Filed under: Blogging | Tags: Blogging, Global Community, Holidays, Photoblogging
In reading some of my regular blogs the last couple of days, I am seeing a lot of introspection about changes and/or goals to achieve in 2010. I kinda feel like a slug that I don’t really have anything deep to offer. 2009 was a decent enough year for me. I was sad that a lot of people that I know had economic difficulties and other negative things to contend with. We were fortunate enough to keep our jobs and our lifestyle wasn’t really impacted so I am mostly thankful.
Tony has had to travel way more than he would like so I hope that will change for him in 2010. His New Year will be spent in Portland, working (after playing a New Year’s Eve gig with his band here), and then he heads for Vegas next week for the Consumer Electronics Show before he has fully recovered from his last-minute, pre-Christmas trip to China. I guess that would be my main wish, on a personal level, for a positive change career-wise in 2010 for him.
What do you hope for in 2010? I know we all would like world peace, an end to the recession, and everyone we know to be healthy and happy. I’ve read a lot of blogs lately where people would like more simple joys in their life. I like that idea, too. I’d also like my cats to quit clawing up all our furniture and for them to keep their paws off our new loveseat if it ever arrives.
And~I’d like to get out and take more photos so that I can blog more than 2-3 times a week. My hope is to blog 4-5 times a week again. One of the best things for me, personally, in 2009 was to start blogging. I not only enjoy having a blog but reading all of your blogs, too, and making new friends in the blogosphere. I continually come across new ones and am awed by the level of writing, creating, and photography out there.
Yes, these are all cheap, in-camera, special effects. Zooming in and out on the Christmas tree lights and the first one is one I just discovered yesterday on my cell phone camera that I took at the Steely Dan concert in October and that seemed appropriate to use to welcome in the New Year and hope it is one of positive change, promise, and happiness.
The gifts were bought, wrapped, opened.
The food was planned, cooked (and baked), and eaten.
Tony returned from China on schedule. We spent Christmas Eve with my local relatives and it was very pleasant. Christmas Day was spent relaxing, cooking, eating, sipping wine, opening gifts, talking on the phone to our other relatives, and driving around looking at Christmas lights.
Google still goes in the tree several times a day.
Marbles is a copycat and was up there, too, but I wasn’t fast enough with the camera. I only caught him sleeping it off.
Abbey is our “good” cat and never gets into trouble. She enjoyed their Christmas dinner of tuna and dozed off contented.
Hope your Christmas was everything you wanted it to be.
This isn’t going to turn into a cat blog…really.
Finally, the tree and the household decorating are done.
But my helper, Google, didn’t make it all that easy. Wild 15 pound kittens have their own ideas.
I guess he’s pleased with how everything turned out.
Meanwhile, this is how Tony is celebrating the pre-Christmas festivities in China. This is his hotel lobby in Shenzhen.
And a Chinese Santa he bought…
He’ll make it home before Christmas, but barely.
Amidst the shopping, sending Christmas cards, wrapping, packing, and mailing gifts, and Tony taking an unplanned, last-minute business trip to China with a return date of 12/23 (!), our house isn’t decorated yet nor have I taken anymore holiday-ish shots so these will have to do for a couple of days. This is a Powerpoint I put together last year to be emailed to a few friends.
Tonight, I am definitely working on the tree and decorations. How are your holiday preparations going? Any parties yet? I’ve been to two work-related ones and another lunch tomorrow. This Saturday night Tony and I had plans to go to the Wrigley Mansion for a holiday celebration with some friends but he’s several thousand miles away. I’m still going to go but it won’t be nearly as festive without him.
I still have shopping to do, too, and plan to finish that up this weekend…I hope.
We shall find peace.
We shall hear the angels.
We shall see the sky sparkling with diamonds.
Anton Chekhov
That’s a nice sentiment for this time of year, isn’t it? Let’s hope…
This is a walkway underneath Camelback Road in Phoenix, connecting Biltmore Fashion Park with the Esplanade. The photos in my previous post were taken in the same area. They look better large (double-click).
Thanks to Montucky (whose beautiful photos of Montana suit the snow), I know that WordPress provides flurries for the holiday season if you choose to turn them on. So I tried to find an appropriate background for them. Too bad this isn’t a reindeer.
Update: My blogging friend, Camilla, who also lives in Montana, and has a gorgeous blog about her rural life there, is from Norway and mentioned the Yule Goat or Julebukk in the comment section below. So my above photo is now a Julebukk.
“Norway has its gift-bearing little gnome or elf. Known as Julebukk or “Christmas buck,” he appears as a goat-like creature. Julebukk harkens back to Viking times when pagans worshipped Thor and his goat. During pagan celebrations a person dressed in a goatskin, carrying a goat head, would burst in upon the party and during the course of evening would “die” and return to life.”
“The Yule Goat is one of the oldest Scandinavian and Northern European Yule and Christmas symbols and traditions. Yule Goat originally denoted the goat that was slaughtered around Yule, but it may also indicate a goat figure made out of straw. It is also used about the custom of going door-to-door singing carols and getting food and drinks in return, often fruit, cakes and sweets. “Going Yule Goat” is similar to the British custom wassailing, both with heathen roots.” Much more about this custom on Wikipedia.
How about a poinsettia tree?
Or some holiday ornaments?
Or a Christmas bouquet?
Or a stress-inducing reminder that time’s a-wastin’?
You can change the direction of the flurries with your mouse (neat, huh?). I’m going shopping.
Oh-oh, it’s Google again, 15 pounds of mayhem and destruction.
Okay, it’s going outside. It’s a pine anyway so that’s where it should go, not to mention it will be safer, right? My boss got this in the mail as part of a sales pitch for some “green-related” software, no instructions or anything other than to plant it. She has a black thumb so I took the cute little thing.
Plant a tree and watch it grow. If it survives its babyhood, I’ll replant it in the ground.
Check out the Arbor Day Foundation where they “inspire people to plant, nurture, and celebrate trees.”
Pretty but don’t eat them!
You’d think it was spring or something.
Sunning…
A morning drink (Edie, Isabella, and Ashford).
Google catching a few rays after breakfast.
Pensive in the morning.
Marbles wondering how he’s going to get that bird.
Hope your Thanksgiving was fun and your weekend is restful or filled with shopping bargains. I’ll choose the former.
My employer had its annual event for employees last night at The Phoenix Zoo. Not open to the public yet, we had the place to ourselves for ZooLights. “When the sun goes down and the animals go to sleep, the Phoenix Zoo magically transforms into one of the largest holiday lighting events in the southwest with 2.5 million lights and more than 500 custom-made animal and nature light sculptures.” It was still very crowded with several thousand people there but a little less so than when you go to the regular ZooLights. The weather was perfect, everyone was nice, and it was really fun.
I didn’t want to take my camera along and knew that to get really good shots I would also have to haul my tripod so all I had was my point and shoot. The link above has a video of ZooLights if you want to get an idea of what it really looks like but here are a few shots.
The photos look great on the little camera screen but, once home on the computer, they’re all blurry. Oh, well, you get the idea.
The Dancing Trees, set to music, are really fairly awesome and a lot of ooohing and ahhhing ensued.
Another highlight was Stingray Bay, where you can put your hands in the water, after washing them up to the elbow, and let the stingrays brush against them. The stingrays seemed to be having a really good time, swimming furiously around and around and making all sorts of human contact.
They were fascinating to watch. Although most of the other animals were safely tucked away for the night or out-of-bounds, a good time seemed to be had by everyone else.
