Dizzy Sisters

I've been digital scrapbooking today with this old pic of my sister and me. I think it's because of the seven year age difference between us that we have so few pictures of us together. This is one of the rare ones. My sister, the one with the hand on her eye,  looks as if she is having trouble deciding how many people are out there holding cameras after our spin on the whirligig. We learned to get this thing going quite fast by crunching up our bodies while pushing and pulling the handles as fast as we could pull them.

Celeste Figs, I Think

I'm not completely certain of the name of our fig tree, but according to some pictures I saw in a Southern Living magazine, I think ours would be classified as the variety known as the celeste. Whatever they are, they make really good fig preserves.

Speaking of which, I'm excited to have a project in mind for this year's fig preserves: home-made fig newtons. I'm hoping they will be much better than the store-bought versions or else I have real questions as to why all those recipes for fig newtons are so frequent on the Internet recipe sites. To me, it implies there's a genuine benefit in making them rather than purchasing them. But, I'll make that judgement myself once the weather cools a bit and I have the patience to bake again. Then I'll see if the recipe I've chosen to try deserves a page in my cookbook. 

Dedicated to Timmy

I had several months away from photography  and editing so this photo merge was my first project for quite a while and I'd forgotten how much I enjoy it. 

This dragon fly and this cone flower just could not get together in the real world the afternoon I was shooting, so I had to introduce them in photoshop.

I'm dedicating this one to the little boy I saw yesterday.  He needs my prayers and I want to remember him every time I see this, and pray for his safety. The way in which his mother was treating him was most disturbing and I'm not quite sure what I should have done in that situation.

As I was checking out at Kroger yesterday, I saw this very angry mother grab her son (he was eleven or twelve years in age) by the neck of his tee shirt and yank him up to her face as she began to direct all sorts of snarling words toward him. I'm not sure how long this went on, not really long, but he appeared to be too weak to stand it. So, he put his arms around her and busted out crying and went sort of limp. When he started to cry she put her hand over his mouth  so people wouldn't start to look at them. When she finally released him, she sent him to get something, but he still looked so sad, so weary, a  little disoriented,  and he was still sniffling. I was physically unable to follow him, but I have spent all of  last night and this morning wishing I could have so I could have asked him if he was all right. He was very skinny and the saddest looking little fellow I have ever seen. He was far too young to be so weary and the whole scene broke my heart.

Knowing some one's name helps me to pray for him or her, but since I don't know this little man's identity, I've given him the name "Timmy" and God knows who I'm talking about. "Timmy" needs help; I'm sure of it.

Christmas Baking 2012

The photo on the left shows a sample of some of our baking and candy making this year that we used for Christmas gifts to family, friends, and a few neighbors. We truly enjoyed making all of it and the fun part was  getting to try  some new recipes that I think turned out decent.The only thing I really didn't like was the white chocolate dipped pretzels (not shown). We used Baker's white chocolate and it tasted awful. I could pick out a  strong and distinctly powered milk taste in that chocolate. Unfortunately, I didn't do a taste test of those things before packing the Christmas gift sets, because it never occurred to me that white chocolate could ever taste bad. But this stuff did-- big time! But I thank the Lord everything else was good. 

Our homemade candy and cookie list for 2012:
Wilton sugar cookie cutouts, lady fingers,chocolate samoas, chocolate spritz cookies, white chocolate dipped pretzels, cream-filled chocolate covered cherries, strawberry jelly rolls, and banana taffy.

Learning to make the cream-filled  chocolate covered cherries, the chocolate somoas, and the banana taffy was new for me this  year. About the only candy I'd ever attempted to make was the super easy boiled  chocolate oatmeal candy. I was always just a little afraid to try candy recipes. But  the level of difficulty of these treats proved to be not even close to the impossible  ordeal  I  had imagined it to be.

Cut Glass Vignette

There's no real reason for this pic other than the fact that I just love cut-glass novelties. Not completely shown in the pic is a cut-glass hurricane lamp in the background and this cut-glass candy dish in the foreground.

Centerpiece 2012

We did nothing elaborate with the table this year, but I always love the white tablecloths. Just about anything you stick on a white tablecloth looks good to me, within reason, of course. The stick deer in the photo are part of a fairly large collection that my mother made from oak limbs. She loves to make them and they are a cute addition to our primitive Christmas decorations.

Happy Thanksgiving

Giant Ammorillas

It's a shame these beauties appear only once a year. I  tried to get a shot of them before they were gone for another year.

Happy Birthday Scott

I'm not  partial, just honest: I have the sweetest nephew in the world. What makes him also one of the most beautiful people in the world  is his day-by-day regard and compassion for his family and his little animals. 

I wish I could have had a nice dinner for him for his birthday, but since we are so many miles apart, I did this scrapbook page instead while his birthday was on my mind. 

I don't think he was yet in school, when he drew some pictures for my mother, his grandmother, and she thought they were so brilliant for his age that she saved them all these years. They are overlayed on the bottom of the tan scrapbook page.

Fall 2012 Centerpiece

The Floating Photo Cube Project

Canning Season, 2012

Summer has been all about hard work and canning at our house. A lot of sweating, too! Although canning is a hobby my mother and I share, our plan has been to make Christmas gift sets from our canning pantry this year. As I'm compiling this list  to post, I'm thinking I should probably mention  that absolutely everything on this list is not gift intended, most of it is ours to enjoy.  Hopefully, in the months that remain in 2012, we will put away a few more things such as okra, pecans, and pumpkins, but here's what we have preserved thus far:

1. orange marmalade (9.5 pints)
2. blueberry jelly (13 pints)
3. blueberry juice (43 quarts)
4. blueberry syrup (8 pints)
5. blueberries (5 pints)
6. watermelon pickles (6.5 pints)
7. fig jam (9 pints)
8. pear jam (3 pints)
9. strawberry fig jam (9 pints)
10. strawberry pear jam (19 pints)
11. peach pear jam (4 pints)
12. pineapple pear jam (2.5 pints)
13. okra (6 quarts)
14. pickled okra (11 pints)
15. spiced pear rings (28 pints)
16. spiced pear halves (9.5 quarts)
17. Brunswick stew (3 quarts)
18. peas (11 pints)

Now, my vote for the most and least delicious foods from the list both go to two new items we tried this season: the spiced pear rings  and the watermelon pickles, respectively. The spiced pear rings are, indisputably, the most scrumptiously delicious use for pears that I've ever found, and the watermelon pickles are, undeniably, the worst--never never plan to make those things again. The watermelon rinds would have served a much  greater purpose in my compost bin than they will ever serve in this pickled state. I heard it said once, that the only thing good about watermelon pickles is that they are something to pass at the Thanksgiving buffet. Amen.

Variegated Rose

This is another rose that David planted. It, too, has decreased in size since he is no longer here to care for it. 

David's Rose 2012

This is the first bloom of the season for David's rose. 

New Technique

I was trying a new technique I saw on the internet where you can make the corner of the page look as if it is curling upward via Photoshop Elements. This is my first try at it so I think I'll make the corner a little bigger next time.

Beautiful Male Cardinal

Giant Amaryllis

Maybe I should have titled this post "Heirloom Amaryllis" since these flowers were passed down to us from one of my aunt's  estate. They definitely are of the giant variety and are simply beautiful plants when blooming. It's a shame the bloom frequency is a mere once per year. I tried to capture a shot of them before they deteriorated too much (slugs love them at our house).


We have the giant white amaryllis, also, but nothing compares to this gorgeous shade of red.

Easter Eggs

I will never outgrow coloring Easter eggs.  It's an act that brings back  some of my favorite childhood memories. Those favorite memories are of the big egg hunts for all my cousins, my sister, and me at my grandparents'  home. Our mothers brought the chicken and dumplings, banana puddings, and other Sunday fare as well as other kinds of desserts. After lunch, the men hid the eggs in the lot behind the house. That lot was perfect for egg hunts since it was sheltered by a canopy of Georgia pines that served dual duty in keeping the air cool and the ground soft with a carpet of red-brown straw. After it was determined that the children had found all the colored eggs, everyone feasted again on boiled eggs sprinkled with salt and pepper chased down by RC colas (my Uncle Wilbur's favorite). 

House Shopping

We love the bluebirds that nest every year in a house mounted on our privacy fence. We try to help them all we can because they have fierce competition from the sparrows for that house. Pretty Mrs. Bluebird was very patient with me trying to get her picture the day I snapped this shot. Eventually, she said "Enough of you and that camera--I have eggs to hatch," and she went in the house and didn't come back out for a long time.

Okefenokee Swamp Park

This sign is a reminder of the surprise Christmas in February 2012 we just celebrated. We  hadn't seen each other in 10 1/2 years so it was an extremely special visit for all of us when my sister and my nephew flew in from Texas as a complete surprise to us. We all had such a wonderful time!


We also enjoyed, immensely, a trip to the Okefenokee Swamp Park while they were here.