The Year With No Christmas Card

This year I did not send out Christmas cards.

But if I had, I might have used these photos ...

This one was taken in Cambria over the summer.

Here we are sitting on the waterfall at my mother-in-law's new house.

This was taken at Thanksgiving.

And finally, all of us on Christmas Eve.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas.

I wish you all many blessings in the New Year!

You're How Old?

Well, it was bound to happen again this year.

I am another year older.

I know ... it happens.

So in honor of my 42nd birthday ...

yes, I'm being honest ...

42!!!!!

... I'm re-posting my favorite TV commercial.

I love this ...

these women are who I want to be when I grow up!

(and yes it's a commercial promoting mammograms, which has been a subject of controversy lately. And yes, I have an opinion on the whole issue, but I'll save that for another post. In the meantime, just enjoy the spirit of these "old" women!)

Did You Know?

I seem to be good at the pointless, random blog posts.

So here's another one ...

I was scrolling through my iPhoto library and came across this one ...

Someone borrowed my camera for a very creative photo shoot!

I wonder what Teddy is listening to?

Probably some Diana Krall or Michael Buble by the way he's all kicked back and chillaxin'.

Egg rolls just aren't the same the day after.

You don't really realize that you mostly chew your food on the same side of your mouth all the time until you get a tooth worked on and can't chew on that side for awhile.

I finally spent some of last year's Christmas gift cards.

And I bought myself this ...

I'm going to make every single cookie in this book! But I'm not going to blog about it. There are people already doing/done that. Well I might. Because it will be random.

I'm allergic to seafood. But I love shrimp. And occasionally I eat it anyhow. And it makes my lips and tongue itch. And if I eat too much I get these nice little hives all over. If you could see me now, you'd see my swollen upper lip! Not pretty. But the shrimp was yummy.

I went to the Goodwill last week. Spent $20 and came home with 7 brand new, listen ... BRAND NEW! ... sweaters. Ann Taylor, Liz Claiborne, Ralph Lauren. I'm not kidding! I am someone that really does not clothes shop for myself. If I can't pick up a top or pants at Target, because I'm there anyhow, then I just don't take the time or the money to shop for myself. But I'm definitely going to do the Goodwill thing again. It made me very happy!

I know this is the same Scottish treat at last post ... but his birthday is in 3 days, and he's always worth another glimpse.

This is my Jamie Fraser. Do y'all know what I'm talking about? If you don't ... ask me ... I have an entire world of books to lay on you. You'll never be the same!

If he does the longer hair look, he is it. I know Kris, Kat and Shawn probably have opinions on this one. Tell me girls ... who's your Jamie?

I'm a slacker blogger

It's been so long since I've done a blog post, I should have tons of stuff to write about. Well you would think. But then when I sit down to actually do it, I have nothing.

So I'll just randomly throw out whatever pops into my mind as we go along.

Okay?

Here we go ...

We did the responsible pet owner thing and had these two cuties spayed last week. Remember, these are the kittens we rescued from behind our garden shed last spring. They are now official members of the family. The gray one is Fluffy Pants, and the black one is June Bug. It's hard to imagine they came from the same litter. They are so different. June Bug is a true outdoor cat with survival skills. She catches birds and bugs and is lean and fit. Fluffy Pants, on the other hand, would rather lounge in the house, and cries if she finds herself alone. I think this photo sums them both up pretty well ... see ... June Bug looking at something moving in the dirt and planning her next move. Fluffy Pants looking a bit confused as if to say, "what am I doing here?"

My husband just got back from a 10 day business trip to Hawaii. I know what you're thinking ... is it really work if you're in Hawaii? And why didn't I go along? Well I thought about it. But I'm not quite ready to leave the 4-year old. Not just yet. Ask me again next year. It was cool to be able to video chat with him every evening though.

Speaking of the 4-year old ... we've been making lapbooks for school. I should do an entire post on that. We find a subject to study and make up various projects to coordinate with it, and put it all in a little book. So far we've studied the farm, the fair, and apples. Next up ... leaves and Thanksgiving.

For Halloween my oldest daughter dressed as a gypsy, my son was sort of a mad scientist, but ended up taking off the costume after about 5 minutes. And the 4-year old was a pink and purple fairy. Complete with wings that flutter when she walks. I would show you a photo, but my husband had the camera in Hawaii. I'll have them put their costumes back on this week just for pictures!

My previous posts were Scottish in nature. So I thought I'd continue the trend with this fine photo!

You're welcome.

Let's see ... what else ... oh yeah, my mother-in-law and her husband have moved into town from Sacramento. It's nice to have them closer.

I love playing Farmville on Facebook. Does anyone else play this? What a cute little game. I'm currently growing squash, watermelons and peppers.

I'm rooting for Donny Osmond on Dancing With The Stars.

It has taken me most of the year, but I am almost finished reading The Odyssey.

I bet my son $20 he wouldn't jump in the pool today (water temp was 60*)

Guess who won? Or lost, depending on how you look at it.

And on that note ... nothing else is popping into my head.

So I'll leave you with this ...

... what I'm making for dinner tonight!

Do you know what it is?

Yum!

Did You Get a New Hair-Do?

For the last few days we have had unusually humid weather.

It's been a tad cloudy, a bit overcast and slightly foggy.

And since I've had Scotland on my mind for a while now ...

... I'll show you what it has looked liked here with a picture from there. I like to use visuals whenever possible to tell such enchanting stories on my blog.

You're welcome.

Except for the gorgeous hills, the quaint little stream and the overall greenness part, this photo could have been taken from my house. After all, the cloudy, overcast, foggy look is spot on. And if I look out my window, and ignore all the flat suburban sprawl, concrete, asphalt and traffic ... well it's just like I'm in Scotland!

I love using my imagination whenever possible.

One of the downsides of this misty weather is the effect it's having on my hair.

I don't know what happened. But after my last pregnancy my hair got wavy. The texture changed and it took on this kinky, curly, frizzy thing. Now this was just weird for me because I've had straight, flat hair my entire life.

Except for that time during the 80's where I looked like this ...

You can only imagine the massive amounts of fussing and Aqua-Net hairspray I used to achieve that look.

Good times!

And now I don't even need to try. I let my hair air dry and it goes all wavy and frizzy by itself. It takes some time and some serious hair product to get it to behave now. And that's on normal days.

Throw in the humidity of the last few days ... and look out!

Of course this photo isn't really me. But it could be. Except for the flawlessly youthful complexion. Focus on the hair and she could be my twin.

I'm wondering if I'd look like this all the time in Scotland?

Something Scottish

I almost forgot to mention another thing I did this summer.

I spent some time here ...

Yes, that's a real Scottish castle. In Scotland. It's called Glenbogle. And I spent many hours there. Getting to know these fine people ...

The handsome laird in the center is Archie MacDonald. He's quite charming. The staff is pretty quirky and entertaining. But his dad, Hector, is a real hoot!

If you want to spend some time with these fun people, and drool over the gorgeous Scottish countryside ... then do what I did ...

Get it on DVD!

Let me know what you think?