Brief check in

Twirling a stick as bait, the mighty hunters prepare to enter the wilderness in search of the perfect "Non-Religion Specific, Yuletide, Winter Solstice Holiday Tree."

Of course we ALL KNOW what it really is. ;o)



Scout is more successful at creating Snow Angels than Helga is, but Helga does her best anyway.






The girls and Helga (black lump in back) frolic in the snow.








Down the trail I go, with the fish-eye lens.
(Don't try this on your own kids. I am a trained professional.)


















This is my best friend of 22 years, Barb, leading the way out into the wintery Wilderness to slay the elusive Christmas tree. She is notorious for selecting a 12 foot tree and requiring us to saw off the bottom 4-5 feet. She is what we embarrassingly refer to as a "tree-topper."

Even after lopping off the botton 3 feet, she still got home and it was too big, requiring another amputation of the bottom 4 feet. This left the tree at about 6.5 feet tall.

She is a crazy woman.

A visit from the Trojans...

Insures that my frequent web presence will diminish for a little while.

I will catch you all later.

mih-

2nd Annual Christmas Greeting

Stop me if you've heard this one before...

From me to you, with all the heartfelt sentiment I can muster.

;o)

Actually, this is my telephone answering machine recording at the moment.
;o)

I am trying not to be whiney.

But four freaking days before Christmas and they decide that now is the right time to tear the remainder of my kitchen apart in order to lay tile?
Now?
Furniture is redistributed through out the rest of the house and in the kids bedrooms, making them a cramped mess.
The refridgerator is parked in the family room.

For the next 3+ days, my kitchen, the laundry room, Scouts bathroom and her bedroom will be nearly inaccessible.

I am kinda pissed about the timing of this.
but you see, I can't be pissed.
Stu is shooting a marketing video for the flooring company and the materials distributor, so the flooring job is almost free.

Still, it is kind of a bummer.
The kids are out of school on break.
They are bored out of their skulls because of the freezing rain, they can't really go any place.
Now they are jammed into tighter quarters.

I still have Christmas shopping and presents to wrap.
I have no idea now, how I will get in there to defrost the turkey for Christmas Eve dinner.
There can be nothing out on the counters or any dishes out because it is a shooting set as well as a construction site.

I am trying not to whine.
I am trying to remember that this floor job is waaaaaaay over due and now we are getting it for mere pennies.

I just wish that it wasn't happening now.

Another Installment of Christmas Tune Cavalcade

ok, so...
All I can say is about this weeks "Christmas Tune Cavalcade" selection is:

Yes, this guy is totally serious.
No, I am not going to tell his name.
(Poor kid-and hey, it's NOT one of mine!)

The title of the song is :

"Christmas Time is Here."
(And we could also say, "don't we all just want to die?")

In fair warning, I should mention that I was not actually able to listen to this song the whole way through the first time I heard it.
I had to digest it in snippets.
The magnitude of this boy's sincerity is both pityable and terrifying.

Hope he has a good year this year.

N A R N I A

Well, I was unprepared.
Unprepared for my own internal response.
Having read the entire collection, many times over, ever since I was 12 years of age, I found myself weeping.
And now for the confession:
not merely weeping at the proper, poignant parts of the story, but weeping from the very beginning.
"What?" you ask, "You mean as they were setting up the story, before the kids ever arrived in Narnia?"

Earlier than that, for I am uber-pathetic.

I found my eyes grow damp, during the Opening Credits!

Am I stupid or what?

Tumnus was perfect.
The Queen was perfectly chilling.

I blubbered my way through the whole freakin film.

After all the years of reading these works, and often finding metaphorical applications for my every day life, I guess I sould have expected as much.

I was unprepared.

Watch the ending credits too.You may see some familiar names.

POCCNR Freakin' Christmas Deer!

Well, I don't have Cyrillic loaded into my computer.
As many of you know, Stu recently spent a month in Siberia acquiring interesting images and even a nifty souvenir in the form of arrest papers and a signed confession. Among some of the other neato souvenirs, were some lovely Christmas cards.
Now if I had a Cyrillic font, I would just type out Russian Christmas Cards in the proper way, but since I don't you are stuck with:

POCCNR
(For fun, I am choosing to prounounce it "Paw-K-nrrrrr.")

So, in the Spirit of Christmas I give you
Merry POCCNR Christmas!

And also in the Spirit of the Season I have uploaded my first Christmas song selection for this year. It is "Merry Freakin' Christmas" by Calibretto 13.
It is a 2MB wma, and will end up on the SOUNDS link, in the sidebar at the right.

We have had decent snow in the last week or so, and now we also have freezing fog, which some may find annoying, however I find it so lovely that I don't even mind the dumb deer so much.
I had fun using my first Apophysis render as part of the back ground. :o)

Apophysis Fun and Thot 4 the Day

So I downloaded Apophysis last night and messed about with it for a while today.
I can see how, once I get a handle on it, it could be really fun!
Fun program.
Even for a sufferer for Math Anxiety such as myself.
;o)

As I ponder things and people it occurred to me that when we become obsessed with the utter destruction of a thing/idea/person/company we hate, far too often we end up becoming a carbon copy of that thing we hate.

Funny that.

Actually, it's not funny.
It's scary.

Tune, Snow pics

And Now: Snow

The snows have finally come!
See what comes of leaving your toys outside?

More snow
in the front yard,
here and here.






A Christmas Song For You (tm)

In honour of Decembers first friday, I give you a lovely Christmas tune to start your weekend.
Check out a selection from the soon-to-be-holiday-classic:

Star Wars - Christmas In The Stars
Scroll down about half way and just below the terrible photo you will find the link to the song.