Goodbye

Goodbye Christmas wreath

Goodbye water going into the "hibiscuit" plant.

Goodbye today.

Goodbye 2011.

Happy New Year!

Go to SkyWatch Friday to see more skies from all over the world.

Fashion Show

Kylie got some new clothes for Christmas.

While waiting for our baby back ribs to cook, we asked her to model them.

At first she was all shy.

But it didn't take her long to get into the swing of it.

Even her new PJs had a turn.

I tried to find outfits that would be appropriate for cold New Hampshire when she returns home. 

Not an easy task in sunny Florida! 

This will be good for Florida without the leggings but fine for NH with them and a white turtleneck.

Definitely for NH.  My daughter said she needs jeans but, as you can see from her expression, she much prefers girly, frilly dresses.

This is so her!

This is actually the skirt

to this little peasant outfit.

And, finally, this ensemble was a birthday gift from her cousin Michelle last week.  She wore it all day yesterday but mostly without the sweather since it was in the 80s. The hot pink (her favorite color!) camisole underneath is trimmed in lace.



Holiday Magic

Fooling around trying to get some bokeh produced some cool results.

This is the tree's reflection in the glass door of our entertainment center.

Here's what I was doing:

I put my camera on aperture priority.

The only lights on were the Christmas tree lights and the TV.

I held my hand in front of the camera, focused on it to make the background all blurry, pulled my hand away, then quickly clicked the shutter button the rest of the way down.

I didn't get my hand out of the way fast enough on this one but I love the effect of my fingers playing with the bokeh.

Happy Holidays!

Fun with Kylie

All set for her Florida birthday party and eating flowers!

Learning to swim.  She can now do it!

Goofing around with Gunka, her great grandfather

Having a pedicure

Helping Grammy trim our Christmas palm tree.

Instagram

I'm taking an online photography course called The Art of Composition.

This week's assignment is to shoot square pictures and Tracey Clark, our instructor, suggested we download Instagram for our phones.

So, I did.  

What fun!

Each day of this eleventh week of the course we have to shoot a different scene in a square. 

Thursday: A Square in a Square

Yes, these are my veiny feet with the second toe longer than my big toe!

Friday: A Circle in a Square

This is kind of abstract.  We were at The Home Depot and I had to wait while my husband was ordering materials so I walked around looking for circles.  I liked this picture best.  The yellow circle is the top of a metal bar that was holding in 2x4s.

Saturday: Negative Space in a Circle

I was hoping for a spectacular sunset since we've had one just about every night in the month and a half we've been in Florida but, of course, no luck!  Instead, we ended up with this brooding sky.

Sunday: Lines in a Square

This is the reason we went to The Home Depot.  We are enclosing the underneath of our new stilt house.  Gary is so talented when it comes to stuff like this even though he's never been a carpenter. I'm his helper.  Anyway, I deliberately blurred the edges and set the focus on the ladder.  I'm not even sure why but I kind of like the result.  There is just something about the lines and shape of the ladder that pleases me.

There are three more days.  We have to do shadows, color, and a self-portrait.  I'm not crazy about that self-portrait one!  But I'll be back with my results.

 

Enjoying Retirement

We've been doing a lot of boating and see dolphins every time we go out.

This is Cayo Costa, a peaceful island we boat to.  The beach is pretty much deserted and is full of cool shells.

A sandman!  I saw it as I was walking along the beach. Actually, now that I look at it more closely, I guess it's a sand woman!

Yesterday, my sister, Nancy, and her husband, Bill, went with us.  We had such a beautiful day.

And look!  We're having babies!  Our banana is pregnant.

I'm still dazzled by the sunsets.

Busy, Busy, Busy

We've been way too busy. 

Fun, though!

Boating

Thanksgiving.  I cooked.

Company

Getting ourselves settled in our new home.

Here are a few journal pages I've been doing with a little help from my two favorite girls, Kylie and Michelle:

Hopefully, this will be a quiet week!

The Island for Sunday Scribblings: Vote

Kitchen island, that is.

We'd been thinking of getting one for awhile, now, so when we saw one for a decent price at Walmart, we bought it.

Then had to put it together.

It took us about an hour.  Not too bad.

But, when we got it into the kitchen,

we couldn't decide where to put it.

It almost didn't fit.

Gary liked it here:

But, I thought it looked better this way:

Neither of us liked it here:

Or this way:

He voted to put it here:

But it didn't look good from the other direction:

All evening he'd put it one place then I'd change it. 

Then he'd switch it back.

Then I'd move it again.

This morning he tried it like this:

And it felt right!

Phew!  We finally agreed!

Ahhhh!

We went to Cayo Costa,

a mostly uninhabited island

reachable only by boat.

We walked,

looked for shells,

ate our lunch.

Gary fiddled with the boat,

I sat and read.

This is retirement.

Check out SkyWatch Friday for more awesome skies.

Good Night

I can't get enough of the sunset from our porch.  When we lived in NH, the sun slipped behind Mt. Forist around 3 in the afternoon without fanfare.  In Maine, there are too many trees in the way. A real sunset is such a treat.

Yes!

Now that we are settling into our Florida home, I've managed to find a crafting spot

and have started journaling again.

I started this page in September just before moving to our new park model then abandoned my journal for almost two months.

When Michelle and Tori were at camp, they asked if they could do a page in my journal and I was more than happy to let them.  I'd packed away most of my crafting supplies so they were pretty limited but managed to do a great job, nevertheless.

Michelle did the page on the left and I used her background to journal this week.

I love how Tori summarized the weekend for me!

Thanks, girls!



Maiden Voyage

Since our Florida home is on a canal, we bought a new boat.  It arrived Saturday evening and we got it into the water yesterday.

We spent the day breaking the motor in and ended up at Rum Bay for lunch.  It was so beautiful and relaxing.

I enjoyed watching the birds diving for food,

the dolphins swimming near the boat.

I read for awhile

and took pictures:

Captain Jake

And when we got home, I saw the almost-full moon smiling in the sky.