DAY # 26 of 30 DAYS OF THANKSGIVING

 I am always telling you about our wonderful next door neighbors.

Well, this is my Thankful Heart post for today.

Mike, Shirley and their 2 grandkids worked their"tails" off in our front yard.

The kiddos had a ball jumping in our carpet of leaves and loved using the leaf blowers.

It was a wonderful and humbling experience having them pick up all of our leaves.

They filled their green waste bin and ours too..

That's a bunch of leaves.

 This is Easton having a ball with the blower.

This is Savanna being very helpful for her young age.

Forever humbled and grateful.

NARY A PHOTO FROM THANKSGIVING !

 I truly can't believe that a house full of photographers didn't take a single photo for Thanksgiving.

We had a wonderful meal and a pleasant time together.

It was only our older son Steve and his wife, Sigrid and our friends Lynne and Karen.

The fun thing was our Zoom...Facetime ...call with our younger son Mark and his family.

Sometimes we just have to flex and make the best of the way life is.

God is good and we are thankful.

I'm posting a photo of our leaves in the front yard (from last year)

It's actually the same look this morning.  Its raining leaves all over the place.

I will call this #25 of my 30 Days of Thanksgiving.

Thankful!!!

DAY #22 of 30 DAYS OF THANKSGIVING

 In my head today I kept hearing my photographer son saying, "Don't Be Lazy".

Take photos every day, enjoy what's around you.

So

I did.  I went out in our backyard and shot a few.

Some were good and some were not, but that's okay.  I did it.

Day #22 of thankfulness

Thankful for my home, its backyard and God's amazing color palette.

Don't Be Lazy, Just Do It !

DAY #21 of 30 DAYS OF THANKSGIVING

 Here's a continuation of yesterday's post.

I am truly thankful for all of these ornaments.

We sold a lot and made a nice chunk of change.

NO

We did not buy all of these!  We were gifted a huge inventory to sell and keep the profits.

Thankful for friends who are moving and need to have them gone...

Not so great photos but it's a good record for us.

Thankful for cel phones and the ability to have these memories.

DAY #20 of 30 DAYS of THANKSGIVING

 This is day #20 of my  30 Days of Thanksgiving.

I am so thankful for the new neighbors we met this past week.

We've been having a mini garage sale to re-"home" many of our Christmas ornaments.

They have been taking over, (haha) and we thought it was time to let someone else enjoy them.

We still have a gazillion to put on our tree in a few days.

Many neighbors have been out walking their dogs and would stop by to chat and actually buy a thing or two.

Win- win for everyone.

We also, as many of you know, have been selling on eBay.

One of the things recently sold was this T-shirt...

It is a rare Disney shirt from 1991.

Never worn, just in storage since the purchase.

Our starting price was $24.99

which created a bidding war....

Final price that went directly into our checking account.......

$ 131.50    

Can you believe that?

Another win - win   for everybody.

We have happy pockets this week.

😀😄

30 DAYS OF THANKSGIVING DAY # 16

  Day # 16 of my 30 Days of Thanksgiving

For the Beauty of the Earth

For the Glory of the Skies, 

For the Love which from our birth over and around us lies,

Christ, our Lord, to You we raise 

this, our hymn of grateful praise

song written in 1864 by Pierpoint

I am grateful

30 DAYS OF THANKSGIVING #14

 #14 of my 30 Days of Thanksgiving.

I am so grateful for my mind's eye, my photographer's eye.

I am thankful that I can see beauty in the grunge and decay around me.

What are you thankful for?

DAY #12 THANKSGIVING

 

DAY #12 of 30 DAYS OF THANKSGIVING

Thank you for all of your prayers and thoughtful comments.

Dave had successful cataract surgery on both of his eyes.

He slept great and   AND SO DID I    !!!

I was wondering if the eye shield would be a problem, but it wasn't.

He did say things were brighter this morning, 

but it will take a bit of time for things to be completely clear.

Life always has its ups and downs.

Thankful we are in the up "Thankful" season ... up is always good.

Just to bring you up to date on my "black eyes"

Things are almost back to normal.

knot on my forehead is almost gone, still a bit swollen across my eyebrows

and a bit of icky color on my cheekbones still.

Knee is a lot better but it will take a long time to get back to my "new" normal.

Enjoy your weekend

Flowers from my birthday bouquet.

FINALLY THE DAY HAS ARRIVED

 In just a short time my Honey is having cataract surgery on both of his eyes.

Everyone says it's a piece of cake, but we still are a bit nervous..its his eyes and his age.

Prayers appreciated.

We are thankful that we both slept well and really want to get this done.

I have to drive and its in a place I have never driven before...Hopefully there won't be too much commuter traffic since it's a holiday.

So I guess I will call this DAY #11 of my 30 days of Thanksgiving.

Here's hoping those Baby Blues will see a whole lot better.

DAY # 10 of 30 DAYS OF THANKSGIVING

 Today we had our first day of Frost.

It didn't last very long but enough for me to snap a photo or two.

I am thankful for our changing seasons...

I know its not the full blown kind that people get in other places

But

It's what we get and I am grateful for its beauty.

Isn't the Frosty Fringe pretty?

Here's all that is left on the neighbor's roof

I kind of like the abstract look of it.

This is also Thankful Thursday...

DAY #8 of 30 DAYS OF THANKSGIVING

 Rain !

Blessed Rain !

Steady Rain all night long...

Day #8 of Thanksgiving

Forever Grateful...

30 DAYS OF THANKSGIVING - DAY 5

 I have been putting my daily post of the 30 days of Thanksgiving up on FaceBook 

and thought I should probably post one here too.

Today is #5

I am so thankful for all of the greetings from so many places and so many friends.

Everyone made my birthday yesterday a special day for me.

Though I was busy doing my stint of caregiving for my friend and prepping, serving, and of course clean up for Dave's and my weekly time at Celebrate Recovery

it was still a lovely birthday.

I felt loved, and that's the best gift of all.

We were also blessed with a beautiful Golden Hour.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend.

THANKFUL THURSDAY

 Since this is Thankful Thursday 

I thought I would post a follow up to my previous blog post.

I am so thankful I received my license in the mail with no test.

I'm good to go for another 5 years...

Very Grateful

ONE LESS THING TO STRESS ABOUT

 As some of you know, I have been stressing about renewing my drivers license.

So Oct. 20th I went on line to renew.  All went well and I paid my fee.  It also said to make an appointment to take a knowledge test and have my picture taken plus finger print.

I made the appointment which is suppose to be tomorrow.

2 days later I get a notice that I can print my temporary license.  I did that.

Yesterday I got my official license IN THE MAIL with my old photo (5 years ago) on it.  It said it expires in 5 years.

So no test, no photo, no fingerprints again.. I was shocked.  Good ole California still does things so backwards that the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing.

Not going to make an appearance tomorrow at the DMV...yay!!!

I guess sometimes it pays to be a "Senior".

Happy Tuesday!

MONDAY MEMORIES

 Happy Halloween from many years ago.

Our son Steve and his little brother Mark were the old guy and Mickey Mouse.

Karen and her brother Kevin were our next door neighbors and actually we still live within a few miles of each other after all these years.

Good times and fun memories.

Don't eat too much candy!!

SUNDAY SMATTERINGS

 

Enjoy your day ...

THANKFUL THURSDAY

 Today is Thankful Thursday.

There is always something to be thankful for.

I am so thankful for friends that care about us and our well being.

We got a real blessing today in the form of a car repair.

Our front brakes needed a ton of work and new parts.

A friend went above and beyond and now we just drove home with new brakes etc.

Usually Dave and I are on the "giving and serving" end of things.

Pride can step in sometimes.

We are learning to receive from others and someplace down the road we will pay it forward.

So very thankful.

Happy Thursday

ANOTHER PHOTO CHALLENGE

 Last night was our photo club Zoom call.

The challenge was " LIQUID ".

It was a fun one and had people going in all different directions with their photography.

Here's my submission for the evening.

"FROM FROZEN TO LIQUID"

Enlarging this one will show all the detail.

Everyone gave me a A+ rating.. Whew ....

I have to admit I am pretty happy with this one myself.

On another note...

Here are my progress shots for my "FALL" colored face.

So here I am wrinkles and all.

I sure dislike these close ups that show my aging flaws..😉

Its taking my knee and leg a lot longer to heal but that will happen too.

Have a great day.

IT'S DEFINITELY GETTING TO BE FALL

 We are finally getting some (to us) colder nights here in the Sacramento valley.

Now a few of the trees are beginning to show their color.

Another week and hopefully there will be the "postcard" colored trees all around us.

My face is healing and coming right along.

Tomorrow I will bring you up to date.

I just wanted to show you one of the crazy things we are putting up to sell on eBay.

You never know what tickles someone's fancy.

Perhaps it is a bit disrespectful but I find it fascinating to see what sells.

I will let you know how this one goes.

Thanks for looking.

FINALLY GETTING SOME THINGS DONE

 I spent a bunch of time renewing my Drivers License on line.

Government gobbligook is never easy to plow through.😜

I now have a temporary hunk of paper until I go into the DMV for a written test and photo "shoot"

I am lucky that my appointment is Nov. 2.

My face should be back to as normal as its going to get.  Forever grateful.

I'm so glad I don't have to have a picture of me in this condition.

Everyday its getting better and better...Gotta do something about my hair too.

I kind of look like a wild woman!!

Dave and I are also working on those pounds that have crept up on us.  

We just enjoy the wrong things for our body types.

This wonderful man has been missing us at our favorite "Wednesdate" haunt.

His name is David and he owns a family business called "DONUTS AND CINNAMON".

He works with his Mom and Dad, Grandma and Auntie.

They are such beautiful people.  Isn't his smile wonderful?

Their donuts are the best I have ever had.  

Fresh daily and we have gained a few pounds on their Apple Fritters...oh my..

Sometimes they are just warm from the oven.

They are making me drool just writing this.

Happy Thursday...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MARK

 Today is our younger son's 49th birthday.

Happy Birthday Mark !! 

You are such a wonderful father, husband and son.

Your compassion and kindness are some of your best gifts.

We love you to the moon and back.

I love this throwback picture of Mark and Dave.  I think Mark was going on 3 years old.

It was our other son, Steve's birthday and Mark loved playing with the toys.

I see off to the right hand side the Stilts my Dad made for the boys.

Grandpas do things like that for their Grands. 

Don't you just love the 70's clothes and decor?

Those were the days, were'nt they?

Good morning!

 

I'm going to change things up a bit and post a photo challenge for last week..

It was called " An Environmental portrait..which I didn't really understand..

Now after the critique i do but thought I would share my photos with you.

This is the one I submitted.

This is Peggie Farris, an Imagineer for the Disney Company.  She's now retired after 50 years  

with the them.

The portrait was suppose to show the person in their environment

The main comment was if I had had her looking my way it would have engaged the person looking at it.

I'm really happy I have the photo anyway.

here are several other photos from that day a few weeks ago.

Peggie is a fascinating lovely woman that found her way into the upper ranks of a company that at it's start didn't think women belonged in upper management CEO type jobs.

She proved them wrong and developed Spaceship Earth at Epcot WDW

and also all the foundations for Disneyland Paris were among her achievements.

Her new book, for which she is a contributing author is called:

"Women of Walt Disney Imagineering" ... 12 Women Reflect on Their Trailblazing Theme Park Careers ...   Disney Imagineering was founded in 1952 to create Disneyland.

ISBN978-1-368-02195-1  copyright March 2022

It was a day well spent.

On another note...

Here's my selfie face photo for today.

My son says I am keeping up with the "FALL" season with my color palette .

Another day in Paradise...