O Christmas Tree

I am not sure how this will show on everyone's computer...it looks fairly good on my computer. Let me know if it is dark or light on yours.  It was taken at night several years ago.  The photos I took of this tree remain some of my favorites. 
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I actually started wrapping presents today.  I always think of how we used to be so saving with wrapping paper when I was a child.  We didn't just rip open the presents, not like we do these days.  And we tried to save the best of the paper from one year to the next.  And we saved all the ribbons.

We almost always got a new jigsaw puzzle...it was such a treat to get one.  I think we used a big piece of cardboard to work them on, but I have no idea where it came from.  Or maybe it was a piece of thin plywood.  I really cannot remember which....but was thinking cardboard for some reason.

Anyway, we always laid out all the pieces face up, and tried to put like colors together, then found all the edge pieces and worked that part first.  Next we would each choose an area to work on.   I can remember my brothers getting aggravated at me for reaching across their view. 

I had a habit of when I actually put a piece in and it fit, I would give the board a little tap.   They always teased and said I did it to draw attention to the fact that I had just found a piece.  Who knows--maybe that is why I did it subconsciously.

I still love jigsaw puzzles to this day.  Just as when I was a kid, I have my favorite colors to work, or more to the point, colors that are much harder for me to work.   I find it hard to do anything else if I have one out, so I don't work one too often.  That was part of the reasons for wrapping presents...to feel freer to start something fun.  I wrap presents on the dining room table, but that is also where I like to work puzzles.  Thus, the wrapping needs to be done.

How about a little sparkle....

It started before dark...has slowed down for the time being...
but I thought I would show you how things are beginning to look.
These are taken from my front porch....I would recommend to click and enlarge the photos to really get a better look.
As you can see, everything is coated with ice. The police are asking people to stay home unless they absolutely have to be out.

Our lights were dimming earlier...then we heard a boom after a bit. I didn't think anything more, but happened to look out and notice our streetlight is out. Then I decided to step out and see what kind of picture I could get...that is when I notice the other side of our street has no electricity. They are on a different something or other than this side of the street...so, I am hoping we escape without losing ours.

While out just those few minutes, I heard limbs breaking in the trees south of us. I don't think they were huge limbs, but too dark to see for sure.
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One year when the girls were young...not sure how old. I don't know if either one was in high school or not. But we got an ice storm...even the yard itself was treacherous to walk on. There was inches of snow under the ice, but the ice was so strong, even us adults could walk on it without breaking through. That is if we could stand up.

The girls and one of their friends took off to the trails, a little bitty section of woods over across the railroad tracks. It has some steep banks...I don't think they would classify as hills. They came home, cold and red faced..and had about wore the seats of their pants wore out from sitting on their bottoms and sliding down those banks or hills or whatever you want to call them. I have not seen it that slick in a long time and wonder if this is going to be another time a sled is not needed.
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I forgot to tell that while at Sarah's yesterday, I was playing with her Legos with her. Well, the set she has has a mommy and a daddy and grandma and grandpa...I left the room for something and Roger said she had the mommy and daddy kissing. So when I told Sarah this evening, I thought it would be something new. But no, she told me she also has her animals kissing each other.

And Sarah texted me today and said she was trying to watch a movie, but could not hear a word of it because of Lorelei singing and chattering so loud. I told her she needed to get a recording...but I didn't tell her I wanted it to share with everyone.

Well, that is about all from my corner of the world. I guess I will have to stay home tomorrow, even if it is beautiful.

Christmas past and present

This is the first chance I have had to post in a while...I am using this photo from a post in the past...partly because I don't have my computer and partly because I just love the photo. It was taken years ago with my one of my Nikon cameras.

I hope all of you have happy and healthy Christmas and New Year...

I am thankful for many things, but foremost right now is that Sarah just came through her second surgery last week...all is going great in that department. One of these days things will be back to normal.

Lorelei is changing daily it seems...she is just so busy all the time.

She sings Jingle Bells, Happy Birthday, and other songs...

and has just been playing the drums and singing
She loves you, Yeah, Yeah, yeah
She loves you Yeah, yeah, yeah

Over and over.

She now tells me to 'Get up---I need you' She will get my hand and take me all over the place. Otto hardly has a moment's peace...and for the most part he enjoys every minute of it. This morning she went for a short but wild ride on him....unplanned. She was climbing on his back and was astraddle of him and up he got. She hung on for a second or two before falling off. I half expected her to get back up and try it again but she didn't.

Our oldest daughter will be here at this time tomorrow night...along with a bit more snow. I am not sure how much is in the forecast. I am hoping not much.

This will probably be my only post on here for a little while to come...one of these days I will get back to it on a regular basis I hope. There simply is not time to be on the computer...when there is I plan to try to catch up with everyone.

Ready or not?

Click to enlarge
A house up the street from a few years back.

I wonder if everyone is ready for Christmas....I am...almost. I still have a few things left to wrap. And actually need to get gifts for the little kids next door. And I have yet to get in all the fixings for Christmas dinner. But that is not that much left to do.

Neal and I were talking the other night...our talks always include talking about childhood and the things we remember. I was telling him, the one memory that really stands out in my mind is all the cakes mom would bake at Christmas. There was a metal cabinet that had two shelves up top behind glass, and those two shelves would be full of cakes! I could not remember if it was just a year or two that she did that, or every year.

He said he thought it was every year, and that he helped her bake them. So, I told him I didn't remember actually eating them...he thought that she gave most of them away. Which makes sense...I just can't imagine not remembering eating them.

I cannot remember the variety that she made, but know she almost always made a jam cake...it tasted sort of like a spice cake if I remember correctly, and she always made a caramel icing for it. She also made a stack cake...at least that is what we called it. She had no written recipe, and did not measure a thing....but she made this dough. I know it had eggs and sugar in it, and other than that I can't recall what else. I know I liked the dough raw, better than baked.

She would divide take a dough ball about the size of a fist or maybe just a bit bigger....she would pat that out flat in a greased iron skillet. She kept two iron skillets in the oven and would make anywhere from 8 to 12 or 14 layers.

For the filling in between the layers, she used dried apples and cooked them down to something similar to apple butter but with more texture if I remember correctly. ( I know water and cinnamon were added to the apples, but think there were other spices, just don't recall what all.) That was a cake that company always enjoyed. I have never seen the cake made by anyone else, but I did find a recipe that sounds right here.

Thinking back, that is one of my favorite memories.

Sepia Scenes

I have posted this before in the color version...thought I would try it in sepia and I love it that way too. It is one of the two local funeral homes. I have always loved the lighting at night and have at different times went down and photographed it at night. The night I took this I got the pictures I liked the most. So far. I am sure I will probably try it again some other time.

If you want to join Sepia Scenes click on the badge at the top of this post and it will take you to the sign-in page. Just make sure it is today's date. Or just go and visit others...leave as many comments as you can for we all like to get comments.

edited to add...if you want to see the original, or a couple of scanned in photos from B&W film days, type in 'funeral home' in the search box at the top of the blog.

Moon shots

Yesterday evening it was that time that is sort of between daylight and dark as we were heading home from Sarah's. I happened to glance to the east and there was this great big moon! I took about half a dozen shots...the first one is unedited except for resizing, and the second one is just cropped.

Christmas past

From scanned slides...first a couple from Bridgeton, Indiana. I love to go for drives and look at Christmas lights. However, it has been a while since we actually done that. Seems like the time just flies as I get older.

And these are the blurred images that I ran across the other day that inspired me to take the photo that I posted Thanksgiving Day. I think these are best viewed when enlarged.
When we first moved here in 1980, or oldest daughter was just 5 months old. Not sure how long it was before we met the lady that lived two houses down from us. Veronica was from Lithuania and spoke very broken English even though she had been here for years. There were all kinds of rumors about her, which we will never know if they were true or not. One we know for sure is not true--she wasn't mean to kids. I had people that grew up here tell me that they remembered being so afraid of her when they were kids.

I don't know how she found out my husband could do stuff, but she would have problems with this or that and come ask him to help. Things like a leaky faucet, or the belt on her treadle sewing machine broke, just a few little things here and there. I know there were other things but right now I cannot think of them. And every so often she would get him to take her to the Chicago O'Hare airport. She was going back over 'there' for a visit. She went to Moscow.

She told us of her and her husband running and hiding under bushes and she witnessed her husband being shot. She came to the USA then and left two children over there...or that was what we understood her to say. At Christmas she would buy all kinds of clothes for children to send to relatives (grandchildren??) over there, and she would have us or this other neighbor write down a list of everything that was in the box, so whoever she was sending it to could tell if they got it all or if things had been stolen before it got to them.

She also had an old man named Walter that lived with her...one year he had a daughter come over from Russia(?somewhere in that area), and she brought her husband and one of their children...a little girl about 5 or 6 years old. They were not allowed to bring their other children for fear they would try to stay here. Her name was Elana...she was a kindergarten teacher. Her husband was Alex but I don't recall what he did...they did not speak a word of English and of course we didn't know a word of their language. But Elana had books that converted from their language to ours and from ours to their language.

We got the bright idea to take them on a drive...we had this little Dodge Colt. So there were us four adults and their child in that tiny car, and we took this big long drive just showing them the country...I showed them the orchard where I worked, and I cannot remember where else we took them. I think we showed them the other places we had worked. Elana and I would use the books to communicate and really enjoyed each other's company. I know we came home late enough to see the Christmas lights, so never does a Christmas pass that I don't think of her and wonder how she is.

Oh, and back to Veronica for a chuckle or two at my husband's expense. I told you he would take her to the airport sometimes. One time he went to pick them up, and it may have been the time when Elana came home. He forgot to pay attention to where he parked, and he came home telling about it...he was telling it and all I could picture is a duck with its ducklings following behind. Every where he went, there was this line of people following right behind him. I cannot do it justice...he was telling me and making gestures...he finally got them to understand and just stay in one place while he went and found the car.

And another time he picked up Veronica, she had been drinking. And she had it in the truck with her. Well, we don't drink...and she kept trying to get him to take a drink, and it was something strong...not beer. She just couldn't understand why he didn't want any. And all the time he was praying that he didn't get stopped by police cause they would never believe he had not been drinking...he said the truck smelled like a brewery. He was so relieved to get them home--I think Walter had went with him to pick her up.

So that is one of my Christmas memories....

A little strange

As we were coming home from Willow Slough, we were passing the power plant that sets on the Wabash River. On the other side of the highway is another smaller power plant that only runs at peak times from my understanding. It stays lit up even if only running with a skeleton crew. It was about 7:00 p.m. and almost totally dark but it is well lit. I thought to myself I would see what a picture would look like from there.

I knew it would be blurred but I thought it would be interesting all the same...I had the lens wide open I am sure...I looked at the info on the picture to get that the shutter speed was 1/5 second. Keep in mind that we were probably going 60 or 65 mph down the road.

I kind of like the image...I keep meaning to do more of this type of stuff but don't think about it till it is the only option. I happened to run across some pictures in my slides a bit back that reminded me that sometimes photos like this can be kind of fun.

More moonlight rambles....

Click any photo to enlarge.

Last night this was the second place I went...the first one did not work out. I wanted something besides a tree in the picture with the moon. I went to a church that had an interesting outline but could not get in a position to get it and the moon. So on down the road is this little graveyard. So we pulled in there and here are some images from then. I like the last one simple because when enlarge you can clearly see an old jet stream.

As a side note, in this cemetery is a big tall headstone. I can't remember if all four sides has a name on it, but I know two sides do. One is someone killed during the Civil War while in Cumberland Gap, TN. Cumberland Gap was my mailing address for a big part of my life...we lived on a farm, though, not in town.
And on another side of this same headstone his brother was killed a couple days later in Tazewell, TN--that is the county seat of Claiborne County. My county. Really made me feel sort of strange to be from the place those two boys were killed at--even if it was over a hundred years ago.

Night rambles....

Click any photo to enlarge.

I have been watching the moon all week, and finally last night decided to take a stab at capturing it again. This was along about 11:00--I was out down there in my pj's with my husband helping me carry my tripod. And guess what, it was in a position to get it and Karanovich's funeral home together!
I have wanted to get them together forever but never seem to notice when the time was right. These certainly are not perfect, but I do kind of like the affect. I have done nothing with them...except the second one I darkened the background just a bit. I don't have a filter of any kind on--not sure why I got the star effect, unless it was keeping the shutter open a bit long than needed.
They are not the greatest, but for some reason I like them. Even with the 'hotspots' in them...I suppose if I could think straight right now I could use the photo software to even them out a little. I know when I used to develop B&W that I could adjust for spots that were either too dark or too light.

This is one of two funeral homes here in town...I haven't yet tried a digital night photo of it, but have several of it from my regular camera. Though in all honesty, several of them are in the form of slides. There is just something about this place that is so pretty at night...and I still have not captured it just the way I want.