Love in Black and White TOM and I went Christmas shopping yesterday and we were able to get most of it finished. At least everything that needs to go to MN. We are traveling for the holiday along with millions of other Americans. I can only hope that we survive the trip. I do have one son that I still have to shop for. He is 23 years old and whenever we ask him what he wants he has no answer. I can always buy him clothes, but he never seems to wear them. I can’t figure out his style. He did admit that he would like a nice leather jacket...if he can pick it out. At least that is something. I am also working on a trapeze photo collage. I am using b/w photos of my parents, grandparents, and in-laws, as well as my brother and me and TOM. I am including them here for your viewing pleasure…if I can keep the wireless connection open long enough to get the photos uploaded…. Wish me luck ! This is a photo of TOM and me on our happy day. My dad doesn't look to happy. Neither do I for that matter, but that was 30 ago and we are still togther. TOM's mother tried to talk him into leaving the morning of the wedding...she told him he had plenty of time to leave...now that's a mother-in-law for you : ) This is a photo of my Mom on her wedding day. For the ife of me, I cannot find the photo of her and Dad together. I am sure that thru the process of scanning and archiving all of the family photos I will find it. I can then put it in it's rightful place in the collage. This is my Mom's parents. I love this photo. They divorced when I was a child, but it is nice to see them at a time when they were happy together. My grandmother is still alive and kicking...and pretty active too. My grandfather died when I was 12. This is a photo of my Dad's parents on their 45th wedding anniversary. My Grandma had cancer, and they didn't think she would make to the 50th anniversary, so they had the party early. By the way, she did make to her 50th wedding anniversary and we had another big blow out for them...: ) This is a photo of my brother and his wife. They have been together for about 15 years now and have two great boys. We plan to spend a lot of time with them this holilday season. And last, but not least, this is my in-laws. As you can see, they had a simple, civil ceremony. They are both gone now and greatly missed. Although, I never forgave her for trying to talk TOM into leaving on our wedding day : )

It's Beginning to Feel alot Like Christmas... I haven’t been here for a few days. I have been busy scanning photographs. I am sure that my husband thinks that I am crazy. Trying to decide what to do for Christmas gifts this year, I don’t want to spend too much money. I will probably give money to the boys…make it easy on myself. I did talk TOM into going shopping tomorrow. It should be an interesting day . . . There was an article about snowflakes in the one of my magazines. I didn’t realize that you could photograph snowflakes (with the right equipment of course). Check it out if you have time, the flakes are really quite beautiful, www.snowcrystals.com. These are a few of my favorites.

I Love My IPOD... I finally ordered an IPOD a week ago. I decided to get the Nano...I hope 2 gigs is enough. Anyway, I ordered it online for the same price as wally world, but my name is engraved on it and I did not have to pay shipping. I know I should have waited till my bday. TOM would have purchased it for me, but I did not feel like waiting. Anyway, it arrived within 2 days and every day a load one of my cds to the computer to add to the library. I am still trying to figure out how to keep some tracks from loading to the POD, because they are not my favorites. I don't necessarily want the entire album. I will figure it out. Only 2 days til Thanksgiving. We are going to have the requisite turkey and mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, corn, rolls, mincemeat and pumpkin pies, and watergate salad (only with french vanilla pudding mix). Wally world was out of pistacio pudding mix. I will just add some green food color...the boys will never know the difference : ) I hope not anyway...later.

"The Mermaid Chair" by Sue Monk Kidd "Something struck me then: I'd never done any of those things my mother had done. Never danced on a beach. Never made a bonfire. Never waded into the ocean at night with laughing women and tied my life to theirs."

My Life Today I slept good last night. I ate fajitas and refried beans for lunch today with the data migration team. They are more fun than the A&C team. I ate oriental grilled chicken and fried rice for dinner by myself. I bought a Seacret From the Dead Sea hand care kit at the mall. I bought a box of artificial snow for TOM. He will really get a kick out of this. My son broke up with his girlfriend of five years. Work is good. I drove to the mall by myself. The first time in three days I have been alone. Except for when I am in my room. I did not overeat today. I have been eating too much the last couple of days. My sister in law is tired. I got a new toothbrush. I watched Dog the Bounty Hunter. I called TOM three times today :-) I called my son to let him know I am there for him.

I'm a Traveling (Wo)Man Back in B'ham again. We went to 'Brio Tuscan Grille' for dinner. The food was pretty good. I had italian salad and balsalmic marinated chicken with vegetables. I also ordered dessert...to go. The Apple Crisp, although they don't give ice cream on the to go orders. Melted ice cream would have better than no ice cream...see previous post if you don't know what I mean. I have a feeling that it would have been better with ice cream, even if it was melted. TOM did a small project for me today. He added a sliding pull out shelf to the computer cabinet. It turned out pretty good. It will make it much easier when scanning the multitude of family photos that I am archiving. TOM did a previous upgrade to the cabinet. He dropped down the front of the drawer to make a handy dandy desk top. This was a cabinet that came from my grandmother. It was not very attractive and I hadn't used it in a long time. It has been in the garage. Anyway, after the remodel last year we have room in the house for it and I needed something to store all of my electronic gadgets. A computer desk that looks like furniture. It needs a paint job now, but I will have to do that myself, TOM doesn't want to paint it. This is a photo of my grandparents, Beatrice and Thomas Barth, on their 50th wedding anniversary. I choose not to tell you how many years ago this photo was taken, except that I was still single. And that's all I going to say about that. Anyway, here I am in my hotel room. I have made the requisite phone call to TOM to let him know that I arrived safely. He was in bed, preparing to go to sleep. He's an early to bed kind of guy. And of course, because I was otherwise engaged, I missed the first half of the Amazing Race. It's usually pushed back because of a football game or some other sporting event on the tube, but today it starts on time. Figures. Anyway, I got to watch the second half.

I Scream, You Scream... We all scream for ICE CREAM! Every day is a good day if you have ice cream. My favorite ice cream flavors are: White Chocolate Raspberry (Brewsters) White Turtle (Brewsters) Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough (Blue Bell) Vanilla Bean (Blue Bell) Tin Roof (Blue Bell) more to come.

Photo Archiving I have begun the long and arduous task of scanning all of my assorted family photos and documents. I am going to try to scan for an hour each day, then name the photo, and place in the right folder. Then the photo can be placed in the appropriate storage box. It is going to take quite a long time. But if I do it in bits and pieces so I don't get burned out I will get it done. Once all the photos are scanned, I am going to buy an external hard drive for storage. That way, if there is ever a fire, all I have to grab is the drive. Having all the photos scanned will also make it easier to create the photo cd's for my boys. I have so many projects these days, the TOM will soon begin to believe that he is single again. I have tried to get him involved in the scanning, but he is really not interested. Well, that's it for today. I have to watch "Dancing with the Stars".

America... ...the band not the country. On Friday nite, TOM and I went to the show. I must admit that it was pretty good. I bought the tickets for TOM because he really likes this type of music…the type that I usually have little time for. Anyway, I tried to take some photos, but of course it was too dark in the theatre and we were too far back for the flash to do any good. We had good seats, but not good enough. Of course, that did not stop other attendees from flashing the band thru the entire show. Don’t these people realize that the flash on your pocket digital camera is not worth a damn if you are farther then 15 feet (or less) from you subject. Anyway, there was so much flashing going on that I am surprised that the rest of us didn’t have a seizure. The show was good, I wish I had the set list. They played two or three songs from the new album as well as their old favorites: Sister Golden Hair, Horse with No Name, Lonely People, and Ventura Highway just to name a few.