Happy New Year

Hope everyone has a safe and happy New Year and that it's filled with only good things for you and yours.

After Christmas

Tiny village decoration

Hope everyone had a great Christmas holiday. We got to visit our daughter and her family in San Angelo while my brother came and visited our Mom which made for a good time for everyone. We ate some good food, chatted a lot, and opened some nice thoughtful gifts. Thankfully the traffic was light for us going and coming and so was the weather. I took my camera planning on taking a lot of pictures but I only took one! Guess my memory is getting bad too. Guess the coming New Year is the next thing to celebrate. Not much to that one though. We try to stay up to see the new year in but sometimes when the clock strikes 12pm it finds us snoozing. ;-) The sun is shining brightly this morning and it's supposed to be in the 60's and 77 on Saturday! I hope the hot dry New Year's Eve is not a portent for our hot dry weather to continue on the rest of the year. We could really use a cool wet summer but I guess we'll have to wait and see what Mother Nature will bring us. One thing this sunny dry weather will bring is the dreaded Cedar Fever...some is here because my eyes and ears itch. Sigh...at least it is seasonal and will go away in about 5 or 6 weeks.

Winter hass arrived...sort of

Fall leaves I saw on one of my walks

It still looks like fall around here even though winter officially arrived yesterday. Also so did the rain! Got an inch around here! It was nice falling asleep to the sound of falling rain.
Hope everyone who plans to be on the road this Christmas holiday to visit family and friends stays safe and has good weather.
Many thanks for the kind words I've gotten on my annual Christmas poem.
Well, I'm having a problem with Google this morning so I'm going to cut this short and post it before the browser has a fit again. Stay safe out there and have a Merry Christmas!

No More Rain :-(

Our lovely rain has moved out. It wasn't the drought busting rain we needed but it was nice and it greened things up a bit. Alas it did not come early enough or in the needed amounts to save some of the trees and other vegetation in the area. The trees shown in the picture should all be like the one to the left but as you can see they did not make it and are marked to be removed. Still the park is looking pretty and I know that the park employees and several volunteers works hard to make it look as nice as it does. As you can see in the picture not many people were out and about. I love it the most when it is cold and rainy and almost deserted. The sun brings out way too many people and their dogs which wouldn't be a problem if most of them would obey the pooper scooper laws but alas too many of them do not.

We went to see the new Twilight film and while I like the vampire genre and Robert Pattinson I find this take on it too young for me. While the CGI sequences were done well I felt they had way too many musical interludes for my tastes. It was best (for me) when the actors were interacting and the story was moved along. The new Sherlock Holmes film was more to my tastes and I did enjoy it. Robert Downey, Jr seldom disappoints.

Our daughter has been having a bit of trouble with her heel healing up. She had to return to the doctor because the incision site became infected and they had to open it up and clean it out and she's back in a short boot. Hopefully it will be taken care of soon.

a week after surgery

two and half weeks after surgery-ouch!

Sometimes Making a List Can Make You Sad

I was updating my Christmas card list today and became very sad when I saw how many of my friends on the list had died. One is too many but there were more than that to delete on my list. One I only learned had died after I sent my cards out last December. I emailed her and noticed she failed to email me back but I just figured she was busy or traveling. Not so. She was dying from a brain tumour but never said a word. I did keep emailing her since the emails always went through but I should have called and asked why I hadn't heard from her. When I did hear some news it was from her husband telling me of her passing. So here is my goodbye to some wonderful people that I used to write to and should have written to more. Sandy Ahara, Marie Russell, Eddie Gardiner, and Bonnie Carr. Sadly Eddie's wife and our good friend Betty Gardiner is in a nursing home suffering from advanced dementia. I wrote my annual poem dealing with this subject before I updated my list so I guess they were all on my mind. So write or call or visit  your friends and loved ones while you can because they won't be here forever.

Blustery Day

Wonderful walk this morning. Around 35 and windy, almost feels like winter. Not many people out on the Hike and Bike Trail though, just a few runners and a couple of people walking their dogs.We had three days of light rain and even an early morning thunderstorm and it was all great. Wish we had more.
Did walk over to the Occupy Austin site but there are few hardy souls out there right now. One young man I talked to said they are planning in Occupy Foreclosure type protest which is to occupy empty homes that were foreclosed on. I don't know how that will go over with those who own these properties but I guess we will see if this protest takes place.
Here are a few more photos taken over Thanksgiving week.

Frankie, Pam, Lauren

Waiting on news of sisters foot surgery

Cyndi's foot a week after surgery

Evie and Frankie

Awwww

Rain, Rain, Stay a while

Had a lovely, mostly misty, Saturday. Early this morning it was raining pretty good and it was nice to lay in bed all toasty and warm and listen to the sound of the rain.


Black Crested Titmouse

Did find out that the little bird with the topknot is not a baby anything but it is a Black Crested Titmouse common in northern Mexico and Central to Southern Texas. They are very cute and very hyper! We also have had a cropped red-headed woodpecker come around to eat some raisins we put out and he is very handsome...for a bird that is. I hope to get a photo of him (I know it's a male because they have the red head and the females don't) some day soon.
The Longhorns got trounced by Baylor but I sort of expected they would lose but I did not expect that they would lose by that much. LSU is still rolling and look quite awesome.
Once Upon a Time is on tonight and it is a new episode. I hope so because I do so love the fairytale aspect of the show.
It's still dark and more rain looks like it is on the way so this Sunday is shaping up to be a good one. I think I might go back to sleep. :-)

Boogers

Felt kind of achy yesterday so I was plied with alka-seltzer plus and slept a lot. Better today but still a little boogery...know that's not a real word but it describes my condition at the moment.

We had a good time this past week. Had all our kids here and grandkids too. It's been a long time since we've had them all here at the same time so having them all here was a real treat. Evie traveled here from Seattle and it's the first time she's been here for Thanksgiving in about 10 years. Pam came in from San Angelo. In the pictures you can see that Cyndi is on crutches. She is on them beause she just had surgery to have some screws removed from her heel. Her body was rejecting the metal in the screws and lots of inflamation and infection was growing on the screw heads. She feels much better now it has all been removed and can walk for short periods of time. Stitches come out in a week or so. Second family pic back row, me, Lauren, Pam, Frankie, Frank, Derick, front row, Evie, Cyndi, Mom, Krys

We started decorating for Christmas and took these photos when the outside was done. No decorations on the inside right now.

The little birds shown in the photo appeared today (Dec. 1) on our windowsill. Don't know if they are baby cardinals or bluejays. Usually baby cardinals are mottled but these little ones have different coloring so it's hard for us to tell what they are. The tiny bird with the black and white face is a chicadee. It's so much fun to watch them interact. Speaking of interacting I thought the photo showing 'family interaction was very telling of todays methods of communicating. True we were not having a meal at the time but we were sitting around the table talking to one another...

while others were talking and using different tech methods of communication at the same time.

Evie riding the train!

me, Evie, Krys

G-Kids Lauren, Derick, Krystal and oh...Fanita too

family where I can't see me! Too short ;-)

Family interaction?

Family

Chicadee

young cardinals or bluejays?