The Christmas Decorating Dillema

Undoubtedly there are some amongst you under the mistaken impression that I am good with Christmas decorations. This post will go far in dispelling any such notions.

Saturday afternoon Matt suggested we get the Christmas tree, and he would decorate it. Who was I to argue with such an offer? Because I was glued to the television, watching another nail biter football game played by the Seminoles, Bruce and Matt went to the Russell Home lot to pick out a tree. I will say that there was a time in my life where this would have been unthinkable, but that time is not now.

Before long they returned with the tree, and went about putting it up, with little, or no, input from me.

I say little because I did ask if that were all the lights going up. But that was it, everything else I left to him. You may remember that last year  I had super-duper Sue doing the tree! If you don't remember, there is always the link, and if that is too much trouble, I'll just say that she put 700 lights on a tree not much bigger than this one! Anyway, Matt did a wonderful job, making the tree look a little old-fashioned, with the garland strung just so.

This is not the first time Matt has done a tree for me all by his lonesome. The year we moved into our home on Whistler Dr., he was 9 years old, the twins were 6, and Jon boy was 2. If you can imagine we moved into our new home about nine days before Christmas. As you can also imagine, Bruce and I were very, very busy. Matt offered to do the tree, and we let him. Crazy, right?

I will tell you Tom was uninterested in both this project, and football--I believe he thinks I'm a little bit nutty over college football. The truth is--he is on to something!

Sunday, because they were leaving in the afternoon, we stayed home, once again, from the market. While Matt and Tom met up with his friend Liza, and her adorable daughters, at the nearby park, Bruce and I made a quick trip to see the newly opened Artegon, advertised relentlessly in our local paper. The subtitle to this blog is "out and about with Gail", thus I'm sharing what it is, like hoping to save you the gas money.

To say that it is a waste of both your time, and gas money, is an understatement. Oh my! Taking over the inside footprint of the forlorn Festival Bay mall, it has been a year in the making. My email inbox has been filled with pleas looking for people to set up "shop" there. Above are the pictured "shops." And do you see how ugly the corner booth is? They are mostly all that way. Plus, it is just so cheesy. I'm trying my best to remember the name of the "shop" that has these,

for what I'm presuming is, hire. Critter Crawlers? Who knows? There are the adult versions on your left, as well as the little ones, for little ones. I've no idea what propels them, but it is not your feet. The bottom line is this--don't bother.

Following the London lads departure, I'm pretty sure we made it an early bedtime, followed by an early rising on Monday morning. Riding my bike over to Cheryle's house, I was dying to see this gorgeous new hibiscus in bloom.

Stunning is an appropriate description, don't you think? Her garden was abuzz with bees in the early morning sunshine.

That bee has quite the load!!

After laundry and what have you, it was time for me to finish the decorating. Bah humbug! I need help! I began by looking everywhere for the table runner which I first used in 2010.  Perhaps I ruined it, and just don't remember, but it was nowhere, and I mean nowhere, to be found. Well now what? I put it off until Tuesday. Eventually I went up to Ross looking for something else. Struggling with where to put stuff, it took me way longer than you would think, and it still doesn't look like much. Eventually I quit trying to pretend I am good at Christmas decorations.

The boxes are all stacked ready to go up in the garage for a few weeks before the dismantling begins. One thing I know for certain, getting the lights off of the tree this year will be a far easier task than last!! Although I loved last year's themed tree, it is good to have my old favorite ornaments once again.

Whereas Christmas decorating escapes me, I am good at reading. Is that a skill? Let's decide to call it one, shall we? This time of year The New York Times publishes their notable list of books, of which I wrote down this batch:

Just today I finally finished one on the list that you don't see, Lila, by Marilynne Robinson. Perhaps it was because I read it in short spurts, but for me, it was not as compelling as Home, or Gilead. I would not take my word for it though. The book on this list that I'm dying to read is Nora Webster. Our wonderful library should be delivering it any day now.

Wednesday I set aside time to get my business in order; another task I like less, and less, as time goes on. Do I sound like I'm turning into a curmudgeon? It does to me, so I believe I'll quit before I get too cranky!

Experimenting with Macro

I am easily distracted. Let me just sit down at the computer, to say, look up how to remove seeds from spent marigold blossoms, and the next thing you know, I'm watching a video on Macro shooting. Truth is, the video is probably more important in the grand scheme of things to an alleged photographer than the seed gathering so maybe it wasn't all bad.

You see, although I bought the Tamron lens, I really had/have no idea how best to use it. Sure, I've had it on the Nikon D60, but how close can you get, what settings, all that stuff is mostly beyond me. So, the video helped, first and foremost because I learned that if I want to get really good shots, I need to manually focus the camera, certainly not my specialty. I'm more of an automatic girl, but don't tell that to folks who think I'm a "real" photographer. They may quit buying--oh wait, they already have! Just joking about the buying part, but it has indeed been a difficult summer.

But onward we go because rather than cleaning out my food cupboards, I got into macro mode and these photographs are the result of my distraction.

If you can imagine I even put it on manual settings with mixed results;  I'm only showing you the good stuff.

Amazingly, most of these have only been slightly cropped with not even the "I'm Feeling Lucky" treatment. So, as you can see, I went around the yard looking for small stuff.

If only bees stayed still longer we might possibly see the pollen on the legs and body even better. I still can hardly believe the ivy geranium is still blooming:

The thryallis is going plumb crazy, blooming like mad with all the recent rain around these parts.

And then there are the marigold seeds:

By now I have so many I could plant a field of marigolds next summer! I'll be happy to share if you're so inclined.

I went looking in the garage,

and back to the coffee table display,

In case you didn't notice, I'm pretty jazzed with this combo, mostly because two friends contributed, the candle is a Goodwill find, and the Frank Lloyd Wright coasters are a nod to Mr. Bruce. Isn't it great when you can decorate with feeling? So much more interesting than purchasing an already made "look."

Adjacent to the thimble I found in my sewing box is a small piece of dust which looms large when you're shooting macro!

This thimble belonged to either Bruce's Mother, or Grandmother, don't know which because I have both of their sewing boxes, but either one put it to good use as the close up makes very evident.

Even the spirals on a notebook can look interesting when viewed close up:

Finally this little scene which is on my external hard drive:

On the left is a box of candies from our visit to London--the company website is fantastic!  The little figure dates back to my time at Valencia; I'm thinking I maybe got it at Burger King which was about two blocks from the Winter Park campus? Mr. Penguin bobs if you pat his head. :)

So, there you have it. The light has been particularly dull all afternoon, which can be both good and bad for photography. Good if you know what you are doing, bad if you're a lightweight like me! You guessed it-- rain this afternoon, with more on the way.

Although I did not get to my can cupboard, I did, early this morning, clean out under the sink, which, don't hold your breath or anything, will be shown in way more detail than is necessary tomorrow.

Off to the kitchen to dream up some sort of dinner,
Gail

Good grief, it's another P. S. !!  A photographer made a pilgrimage to photograph the sites used on Twin Peaks. There are those amongst you who will find this fascinating.

It's A Package!

This arrived in yesterday's post-- a package from my flickr. friend, Paige in Ottawa! Not only did she send the maple syrup, but she included a sweet card from herself and her eldest son Johnny Rocket. As well, she sent maple tea, a first for me. When Bruce gave me the camera for Christmas, I never dreamed how much it would add to my life. Matthew suggested flickr and then paid for the pro account; I can't tell you how much fun it has been for me. I love to see other's photos and see what the rest of the great big world is all about from regular folks, not the media. I have been enriched by my contacts already and it has only been a few months. I have one in Viet Nam and his photos of street scenes and people working are fascinating.

As is often the case, when I set out to take one kind of picture another entirely different one appears. That is the case with my most popular picture on flickr so far (aside from the silly shoe ones). I went to Rollins to photograph the buildings for Bill and Leanne, a rose garden was part of the mix. There you go, I couldn't resist. A bee just happened to be in the right place at the right time.

So, I went to see the neurologist today. It was a very unusual appointment to say the least. He spent over an hour with me, thoroughly examining my reflexes etc. He called me back himself and even dictated my case while I was in the room. He had a fourth year med student from FSU in there and he kept asking her why would this happen (you name the symptoms)? I get the impression that he will do his darnedest to get to the bottom of this. He even went on line while I was in there researching stuff. I'm to have a nerve conduction test in the next week or two and possibly MORE blood work. He actually threw out some ideas for a diagnosis--one in particular I don't want called amyloidosis--a fatal disease.

Yesterday I found out our little Baxter can swim like nobodies business. He fell in the pool while I was skimming the top and swam to shore!