358/365 By the Chimney With Care

"Merry Christmas to all

and to a good night!"

Harley tried to stay awake and watch Santa fill stockings, but it was late and she couldn't keep her eyes open or her ears perked for another minute.

357/365 Jolly Ol' St. Nick

"Welcome to Adulthood"

My baby turned 21 today.  I have successfully raised all of the offspring to adulthood. Is it time for retirement now?

It is hilarious to me that the day's prompt is St. Nick.  Erin despises Santa Claus, always has.  We have zero pictures of her on Santa's lap.  And, we have zero ornaments or decorations depicting Santa.  Erin has always said that she believes Santa to be kind of creepy.

Erin made her way into adulthood today with not a lot of pomp and circumstance.  We planned a girl's day at the mall, but it was less than fruitful.  The birthday girl found nothing.  But she is still smiling because we managed to avoid going anywhere near Santa's cottage.

"Happy 21st!"

We then went out for dinner.  Her dad wanted her to order a drink - just because she could.  She finally did, but I don't think that it was the highlight of her day.

After dinner we headed home so gifts could be opened and cake could be eaten.  Brooke made her a brown butter cake with apple butter between the layers and a thin coating of butter cream frosting.  It was delicious!

"Birthday Cake No. 21"

We'll all have a quiet day tomorrow  before I sing for two services tomorrow night and Erin does her duty in the church nursery.  Christmas morning will be here before we know it;  hopefully we'll not be too exhausted to enjoy the day.

356/365 Glow

"Happy 24th, Brooke!"

Let the celebrations begin!  Today is the first in our week of birthday celebrations - Brooke, Erin and me and sandwiched there in the middle is Jesus.

Being the creature of habit that she is, we celebrate Brooke's birthday the same way each year - dinner out and a movie.  Tonight's dinner was supposed to be Ethiopian fare, but the restaurant of choice was closed for a private party.  How rude!  Plan B was Indian food.  It was a very good alternative.

Books have always a favorite gift of Brooke's.  As of late, cookbooks are a safe bet.  I have to laugh at the recipe she is showing us here.  "Good Morning Sunshine Bars" - this kid does not use the words "good" and "morning" in reference to one another.  We'll see if she actually makes these bars.  Perhaps they will convince her that morning is an OK time of day.

Another birthday tradition for her is to go to a movie.  This started on her third birthday, back in 1992, when we took her to see The Lion King, which was brand new.  Where have the years gone!  In the last few years, I have opted out of the movie routine.  Brooke's taste in movies has evolved into one that enjoys intense drama and violence.  I have not evolved much past The lion King in what I enjoy in a movie.  She and her sister are now perpetuating the birthday movie tradition while I am at home watching a Barbara Walters special that I recorded last week.  See.  This explains why Brooke and I don't go to the movies together.

When she gets home from the movies, Brooke will begin baking her sister's birthday cake.  This has become the newest element to her birthday traditions.  As a baker herself, she never really wants a birthday cake herself.  She is much happier with some kind of savory ethnic food.

Tomorrow will be another day of birthday celebration!

355/365 How's The Weather?

'A Peaceful Rain"

Today was a gray and rainy day.  This afternoon, once the heavy rains had stopped, I took a walk outside.  I was struck by the vibrant colors of these fallen leaves.  Against the surrounding grayness of the day, they just jumped out.  I may have also noticed them because of the gentle dance they were doing as they floated through the puddle.  

I was surprised by how blue the sky looks as it is reflected in the puddle.  It seemed dull and gray as I looked up at it.  I'm sure there is a metaphorical lesson in that somewhere.

Though I do love the colors in the above image, I feel a little guilty using it as documentation of today's weather.  I played around with some of the other shots from today, converting them to black and white since my perception of the day is that it was gray and colorless.  I like the way this one came out.  The raindrop covered leaves seem to be reaching out. 

"Gray, Rainy and Beautiful"

354/365 Lit Up

'A Different Perspective On Light"

We have officially made it to Christmas break!  If I had an extra week I might be ready to face Christmas.  As things stand right now, I'm not.  Most of the "stuff" that needs to be done is done.  I have even wrapped most of what needs to be wrapped.  My issue this year seems to be a mental thing.  My head just can't wrap itself around the fact that Christmas is five days away.  Im not sure where or how  I got off track this year, but it is a very weird feeling.

We did go to the symphony last night to hear their Christmas concert.  For a couple of hours I was in the Christmas spirit.  Other than last night's concert, I don't even feel like I have listened to much Christmas music this season.  Usually by this time of year, even before Christmas, I have heard so much of it I'm ready to just move on.

This funk I'm in seems to be manifesting itself in my photos as well.  We went to look at a nearby light display tonight.  It is beautiful and unquestionably quite festive.  I took lots of photographs, but none of them really moved me.  It seemed like there was something not quite right with each of them.  With many of the images, the problem was the same; there were pole lights illuminating the sidewalks that distracted from the beauty of the tree lights.  Many people would probably overlook this, but once I noticed it, that was all I could see.  I loved the colors of the lights, the shapes of the trees and their reflection in the water.  Those path lights though, even with decent starbursts, were just plain annoying to me.

I thought about trying to edit out the lights.  First of all, that was more time and effort than I had to give to this project and secondly, the path lighting was also reflected in the water so they really couldn't be removed without creating another level of weirdness in the photo.  I liked the way the reflection of these lights looked, even with the undesirable pole lights.  I then decided to try an experiment.  I flipped the photograph vertically thus placing the trees' reflection "right side up" and the actual trees in the place of the reflection.  I was pleasantly surprised.

Suddenly the light from the intrusive path lights looked like stars shooting from amidst the trees and the lights themselves as the stars that had landed on the ground..  These lights became much less of a distraction.  And the abstractness of the now upright trees spoke to me.  This photo is meant to be upside down, which is now right side up.

All week long I have been playing with different lights and lighting effects.  Tonight's outdoor shots are a continuation of that.  I was happy to create the starburst effect with the lights on branches of this tree.

Here is an image of the trees and their reflection "correctly" oriented.  I managed to avoid all but one of the annoying lights in this one.

For some reason, I don't like this as much as the flipped image.

This next photo is also indicative of my weird state of mind.  I was created with intentional camera motion.  It gives the trees an interesting feeling of dimension.  I may not like it tomorrow, but tonight I find it somewhat fascinating.

I hope that a good night's sleep that involves no alarm clock in the morning will snap me out of this mood and get me ready to enjoy the girls' birthdays and then Christmas.

353/365 Reindeer

"More Reindeer Games"

352/365 Holiday Project

"Reindeer Games"