Taken in the realm of the Thorn Queen last week on our walk.

I’ve been giving a lot of thought to my blog lately. It seems like the new year is just screaming out for something different. It’s time to change things up a bit.

The blog has looked the same way for years now and I’m getting tired of looking at all that white and that dark green. So, first up is a revamp of how the blog looks. Rick and I diligently worked on bits and pieces of that this past weekend to varying degrees of success. Right now you might notice a slight difference in the gray background.

My blog is on our own domain, not a blogging site, so everything has to be programmed in by code instead of just going in and picking what I want as a background, font style, colors, etc. It’s not easy trying to pick colors from a color picker on line. I must have tried a zillion and none were what I wanted. I have this vision in my head that’s having trouble getting out. I want a nice café au lait color: the exact color of our downstairs bathroom! Easier said than done. Some have too much yellow; others too much red that turns the brown rosy. No! Still working on that.

The header will change completely too. In fact, the whole look of the blog will change so don’t be surprised one day to visit and it’s completely different! Just wanted to warn you that it’s in the works.

Maybe the biggest change of all is that I have decided to try going public again and open the blog up. No more membership! I will still have comment moderation on since we get so many spam comments (again, because we don’t have the same filters as the blog sites) and one of the reasons why I went private in the first place. I just got tired of deleting all those crap comments. But I think it’s time to get over that, don’t you? I will try and email all the current members to let them know in case they don’t read the blog much and might miss this post. After all, blogs are for sharing, not hoarding.

Another thing I’ve been mulling around in my head is an additional blog, one dedicated only to photography with no words. Years ago I followed a blog where two people thousands of miles apart each posted a photograph of something in their day, or they had the same subject (say a landscape, a bird, a personal object) but each from their own point of view depending on where they lived. Maybe only one photo per week instead of one per day which would be pretty challenging! Trouble is, I don’t have a partner! It’s just a thought and it might be fun. I know I loved following that blog. I don’t remember the name of it now but I think they stopped after a year anyway. Contact me personally if you might be interested.

My blog will also have a new feature where once a week I highlight a photo taken with my Lytro camera. Lytro Shot of the Week or something like that. I’m having way too much fun with it and I want those shots to stand alone and not be included in a normal blog post. I can see lots of opportunities for macro shots once winter is over.

So, there you have it! I hope to unveil the new look soon. There’s still some work to be done and it might take a few trys to get it right, so I hope you’ll bear with me through it all.

I’m not sure why but there is something about this time of year that turns the sky pink at dawn. We have quite a few of these blushy sunrises.

I will be going through separation anxiety today as Rick returns to work after being home for the entire holiday. He probably won’t work all day, but still. Then one more day of holiday time and normal life returns. Our garbage pickup day will go back to normal having been interrupted twice by holidays falling on our usual day, the Christmas decorations will come down and be packed away for another year.  (At least the inside ones will. The outside decorations are frozen in place right now.)

We don’t have any plans for New Year’s Eve. Most years we are in bed asleep when the clock strikes midnight. I expect to raise a glass or two of champagne before that though.

Whatever your plans are tonight, stay safe! Happy New Year everyone!

Mom! Let us in!

Yesterday was a snow day around our house. It started snowing around 10:30 and didn’t stop until after the sun went down. I would have thought we’d have more than we do since at times it was really coming down hard, but we ended up with about 4.5 inches out of a prediction of 3-6 inches.

I love to capture the birds at our feeder while it’s snowing so I tempted them with some extra seed sprinkled on the deck railings and on top of the old dry sink where we grow our kitchen herbs.

Tufted titmouse.

A tuxedo wearing junco.

Mr. & Mrs. C.

Mr. Purple Finch sporting the newest in bird fashion: snowflake nose!

A dry sink icicle.

We stayed around the wood stove in the sun room and finished our jigsaw puzzle (I’m ready to start another one!). We split some firewood and restocked our diminished supply in the basement so we don’t have to constantly go outside to get wood. We cooked.

The bubbles of olive oil as we started the polenta caught my eye.

Our Osso Bucco. Yum!

The railing on our front steps with its fresh coating of snow. No flash: just turned up my ISO speed.

Now this morning we have the chore of clearing the deck, driveway and front steps of all that lovely new snow! At least it was just snow this time and no freezing rain or “wintry mix.”

Alex waiting patiently Christmas morning to open packages.

We had a good Christmas. How about you?

It snowed about an inch on Christmas Eve. It was so pretty coming down. We turned on the outside light around 8:00 p.m. and just sat in the sun room with a cup of homemade egg nog (yes, I used raw eggs) and watched it snow. Perfection! When we got up Christmas morning and opened the curtains to that covering of white it was picture perfect. The snow mostly melted during the day when it warmed up to the high 30’s.

We had a small Christmas (meaning not many gifts) but the gifts we did get and receive were not as small. I thought it was pretty funny that both Rick and I gave each other a kind of camera! I gave him a time-lapse camera because he spends his days around cameras that do the opposite (high-speed slow motion) and I thought he needed to slow down a bit.

He gave me a Lytro camera, which I had never heard of before. It’s just a tiny little thing that can be easily popped into a pocket and taken along. It takes “living” pictures. I’ll be featuring them in my blog from now on in combination with normal photos. For the Lytro pics you can click on various spots of the photo and it will come in to focus as other parts go out of focus. I have added a perspective feature to most of them which makes the photo look 3D (depending on how deep my depth of field was in that particular photo) and you can click and drag to explore the photo a bit more. Try it with this photo I took of Hailey in the foreground and Bella in the distance.

See how her head pops out of the photo? Cool, eh?

So, how does the magic happen? I’m not too up on the technical bits but here is a brief explanation from Rick.
“Called a “light field” camera or “plenoptic camera”. A digital camera that acquires images in a whole new way, then uses complex computations to render the photos. Each pixel you see in the photo is actually imaged by many different pixels with different focal distances. All this data is later used to computationally render the photo.” Hmm … clear as mud, right? All you really need to focus on (Hah, pun, get it?) it that it takes cool photos.

Here are a couple more.

We spent the day playing with our new toys, taking the dogs for a walk and cooking our Christmas meal of Duck in orange sauce, two-potato gratin and roasted brussels sprouts with homemade profiteroles for dessert.

Yesterday we ventured out of the house and into town for a few things, then took the dogs down the road to Green Turtle Pond for an off-leash run. Brrr it was cold—below freezing! Just like littlel kids, the dogs had to step on every frozen puddle and break the ice. It was a game to them.

Then yesterday afternoon it snowed again, as predicted, while we watched the movie “Inception.” I may never think the same way about my dreams again! We got about four to four and a half inches of nice snow before it turned to freezing rain, then rain. I took these two shots just as it was turning to freezing rain. The trees were coated in what looked like white cotton candy and looked very strange. I hope you appreciate these photos because I went out in my slippers and bathrobe to take them! You can see my footprints in the snow on the steps for depth.

They say we are getting more snow on Saturday. I guess winter has arrived in New Jersey!

Today kicks off our special holiday activities. Literally! We try to go in to the city at least once during the holiday season. Last year we ate at Butter and took in the tree and decorations at Rockefeller Center. It seems odd that we would have chosen almost the exact day again this year to go in without realizing it. But, we did!

Tonight we have tickets for the Christmas Spectacular at Radio City Music Hall with the rockin’ Rockettes. The Rockettes are celebrating 85 years of kicking up their heels. I know I’ve said this before in the blog, but as a child my parents took us in to the city twice for my birthday (which happens around Christmas). We waited in the early morning darkness for the train to arrive and the whole trip seemed very magical since this was not a common occurrence. We saw a matinee show at Radio City with a movie and the Rockettes. This was back in the day before they featured in a whole show. The movie was Father Goose with Cary Grant and I remember it well.

We’re driving in late this afternoon and parking near The Rock. We’ll walk around, visit the tree and take in the throngs of Japanese tourists and their flashing cameras, the Saks 5th Avenue window display and the Christmas lights. Then it’s off to dinner at an Italian restaurant that we have not eaten in before, Alfredo’s. We chose something close by so we wouldn’t have to rush anywhere. We originally were going to eat at The Sea Grill which looks out over the skating rink at Rockefeller Center but they were closed for a private party tonight. I had some great restaurant recommendations from a fellow blogger who recently moved from New York City (thanks, Steve!) but since they were farther away we opted to stay closer.

And yes, I am lugging my camera plus my smaller zoom lens with me. Crazy, I know, but I also know I’ll be sorry if I don’t bring it along.

Yesterday presented yet another special treat for us this holiday season. Rick’s work had a raffle to give away two tickets to see the play The Sound of Music at the Paper Mill Playhouse, and Rick’s name was pulled out of the hat! How’s that for luck? We’re really looking forward to it. It’s on Saturday, December 22nd, the matinee showing.

To add to the festivities, there’s been talk of a possible stormy track to the weather. Does that mean snow before Christmas? I certainly hope so. How perfect that would be: the icing on the season, so to speak!

How about you? Are you doing something fun this holiday season?

P.S. Now we’ve added a 3D showing of The Hobbit to our list this weekend! woo hoo!