sooner or later

And here is video with the sound of birds taken in the shopping center near my house. So loud they drown out the roar of the freeway and the croaking of toads.

I obviously shouldn't breathe when I take videos....since I must breathe, I bought one of those tiny three legged tripods to carry around.

The squirrels were on alert with tails waving and squaking loudly when the grill king and I returned from having steaks (yea - meat grilled by others!) at the local Roadhouse.

This large raptor posed for a few closeups and then decided to look for his dinner elsewhere. He sailed towards the east keeping the fading sunlight behind him.

The squirrels settled down quickly. But not one of them promised to leave the pecans alone in return for saving their fluffy little tails.



We just saw Charlie Wilson's War and I'm thinking about keeping a list of favors owed.

A new plant at the office - the common name according to Wikipedia is Flamingo Lily - never heard it called that.

I've been spending a lot of time on the computer lately but it's not something you'll notice here. About four years ago, we became the keeper of a box of family photos and I sorted some and scanned some right away and then got distracted. Now we have to take the box back and so I have been madly scanning. Staying up till all hours and my eyes are bleary but I have over 200 scans done. I was picky - only scanning the ones that appealed to me either in quality of photo or importance of the subject. I have come to realize that my husband's grandfather had a wonderful camera and took amazing photos that were printed in a quality lab. His photos are clear, sharp and very high resolution. He framed the shots beautifully. Wish I knew more about him.

This photo is of my father-in-law about 1928 in the Arizona desert.

My big gift this year was a new printer. I sent a link to one I was interested in and the grill king got it at a good price. At least for the initial investment. I've printed less than 50 pages and it has slurped up at least $50 dollars worth of ink. Time to look for deals on ink refills. The quality is wonderful. We will keep the old one on the network for the odd printout of a receipt.

Christmas 1961

While the new printer has been churning out photo album pages, I've been scanning family photos that have been waiting for four or five years to be done. Suddenly that is priority and it's taking me away from other fun stuff. But I'm glad to have most of it done. One or two more nights of the midnight oil and I'll have everything I want and be able to return the box when we drive north next weekend.

Hoping for sunny skies like we've had for past weekend.

I have been using Picasa Web Albums to host my photos here since I was in danger of using up all my alloted free space on blogspirit.com with photo albums. But I only just downloaded their photo software (Picasa2) today and I am blown away by the way it works. It has lots of interesting features and editing capabilities and the fact that I can now upload an entire pile of photos instead of just five at a time is just the ultimate in time saving. Wish I had known that before I uploaded the cruise photos - I would have done all 283 of them instead of just 50 or so.... well, maybe that wouldn't be a good thing from your point of view?

Both our cars were dead this morning. I was two hours late for work and the grill king had to catch a ride with a co-worker. His was "fixed" while we were on the cruise but died about a mile from home. When he called me to rescue him, mine wouldn't start. So he called his garage to tow in the little truck and come give mine a jump start. The suspense is killing me. Will mine be dead again this evening when I try to start it after work? Film at 11:00. Seriously, I will take a photo of the darn thing sitting there not running if it comes to that. This could be the year I make it into a raised flower bed. I could easily calculate the amount of potting soil necessary. I'm thinking maybe, bananas in the middle seat so they could grow right up through the sunroof, daisies on the dashboard, and ivy trailing out the liftgate in the rear.

The sweet gum tree is showing a little yellow and leaves are falling one at a time this morning. One more cold breeze and the leaf drifts will begin to pile up. This looks like a quilt wanting to be stitched.

The 50th anniversary party was great fun. A family reunion of sorts. Great oldies band with a full dance floor including the honorees.

Amy & Clint can really cut a rug. I'm exhausted from the trip and I didn't even try to keep with the old geezers dancing the night away. Slept in a room with a snake - my nephew's - who was molting - the snake, not my nephew. Although the nephew was sporting a new shorter haircut, so you could say he had shed quite a bit of hair.
Caught up on all the news from near and far. Heard stories about relatives. My grand niece was married recently - didn't know, have to warp the loom for a gift.
I experimented with my new smaller camera. I like almost everything about it. I have to try more things and work out some lighting issues. It has very good menus. Took some unblurred photos through the car window as we raced along at breakneck speed. The only problem there was dirty windows.
On the end leg of my flight, I chatted with another happy grandma going to visit her newest grandson in Texas. She's a quilter and has a neighbor with a long arm machine. Her mother and her grandmother were weavers and so she has things from them. She crochets and I was working on a making a tiny ball and other things just to pass the time. That's how we starting talking. I recommended she go to The Painted Pony in LaPorte - my favorite quilting shop and that she needs to think about coming to the International Quilt Festival as an excuse to see the grandkids again.
It was good to pass the time quickly as the flight had left late and I was late getting home and then the grill king had been sick all weekend so he was in bed early and feeling miserable. He cooked for the kids on Saturday and evidently they had a good time as lots of things are in new places around the house, evidence of the defense against the ground level attack of the toddler.
I finished reading A Thousand Splendid Suns which is an excellent book by the author of The Kite Runner. I probably wouldn't have taken the time to read it if I hadn't had a plane flight. As it was, I was glad I also brought along a ball of crochet cotton because it led to a delightful chat with Nancy on the plane.

Very light traffic on the commute the other evening since I was leaving work later than usual. Couldn't resist trying to catch the reflection of the sunset in this glass curtain building. As I got closer the color faded quickly. A fleeting moment of color before the end of a gray day.

One of the scenes on my way home that I have been meaning to immortalize. Since they are moving along on the construction on I-10, interesting views like this will disappear. Don't you expect some hideous creature to come out of the shadows?