So I Was Just Thinking

Dec 24th since I was last online. I'm supposed to be posting my final reflection on discipline, but I don't have a computer. That's so not me. I've adapted. I've been drawing, sketching, designing...things I don't get to do. The big thing I got was a clean house, clean enough for company. In the big world of cyberspace one can feel insignificant, but Peggy let me feel missed. She actually called looking for me. For that I am thankful. Wishing all of you Happy New Year! I hope to be back soon. This message was sent using the Picture and Video Messaging service from Verizon Wireless! To learn how you can snap pictures and capture videos with your wireless phone visit www.verizonwireless.com/picture . Note: To play video messages sent to email, QuickTime� 6.5 or higher is required.

My daughter continues to amaze me with her creative genius. Behold her latest jewelry creation. There is a lovely pendant to match, but I haven't photographed yet. Isn't her art teacher the best? To think the government keeps cutting back on fine arts budgets.

Here's a little frivolity. Caitlin thought it looked like a heart.

Today is the last day before Winter Break. My students are surprised that I am making them learn on the day before a vacation, but I want them to realize there is a purpose for being here and we will take advantage of every moment we are given to become better people. As they are working on their comic strips about a story we read, Gluskabe and the Snowbird , it causes me think about how every culture has stories and reasons for why the world is the way it is. In this particular Gluskabe story, they explain why it only snows a few months a year, why the sun doesn't shine on the entire world at the same time and, funnily, why a skunk is black and white and has a bad smell. There are stories of Anansi the spider which explain many of things like this, too. None of these stories, however, can explain away why tragedy has to occur in our lives...why a 39 year old man has to bury his 58 year old mother...why a grandson will never get to know his grandmother. My mother-in-law passed away...

I was just getting into the Christmas spirit. Tree up. Tree skirt found (thanks Hun.) Gifts purchased (mostly.) Then I had to go to the bane of my existence, Supermegamart . My home town has only two stores that stay open after 7 p.m. One is just a grocery store and the other is my least favorite store in the world. I have managed to stay out of this store for quite some time, but this week I did have to venture there for a gift for my Secret Santa Pal since I procrastinated as I usually do. Mind you, I did try to shop local, but our boutiques have dwindled to one, and there was little that interested me. I found everything I wanted and was able to buy milk and some materials for a science experiment the kids will be doing this week. However, the usual conundrum astounded me....Why, on payday after work , does a store with 30 check out aisles have only six or seven aisles open? As I stood there pondering this, standing behind a family who obviously only shops once a month, my energy d...

Today is the last day of the Secret Santa. I will have to find something else to fill my December Daily posts with. I filled a basket with my pal's favorite goodies like pretzels and chocolate and then added some spa-like gifts like "scrubby" gloves and socks that had aloe infused in them along with a purpley pink (her favorite colors) candle and last but not least some Mary Kay fun as only I can do. I decided that the gift needed a little card to go with it, so I took the remains of the card that I used the other day to make mine. I found a clear piece of plastic to make a window. I wanted to fill the window with glitter but couldn't find any. Then I put the last piece of the old card in the window and decorated the rest of the card with markers and colored pencils. Here's the final product. Nine more days until Christmas. Twelve more days until I see my brother and meet his girlfriend. Fifteen more days until I start a new writing plan for myself. You will hav...

I love presents. I love giving them. I love getting them. I have shown you one I received. Today let me show you what I gave. The first is just the packaging as I don't want the girl getting it to know what Santa brought her. My friend Ivette gave me these plain boxes (meant for stamping or whatever,) so immediately put one to good use. I cut up a greeting card and used it as an embellishment and then began doodling based on images I saw in the card. My secret pal also benefited today. Here are some little tags I made for her using some index cards and my favorite tool...markers! Only 10 more days until Christmas and 16 more days of December Daily! I know I can. I know I can.

I got a nice gift today from my Secret Santa. If I showed you what it looked like now, you would say, "Tsk, Tsk." So to my Secret Santa, Thank you whoever you are.

We finally put up the tree. Gary actually assembled it and left the part of decorating it to me and kids. I thought I would try letting them do it on their own, but couldn't let well enough alone. They were putting things on in the "wrong" order and loading the tree with too many of one type of ornament in one place. Even as a kid, I had a way of putting up the ornaments to ensure that the decorations were evenly spaced with no two colors touching and such. Gary put up his Christmas village. It is so cute. So other than the angel which hasn't made it to the top of the tree, we are pretty much done with holiday decorating. We will leave it up until the 6th of January.

There were some interesting poinsettia (red for Christmas and blue for Hanukkah) in the grocery store the other day. They were so sparkly and I wanted to take a photo of them. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera and only had my phone. I went ahead and took a close up of the flowers and sent them to my email. This is what I got. Then I played with Fireworks (like Photoshop) and got this. Finally I loaded it up to Picnik and got this. I thought it was fun and decided that even though I didn't take the photo today, I fixed it today so it is my Daily #12. I hope you all are having a wonderful Christmas/Hanukkah season.

I am part of a Secret Santa exchange. I got some cool markers from my Secret Santa that I used to make a card to attach to my person's gift. I love markers.

Dinner at Nanny's Stormy Skies for Cazjane

This may be true, but today we are not talking about soup. Caitlin had a project to build an device using household materials to cushion her egg as it was dropped from the top of her two-story school. She came up with the idea of using the netting they use to hold fruits and vegetables and suspend it in a milk carton. The idea was that the net bag would catch the egg when it kept falling (due to Newton's law) once the milk carton stopped falling (hit the ground.) As she was trying to build it, everyone at home kept putting their two cents in. Maybe you need clay to make the carton bottom heavy so it will land bottom side down. Maybe you should put some mattress foam to cushion the egg in case the carton lands on it's side. Maybe.... Maybe everyone should have kept their ideas to themselves because this was the final result. Thankfully, she is not graded on whether the egg survived the drop. Just on her final observation report. Reminds me of the platypus which appears to be an ...

I live in a very strange place as many of you know. I drive through field artillery ranges that have free range cattle roaming through it. There have been more than a few times when I have had to stop to let a cow wander across the road. I was fortunate enough to have my camera and the time to stop to snap a picture. Today was Caitlin's band concert. Five junior high bands, some better than others, played their way through some traditional and not so traditional Christmas tunes the oddest being what the band director described as a Puerto Rican tune entitled "Winter Fiesta." What would my Puerto Rican counterparts know about winter other than it begins December 21st? When my grandfather came to visit me in Alaska in 1973, he had never seen or felt snow before. I know that the information superhighway has made such knowledge available to anyone with computer access, but really! How could they write a song about a Winter Fiesta? But I digress, as I am prone to do. The next...

Nose to the video game as usual. (Taken by cell phone.)

On Thanksgiving, James decided he needed a haircut. Unfortunately, all salons and barbers were closed, so he took matters into his own hands. Because of that, he now looks like this.

Yes, I already need to catch up. I know I shouldn't be behind at only day 4, but if you know me, that's par for the course. I decided to try out the "Fireworks" feature on my little Olympus Stylus. It basically is just a long shutter. There were a couple of interesting shots, but this one was my favorite. It looks like a chicken crossing the road with some little friends in tow. See you tomorrow. I promise. *wink*

We actually have real snow falling from the sky. Granted the snow melts the moment it hits the ground, but it is snow nonetheless. The wonderful thing is to see how the students from Caribbean are enjoying seeing snow for the first time. It made for a perfect Daily #3. Oh, to have that much joy!

I never took my Christmas decorations down from last year. I left them up for my husband who was away for half of last year. Now I don't have to decorate for this year. LOL So here's December Daily number 2. Two days down. Twenty-nine more to go.

Yesterday was the first day of December and the first day of December Daily where I get to take a photo a day for one month. Now that's a challenge I think I can keep up with. 30 days is about my limit when I finally say, I have had it, so I am going to complete this one. I told Rieni that I thought I had already messed up because the day was so miserably cold and rainy that there couldn't possibly be anything to take a picture of, but I was mistaken. Every Tuesday we have dinner at my Aunt Rose's house, and she is very into holidays and decorations. I took a little photo. I call this "It's beginning to look a LITTLE like Christmas." If you are not too busy Christmas shopping, card writing and the like, join me.

Well, my friend Karen (Little_M) at Scrapblog.com has found her new loves and they are Picnik.com and Flickr . I headed over to Picnik with a photo I took at my aunt's house on Thanksgiving Day and got the following. Thank you Picnik. The only thing is sometimes I just keep pushing buttons until I get the desired result. Then I don't remember how I get where I am. It's kind of like when you are at the arcade as a kid playing the pinball machine. You kept pushing levers until you got the ball where you wanted it.