Monday, January 12, 2015

It's a Cold January!

It's been cold around here so far this month.  Cold November, warm December, cold January...we seem to have a regular weather pattern happening!  I'll take a warm February, and a vacation in March!  

I haven't wanted to venture outside to take pictures very often this month, this one was taken from the kitchen window.  The squirrel's fluffy tail seems to serve a nice purpose in keeping them warm.  And besides, if they had skinny tails they would look a lot like rats!


Billy spent his last week of winter break hanging around home thinking of things to do.  He decided to make some chocolate roses for his girlfriend.  Thanks to google, they turned out pretty good!  He put them on top of frosted cupcakes when all was said and done.  Funny what they'll do for a girl!


We went and watched my great niece play hockey last weekend.  Or is is grand niece?  My niece's daughter, how's that.  They are pretty cute playing hockey at that age!  They sure bounce up faster from falling than I would!


Sunday was a lazy day of watching football.  Billy went back to college, Brian was spending the day with friends, Eric was getting ready for a business trip...and I was lazy.  So lazy that I didn't even attempt to take a picture until well after dark.  It was a good test of the higher ISO settings on my camera.  Shot out of the dining room window...not too grainy at 3200 ISO.


A cold Monday, catching up on a few things.  It seemed like a good day to take a picture of my arrangement that is on my front step.  Mostly because I was out of other ideas.  I'm in need of inspiration, or at least warm weather.


The good news is that things are supposed to warm up by the weekend.  Maybe getting outside will help me out of my photo slump.  It can't hurt!  Thanks for stopping by!


Thursday, January 8, 2015

Catzilla and a Tiger

The cute and cuddly Greta becomes catzilla when she decides to terrorize my Christmas village.


The big ferocious tiger at Como Zoo looks a lot like a cute and cuddly cat when it takes a nap in the snow.  So many things in life are just a matter of perspective.


The winter days seem too cold to bear.  But the polar bear doesn't mind being bare.  He was happy to be swimming and playing in the ice cold water.  Like I said, it's all a matter of perspective.  I think he sort of looks like a big happy dog.


He'd probably like to have a nice big bear hug and a scratch behind the ear about as much as that tiger would.


I'm guessing that he'd take that hug and a scratch or two right before he ate you for lunch.  I think I'll just admire him from behind the glass.  And that's all I have for today.  Thanks for stopping by!


Wednesday, January 7, 2015

A Whole New Year

Christmas quickly came and went, followed by New Years flying past taking all of my resolutions right along with it.  So it goes.  Why does it seem like everything can change with the coming of a new year?  The hopeful feeling that it brings is a good thing I guess.  We're a full week into the new year, that hopeful feeling of actually doing things differently is fading fast!   So here we are, instead of blogging more regularly as I had planned for the new year it's photo of the day catch up time.  My intentions were good, my follow through not so much.

I took this picture of a beautiful lit tree way back in the middle of December.  It was actually only 3 weeks ago, but it feels like ages ago.  I had one really busy shopping day for Christmas, no time for a photo with my camera, so I resorted to a cell phone picture.  The tree was gorgeous, the picture doesn't do it justice.


Our bird feeders aren't as busy as in years past, I think our cat has a lot to do with that!  It was a treat to see this cardinal on a snowy day.


It took well over a week for me to get over the crud I had caught when I was in Vegas.  Being totally worn out during the weeks leading up to Christmas isn't a good thing.  We slowly got things done.  The angel is one of the first things to go onto the tree.


December brought a string of really dark, cloudy days.  Temps were warmer than normal, but the sun never came out.  I snapped a picture of some of my Christmas decorations during one of the rare times that the sun peaked out.


Really busy days, dreary days, neither are very conducive to taking photos everyday.  It's a good challenge I guess.  This horse and sleigh are a part of my winter village.


Ornaments, one of my go to items for photos this time of year.  Santa skipped his sleigh and just hopped on his reindeer's back.


I have a couple of collections of horse ornaments.  I love taking them out every year.


I made scarves for the girls in my family this year.  These were for my sweet great niece.  The one with the frog is flannel on front and back, the one with the flowers was flannel on one side and a soft corduroy on the other.  It was a project that I sort of made up as I went along.  Scarves with hand cut felt application's in the corners.  Not a great picture, but I liked how they turned out.


We scurried about to get things done the day before Christmas Eve so we could get to the farm in time to go to a very special candle light church service.  It used to be so beautiful and so special. This year it was filled with very loud and very restless children.  I actually regretted rushing through things to get there in time...it was that bad.  I do totally understand that kids will be kids, what I don't understand is parents that don't bother to parent those kids.  On a lighter note, this fluffy chickadee can't keep her little ones quiet either.


We enjoyed a warmer than normal Christmas Day at Eric's folks house.  The woodpecker was busy at the feeder enjoying some Christmas suet.


We came home late Christmas night and the boys opened their gifts.  Considering they both insisted they didn't want gifts, they were both pretty excited to have some things to open!  They are still little boys at heart, I love it.


The day after Christmas, Eric was hit by the stomach flu.  Brian came down with a horrible migraine.  Not much fun.  It was a quiet day around here.


The following day the stomach bug hit me.  Wow, it was really unpleasant!  For a person that rarely gets sick, catching two nasty bugs in one month was a little hard to handle!


I'm hoping that it means we are done with illness around here for a while.  It was a good reminder not to take our health for granted, that's for sure.


With my energy and creativity at such a low, the horse ornaments came in pretty handy for my photos of the day.


I got this cute Clydesdale for Christmas last year, but it seemed new because this was the first year it hung on the tree.


I usually take my tree down around New Years, but since we put it up so late this year, it stayed up a little longer than normal.  It's down now, and sadly still out on the curb.  Our garbage man didn't take it away on Tuesday like we thought he would.  Hopefully we didn't miss the pick up date!


Eric and I took a quick trip over the the Como Park Conservatory to see the poinsettia display while it was still there.  So did half of the Twin Cities.  It was crowded there!  I did manage to get a couple of pictures without people in them.  I liked this one the best.


We drove up to the farm to spend Saturday with my mom.  It's always good to check in on my horses.  Czar must have been enjoying his hay, he even had some in his mane.


They are always happy to have a little extra feed when I come to see them.


On Sunday the temps dropped.  It's been bitterly cold ever since.  The type of cold where you stay inside unless you really have to go out.  Stay inside and smell the flowers cold.


It gave me a chance to get all of the Christmas stuff put away.  I love the little lights, part of me would like to keep those up all winter, but the clutter of Christmas needed to go, so the lights did too.  So my pictures will probably be mostly flowers again.


Flowers and cats.  This clay bowl is Greta's very favorite place to sleep.  Apparently it's the perfect size and shape. She is the strangest cat.


But she provides some entertainment around here, and that's not such a bad thing.  With these cold days, taking a nap in a bowl is starting to seem like a good idea.


Well, the nap part sounds good anyway.  It's a New Year, some changes might happen around here eventually.  Until then, thanks for stopping by!