door and windows open to take advantage of the electricity-free cooling.

While peeking outside, baby water dragon and I saw this little guy struggling desperately to create his own little home on the railing.

As you can see, his web is a bit rain and wind damaged. Quite determined for a little guy, he's no bigger than the top of a pencil including his legs, he kept trying to repair the threads as more kept breaking.
Spiders, as much as I despise them in my house, are quite amazing creatures.