Shut the Front Door ... Day 31 ... Blast from the Past

It's the 31st day of the 1st month of the 2 thousandth and 13th year.

Say that ten times fast.

 

 

Day 31

 

See anything different today?

Hmmm?

I just realized that you can see the reflection of my camera in the window.

See it?

Right there in the center of the gray, gloomy sky.

You can see "Canon" (written backwards) and the faint ring around the lens.

 

Other than that it was a typical January mix of nastiness.

Wind, rain, snow, and cold.

 

 

Blast from the Past

 

Cars we had in 1981.

I had the sensible Chevy Malibu (parked at the back).

I hated that car.

The other two monsters were my husbands.

 

Me and our 4 daughters taken Christmas 1987.

Do you think I had enough tinsel on that tree?

 

 

Shut the Front Door ... Day 30 ... Soggy and foggy. Oh Joy.

Day 30

Soggy.

 

And foggy.

 

On the bright side, it was much warmer.

Almost 60 today.

Yay!

 

 

 

 

Shut the Front Door ... Day 29 ... The road less traveled when it's foggy out

I follow a very interesting blog called Southern Accents and receive their newsletter through my email. When you have a minute, check out some of their posts and pictures. They have some really cool stuff if you like to decorate with items that have been salvaged from old demolished buildings.

Today, their post, Let's be Awesome, contained a little video clip and when I first read this, I really didn't think that it was going to be something I liked.
Don't get me wrong, I think it's great that people post inspirational messages in the hopes to make life better and to hopefully get people thinking about their role in this world.
But ..
I don't particularly like watching those video messages. I get bored by them very easily.

This one is different.
Really.
It's cute, it keeps your attention, it's not too long and drawn out, and it's not preachy.
Take a minute and click over to watch it. I think you'll like it too.

The road less traveled ..... "NOT COOL ROBERT FROST".

I want to be on the road that leads to awesome too.
As long as it's a back road.
I'm not a fan of interstates.
So does that make the road to awesome the road less traveled?
Hmmm. Have to think about that one.


So in my most awesome way...
Day 29

FOG.
And lots of it.
So thick you can cut it with a knife.
I'm talkin' PEA SOUP people.

Fog that completely blurs out the roads less traveled.
Which leaves more room for me.
Awesome.

Shut the Front Door ... Day 28

You know it's going to be one of those days when your husband comes through the front door first thing in the morning looking for a ladder so he can get up on the roof.

We live in an area where the wind pretty much never stops blowing. It comes in from just about every direction (sometimes it feels like it's coming at you from several directions at once) and eventually, it finds a way to rip something off the house.

Today, it was the flashing that was just whipping around in the wind, barely holding on by a few small nails.

 Of course it couldn't be a piece that was easy to get to.

Noooooo.

It had to be the piece at the top where our Little Giant Ladder wouldn't reach (the Little Giant is about 3 feet short of being giant enough for our house).

 

Yea.

Never a dull moment around here.

 

 

Then 2 of the grandkids showed up to visit (a.k.a ... laundry day).

 

Savannah, a blond haired, blue eyed bundle of innocence in a tutu.

 

Until Aunt Michelle brings out the big guns.

Literally. Lock n' load kid.

And, FIRE!!
Almost scary how much this amused her.

Then there's Arabella.

 Who is just getting big enough to be fun.

But tires out pretty easy.
She slept through the war games. Amazing.

Anyway....
Day 28

Snowy, blowing, raining, sleet, then more snow. Now it's foggy.
Seriously crappy out.
On the bright side, January is just about over then only 2 (maybe 4) more months of this till spring.
Yea.

Shut the Front Door ... Day 27 ... It was an Olive Garden kinda day.

Day 27

It was a very, very sunny day today. It's been so dreary for so long, I'm not used to all this light coming into my house at once.

We went to Olive Garden for Dinner tonight and put a few gift cards to good use. We've been there, maybe, 5 times in the past year and have yet to be disappointed. The food and the service is always good.
Now I know that photographing food is a new thing for many people. I get enough you-need-a-straight-jacket looks from my husband already without starting to photograph my food so you'll just have to take my word for it that the 5 cheese ziti and all you can eat salad and breadsticks looked as good as it tasted.
Only draw back for us is the drive all the way to Syracuse just to get to Olive Garden. There is supposed to be one opening up closer to where we live but I'm not totally sure that easy access to that place will be good for the already stressed relationship I have with my jeans.

On a totally unrelated note...
Objects in mirror are closer than they appear.

Really?
There's still frost on my mirror so that sun isn't nearly as close as I would like it to be.

Shut the Front Door ... Day 26 ... Cabin Fever.

I really can't wait for it to warm up outside.

 

I need this

 

 

 and this

 

 

and some of this. 

 

But all I see is ...

 

THIS

 

 Day 26

At least the sunrise



and sunset are nice.



 

Cold, but nice.

Shut the Front Door ... Day 25

Today would have been my grandmother's 93rd birthday.

The picture on the left was taken at my parents wedding in 1960.

The picture on the right was taken at my wedding in 1981.

I miss her.

 

 

Day 25

Another cold one that started out really sunny but by midafternoon it went back to being dreary.

I can't wait till spring.

This dreariness is really starting to get to me.

 

 

Shut the Front Door ... Day 22, 23 and 24 ... Whew!

I'm Baaaaaack!!!

Missed Me??

No?

Didn't even know I was gone huh?

Thought so.

I took my new computer and my old laptop back to Best Buy to have all my pictures and documents transferred over. Now that I have everything back up and running smoothly (and fairly rapidly, I might add), I have no excuse to procrastinate on getting anything done around here.

Right?
Yea, ok.

I actually learned something about myself while I was pretty much "unplugged".
I learned that I discovered Pintrest many, many ...many years ago.
I just called it hording and there was nothing digital about it.
You see, I did a little de-cluttering over the past couple of "computer-free" days.
My Pintrest consisted of pictures that I cut out of magazines, books, catalogs, and junk mail.
I cut them out and saved them by category in binders. I had pictures of things I liked, ways I wanted to decorate, plant and garden ideas, organizing ideas, crafting ideas, and recipes.
I spent a several hours going through those pictures and was amazed at how much time I must have spent over the years on them. Then, with the exception of a handful of those pictures, I threw them all away.
Anyone need a few empty binders?


So....

Day 22
Cold.
-6F

 

 

Day 23

Colder.

-10F

And
Day 24
Coldest.
-15F

The house has been doing nothing but snap, crackle, pop for the past 3 days. I have a blanket up against my front door because the cold is just seeping past the crappy rubber strip that's supposed to be a weather seal and leaving a slight layer of frost at the edge of the floor.

Hope you all are staying warm.

Shut the Front Door ... Day21

Day 21

I broke a nail trying to open the screen door just so I can get this shot of the valley today.
Was it worth it? Yea, right.

Just another snowy, cold day here. Although, we really haven't gotten that much snow lately. I've heard reports from some of my Facebook friends who live somewhat south of here that they've gotten about a foot of snow.
If you're not familiar with where I live, it's unusual when other areas get snow and we don't. We are usually the ones who get pounded when mother nature gets in a snuff.
So about 2 inches on the ground....I'm not complain' one bit.
As an update to this.... we are supposed to get pounded tonight with snow so we'll see.

 This is day 2 with my new computer.

I forgot how much I really love a regular keyboard. I practically hugged it when I unpacked it from the box yesterday.
There's just something about the sound of the keys as I type.
Clickety, clickety...
Yea, that sound. You just don't hear it with the laptop.

I wrote the following earlier this afternoon while still trying to get my picture editor to work ...
Still having trouble with the picture editing software that I like to use (Pixlr Express). Can not get my edited pictures to save to my computer no matter what I do. Grrrr...
I'm cheap and am looking for an editor that's free if you have any suggestions.
Wouldn't you know it, I tried it again tonight and it worked just fine.
I have no idea why it's been fighting me and all of the sudden it's working.
I'm clueless here.

Anyway...
I will be taking my new desktop and my old laptop to Best Buy tomorrow to have them move all my pictures and files over so I will be offline for at least 24 hours.
Aaaahhhhhh.... 24 hours without a computer.
I'm having a panic attack just thinking about it.

For you Shut the Front Door junkies (I know there's at least one of you out there) ...I'll take pictures and try to get the posts up for the days I miss as soon as I can. No worries...

It was also inauguration day today. Did anyone follow the pomp and circumstance on tv? It was a bit too long and drawn out for me to watch. I saw just a bit of their motorcade parade down the street where they got out and walked for, like, 2 blocks. That's all I could take of it.
 I just want to know when they are all going to get back to work and start earning their paychecks. Now that would be news worth covering.
Politicians at work.....oxymoron?

Shut the Front Door ... Day 20 ... The learning curve

My laptop is dying.
I had to make the very difficult decision to purchase a new computer before my laptop crashed and left me scrambling.
I hate, hate, hate, shopping for tech stuff. There is nothing that makes you feel more stupid than shopping for tech stuff when you are tech illiterate.

I decided that I was done with laptops for now and decided to go back to a desktop so the HP Envy with 10GB hard drive and 1TB memory is what I settled on. Don't ask me what that means, I just went with the one that made the eyes of the Best Buy salesman bug out. Actually, Jeremy (from Best Buy in New Hartford), was really nice and he did come highly recommended as a very knowledgeable guy who won't push you into more than you need. I need storage and enough power to handle all the photos and files I save horde.

Anyway, I have my new computer home now and spent the whole day today trying to get used to all the new "stuff". Windows 8 for example. Uggg. So far, not liking that at all. I'm not an app person and Windows 8 is all about apps. I suppose I will get used to it but it's not doing anything for me right now.
I am having trouble trying to get the program that I use to edit my pictures to cooperate so the pictures I'm adding to tonight's post are completely unedited (no resizing, borders, or signature--so don't steal them).

Hopefully it won't take me too long to get this whole thing figured out.

Speaking of tech stupid.....It took me over an hour today to figure out why I don't have sound. I didn't buy speakers, DUH!

Day 20
The weather was really wild today. We had warm temps and rain then cold and snow but it was really windy all day. It would go from nice and sunny to total whiteout in a matter of seconds.

Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day (with the weather and my learning curve).

Shut the Front Door ... Day 19 ... When spammers attack

I've been blogging now since Jan 6th 2012. So for just over a year now, I've been a source of entertainment to recon with (in my mind anyway).
In this past year, I have racked up 9437 page views throughout the 85 posts I have written.
Personally, I think that's pretty impressive since I really have no clue what I'm doing.
I'll admit that no small part of that view count is from spammers. Once they find you, you're infested with them. My spam folder contains all sorts of comments and most of the content is... "jibberish, blah, blah, blah, jibberish ... check out my website". The comment has little to no association with the post that was written.
I delete these comments because they are just trying to pull people who actually read my post to their website/virus. I think you all (my actual readers) deserve better than that.

Today I received a comment that was pretty much just what I described above but what made this comment different was not just that it was legible, it actually attacked my superior writing technique (go ahead, laugh..I deserve that).

This is the comment from Anonymous  ...

I believe everything published was very logical. However, consider this, suppose you were to write a awesome headline? I ain’t saying your information isn’t solid., however suppose you added a headline that makes people want more? I mean “Shut the Front Door … Day 16 … A heart attack waiting to happen and Raspberry hair.” is kinda plain. You should look at Yahoo’s home page and watch how they create post titles to get viewers to click. You might try adding a video or a related picture or two to grab readers excited about what you’ve got to say. Just my opinion, it would make your posts a little bit more interesting.

Are they serious? They are comparing my headlines to that of Yahoo?
I've seen Yahoo's headlines.
Today's included the headline, "How to make perfect microwave popcorn at home".
Yea, I'm on the edge of my seat for sure.

How on earth can they honestly say that my headline was plain?
It was brilliant (ok...it was interesting...kinda).
Who wouldn't read, "A heart attack waiting to happen and Raspberry hair", and not dive into that post wanting to hear more? Huh? Who?
And...if they actually looked at the post they would have seen a few really eye-grabbing pictures too.

Phisssshh... just kinda gets my goat.

Anywhoooo...

Day 19

Sunrise this morning was pretty.

I just couldn't help doing a little drive by photography tonight while heading into the city. The sunset was beautiful.

If you're interested in drive by photography (or don't have a clue what it is), you can read more about it in this post that I wrote last summer titled "Drive by Photography". How's that for an attention grabbing headline?

Shut the Front Door ... Day 18

Today, I brought some more items to Newport Marketplace to sell. My booth is pretty full at the moment so please feel free to stop on down and take some of this stuff off my hands.

While I was there, a reporter for the Herkimer Telegram Newspaper was there working on a story about the small businesses in an around the area. If you live in an area that has access to the paper, check it out. It will be interesting to see what she has to say about Newport Marketplace and see what other local small businesses will be included in the story.

Day 18

Although on the cold side, it was a rather pleasant day that ended with a pretty sunset.

Shut the Front Door ... Day 17 ... Politics and short subs

Yea, Day 17....

Another day with a slight accumulation of snow but mostly ... just a dull... gray... day.

Dull and gray.
Yea, I can relate to that.

Ha!....

In other shocking, and totally useless news, Subway has been outed as the mass distributor of  the 11 inch "Footlong" sub.

How will society cope with this outrageous attack to our appetites when we no longer have access to assault weapons?

Shut the Front Door ... Day 16 ... A heart attack waiting to happen and Raspberry hair.

I thought doctors were supposed to help you. 

I thought they were supposed to lessen your pain and suffering. 

If you've been following my ramblings lately, you will know that I was sick for almost 2 months.

When I finally couldn't take it anymore, I went to the doctor.

She set me right up with a fist full of prescriptions and I've been feeling much better.

Until today.

Today, I received......

THE BILL.

Talk about a heart attack.

O. M. G. !!!

Almost $500.

FOR A COLD.

And that didn't include the cost of the prescriptions I already paid for.

I just about flat lined when I opened that envelope today.

Aye, aye, aye.

Anywhoo...

Day 16

 A dusting of snow but I can live with that.

On a side note,
have you ever really looked close at a raspberry?

Are those hairs or antenna?

Shut the Front Door ... Day 15

Well it's the 15th day of January.
The month is 1/2 over already. Seems like just yesterday, I was turning the tv off because I decided watching that foolish ball drop was just pushing my bedtime a little too far.

Day 15

It was warm out again today but we are expecting snow tomorrow (if you want to believe all the hype that winter isn't over yet).

One reason I really like taking pictures that overlook the valley is because of the clouds. I have a really great vantage point from my front door and there are days when I'm actually shocked by the beautiful artwork just floating by.

The following is just a sample of pictures that I have taken from my front door over the years.

Thanks for playing along and taking the time to read my ramblings.
I've had over 3000 page views on my blog since the 1st of the year. You don't know how much that means to me.