Terrible Claw – Deinonychus Antirrhopus
Terrible Claw
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Star Santa
Star Santa
Jane and Star Santa (Front)
Jane and Star Santa (Back)
These day, every year when Jane helps Harry decorate his Chez for Christmas, the first thing that goes up on the bough as decoration is Star Santa. This is a construction paper ornament that Jane made in kindergarten and has survived ever since. Such is Jane’s pride in this creation that Anne was inspired to create a pillow cover dedicated to Star Santa. The front of the pillowcase shows Star Santa hanging his first ornament on the tree. It is an ornament done in the style of Doris, the mother-in-law of Anne’s other sister, Jay. Doris was a prolific Christmas ornament maker. In Doris fashion, it is a puffy ornament, with lots of sequins and a photo of Jane in the center. Fittingly, Star Santa is seen placing on the tree as his first ornament, a Doris ornament picturing Jane. The back of the pillowcase shows a quad folio of wintertime activities that Star Santa likes to participate in after his Christmas duties are complete. He is seen sledding, skiing, skating and making snow-angels. As you can see, it was a big hit.
Upper Tahquamenon Falls
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Upper Tahquamenon Falls
The Cold Is Leaving
Iced Fountains of the Grand Basin
But some ice still remains. It got above freezing yesterday and we got some rain, which then froze on the ground. This morning, the roads were well treated, so any freezing hadn’t lasted long. I drove Anne to school. Afterwards, I drove through Forest Park and saw these ice formations around the fountains in the Grand Basin. It is supposed to continue warming up this week. We might even see 60 ºF! That’s going to feel like shorts and t-shirt weather. I definitely will need to get the bicycle out for that. That’s it for today, short and sweet.
Lake Superior Sunset Pano
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Lake Superior Sunset Pano
Life’s a Beach
West Palm Beach
Sometime this year will be this blog’s tenth anniversary. If you had asked me at its inception, if I thought that I would still be blogging ten years hence, I would have probably said yes, not thinking about what that level of commitment would entail. That’s the beauty of blogging though, you take it one day at a time and let’s be frank, being a blogger is really not setting the bar all that high. Still, it is a pastime that I enjoy. I think that it is also a hobby that has improved me.
It has certainly improved my writing. My editor says so. My photography has gotten better too, but that might just be better equipment. More fundamentally, it has changed for the better how I look at and approach life. Not long after I began this endeavor, I soon came to the realization that I was mining my stock of life stories, at an unsustainable rate. There were days then when for the life of me I had nothing left to say. Heck, there are still days like that.
As a coping mechanism, I began to cultivate blog-worthy activities. It got me out and about. I never used to follow the arts, to the extent that I do now. With my cycling habit, I got outdoors often enough, but with the blog, I stop more, to smell the roses now. Now that I’ve retired, I believe that I’ve taken my search for life and then telling all about it, to the next level. My travels certainly give me a rich catalog of new and varied content. Would I have visited all of the places that I have been without this blog? Maybe, but then you never would have heard about it. The actual tenth anniversary is in May, but I’ll be too busy then to write any post as introspective as this one. Here’s to the life ephemeral!