Now Cut That Out!

See Create A Snow Blossom! and 1000's of others - or share your own on Cut Out + Keep

Lets Go Buffalo!!!!

Nobody Circles the Party Wagons like the Buffalo Bills Fans!!

Some of my favorite Etsy Shops

Seems like I don't take the time to Blog very much...but do spend lots of time online exploring and linking around to other Blogs. Love - Paper Crafting and Recipe blogs. But for this post I'm sharing some of my favorite Etsy Shops. I like these for Clipart and/or Printables.

Audrey Jeanne Roberts

http://www.etsy.com/shop/AudreyJeanneRoberts

Joy Hall

http://www.etsy.com/shop/JoysSketchbook

WeedsNWildflowers

http://www.etsy.com/shop/WeedsnWildflowers

Karla Dornacher

http://www.etsy.com/shop/karladornacher

Clipart collections

http://www.etsy.com/shop/karladornacher?section_id=7008653

Printables

http://www.etsy.com/shop/karladornacher?section_id=7011477

Laurie Furnell

http://www.etsy.com/shop/lauriefurnelldesigns

RetroGirls Digitals

Elizabeth, a.k.a. Slightly Crafty on message forums

http://www.etsy.com/shop/RetroGirlsDigitals

Water Lasso

This week on the I Heart Faces.com site the Photo Challenge theme is WATER!! I have enough Humidity in the Air but can't get a picture of It and have it include a Face as well...so next best thing, take a photo with "seeable" water and a "face"

Round em up - Waterhide!!
Joshua Just Hosein Around, Keeping his Cool On

Who knew..My hometown the Birthplace of Airconditioner

As I sit in my Florida home nice and cool...I am ever so thankful for the Air Conditioner Unit humming along outside. It is soooooo muggy and warm these summer days, I sometimes wonder how I grew up in a house and drove in cars - with no "air conditioners" in any windows or cooled air coming out of vents.
In my house only a couple of window fans.
I didn't know what I was missing until the day my late husband and I got a room air conditioner for "our" bedroom. My kids didn't get them - that luxury was reserved for us grownups. We figured "we" had "survived" a childhood without them, and they would as well.
After our girls moved away, we finally did get room air conditioners for their rooms though ;-) - we had one room set up as computer/office and the other was made into a "guest" room. Then 5 yrs before Paul passed away, he and a friend installed a whole house unit. I'll never forget coming home from work on a warm summer afternoon and wondered why all the doors and windows were closed. Then I stepped inside.....ahhhhhhh the coolness was ever so refreshing. I was so grateful for his talents and his ability to fix and do things around the house, that we didn't have to "hire" out for. We still opened all the windows and doors when it was in the "70's" outside, but when it got humid and hot, I cranked down the temps as fast as I could reach the thermostat.

Little did I know until reading an Article today in the Buffalo First news online, that a man from Western NY by the name of Carrier was the first guy to make air conditioners "practical" for offices and businesses, and later on for "home use".
Thank YOU, Thank YOU to Mr Carrier - you are one Cool Guy!!
Mr Carrier is buried in Buffalo's Forest Lawn cemetery.

Read all about Mr Carrier here:
http://www.bizjournals.com/buffalo/blog/the_last_laugh/2011/07/buffalo-birthplace-of-air-conditioning.html

The Business that still carries his name today is still conditioning the air around us in our homes.

May is almost done.....

Happy Memorial Day Weekend

Remember the Sacrifices So Many Have Given
for our Country and our Freedom
http://www.usmemorialday.org/backgrnd.html

Just noticed I hadn't posted anything for May...guess had nothing of much to say:-). It was a nice month. I turned 64 this month, had another wonderful "Mothers" day (my 43rd one!!!) to celebrate being a Mom to the 2 most amazing, beautiful daughters any Mom could ever wish for.

Got some nice gifts, cards, & the weather here in FLA was sunny and hot all month long.

Other than just hanging out at my house - didn't do much else.

On Friday - I went shopping or looking around at 4 different furniture stores in the area with my daughter and granddaughter for a new Entertainment/Wall Unit - I think we've narrowed it down to one or 2 that I really like and can "Afford"! And of course I saw lots of other things that I would love to decorate my home with or get new of, etc. etc.

Got a new camera (a Olympus SP 800UZ), didn't need one, just found a deal and decided I wanted it...it comes with a 30x Zoom vs the 12x Zoom I have on my Fugi 5yr old camera and my 3x Zoom I have on my 9 yr old Casio camera... I really like taking digital pictures, I never run out of film and I can delete what I don't want to upload to my computer etc. And I so enjoy looking at the birds and such out back of my house. Gives me something to do ;-) and keeps me out of trouble. Here's a couple more photos I took with the new camera.

PC Crafter is CLOSED!!

UPDATE: PCCrafter has closed its Digital Doors and has gone to website cyber heaven.

I will miss the amazing Artists, and while I own quite a bit of their beautiful and whimsical art collections - I will miss seeing NEW art from them available in downloadable kit form.

But there are still 3 former pccrafter artists who do sell their clip art sets online: as of Sept 2015 they are:
Gina Jane (owner of Daisie Company.com)

Laurie Furnell

Tammy DeYoung

That's it, the majority of former pccrafter, Daisie Company and aimee asher (Aimee Asher went out of business in 2015) artists no longer sell their art online in downloadable form.

See my post from April 14, 2011 which has information about the new message forum that hugsister Lynne a.k.a Blondemoments created for former pccrafter.com community message forum members
http://chocolateonthekeyboard.blogspot.com/2011/04/so-sad-pccrafter-messageboard-community.html

and  there is a pccrafter messageboard alumni Facebook Group (pcMB alumni) online that you can be invited to join, if you are a friend of any of the members of the alumni group. 
https://www.facebook.com/groups/305104625018/ 

Many times folks will ask - what about all the clipart they had in their accounts that they hadn't downloaded yet from pccrafter. Well the website went out of business in 2011 and no content is available anywhere. If you didn't download your content in time before it closed or when you bought it, or Did NOT back up your collections and had a computer crash - You are sadly out of Luck.  Except for the 3 artists I mention above - who sell a "few" select kits that were once upon a time sold on pccrafter - You are not going to find those sets again.

Sadly there is a lot of clipart images uploaded to picasa albums and/or pinned on pinterest that is in violation of the pccrafter terms of use and the artists copyrights.  And anything found online will not be in the original dpi quality etc.    
Remember if you purchased anything from ANY digital website now, or in the past > and installed it to your computer > there are Terms of Use and Copyright information that always must be adhered to - even if the website itself goes out of business.  Those TOUs and Artists Copyrights always remain in effect.  

One of the main reasons that so many artists chose to get out of the Digital Clip art - downloadable business, is because of the rampant illegal file sharing, and disregard of their Terms or Use and/or Angel policies.  

Please support the Artists that continue to offer their art for us clip art junkies, by Purchasing their art from reputable websites and honoring their TOUs and Copyrights.   

So sad - pccrafter messageboard community is gone

Seems that the messageboard community forums of pccrafter.com are no longer online. Tis a sad day for "Me". It was those forums that really brought the "net" out in me. Most of the folks who do visit this tiny corner of the blogosphere - my blog, know me (LibMary) from those pccrafter forums.   **Update > PCCrafter closed its cyber doors permanently in 2011**
 
It was back in 2004, that one of my web pages - a listing of links to free printables was being overwhelmed from traffic from the pccrafter forums. My then free website, kept exceeding its bandwidth because of the visits I was getting. So I traced the link to a message on the pccrafter forums - and began to look around the place. I kept seeing the same questions being asked...How Do You Fill a Blank Template with backgrounds and graphics, and also How Do You Remove the White Surrounding JPG graphics. These questions were something that I never had much of a reason to think about, but I was fascinated by how helpful and friendly everyone was in trying to help each other out. I also noticed that the gals seemed to share a special bond with each other. They told of their daily happenings, asked for prayers, told of their joys, showed photos of their crafts, and opened their "houses" (you pccrafter ole timers will remember when folks got "houses" on the MSN site) for us all to visit.
Now at the time in 2004, I had already been buying the amazing graphics collections from pccrafter and had joined the Monthly Hug Club in 2003 (discontinued as of Dec 2010 when they released their last Club selections) - but I collected graphics/clipart as a hobby. I did signage for the Library I worked in, but really didn't do much else with all the stuff I bought. I just fell in love with it, and had to have it, and it was a bargain, and it didn't require any "room" in my house, only on my hard drive....that's my story and I'm stickin to it!
So I didn't consider myself a "crafter" like so many hugsisters were, but I did understand somethings about computers and software programs. As I worked in a Hospital Library that had a computer lab, and had been working with software programs and computers since about 1986..so if I ever felt I could help out with an answer - I would offer up my "How I Do It" posts and threads.
Lots of gals over the years found my help - helpful - and the seeds of friendship were sewn forever into the fabric of my life. I learned a lot from them as well so it was a 2 way or 100+ way street between us all.

When my sweet Paul passed away suddenly on a beautiful Saturday afternoon in April 2008, I sat at my computer that evening, still in shock, but knowing that I needed to connect with my "hugsisters"...and let them know I needed them to pray for me. The response was overwhelming and still stirs my emotions today. Those women are soooooo special and I'll probably never meet most of them in person, but I know them very well.

Lynne, a.k.a. Blondemoments a hugsister, gave us pccrafter sisters a gift last Dec.
She opened a new messageboard community. We all felt that when pccrafter announced that they were discontinuing the Hug Club, and not renewing some of our favorite artists contracts, that things might be winding down for pccrafter as a clipart business. So Lynne thoughtfully "thought" ahead and created a Plan B / Backup Plan for the "Community".

The new Hugsister forums aren't quite the same as the pccrafter forums, but they already have 600+ registered users, and things are Humming :-).
I still help out with posts that I think I can offer something to someone in the way of information etc. Or I offer up links or resources I hope others might enjoy discovering. Come on over if you haven't registered yet and see what we're all up to:
http://z15.invisionfree.com/HugSisters/index.php?act=idx

A Birds Eye View

I have been totally fascinated by the Eagles Nest shown 24/7 via a live camera feed.
The first baby eagle was hatched on April 2nd, the second on the 3rd and I think the 3rd egg hadn't hatched as of today the 5th.
Excerpt quoted from website:
The Raptor Resource Project brings you the Decorah Eagles from atop their tree at the fish hatchery in Decorah, Iowa.

The live video feed is streamed online 24/7. At night an infrared light provides night vision to viewers through the cam. Infrared light is not visible to eagles, they do not see it or know it is there.
Just amazing what Nature offers us: Enjoy!

Free live streaming by Ustream

Think Outside the Frame

2015 >> UPDATE to this Post  Sept 2015 <<  - this originally was written in April 2011, and in four short years, most of the websites I linked to are now gone - 
I have tried to edit and/or removed the links that no longer work.  
Please remember that websites and online businesses go out of biz or move to a new web addy - Everyday in cyberspace - so if something is important to you, copy and paste information you find useful to a word document for your personal reference. And if you see something in a digital webstore that really calls to you, buy it or do it very soon.  The majority of artists that I use their clip art in digital and real life creations - that I bought via digital stores, are NO LONGER selling their art in downloadable kits or collections.  I  bought from places such as PCCrafter, Aimee Asher and from artists that once upon a time sold digital art sets at Daisie Company  
(Note: Daisie Company.com still is open and sells the art of Gina Jane - a former pccrafter artist)  Laurie Furnell and Tammy DeYoung are 2 other former pccrafter artists that now have Etsy stores. 

Original post:
Hi,
Happy Spring & Everything!!
On Wednesday and Thursday this past week we really had some wild weather round these parts of Florida. I think they had 7 tornado's touch down within 50 miles of my house!!

On Saturday my grandkids were here for a little while and Mariah and I took a walk around the neighborhood soaking in all the wonderful "SUNSHINE" and looked at how green and flowery everything was. When we were walking, she approached a wee butterfly on the sand of an empty lot (I think someone is going to build on it soon - fingers crossed) and the butterfly flew to her finger and stayed with her through a good portion of our walk. She kept trying to let it go by all the various flower patches we passed along the way...but it kept staying on her hand till we found just the right spot ;-)

Graphics from pccrafter.com by Tricia Santry
Blooming Seasons creatable
**Tricia's Friends Forever creatable would have also been nice to
use with the photos. I love all of her artwork :-)  
This artwork is NO LONGER AVAILABLE
UPDATE>PCCrafter closed its digital doors in 2011


Update : Digital Scrapbook Place is no longer online and this set by Elizabeth Weaver is no longer available for purchase
Out of Bounds Frames/Elements by Elizabeth Weaver  formerly sold 
@ Digital Scrapbook Place. No LONGER AVAILABLE 

If you want the font I used in layout:
Get it FREE at Kevin and Amanda's
(and find lots more fun fonts)
http://kevinandamanda.com/fonts/fontsforpeas/pea-miss-mary/

FYI for those who want to think outside the frame: this technique is often referred to as
Out of Bounds (OOB)
I posted these links in a 2007 thread on the former pccrafter.com messageboard community
and just thought I'd share here on my Blog

Image credits:
Frames: Out of Bounds Elements by Elizabeth Weaver @ Digital Scrapbook Place. 
(no longer available)
Fonts: SandyTextHmk, Sheer Beauty, Slumber Party
Cute boy - my grandson Josh!
Scenic photos taken at Letchworth State Park, NY, July 2007

-------------------------------------------------------------------
I have more or less just used tutorials made for other software programs, and adapted to the tools I have in my Microsoft Digital Image software to create my out of bounds or out of the frames compilations.

Here are some links that you may find helpful in doing some of these types of things yourself:

Corel  create out of bounds photo

http://learn.corel.com/photo/tutorials/view/148/Create-An-Out-Of-Bounds-Photo

Digital Technique - How to POP out a Photo
3D Photo Technique
http://www.acherryontop.com/article?a=1178

Making Your Subject Pop Out Of A Photo With Photoshop

http://www.photoshopessentials.com/photo-effects/pop-out/

Out of Bounds tutorial
http://www.flickr.com/photos/28466683@N00/153507433/in/set-72157594146002408/

------------------------------------------------------------------
And last year (2010) I put up a How I Do It page, showing how I separate/extract a graphic from a background:
http://www.sippingtea.com/hugbees/cutoutpic.html

Happy Cut Outs!
P/S
I used one of the Out of Bounds frames that I got in the kit by Elizabeth Weaver @ Digital Scrapbook Place to create a sigtag (kit no longer available) - that I had in my posts on the former pccrafter messageboard back in 2007

Photobucket....just another place I signed up for

I own 6 web domains with lots of server storage space, so I don't really need ANOTHER place to upload photos to, just so that I can link to them in messageboard forums etc. - But some of the places that I hang out online, pccrafter's messageboard, the new hugsister forum that was created in Dec 2010 by hugsister Lynne a.k.a. Blondemoments (cause none of us knows how long pccrafters' will be online, not much going on with that once wonderful site for buying clipart collections), and I belong to Scrappy Friends, and Aimee Asher's forums too...and at those sites many of the gals use Photobucket.
Often over the years questions came up about how to use it, if it was easy, safe and or worth using. So a few years ago I did join it, just to see for myself just how difficult and/or easy it was to use. They've added new features over the years, but its still an easy site (for me anyway) to use and upload photos to and/or then be able to "link" to the photos or albums etc. and post images within messageboard communities postings that you might make.

You sign up for FREE, then from your computer - just begin to "Upload" photos, you can create albums, name them and then upload just photos you want to go into just that particular album.
You can resize photos right within the Photobucket.com options. Then if a photo is much too big to post full size in a forum, you can resize it and save that "resized" image as a new image, in your album.
OK - now if you want to post that "image" in a messageboard forum, find it in your album(s) and click on it so your are viewing just that image on its own. Then over to the right or underneath the image..are some boxes with "codes lines" in them...YOU want the IMG code line. Simply click on that complete IMG line it will start with [IMG] and end with [/IMG] you have to have that complete line copied - you can't miss a [ or a ] - and then that copied line goes onto to your computers clipboard. Then you go to your message that you want to put that image, and click on your computer keyboard the Control Key plus the V letter and that should paste whatever you just copied to your computers clipboard. Easy peasy.
A thing that I do when I want to post more than one image in a single post -
I copy each IMG line code into a WORD document or a Notepad document, and type any notes I want to go with each image. And then when I'm ready, I just copy and paste all that stuff from the document and paste it all into a message forum post.

When I opened my Photobucket account, I really didn't have a "Need" to upload much there. Most of my photos are stored either at Snapfish.com or at Kodak.com's album spots...and ones I link to for message forums, I upload to my web domains and link directly from there.

As long as an image is online and accessible** (**Accessible means: doesn't need passwords, and you are the owner of the image, and you have the "rights" to link to the website where the image is located, - meaning you can't see an image on someone elses website or blog or album, and create a link to it from that website or blog. That's called hotlinking and also stealing bandwidth!!! Don't do it!!!) you just need to get the web address for just that image (the url) - you would right click on the image, and find the Image Properties, on the Image properties you should see a Location line, that is the image's web address or location of just that image..copy it and enclose that entire web address within those image tags of [img] and paste the url here but with no spaces after the ] bracket and then exactly at the end of the pasted url put in the closed image tag of [/img] - every time you put a code on a web page, it must have an open and a closed tag. the back slash of / is the one used to "close" tags. If you use a forward slash \ the tag won't work for what you need the tags to do.

OK enough about that...I did all this blogging on and on, just so I could post a slide show of some of the pics I did upload to Photobucket and have just sitting there.
I uploaded digital layouts that I had posted on one of my community forums I once belonged to, its one I don't hang out at anymore, but I did have all the layouts on my computer. And they were all resized for putting in online galleries. So tonight I created a slide show out of that Digital Layouts album I have on Photobucket, I copied the HTML code (cause that's one I needed to use for a "Blog" posting) so that I could post it in a BLOG post...lets see if I got it right ;-) - I am pasting now:

Happy Birthday!!

To my house. I can't believe that it was one year ago March 26th that I signed the papers to close on my new home. I still have lots of boxes to unpack, and things to change or decorate the way I "think" I want things to look. Its a lot harder to do this stuff on your own. Ya know how sometimes when you're married, you dream of a time when you don't have to consider any one elses tastes or lifestyle and you could decorate your home just the way you want. Well - I am in that stage of my life...I can make all my "own" choices. Only problem...I loved making a HOME for Paul and I, and he really liked the "majority" of my tastes. I decorated my home in Buffalo for "our" lifestyle and for that house. He did so many wonderful things to that home of his own..he remodeled the kitchen, the living room, the upstairs bathroom, added a shower to the basement, etc etc. But he left the furniture choices to me and the general colors and "decor". But here in Florida...not many of those things that I had in Buffalo seem to really fit here and I really don't know my NEW style or in what direction I want to take this home. When I get my tax refund this year, I think I'm going to buy at least one new piece of furniture and create around it...probably what I need the most is an entertainment center wall unit. Wish me Luck! Next yr when the house celebrates its 2nd Birthday...I'll bring y'all inside the place.
**My son in law did take you on a tour of the insides house back in January 2010 - remember
this You Tube Video ;-)

graphics credits: all graphics from various pccrafter.com collections that I own.

Afternoon Tea Time

Afternoon Tea at the Marriott Legends Edge resort in Panama City on my late sister's(Flo a.k.a. Pinky) Birthday. For the past few years when ever Flo and my younger sister got together, we tried to find a spot for afternoon tea to share together. Today I am at a resort with my younger sister, her husband and Flo's (she passed away in Jan 2010) husband in one of their Marriott timeshares. My younger sister noticed on the activities calendar for the resort that they were having an afternoon tea this afternoon. So we went down and had an very pleasant time. We got to pick out our own cup, teapot and tea...and there was an assortment of mini cheesecakes. A little while later a group of 4 women came, and we shared some conversations with them. They were all from Toronto, Ontario Canada. We shared that our Mom was born in Toronto, and that we grew up just across the border in Buffalo NY. The woman who runs some of the activities for the Marriott, had said that they always have their afternoon teas on Saturdays - and when we had mentioned to her the other day that we would be down for Friday's tea, she said she didn't know why the schedule had been printed to show it being held on Friday - we told her that our late sister, probably had a hand in typing it up ;-)

Then after a wonderful week in Panama City - I went back to Jacksonville to stay with my sister for a few more days. My daughter came from Indianapolis too.....so it was a great get away.
While in Jacksonville my sister wanted to take me to a new Tea Room she had discovered near downtown...
Elizabeth's Tea Room - it was absolutely tea-lightful

Subway Art?...or just another form of Word Art

Subway Art

What is Subway Art? – really its just “Word Art” – a collection of words related to same topic/subject arranged in pleasing fashion – those who create these pieces may use different fonts for each of the words or vary the size of the words.

Using Most graphics / photo editing programs you can create your own Wordart subway style prints.

But if you prefer downloading and printing the freebies online or need some inspiration – here’s a few links to what’s out there

Update 2015: many of these links may no longer be available from 2010 and 2011

Found these via internet searches

Free Subway Art >> Firefox search results Printables Internet Explorer Printables

Free Valentine Subway art

Eighteen 25

http://eighteen25.blogspot.com/2011/01/valentine-subway-art.html

see also the Christmas subway art printable

http://eighteen25.blogspot.com/2010/11/christmas-subway-art-banner.html

**see some of the names of the fonts used on making Eighteen 25’s subway art

http://eighteen25.blogspot.com/2011/01/fonts.html

Blooming Homestead

http://bloominghomestead.blogspot.com/2011/01/valentine-printables.html

**see also other free printables available from Blooming Homestead

http://bloominghomestead.blogspot.com/search/label/printables

Endless Crafting

Life lessons *I didn’t really find that the printable download was FREE

but you can get some ideas to create your own using the same words

http://endlesscrafting.blogspot.com/2010/09/subway-art-free-printable.html

More Free Subway art printables

Craftily Ever After

Christmas

http://craftily-ever-after.blogspot.com/2010/12/free-christmas-subway-art-printable.html

A Little Lovely Blog

Christmas

http://alittlelovelyblog.blogspot.com/2010/11/free-printable-christmas-subway-art.html

Bunch of Craft

Winter

http://bunchofcraft.blogspot.com/2010/12/winter-subway-art.html

Thanksgiving

http://bunchofcraft.blogspot.com/2010/11/thanksgiving-subway-art-printable.html

Christmas

http://bunchofcraft.blogspot.com/2010/11/christmas-subway-art.html

Halloween

http://bunchofcraft.blogspot.com/2010/10/halloween-subway-art.html

Betty Crocker Wannabe

Family values

http://adventuresofabettycrockerwannabe.blogspot.com/2010/09/family-values-subway-art-printable.html

See too the wonderful Scripture Christmas Tree printable

http://adventuresofabettycrockerwannabe.blogspot.com/2010/12/christmas-scripture-word-tree-printable.html

and Fall printables

http://adventuresofabettycrockerwannabe.blogspot.com/2010/10/my-fall-mantle-and-fall-scripture.html

See all printables

http://adventuresofabettycrockerwannabe.blogspot.com/search/label/Printable

Sew Much Ado

Christmas

http://sewmuchado.blogspot.com/2010/12/giveaway-winners-and-christmas-subway.html

Hi I’m Francesca

Ghandi’s Top 10 Fundamentals

http://idea-obscura.tumblr.com/post/2409119224/ive-been-thinking-of-doing-this-for-a-while-now

I love it all

Calendar (*Jan to April)

http://iloveitallwithmonikawright.blogspot.com/2010/12/ready-for-new-year-subway-art-calendar.html

See too this Madigan Made blog post - for a Sporty themed Subway art

http://madiganmade.blogspot.com/2010/08/sporty-goodness.html

How I create my own style of Subway style Wordart - I use Microsofts Digital Image software (*the program is discontinued - but most graphic/photo editing programs - should be able to produce the same results)

I open a new blank canvas and size it 8x10

then just add words as individual layers in various fonts and sizes and arrange on the canvas

I name and save the basic compilation. Then I can duplicate the image
and have some fun

pic of the day

I knew today was 1/11/11 but hadn't thought about the time...until I just happened to be in the kitchen and looked at the oven clock..to mark down the time I was taking some medication..and there it was 11:11 - so had to quick take the picture before it became 11:12 - Wish I could have remembered to take the picture at 01:11
But I still get a chance to catch the time 11:11 ...on 11/11/11
I totally forgot last year on 10/10/10...and next year it'll be time to wait for clock to strike 12:12 on 12/12/12 ;-)

pic of the day

Wonder if this Stork in my yard is resting from a Delivery in the neighborhood or waiting on a pickup call.

Pic of the day...the process of De-decorating

All the ornaments ready to get packed up, in the boxes I have stacked in the front bedroom. I don't know if that's a word or not..but I'm not de-cluttering, I'm just taking away the nice Christmas decor that I had so carefully put up just a few short weeks ago :-( and packing it back into the boxes. I really have sooooooooo much holiday decor that I could if I want too, put all different stuff out next year. But I still have to sort through it and decide what I really really want to keep. Figure the snow themed things will stay with me ....Snow, its just such a part of me, growing up in Buffalo, and my nickname for Paul was "my snowman" ;-) Well, time to get back to my de-decorating.

Think maybe I'll leave the tree up one more night and enjoy the lights

Pic of the day Green,Gray,Red

My grandson and I enjoyed watching the sandhill crane couple walking by this morning in my yard. Usually they are around almost daily, but I hadn't seen them since a couple days before Christmas - I must have a couple hundred photos of them already....but thought that this pic was especially nice with the gray of the trees, their feathers, the green foliage and their red heads...kinda Christmasy and all ;-)

Excerpt quoted from National Geographic

Sandhills are the most common of all the world's cranes. A fossil from the Miocene Epoch, some ten million years ago, was found to be structurally the same as the modern sandhill crane. Today, these large birds are found predominately in North America. They range south to Mexico and Cuba, and as far west as Siberia.

Read more at: http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/birds/sandhill-crane/

1st day of the year....

This is my Picture of the Day

it was really nice round these parts :-)
hoping for Smore just like it.
Happy New Year!

My kids got me a firepit for my yard...just for making Smores and maybe keeping me warm on a cool Florida evening.
They also set up a Badminton game in the afternoon
Watch the Birdie
Wishing you all a wonderful Year ahead.