Yes, the ground is now white in my neck of the woods and will remain so for many months, but I just discovered a folder of photos I never got around to sharing so I will be throwing some from warmer days in for a while.

So, there I was waiting for the boat to come to shore and take me out and I thought the sky was really pretty.

It didn’t take long for the sun to start setting. These two photos were taken 13 minutes apart. Amazing!

And 9 minutes later it was still beautiful! It was chilly out there, but I imagine now that lake is frozen, and unboatable.  So here’s to remembering warmer days and reminding myself they will come again.

The little propeller really spins!

My heart has a soft spot for snowmen. Both ornaments are made of metal and I absolutely love them! They were accompanied by the cutest card!

While decorating the tree, I did learn one thing to never say when your three young adult sons are in the room. I was nearly finished when I said to my husband, “Later you can hide the pickle.”

The Christmas Pickle

I promise to show you photos of baby Cole soon, he is growing so much and is simply precious! It’s hard to believe that sometime this month I will be a grandma for the third time! My granddaughter is due to enter the world on Christmas Day but we think she will come early, maybe on her Uncle Mikal’s birthday (Dec 16th).

Macro Monday is easy to play, snap a macro (or close-up) photo, post it on your blog and come back here and sign Mr Linky.

A few years ago my mom was looking for a set of salad tongs and we came up with these.

We really liked them because at the time we were living in Texas and they made us think of the beach.

They really are rather gaudy, and heavy!

Maybe now I need to find her some snowflake ones.

See you back here tonight for Macro Monday.  I try to put the linky list up every Sunday evening at 7:30 pm Central.

This butterfly has a daddy longlegs friend to the right.

And when she flew to a new spot she found another friend.

A different butterfly with a different little friend (on the left).  All of the above photos were female Cabbage Whites.

The one above is a male Cabbage White.

This male Clouded Sulpher landed on me so I handed hubs the camera.

And the wicked wind helped make more of him visible.

Apparently butterflies like company.

The unusual salt and pepper shakers are going to #11: Pamela

The Mephisto Club goes to #4: Lareine

#2: Barbara (I will email as no blog was listed) is the winner of Cause for Alarm

The Apprentice goes to #2: Martha

The Bone Garden goes to #1: Kristi

and Harvest/Life Support goes to Jeanna

Please email me your mailing addresses and I’ll mail them out in the next couple of days.

Many, many moons ago (I think I was still in high school, early 80s), my aunt made me a tiny little doll. At the time I think miniature shelves were pretty popular and the doll was made to go on a shelf but really, I’m old, oh so old, and have forgotten the whys. But while I was going through things and reorganizing I came across my little doll and thought she would be fun to photograph.

I set about trying to find the best way to photograph her and finally ending up wedging her tiny feet into the top of my birdfeeder. I thought I would be telling about how my aunt hand sewed all of her tiny seams, little dress, and French knot hair.

But, the story I thought I would give with the photos quickly turned as I went around her to get all of her sides.

It was right about now that my 19 year old decided to get in on the action. He tried to eat her, but I wasn’t quick enough to catch that shot!

Doesn’t he look guilty?!

She now sits in Haden’s belly. I’m not so sure I want her back if she makes it back from her trip.

She was cute, and lasted many years. . . until my sons got ahold of her!  But boys do keep life interesting!

Hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek

Did you hear the angels singing earlier? Well I was rejoicing with them!

3 days ago, while in Missouri, my computer crashed. It was not a soft little fall to the ground, oh no, it was a full fledged push-my-buttons-all-you-want-I’m-still-not-going-to-do-anything crash! Surprisingly, I did not cry, I did not throw a fit, I did sulk.

I was surprised to find that my computer losing all of my information – all of the important little tidbits I share with it – made me feel like. . .well, like a Loser. My self esteem crashed along with my laptop. But I held, deep inside, a tiny little crumb sized morsel of hope. I had (I was sure) a start-up disc at home (Have you made yours? Can I recommend doing so?). So I packed my beloved friend away and awaited our return trip.

Shortly after getting home last night – so shortly that I was still wearing my coat and stepped right past my dogs without even a ‘hello’ – I dug out the disc and waited with fingers crossed and baited breath for my magnificent husband to fix my world. I quietly held my breath as he inserted the disc, and after I woke back up from passing out, I found my beloved laptop was still dead.

I grabbed the paperwork that came with the computer and was excited to see that the recovery disc was right there ready to be of service. Dennis warned me that it would most likely erase everything from my friend’s memory if we used it and that it might not fix the problem.

I was on board to try it as the last resort, but only after we tried everything else. Luckily, I had recently backed up my photos so I was only going to lose a month’s worth of photos. But wiping the hard drive meant I would lose everything, every photo, every program, everything! My heart cried NO! We did call Gateway and found out that the warranty expired 2 days before the fatal crash – just my fricking luck!

The recovery disc was our final option and the one that worked! Dennis got my computer back up and running and I have been spending every free moment trying to get things back on it and where they need to be. We got a hard drive case and put my hard drive in it, attached it to Dennis’ computer and copied all my photos and such onto an external hard drive before Dennis put it back in my computer and made my computer breath again.

I have just a few minor issues now and some of them will be worked out over the next few days as I reinstall my programs and try to bring my friend out of his amnesiac state. The one thing I worry about is that I may have missed an important email. So, if you have tried to get my attention and have been ignored please know that I am not slighting you, I probably didn’t see it, so please forgive me and try again.

Last chance to enter the book and tadpole/whale/sperm/melting marshmallow things. Winners announced tomorrow evening.

I saw this little Quail at the Manitowoc Zoo and thought he would be perfect for letter Q in Martha’s A-Z Photo Challenge.

However, he wasn’t very cooperative. It was a rainy day, and he was behind glass and hiding behind the twigs and . . .oh well, you get so-so Quail photos for letter Q.

Still, he’s really pretty colored and fat, isn’t he?

Hope you all have a great Thanksgiving. :)  We’ll be eating turkey and such with our kids today.  Then I’ll be trying to catch up on blog visiting now that we’re home.   Then tomorrow I’ll be doing the random generator for the book giveaways, hurry and sign up if you haven’t.

For the first time this year I got to see some Indian Pipe Flowers (aka ghost flower, corpse plant), scientific name, Monotropa uniflora.

The plants are small, growing to 4-10“ tall with flowers that are about ¾“ long. The entire plant is white and turns black when damaged. A gel-like sap is said to have been used medicinally by Native Americans for treating eye problems.

Once pollinated, the flowers turn upright and the plants turn brown. Hopefully next time I see them they will be fresher.

As you know, this summer the chipmunks drove me nuts. This one was hilarious! He kept using this branch to access the birdfeeder, then I moved the birdfeeder. Too funny to watch him keep going to the end of the branch, just to turn around and go back. He did is many times, guess he’s a slow learner.

Another chipmunk decided to explore this little birdhouse as a possible home.

They started preparing for winter, stuffing cheeks as full as possible.

These were taken last month (before I got sick), and I haven’t seen a chipmunk in a while, believe it or not, I kinda miss them.

Good thing I have my chipmunk statue.

Macro Monday is easy to play, snap a macro (or close-up) photo, post it on your blog and come back here and sign Mr Linky.

Where there’s berries there’s often birds.

And I looked and looked and did find some birds.

However, they were camera shy!

This lone frog was the only creature willing to pose for a moment.

I will be slow making the rounds due to currently being in Missouri and having to borrow my mom’s computer to do this post but as soon as I can I will be around.

Angel on My Shoulder, along with Golden Eagle Log Homes, hosted a wine event and there were so many details to capture and share.

A couple of raccoons carved into the railings.

A version of the house carved into its own mantle.

Plenty of beer.

And pretzels.

Wine for all.

Magnificent views!

Amazing surprises sculpted into the walls.

Silly seductive celebrities. Stephanie Klett, with Discover Wisconsin, is such a hoot!

Now, what would you make with a whole bunch of corks?  No seriously, an ideas?

Book Giveaways are here!