Uh-Oh... I Just Got My Very First & Very Own Digital Camera ... Time For Another Up Close and Personal Home Tour...

This is the beautiful salt rock lamp that my German friend gave me when I was living in Germany. This salt rock comes from Idar-Oberstein, where there is a beautiful old church, dating back to the 1400's, built into the side of a mountain. Salt lamps are

supposed to be very good for your health, by ionizing damaging particles that electrical current puts out. I love the soothing warm light. In front is a little pink glass dragon, accented in gold, that one of my sons gave to me, Christmas 2004, in memory of Tim, who loved dragons, and who died 3 months earlier.

Below is a dried bouquet of flowers from my Dad's funeral, sitting inside a piece of pottery that Gary made. I like things that carry sentimental memory, like that. If you look closely, you can see a small glittery butterfly perched inside the bouquet. I, my sister, and my Mom all have one. We like to do silly things, like going out, together, all three wearing the things. After I had given my sister one, she was wearing it on the shoulder of her lovely peach colored sweater, the next time she flew home, with it's bouncy little wings flapping about. All I could do was smile, as we hugged. When we attended my Dad's funeral, some of us wore a tiny butterfly in our hair, to honor his transformation. All these bits of my memory are sitting on the the old chimney ledge, that is in dire need of being scraped and cleaned. We live in a house that is over a hundred years old, and it is still being renovated. This chimney used to be closed in on the sides, and a wall divided our great room into two rooms. Gary tore all the walls down and now the chimney sits in the middle of one huge room, with two fireplaces back to back. It's not usable right now, but it will be one day. There is an assortment of bird feathers, amongst my memorabilia, at least one of them from an owl (I love collecting feathers) and a beautiful peace of rock that I picked up at a gem and mineral show.
















Speaking of crazy things, my Mom bought us all matching Christmas scarves. And yes, we all three went for lunch, together, all dressed up in our scarves, when my sister was home for the Holidays. Everywhere we went, people complimented us on our scarves, asking us where we got them. I think our silliness was contagious, and they could clearly see that we were plainly having mother, daughter, and sister fun.













This is Little Dog, LD for short, who was saved from the pound, right before his scheduled execution. My how his eyes do glow, and he sure needs a haircut. He hates haircuts! He's also frightened to death of thunder and lightening, gunfire and fireworks. You can see the floor is only partly sanded, but that's a work in progress, too.
















This is LD's step-brother, and is one of three teddy bears in the living room. Little Dog has two more step-brothers, and a monkey cousin, but he looks like this one the most. Funny how step-kids can sometimes look like one another, when they don't have the same parents :) This particular one is stuffed with herbs and can be heated up in the microwave for an aromatic and soothing, comforting, warm snuggle. He's awesome, but he needs some new herbs. Dare I gut him and stuff him, anew?

















And then, there's me. I couldn't decide which photograph to put here. Undeniably, I am getting old. I can no longer hide the gray hair. I don't even try, anymore, it takes too much coloring to cover it, and causes way to much damage. I also can't hide my double chin, the sagging corners of my mouth and drooping chin line, or my age spots. I was surprised to find, in my older years, that my eyes aren't "big" anymore... in fact, they seem to be caving in, the skin underneath my eyebrows starting to flop over onto my eyelids... what? How is that even possible! ...tsk tsk... I hate aging. The pupils of my eyes, however, are just as large as they've ever been, which certifies that I'm not crazy or possessed of evil spirits. Crazy and possessed people have pinpoint pupils. Gary has pinpoint pupils :)














We could go for a side shot... and heck no, my nose is really not that big... yeah right. Hey, I'm bragging here, someone once told me that I looked like a movie star, from the side... wow! It was Barbara Streisland :O Here, I'm sporting one of the new pairs of earrings I got for Christmas... these being dragonflies, from my youngest son, the one who gave me the pink dragon. He knows I love dragonflies.













This shot's not much better, in fact it looks rather silly. Just as silly as the other two. Can you tell I don't like to smile with my mouth open? There's a reason for that, and yes I have teeth.














But, I had fun making all these shots, sitting right beside my computer, holding my arm out, snapping away with my new camera.

Have fun while you can... smile, be happy... it doesn't matter if your mouth is open or closed, just smile! And make those eyes smile too... I still have some work to do, I couldn't get mine to smile in these shots like I wanted them to. I think it has something to do with the sagging eyelids... and maybe the sagging mouth corners :(

Wishing you miles and miles and miles of smiles,
Day in and day out, all through the year,
Smiles coming in and smiles going out...
Smiles to make you happy, my dears...


P.S... this camera means no more, "Quick, lemme' hold your camera!" crying...