Meredith’s mom

This is Chris. She’s Meredith’s mom. She’s also mom to Danny and Billy. I see her every so often, as she is the daughter of the sister of my sister-in-law’s husband. You know, those people that you see at holidays and other special occasions?

I’ve known her since she was just a wee little thing, but I wish I saw her more often, because she’s totally cool.

Due to events that were beyond my control, the last time I saw this family was [here].

And she has the most fantastic family, too. Nice husband and three well-mannered kids. And Meredith is her daughter.

Meredith does not enjoy being photographed.

No. No. No. Meredith does not.

Run away from the lady with the camera, Meredith!

Her brother Billy, on the other hand, is a natural. Thank you Billy, for making it so darn easy.

I would have photographed his older brother, Danny, but he was busy losing at Wii Bowling to my mother-in-law, who dusted the lanes with everyone present.

Apparently, my MIL is the queen of Wii Bowling.

It wasn’t until my lovely niece, Kim asked Meredith to pose for a photo to put in her new apartment. “C’mon, Mer, I need a picture of you and I together for my apartment, k. Please?”

And Meredith acquiesced. (Dear Meredith: If you are reading this now, please look up the word ‘acquiesced’. I love vocabulary and I think you will, too.)

And once she warmed up to the nice lady with the camera, I got this one as well.

Thanks, Kim. I couldn’t have done it without you. And to Meredith’s mom: You have the most well-behaved, personable kids. It’s such a wonderful reflection on the parents when the children are a joy to be around. I’m just sayin’.

I’m already looking forward to the next time I see you all.

Love,

All I wanted on this day

Long-time readers of this blog know that I rarely, if ever, post photos of myself. But when I downloaded my Thanksgiving shots after getting home tonight, well I couldn’t help it just this once.

I think that my joy in being with my sons is quite apparent. It’s all I wanted today. That’s Matt on the left and Shaun on the right, who I hadn’t seen for awhile.

The food was great, the company was a pleasure, but seeing my sons and listening to Shaun play the piano meant the world to me.

I think I need a frame for this one.

Next month, I celebrate my two year blogging anniversary. For two years, I’ve been writing a post nearly every day and I can’t believe how much I enjoy it. In July of 2008, I began my other blog, A Picture A Day. It’s been wonderful getting to know you, my readers, and visiting all the wonderful blogs out there. To celebrate, I’m going to be holding a giveaway later in December. I’ll keep you posted on that.

Until tomorrow, then . . .

Sometimes it’s better to have an empty plate

This post goes to all the people who are having a rough time of it out there.

You know who you are.

Life has handed you a plateful of trouble, and you're doing your best to deal with it and maybe praying for a bigger plate.

Holidays are difficult, and I want you to know that I’m thinking of you today.

I want you to know that I hope what's been put on your plate becomes more bearable soon.

But for now, I want to say that it won’t always be like this. It will get better and it will get easier.

All of the photos in this post were taken last Thanksgiving. This year my plate seems so much lighter.

Thanks to everyone who visits this little blog of mine, for your comments, for your support and for the absolutely incredible things you say sometimes. You rock my world.

Amen.

The perils of working at a school

I don’t think I’ve done this little sweet treat justice with my photography. To see them all laid out, all 24 of them for a classroom and some extras, well it just makes me happy.

Sometimes I think it’s some sort of affliction that I have that makes me well up at the simplest things. Seeing these little treats brings back memories of when I was a doting mom and did things such as this.

This was made with all of the obvious ingredients shown here and was held together by frosting. I brought him home wrapped up and safely secured in my lunchbox so that I could share him with you. This cookie is just too darn cute.

So one of the perils of working at a school is all the goodies that come out of the woodwork. I’ve been doing a great job of staying away from them lately, but I love Keebler Fudge Stripe cookies and couldn’t help myself with this one.

Another peril of working at the school involves the embarrassment I sometimes suffer in the morning car line by simply being myself. I told you about my recent Allman Bros. debacle, but what happened today was just typical me.

I never use a hairdryer at home. It’s just no use with my curly hair and it looks best when air-dryed anyway. So what I do is what anybody would do (or so I thought), and that’s dry it on the way to work using the fans from the car. I point the fans to my hair, turn the heat up just a tad, and then blast the air on my head. It takes about 10 minutes to dry my short hair this way and besides, it’s multi-tasking and is something that has always worked for me.

Unfortunately, this morning I was in lah-lah land all the way to school, day dreaming while driving, thinking about seeing my loved ones this week on Thanksgiving, and it wasn’t until I pulled into the school driveway that I noticed that my hair was still damp. Gah!

I’d forgotten to turn on the fans!

So I quickly turned it on full blast and put my head right up to the little slats on the dashboard and I didn’t care who saw me as I drove around the school and out back to my parking space. Unfortunately my co-worker Rich was outside in the car line directing traffic and now makes fun of the way I dry my hair. And he’s told everyone.

And apparently, everyone does not dry their hair thisaway.

I was more embarrassed at having been discovered rocking out to the car radio, so honestly this is nuthin’. Nuthin’ I can’t handle.

Loved loved loved reading all your comments yesterday. Thanks so much for filling in the blanks. I tried to respond to everyone who’s linked via e-mail because some of the answers were just so touching.

Until tomorrow, then?

Persistence

Nothing I’ve done tonight is working out. I was fooling around with a seamless background border for my blog, but it didn’t go well. I’m going to keep at it because someday I know I’m gonna finally ‘get it’.

In lieu of a post today, I’ve decided to take the easy way out, and do this.

Outside my window it’s dark and chilly.

I am thinking that all I have done tonight is for naught.

I am thankful that I feel really well.

From the kitchen the cookies are calling me. Why can’t it be the cheerios? Or the apples?

I am wearing gray Polartech pants, white mock-turtleneck (I can’t stand turtlenecks anymore)an old Eddie Bauer wool vest, socks and my sheep slippers.

I am creating absolutely nothing. Nothing has worked all evening. It happens sometimes.

I am going out to the kitchen and pop a soft pretzel in the microwave. And have it with some Grey Poupon. I love saying Pou-pon.

I am reading Julia Child’s “My Life in France”.

I am hoping that my Thanksgiving recipes are a success.

I am hearing little yelps from George’s doggie dream. It probably involves squirrels.

Around the house it’s good to have clean windows in the living room. They were a lot of work.

One of my favorite things is when children at school are happy to see me.

A few plans for the rest of the week include gathering ingredients for my recipes, and seeing family members on Thursday.

Here is picture thought I am sharing.

I took this photo at Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania when they had their orchid display this past spring.

And now, if you will . . . Please fill in the blanks:

One of my favorite things ______________________________ .

Outside my window __________________________________ .

I am hoping ________________________________________ .

See you in the comments, my friends.

Evening in Paris

I’m apologizing immediately. I’m really really sorry if you came here solely because of the post title. (We’d all like to spend an evening in Paris, wouldn’t we?)

However, this is just a post with photos of a border collie, with the lights of the city in the background. I don’t know if I’d even call it a city. It’s just the lights along the main route.

I only wrote the title because of the lights, and that’s the truth.

I went outside late this afternoon with camera in hand, and took some photos of George in the waning light. And it wasn’t long until I could hear the sound of

“SQUIRRELS!!”

I am not kidding. I heard them crashing from branch to branch.

Soaring through the canopy of leafless tree limbs . . . and running along the ground.

It’s distracting, I tell you. And I love the bokeh in this last shot.

And the border collie in it, as well.

Until tomorrow, my friends . . .

Bokeh is pronounced bow-kay or bow-keh and it refers to that lovely out-of-focus light and all the different shapes and colors you see in the background of photos taken with a digital camera. It is created by light and and the glass in your lens and distance and wind and focus. It's a Japanese term for the subjective aesthetic quality of out-of-focus areas of a photographic image.