Mother's Day Spring

Our Mother's Day yesterday was a rather rainy, dreary one, but I did manage to get out and try my hand at videoing and grabbing some closeups of our apple tree. The apple blossoms were gorgeous.

I stayed home from church again because my foot hurts very badly, especially to walk on it. I finally got a photo of it Friday with a lot of contortions on my part to photograph that part of my anatomy, but it is really too gruesome to show here. However, I have an appointment with my podiatrist tomorrow. I'm hoping he declares it "healing well."

I also posted a video yesterday of my quaking aspen trees. And if you go back to see it on the previous posts, you'll see two of them. I loaded one from youtube and one directly from my computer on to blogger. I like the larger one but I'm still experimenting to see if I can get it to load larger from my computer as I don't like all the ads that come up with the youtube one. Go check it out if you are viewing this post because there are 2 from yesterday and let me know which one you like best. My preference is larger ones.
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But Love Bunny attended church and brought me home a beautiful flower the Young Men and Young Women got for each mother. Plus my son sent me an Edible Arrangement of chocolate covered strawberries and apples. They were delicious but I'm trying my best to lose some of this extra weight and gave half of them to a friend.

I got some very closeups of our apple blossoms.

There are few things prettier than apple blossoms or roses.

This is the exquisite rose hubs brought home from church for me. It actually had a strong fragrance to it. I love the colors of it.

Don't you just love that center? It looks like red velvet.

The color flows from a creamy white to pink to red on the tips.

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Random Thoughts:

People who choose not to have children are selfish. I'm not including those who don't have children because they can't; I mean the ones who think they are "saving the planet" or just think children "are too much trouble" or "interfere with their lives." Those are the ones who should be ashamed of themselves for being so selfish. Children are a blessing from our Lord, and if you're a Christian we're commanded to go forth and multiply. I can't think of any other blessing that compares to children.
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As I said, I'm trying to lose weight I've accumulated over the past several years, but truly I try not to anything without a saturated fat close at hand.
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Goodness speaks in a whisper; evil shouts. This is absolutely true. Listen to the still small voice and you can't go wrong.
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Love is sharp, it pierces, and love is a needle that sews shut the hole sin in our hearts, that mends our wound but it can also cut deep, wound and kill.
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Ever think of what we do in front of Jesus Christ that we wouldn't think of ding in front of grandma?
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Every day is to me a "Momentous Day"!
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Solar Tubes and A Rant

The roofer came a couple of weeks ago and installed the solar tubes, but I was so busy with the dentist and surgeon that I didn't post until now. Total cost was about $500.00. That's a lot better than $1,000.00 that I paid for just one of them 5 years ago. I'm thrilled to have light in the living room now. I'll get better photos when the sun is out and high in the sky.

This is one of them on one end of the living room.

This is one of the other end of the living room.

The guy didn't make much of a mess at all. Very easy to install but I just didn't want Love Bunny on the roof.

Just starting to clean up but thought I'd grab a photo to show you.

Now, these were taken on 4/28 on a cloudy day and even though these still won't come up to a standard I'm pleased with, they still show a difference in this dark room.

The tubes give us significantly more light.

And I shuffled things around a bit the day he came. Put away some pictures and rearranged some on this wall. I still need to patch some holes, but that'll have to wait until I am steady on my feet.

See the family room through the archway? That chair is where I've spent the last 3 weeks surrounded with my laptop, several bags of videos loaned to me by my sisters in our ward to watch while recuperating, 2 tables to hold everything I'll need while still in the splint (can we say bandaids, antibiotic cream, skin cream, food, water bottles!) and boot and 2 footstools. I'll be so glad to get it back to just one table and one footstool I can hardly wait!
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And now for the rant.

A week ago I received an email from a very popular magazine. I've never written or subscribed to this magazine so I wondered what was in it the few seconds before I opened it. It turned out to be a "Forward" from a woman in my church from someone who sent it to her. I have absolutely no clue as to why it was forwarded to me other than I was in their "address book." Now, you have to understand I absolutely hate this kind of email. That address book had hundreds of people's names in it. In my anger I emailed the person who forwarded it to me and told them to please take my name out of their address book. I'm a pretty private person when it comes to things like that, especially when it could have been prevented with one very, very simple detail: When sending to a group of people simply BCC in your email header and it will be sent to hundreds or thousands without each individual person knowing the other email addresses. (For those of you who don't know, BCC means Blind Carbon Copy and comes from the old typewriter days when you didn't want someone getting the original letter to know you've also sent it to others.) Well, that works with email also! That way we don't send private email addresses around the internet for others to spam us. Those of us with Mac Mail don't even have to do that. As per the screenshot below, in your Mail Preferences Composing, just leave the the box unchecked "When sending to a group, show all member addresses" and it won't show any but the original person addressed to in that group. I've tried to get a good screenshot of that for Mac users but I don't want it to be so big that it would take up an entire screen. So if anyone has any questions, please feel free to email me and I'll help you with it. Don't make people angry by sending them forwards with hundreds of email addresses in the email exposing their address to spammers. I KNOW they'll appreciate this little effort you've taken for their privacy. And as you can see I'll always block out anything in a screenshot that would show my private matters. I suggest you all do that also. You never know when someone just might take your privacy and steal your identity. I do!

There, it's off my chest now! Whew.....
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Pink Saturday 4/30/2011

Another Pink Saturday from Beverly at How Sweet The Sound. To visit all the participants, just click on the logo below and go visit with them.
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More up-close shots of roses around my house. I set the camera to close-up and zeroed in pretty close. I had my flash on. This is what the Canon can do. Love that camera. Love the roses more though. ;-)

This is my coffee filter rose so close I can even see the glue on it. Hmmm, must remember to pick off those strands.

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Random Thoughts:

I'm probably one of the few out of billions of people who didn't watch the royal wedding and, actually, haven't even been following it or caught up in the glitz of it. I'm not a royal follower. I did see a picture of her in her dress this morning when I came in to read my morning news on the internet though and I must say she was lovely. Her dress was simple but gorgeous. I've always thought Diana's dress was the ugliest wedding gown I'd ever seen. Oh, do NOT get me wrong. Diana was a lovely woman, but I don't think her style came through until years later. I most certainly wish the couple happiness, but I pity her for marrying a future king. They traditionally have mistresses and I know I couldn't share my hubby with anyone. I want commitment from my man and want to be the only woman in his life. I want someone to marry me who thinks I'm his queen and will remain faithful in this life and the next. And I did marry one.
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A few weeks ago I read where Chicago banned homemade lunches and chocolate milk in their schools. Easter eggs are now called Spring Spheres. How silly is this and where will the insanity stop? My lunches from home were better fare than what came out of the cafeteria. Plus, I hate milk, but love hot chocolate. My kids went mostly to private schools just for this reason. My son took an English class and was taught by a Mexican woman who spoke to the kids in Spanish! He couldn't understand her so I got him out of that class as fast as I could make the phone call. That's when I decided to send them to private schools. He now speaks Spanish fluently, but that was after he learned proper English.
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I also read a few days ago that calling animals "pets" is insulting. WHAT??? I know how most of you feel about your animals, but calling them pets is not insulting. That's what they are. Fur children is what my daughter calls her 3 cats and 2 dogs and she loves them more than ME! Insanity.
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Did you know fingerprints are just friction ridges? Yep, that's what the experts call them.
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A father's duty is to protect his children, right after loving their mother. I cannot tell you how sad I feel for those without their fathers. And that is increasing in this age of promiscuity. If a man loves you he will want to make you his wife and have you bear his children.
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I think you've had enough of my ramblings for one day. Ooooh, I'm getting better day by day with this foot surgery. ;-)
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Spring Has Finally Arrived

Yesterday I was able to get out into the yard to photograph the spring growth in the yard. It felt wonderful! Anyway, I'm sharing a few things today. Also, a friend, Stacy, who is a professional photographer, came over the other day and showed me some editing features on my iPhoto that even I didn't know. She's so very good on her computer and really put me to shame showing me things that I sat in stunned silence for several seconds since she isn't even on a Mac. I'll be doing more practice with my camera around the house today. I'm very blessed to count this young chick as my friend.

This is our apple tree blossoming out.

Using my close-up setting on my Canon proves you can get good up-close photos.

This wasn't the best up-close photo but I'll share my failures as well as my successes.

Our new cherry tree.

My favorite tree is Quaking Aspen. I just love how the leaves flutter in the slightest breeze.

Hubby's Concord grapes are budding out also. Did you know you can actually watch grapes grow as they grow so fast, probably an inch every few days and can easily grow 15 ft. in one season? (Nope, I didn't focus correctly on this one either.)

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Just Checking In 4/25/2011

My photography skills are sorely lacking this morning, but I needed to post. Sorry. I am just checking in to let you know I'm doing well, probably better than expected. That is not to say there isn't still pain; there is. But I am mobile, sick of watching videos on my MacBookPro, bored and hoping for a fast recovery. Some of you know exactly what I mean. It's hard for me to stay down and not have the freedom of cleaning my house as I'd like it. I shall persevere for the next few weeks and not complain...MUCH. In the meantime enjoy the terrible photo of what is next to my bed...

and know that I almost fell off my office chair getting the photo of how th' foot is coming along. ;-)

Swelling is going down rapidly, but then I keep ice on that foot for hours a day. The dark spots on the left inside heel and the outside of the foot are not shadows; they are bruising that is healing nicely.

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