Trimming The Leaning Tower of Tree-sa

Images and ponderings from our tree decorating activities...

The tree is leaning.  We had to finally reconcile ourselves to that fact!  ;)  "They" said they are going to have Christmas on the 25th, whether our tree is straight or not.


I have turned it so that it leans into the corner!

Big sis was very patient in giving lessons on not putting ornaments too close to the end of the branch and separating ones that were alike. After a bit of time, the boy was done with the decorating and into chasing the cat around the tree, not at all helping with the leaning tree syndrome!

Tree lights have always been a source of slight distress on my part.  I have searched high and low for the perfect tree lights of my childhood.

During the nineties, while decorating the first tree I had in my own home, I was surrounded by the mini-yellow light craze.  Blah!  Every tree in America had these generic, white lights.  I wanted the multi-colored bulbs.  I really didn't care if, at that time, it were considered a bit "tacky".  It was Christmas -and Christmas is about memories and family!  To me, it was a matter of simply going out and buying these wonderful, nostalgic multi-colored, twinkling bulbs of wonder.  I had no idea of the changes in the tree light bulbing industry since the sixties.  Seems these glorious strings of lights of my youth were responsible for many a house fire... and after weeks of searching, appeared to be unavailable for purchase to the average consumer!

I finally resorted  to buying strings of outdoor lights, with large, chunky opaque bulbs and replacing each bulb with the hard-to-find, transparent(yet colored) twinkling bulbs, found in obscure places like on the bottom shelf at the back of CVS's clearance aisle.
  
Lately, I have noticed more and more folks are going with these merry, multi-colored lights and I quite like it.

Related link I found:  http://www.collectorsweekly.com/christmas/lights

Happy Thanksgiving 2009

Great Site For E-Card Greetings!

A friend sent an e-card to me.  It was an animated painting by Jacquie Lawson.

Accompanied by such lovely music, these e-cards and screen-saver backgrounds are truly noteworthy.  Not just your everyday, run-of-the-mill e-cards... (if there is such a thing!)

I really enjoyed mine!  Thanks, Roxanne!






...and a big Thank You to our country's Veterans!

All Saint's Day School Project

How much fun was this?! My son chose St. George for his "All Saint's Day" Project at school.

After I had some fun with Photo-shop, the red poster is not readable :) 

On the sign, he wrote 5 facts about St. George:

1. Patron Saint of Boy Scouts
2. Feast Day is April 23
3. Slayed a dragon
4. Saved the king's daughter
5. Converted her village to Christianity
   

More Fun With Graphix!

My Daughter...On Her Eighteenth Birthday!

I love you!

Ah, summertime at the beach...

filling up senses...

fleeting, it calls on us to make the most of its briefness...

Front Porch Creature

There is a really weird spider on our front porch. It is only the size of my pinky nail, but boy is it creepy. I googled black and white spider with horns and came up with some interesting sites.... I'm wondering if this could be the same type of creature:


UPDATE: I received an answer from Dr. Joseph Culin of Clemson Entomology Center! Thanks Dr. Culin!!! (maybe I will email him back and ask if he would like to "have" my porch creature...)
"Kim
I think it is what is called the star bellied orb weaver, Anantheperia stellata. Most of the images in Google Images are not as white as yours is but most that I’ve seen are bright white.
Joe Culin"