Wow, Look What I Just Made!

I just discovered Animoto.com. It's so easy! This is one I put together not knowing what the heck I was doing. I'm going to try a better one. It's free to make a short, 30-second video, of course they would like you to pay to create a longer one. For now, I'm just going to play!

Inspiration Avenue Weekly Challenge

Peaches and Cream

O boy, another challenge to make me hungry! Peaches and Cream! I decided to go with the colors that this reminds me of, which are soft hues of yellow, pink, and of course peach.

It began to look a little pale, so I snapped a picture of my kitchen floor and put it on the wall. My cat thought it was time to eat and kept getting in the picture. This is not the "devil kitty", but the one the devil kitty torments. She sticks to me like glue because I protect her from the evil cat.

I liked the contrast between the black and the peach. The Alice-in-Wonderland-type girl on the stairs looks like she is dreaming or hallucinating the strange images, so I added a line from the story. My apologies to Lewis Carroll.

Visit Inspiration Avenue Sunday afternoon to see all of the entries in this week's challenge, or better yet, join in for next week's challenge if you don't already! Info is posted on IA's blog.

The Great Debate: Real or Artificial?

This is the first year we are seriously considering buying an artificial Christmas tree. Up til now, I have just adored having an actual real tree in my house during the month of December!  Here is our last year's real tree. Our ornaments are always a hodge-podge of things that we have collected over the years. Someday I would love to do a themed tree!

I love the piny scent of the branches, and I guess I just have an aversion to things that are "fake", whether that's a valid point or not. I'm sure I use hundreds of things every week that are "fake" and think nothing of it!

Now there is the "green" debate, which adds to the confusion.  I had to look it up, because I wasn't sure which was more environmentally friendly, real or artificial. I should have just asked one of our lovely new team members at Inspiration Avenue, Cyndi of Small Footprints. She's the "eco-friendly" guru, and would have been able to offer help! As it was I ended up at Julie's Health Club, where she has pros and cons of the Christmas tree options. I am still confused of course! Our original goal was to be more economical, since we would not be shelling out large amounts of cash each December. We would just bite the bullet and shell out a bigger amount once! Makes sense right?

Well, we are off to see what we can find!  Judging from what I've read, though, I think the greener choice might still be a real tree! Is your tree real or artificial? Which do you like? I'd love to hear comments on this great debate!

December 9: I want to thank you all  for the comments you left about the real vs. artificial trees! And just to let you know ~ we  bought a *faux*  tree that actually looks very nice. I have it semi-decorated, and once it is finished I'll post a picture. The good points are:  
1 ~ The lights are already on it, 

2 ~ It is tall and rather narrow and actually fits the available space in the house better than the kind of chunky frasier firs we were getting, 

3 ~ I started to go to the kitchen to get a pitcher of water and then realized, Hey I don't ever have to water the tree again, and 

4 ~ It went up in no time and we didn't have the agonizing ritual of making sure it wasn't leaning one way or the other! All in all, a good decision!

What?!? (Sorry I Missed This County Fair...)

While browsing through my vintage photos with the weekly challenge at Inspiration Avenue in mind (the theme happens to be "Peaches and Cream"), I came across this poster for the Greene County Fair circa 1890.  Now Peaches and Cream is a lovely theme for a county fair, but this poor little milkmaid  looks like she has a serious sinus problem! Even the cow is concerned!

So, no, this isn't my submission for the challenge (unless I run out of time lol)! But I just wanted to share this curiosity. If anyone would like to use it for anything, feel free to download! Now I had better quit fooling around and get to work . . .

Equal Time for the Devil Kitty 

Okay, it wouldn't do to post pictures of angel kitties without putting up a picture of the actual devil kitty that I live with.

He believes in helping himself. Why wait around for someone to raise the blinds when you can just look through them?

Weekly Challenge ~ 

A Challenge of a Different Kind

As John Lennon said,  

Life is what happens while you're busy making other plans. 

The Monday before Thanksgiving, I had planned to work on the weekly challenge for Inspiration Avenue, and I've even been eying some of the challenges on other blogs that look like fun. I planned to cook Thanksgiving dinner at home, and had last minute preparations to do for that.

None of it was to be however; my Mother-in-Law passed away on Tuesday, and we had an entirely different kind of week. I think I will leave the angel kitties up as my blog header for a few more days in her honor, because if anyone deserves instant angel status, it is she.  She suffered with Leukemia for the past 13 years, and had far fewer good days than bad. I hope that she is having a big celebration wherever the angels congregate to commemorate being free of her earthly trials.

I cooked my Thanksgiving dinner today, since we all decided to spend Thanksgiving at my brother-in-law's house instead of the plans everyone had made.  I have to say, I enjoyed having a second Thanksgiving dinner!

To update on my own mom, who was going to have surgery to replace a heart valve:  The day of the surgery, she had an angiogram in the morning, which I guess is common procedure before heart surgery. The surgeon studied it and consulted with his colleagues, and came to the conclusion that he did not want to do the surgery, thinking the outcome would not be good, primarily because of her age and the condition of her heart. Another doctor has had a different opinion, but she has decided to just put off worrying about it until after the holidays, which is probably exactly what I would do!  Call us Scarlett O'Hara, but hey, it runs in the family, what can I say!

So, I guess this is the time in life when we worry about our parents, as they are getting on in years. I wish I had a wonderful photo to go along with this post, but I'm just coming up short. Nothing in the old magic picture vault . . .

I'm looking forward to getting back to routine things and posting about happier topics! Stay tuned!

The Angel Kitties

In keeping with my post the other day about taking a break from Santa, I am following through with my campaign to put off all the Christmas hulabaloo as long as I can. I've always adored this header by Itkupilli of Raphael's angels with kitty faces, so it is the perfect time to use it ~ it's not quite Thanksgiving, and certainly not Christmas yet!  I think the reason I have found it necessary to do this is that I have naturally been making Christmas collage sheets since July, so enough already!

I have 2 other angel kitties that I love. I won't even go into how they remind me of the sweet kitties I have known who are now "angels", it will bring a tear to my eye!  So I will post the pictures, but no comment!

By Thanksgiving weekend, I'll probably be ready for a Christmas blog and will go all red and green and sparkly, and who knows what. Can't think about that now! I'm enjoying the darling kitties from Itkupilli!  She has to-die-for blog headers and backgrounds that she offers for free on her blog. You may already know about her, but if not, visit her  here.

Hope your week is shaping up well, and those of you who celebrate the upcoming holiday have a wonderful one!