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.
I go through this intersection by the Crosscut Canal on my way home from work most nights and I always like the view. Even though it is very industrialized, I like the look of all the lines from the power lines to the palm trees to the signs to the lines on the road, all set against the backdrop of the mountains. Not conventionally pretty but sort of interesting graphically.
So I shot these out my window with my point and shoot while waiting for the light to change. It’s a very busy scene, which is my metaphor for why I haven’t posted in several days. I’ve been busy…with birthdays. Six people I know have November birthdays. Tomorrow, the 20th, is Tony’s birthday. Tonight I am baking a cake while blogging. My friend Jere’s birthday was the 15th so our little birthday club went out to celebrate her birthday a couple of days before. Jere chose the Arizona Humane Society as her charity of choice.
It was also both of my boss’ birthdays and our office tradition is we provide the goodies for our boss’ birthdays. And, additionally, 2 other people in my office had November birthdays and we celebrated those, too. Plus we attended a surprise party for another friend who has a November b-day, even though the party itself was on Halloween. So, Happy Birthday to a bunch of people I know.
Any other Scorpios out there?
Is it dark and dreary where you are? Is it snowing?
Oh, sorry. Not here. But it is one of those Arizona fall days where the clouds are fluffy, it’s a little breezy, and kind of cool.
More of the same for the weekend, low 70s in the day, low 50s at night. Brrrrr. Sweater weather, hot cocoa weather.
Probably gonna read on the patio a little, get some chores and shopping done, spend some time outside, relax. What about you?
Forgotten…
Foreclosed!
My next-door neighbor had to leave her home yesterday for an apartment. She had come on some bad times and was unable to get herself out of them so now she has gone. The house was in disrepair but it does have a guest house for potential income property, which is what she used it for.
One of the sadder results of this was that she had to take one of her two dogs to the Humane Society because she was above the size limit allowed at her new apartment. The dog was 11 years old and her owner thought she had a home lined up for her but, at the eleventh hour, it fell through. Despite tons of emails that she and I sent, no one wanted an older dog. The shelters and helpful organizations are full right now. She knows that it’s a very slim chance that her dog will get a new home but she’s in a predicament that many, many other people have been facing and felt she had no other options. We have 15 (mostly outdoor) cats, most of whom are dumpees themselves, and this dog is a cat-chaser so we couldn’t take her. Everyone had a reason why they couldn’t, even the owner’s relatives and close friends.
So now there’s just an empty, sad, bank-owned house next door and the uncertainty that it brings…will it become a crack house, a drop house, a wild party house, a house full of cat-haters, an abandoned eyesore, or what? It’s so tragic~people and animals losing their homes, homes that knew happier times sitting desolate and damaged. When will we feel the effects of the supposed end of the recession? Some people (and their unfortunate pets) will never recover from it.
Filed under: Arizona, Greater Good, Phoenix | Tags: Arizona, Global Community, Phoenix
This is what November in Phoenix looks like. It was a little too warm as we wandered around the Local First Fall Festival.
When you shop at a locally owned business, 45 cents of every dollar stays in Arizona – versus only 13 cents of every dollar spent at a national chain!
The photos are mediocre but the sunset wasn’t. Excuse my dirty car and the power lines~from my front yard.
Here’s my patio flamingo…everyone needs a flamingo in their yard…he’s decorative and a windchime…
Today and tomorrow (November 1 and 2) are Los Dias de los Muertos. It’s not a holiday that is part of my heritage but it’s certainly part of Phoenix’ culture and I think it’s a fascinating celebration.
This is a Day of the Dead card I made a couple of years ago for a mailing. This year Halloween and Los Dias de los Muertos snuck up on me and I didn’t get anything created nor did I go to see any of the local ofrendas…yet. I didn’t even get any marigolds but I guess pomegranates (which we have in our yard) also have some vague significance to the holiday.
My cousin, who is more organized than me, sent the above card this year and the cookie last year. This is the poem inside her card.
If you celebrate the holiday in any way, Feliz Dia de los Muertos! It’s a happy holiday, not a sad one.
