The girl in a hat

She borrowed the hat from a friend. I would never have imagined her wearing anything with bunny fur!

Shaker Village

An oldie:

Laurie's tea set

When Laurie came to visit she brought this pretty tea set for Delaney. I think I need to get a lace doily to go with it.

Blue Sky

A little blue sky before the next snowstorm hits.

I posted this photo on my photo-of-the-day blog and ended up with this whole long post on my favorite 70s music. I'll spare you here.

Cam

Random photo of the boy watching The Godfather.

R-e-s-p-e-c-t

Do you like my new hat?


I looked good back in April. Stupid weight gain.

Laner

Delaney playing basketball, but I think it kind of looks like she's busting out some sweet dance moves, in which case that other girl should stop trying to get her freak on.

Yarn macro

January in Maine

Winter in Maine can be really pretty, but some days it just seems dreary.
I converted this photo from color to black and white and didn't see a whole lot of difference:

The sun struggling to break through the clouds:

Him again

I know. It's Baxter again. Sorry. It was either this or a closeup of my remote control.

Pinecone, three ways

I wonder if I'll get any creepy blog hits because my title says "three ways"?

Two crops of the same shot:

Baxter says Happy Birthday, Jim!

Happy Birthday to (Grampa)Jim H! Baxter sends you a doggie kiss:

Photoshop fun

I love to play in Photoshop (as anyone can see by how "fabulous" I like to try to make myself look in my own photos) and Sunday I decided to see what I could do with this boring photo of the yard during the snowstorm:
This is what I came up with:

To answer your questions about my lens mishap, Uncle John and Dad--no, it's not covered under warranty. It's more than a year old, and I dropped it on a tile floor. It's my most-used (and most expensive) lens, so I was pretty mad at myself. I have forgiven myself :-) and the lens is on its way to Canon for repair.

Laney in a hat

Laney in my latest knitting project.



Cam officially qualified for states in shot put at his meet the other night!

Basketball

Jump ball.

Bamboo

Chris's bamboo plant. He loves that thing.

The original shot:

Knitting

Some of my latest knitting projects:

My bros

Bald is beautiful.

Living room, painted

The freshly painted living room:

Two views with the furniture back in:

It looks like coffee ice cream. I just want to lick the walls!

Fishy skies

A couple of fisheye skies.

Twin silos

Grilled Cheese

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY MOM & MEAGHAN!

In honor of your birthdays, here is a photo of a grilled cheese sandwich. You can never have too much cheese in your life.
This week I've been putting this poster together. It's a year-end review of my photo of the day posts. This one is for my other blog (the photo a day challenge), and next I'll do one for this blog. It's 20x24 inches, and I just ordered a poster print to hang in the basement TV room.

Silver leaf

Basketball

It's that time of year.

Winter Sunset

More of the All Souls Chapel

A fishy front view of the chapel from yesterday's post.

I like the zoom on this fisheye. Depending on where I stand and how much I zoom in and out I can minimize the fishy effect:

The same shots but using a funky tool in Photoshop (like in yesterday's post):

Fishy Chapel

The All Souls Chapel at Preservation Park in Poland, Maine:

Gold Star

This should be the last ornament photo you'll have to see from me until next Christmas, since the decorations are put away until next year. I bought this one on clearance just so I could take a photo of it, because it's huge and gaudy. I'll probably still put it on my tree next year though because as I always say, I like a little tacky in my holiday decorations.

A photo from New Year's Eve

How you roll when you're hosting New Year's Eve for three 12-year-olds: alcohol free.
Actually, I did make myself a spritzer with white wine and pomegranate-flavored 7-Up, and it was delicious.

A sad farewell

We got the very sad news that family friend Patricia DeGrinney died suddenly on New Year's Day. Pat and her husband Joe have been very dear and supportive friends of Dad & Eleanor's for many years. Pat was so kind to open up her house to host Dad & Eleanor's 25th anniversary party in June. When Dad became ill this summer and couldn't return to Florida as planned, she offered her home once again to Dad & Eleanor as she did many times over the years, and she graciously hosted us and the rest of Dad & Eleanor's extended family any time we wanted to visit. I was the recipient of many of her generous and kind acts over the years. She and Joe picked me up at the airport when I flew to Florida to be with Dad when he was in the hospital. She sent me a note to offer any help she could give when she heard I was having surgery.
Pat dearly loved her family and was the mother of three and doting grandmother to eight. She always lit up when she told me about her grandchildren
She and Joe and Dad and Eleanor always had a good time together.
She will be greatly missed, and my sympathy and love go out to Joe and the whole DeGrinney family.

Bug

Doesn't this Bug look cute with the fisheye lens? Can you see Cam and Chris in the photo too?

Making some changes

I decided recently that since our formal living room gets hardly any use but is actually bigger than our family room, we should move the TV into that room in order to have more seating. Should have been simple. Move TV to living room. Done. Right? Wrong.

Why not get a nice new big TV while we're at it? And since the entertainment center won't hold the new TV and doesn't 'go' with the living room, better make a trip to the furniture store for a new TV stand, as seen below. Pardon the crap scattered on the floor. "Someone" promised me he's going to move it inside the stand, but so far my nagging hasn't worked. (Update: he started doing it as I sit here and type.)

So Delaney and I moved the furniture around in that room while Chris went to pick up the TV, and we decided on this configuration:

Pay no attention to the lump upon the sofa. He got a new Xbox for Christmas and has been busy playing his completely inappropriate violent game (bought by yours truly--I am a bad mother) nonstop. (The blood is super-realistic on the new TV.)

So my thought was to put the TV in there, move the furniture around, and then at a later time replace the furniture in this room. It's still in great shape (because we never used that room!) but I wanted to give the room a more up-to-date look.

Then I walked into the furniture store to look for TV stands and saw this set:

So we ordered it. It will be here in 4-6 weeks. Here's a closer view. I'm not sure I captured the color well in the photos. It's a dark green.
And we went with different pillows. Delaney picked the fabric on the left for the pillows. Didn't she do a good job? On the right is a closeup of the furniture fabric:
When it gets here the current furniture will go down into the basement TV room.
So a project that should have cost $0 now costs....well, a lot. And now the curtain will have to be changed, and then the lamps, chair, coffee and end tables, wall art.........................