Christmas decorating

We might have a white Christmas... or not. It's white enough for me right now, with just enough snow to cover the ground. However, with above-freezing temps predicted for this weekend, it could disappear. Never fear, though... there's snow in the forecast for next week, just how much remains to be seen.

We had some freezing rain on Monday, so the trees are coated with ice yet. I took these photos on Wednesday... when we actually had some sunshine for a while, making it a glittery world... to show you the "decorations". Click any pic to enlarge it.

The above photos were taken in the morning. Late in the afternoon I took some more when the sun was close to setting. You can see the color difference in these below.

I really should finish my decorating! The tree is up, and it has lights on it, but that's all. I was planning to have my little helper assist me with the tree on Monday, but due to the freezing rain, school closed early and she went to daycare instead. Since then I've been sewing... and I'd better get back to it!

Sunshine and daggers

We had SUNSHINE yesterday!! It really helped (with the mood, as well as with melting the ice)!! Our ice is about 99.9% gone now, with only a chunk hanging here or there.

We had some rare sunshine for a while on Saturday, too, and I couldn't resist taking these pics of the ice on the trees, because they were very pretty, despite their brokenness. They were so sparkly! It's too bad it doesn't show up very well in the pics.

The ice melted in interesting ways, creating some mean-looking daggers. Some of them were even angled because of the wind.

These hanging from the evergreen tree the next morning looked downright wicked!

I guess there's beauty to be found practically anywhere. But I'm going to have a really hard time seeing it in our next round of rain/sleet/snow that's coming up this week. Ack.

Foto-Class projects

I finally got the results back from the photos I sent in for my classes. I thought I'd share the pics with you. This one is my portrait example and is, of course, of Josie. She was right next to my computer monitor, and lying still even, which was very handy for getting a good photo of her. My instructor liked the photo, particularly the "catch lights" in her eyes (which were totally unintentional on my part... I hadn't had that lesson yet). I particularly like the coloring in her eyes.

Below is an example of "freeze motion". I was supposed to capture something in motion, and with a really fast shutter speed, make the motion appear to stop. The only thing I could find moving at the time (Josie doesn't move on command very well) was this icicle hanging from the roof of our garage. So I "froze" it against the sky. I like it! My instructor did, too. :)

There's one more photo I sent in with these two, but I'll show you that later, because it has a little story to go with it.

Glistening trees

The freezing rain we had a few days ago has made for some interesting decorations in the trees, especially when the sun came up and highlighted them this morning. These little icicles look like they should be hung on a Christmas tree.

Below is the same view, only my flash went off unexpectedly. It made for a little different look. I think I like it better.

Here's the other side of that tree, with more sparkles:

Behind the tree you can see the the sun glaring off the ice on the driveway:

Yeah, we have plenty of ice. It only got warm enough to begin melting the compacted snow, and now it's frozen hard into solid ice. 7°F below zero hard, in fact! This is what our driveway looks like at the turn coming up to the garage:

VERY slippery, especially with that little skiff of snow on top! :(  I don't look forward to backing out and making that turn when I have to go into town tomorrow. That ditch on the far side is pretty steep! But, I've made it on worse... like a smooth sheet of glare ice. Scary, though!!

Here's some more living room window frost from this morning. I especially like that "bush" or "mini forest" or whatever it is in the upper right portion of the picture:

I've been working on my camera classes. So much to learn... I don't know if this ol' brain is up for all that. The settings on my camera are different than those in the classes, so I'm having to study the manual really hard, but I'm pretty confused at this point. I'm REALLY appreciating all the automatic things my old camera does for me!

Last night I finally cut some fabric again. I haven't sewn a stitch since I made the little AG doll hobo bag. That's over 2 weeks ago - yikes! Okay, life's been a bit crazy here lately, and it's not done yet, so my focus is off, to say the least. But today I think I'll get a little sewing in. Creativity is great therapy!

Hope?

The sun is gaining power these days. So there must be hope that spring is on its way! Here's a little evidence of it. Despite the fact that it didn't make it up to 30° yesterday (and it's only 10° now, BTW), there still was a bit of melting going on. Note the icicles on this evergreen tree:

Just ignore all the snow that's still around the gas tank (like I'm trying to ignore the 5+ foot snowdrift that covers most of our back yard, among other places). At least we can SEE the tank now! And I purposely didn't take more pics of all that white 'stuff'.

Have a closer look at the icicles.

Have hope!

(Click to enlarge, for even bigger hope! ;-) )

I took these pics just minutes ago. I've kinda scraped the bottom of the barrel of photos lately, and I don't have much left to post. I do, however, have a couple of projects in the works to show you soon. One should get finished today, and the other is an ongoing one with Courtney. Maybe we'll get that far enough along tomorrow that I can post pics of it soon, too.

And WHEN spring gets here, the beautiful (i.e. not WHITE) photos will begin again!

(Do I sound like I've had enough of winter???) Ha!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Brrrrrr!!! It's a rather nippy start to a new year... barely made it above zero today, with a major wind chill! Still, it was pretty this morning... note the very blue sky below. And hanging from the garage roof... marshmallow icicles?!

And here are some more marshmallows... skewered and ready for the bonfire!
I hope 2008 brings all of you much happiness, pretty scenery around you, and troubles as light as marshmallows! ;-)