Christmas Cards!

Picture of the Day for 12/29/2012. My niece Chantal read a recent blog entry where I complained about not getting any Christmas cards. She and her daughter Sadie felt so bad about this that they both made me Christmas cards. I received them in the mail today. Very cute!

I actually ended up receiving several Christmas cards this season. I'm totally undeserving of them since I didn't get around to sending out my annual Christmas newsletter because my printer isn't working. Next year I'll do better. 

Spike Wants a Treat

Picture of the Day for 12/28/2012. I was at my friend Jenny's house tonight for her annual fondue party. Her dog Spike was begging for a treat and looked so cute doing so that I was compelled to take some pictures of him. 

Gnome-less

Picture of the Day for 12/27/2012. I'm feeling a little lonely without my gnome. That's not a sentence most people would ever utter in 1,000 lifetimes. Technically, this little fellow is not MY gnome. My sister Robynne collects gnomes (much to the irritation of her husband and son) and saw this one for sale on eBay and asked me to buy it for her for Christmas. That was a couple of months ago so this gnome has been keeping me company in my dining room for awhile. I was kind of sad to see him go. 

I Love Thorin

Picture of the Day for 12/26/2012. My sister Paula's family saw The Hobbit today which stars Richard Armitage as Thorin Oakenshield. Even while portraying a dwarf, Armitage is very handsome which my nieces and I appreciate. My niece Corinne wrote this message in the snow on her sister Renee's car trunk tonight. Very appropriate.

Pulling Teeth

Picture of the Day for 12/25/2012. Spent Christmas morning at my sister Robynne's house. Santa found me there and was VERY generous! Yay! Both of my sisters and their families do a fabulous job of looking after me during the holidays.

Every Christmas morning my brother-in-law Will wants to take a picture of the kids and they object strenuously until they grudgingly give in. It's like pulling teeth. Most people in our family do not like having their picture taken which makes updating my "picture of the day" blog tricky as I spend a lot of time with my family. I think this is a very cute picture.

Tracking Santa

Picture of the Day for 12/24/2012. Spent Christmas Eve at my sister Paula's house. My niece Renee made an offhanded comment about wondering where Santa was right at that moment and that reminded me to check out Santa's whereabouts on the NORAD website. I was inordinately excited to do that given the fact I'm 50 years old. I was thrilled to see Santa was over Florida right at the moment I pulled up the website since I adore Florida. 

Christmas Threw Up All Over My Sister's House

Picture of the Day for 12/23/2012. I invited myself over to my sister Paula's house to see her grandchildren open up their Christmas presents. Afterward, it looked like Christmas had thrown up all over her living room. The kids had a great time and got a lot of loot which is completely the point of Christmas. Duh. 

Please note that my 15-year-old great-nephew Dane is identified by the red circle around him in the photo below. I figured I better highlight him since he complained that his younger siblings Ethan and Sadie get the lion's share of attention on my blog. No slight was intended! I just had no idea Dane paid even the slightest attention to my blog and/or cared about his appearance in it since he's a teenaged boy.

Bear Lake Cabn Birdhouses

Picture of the Day for 12/22/2012. We had our annual Merrill family Christmas party tonight at Robynne's house. Her husband Will has been working for months on birdhouses that are based on the actual building plans from our parents' cabin up at Bear Lake. It's a pretty close replica- down to the "Merrills" sign on the front, the paint color, and even the fake owl perched on the porch railing which was placed there (the real cabin) to scare away annoying woodpeckers. (I've thrown in a picture of the real cabin just so you can see the comparison.) My dad built the cabin in the 1970s and we all have very sentimental memories of spending time with our parents there. Will (with the help of my nephew Robbie) built a birdhouse for every member of the family. Paula's family received theirs tonight and I'll get mine on Christmas day. I'm so excited! What a treasure this will be and it will be proudly displayed in my home.

Snoopy Suitcase

Picture of the Day for 12/21/2012. Went shopping at an antique store where I saw this Snoopy suitcase. Made me think of my friend Lisa who is a faithful reader of this blog. She goes by Snoopy on Facebook and whenever she posts a comment to this blog it's under the name Snoopy. 

Normally when I identify specific friends or family members on my blog it is for the purpose of tormenting or taunting them in some fashion since I use this blog for evil. Not today. This is merely a shout-out to her. Hi Lisa! 

Henchman Birthday Party at the Perfect Restaurant

Picture of the Day for 12/20/2012. My great-nephew Ethan (aka "the henchman") turned 10 today so of course that called for a birthday celebration. Kentucky Fried Chicken was his restaurant of choice so we assembled there before heading over to my sister Paula's house for presents, cake, and ice cream. While we were eating dinner, Ethan turned to me and asked with a huge grin on his face if he had not chosen the most perfect place to eat. I just about melted into a big, gooey puddle right on the spot. He's so cute. I assured Ethan that he had indeed chosen the perfect restaurant.

No Christmas Cards

Picture of the Day for 12/19/2012. So, this was the lone item in my mailbox today. As you can see, it was NOT a Christmas card. There has been a dearth of Christmas cards from my friends/family this year. Each day I go to the mailbox hoping to see a Christmas card, but no- instead I get those shopping/coupon mailers instead. Sigh.

Of course, my disgruntled attitude is totally a double-standard since I doubt I'll send out my usual Christmas newsletter this year because my printer is broken. But that's beside the point! I want to receive some Christmas cards!

Picture Editing Gymnastics

Picture of the Day for 12/18/2012. I've been working on posting the latest You Can Teach Speech Now products to the Teachers Pay Teachers site. My sister/business partner Robynne has observed that the product thumbnail images are blurry which consequently does not entice people to buy her speech therapy manuals. There's only so much I can do since this website does not allow images to be over 200 KB which is a very small image size. Regardless, I've been researching options and even tried downloading a photo editing program. The only thing that has seemed to work to marginally improve the images is to follow this convoluted process:

• Email the page from the manuals we want to use as a product thumbnail to myself as a PDF file
• Open the PDF file on my iPhone and then snap a screenshot
• Save the image to my iPhone
• Email the picture back to myself
• Save the image on my laptop
• Open the image in a picture-editing program to crop out the iPhone header that appears at the top of the picture
• Save the edited image to my laptop

Phew! It's been a time-consuming process.

Decorating for Christmas

Picture of the Day for 12/17/2012. I decorated for Christmas for the first time since 2008. As you can see, I take a very regimented, non-whimsical approach to decorating. I group like items together.

Ceramic Ginger Bread Houses

Nutcrackers

Christmas Village

Small Nativity Sets/Angels

Santa Claus

Fabric Decorations

Pillows

Just a note about this needlework picture. I embroidered this for my mother when I was 18 years old. I still can’t believe I pulled that off at that age.

It was fun to decorate (in my non-whimsical way), but only to a limit. I wasn’t up for putting up a Christmas tree. Some friends and family carried on like this was a federal offense and accused me of being un-American. My response to that was, “meh.”

Swearing Off Shoveling Snow

Picture of the Day for 12/16/2012. This is my snow-covered driveway. I actually took this picture yesterday, but it still applies today because there’s still snow on my driveway. Do you know why? I have sworn off shoveling snow. I gave up the practice a few years ago when I realized I had reached my snow-shoveling threshold- forever. I now look at a snow-covered driveway with indifference and go, “meh.” Giving up the practice hasn’t seemed to be that big of a deal since the snow usually melts in one to two days at the most. 

Annual Christmas Luminary

Picture of the Day for 12/15/2012. The Wasatch Lawn cemetery has an annual Christmas luminary display where thousands of lit candles are arrayed throughout the grounds. I blogged about this two years ago and normally I don’t like to repeat blog topics, but I thought I would post a picture of the lights underneath the tree where my parents are buried.

Speech Therapy Glitter Gal

Picture of the Day for 12/14/2012. On my birthday a few days ago my friend Suzanne and I went into a Sephora make-up store and applied a different shade of glitter nail polish to each nail. Because that's what 50-year-olds do.

Today I decided I better remove the glitter nail polish as my sister Robynne and I were doing a professional You Can Teach Speech Now presentation in front of all the Davis county speech therapists. I learned too late that regular nail polish remover does NOT remove glitter nail polish. Oops. I ended up attending the meeting in full glitter glory. I don't think anyone noticed. 

Incan Ceremony for 2013

Picture of the Day for 12/13/2012. Readers of my blog are aware that I occasionally attend classes taught by an Incan shaman. Elena held a ceremony tonight to usher in 2013. To begin, all of the attendees were asked to stand up in front of the group and give a brief overview of what our intentions are for the upcoming year. 

After that, we selected an object (i.e., flowers, fruit, nuts, crystals, seeds, corn, pine cones, etc.) from a table, held it to our third eye (i.e., forehead) and thought about our intention or wish, and then placed the object on the cloth as an offering. We repeated this process as often as wanted or needed. I'm not going to reveal my wishes/intentions here, but I will list the objects I placed on the cloth: flower petals, money, corn, apple, chocolate, amethyst crystal, foil stars/moons, walnut, berry, banana, white candle, beans, rice. I did catch one of the men looking askance at me as I held a banana up to my forehead. Don't blame him! I'm sure it looked like something out of a comedy sketch.

For my Mormon friends/family reading this blog- don't be alarmed by this ceremony. There were a ton of other Mormons at the event. It was a nice way of preparing for the new year.

Junior High Christmas Concert

Picture of the Day for 12/12/12. I attended my great-niece Hayley's junior high school Christmas concert. It was thoroughly entertaining. The program was evenly divided between the choir (of which Hayley is a member) and dancers. The choir did a lovely job. The dancers? Well...they danced with enthusiasm. 

It totally took me back to my own junior high school days when I was a member of the dance club. I remember doing a dance routine to Fleetwood Mac's "The Chain" when it was a newly released single- that's how long ago it was. It felt so scandalous to dance to a tune that actually had the word "damn" in it. Shocking!

Staying Put

Picture of the Day for 12/11/2012. My sister Robynne's cat Paris is weird.

Don't worry that I'll offend her with this declaration since we talk about it all the time.

Case in point. Here is Paris reclining on the TV room ottoman at 12:47 p.m.

 

And here she is two hours later at 3:01 p.m.

At 7:46 p.m. she has still not budged from her spot.

Don’t worry. There’s nothing physically wrong with her. She’s just weird.

Not Bad for 50

Picture of the Day for 12/10/2012. This is my "holy cow I just turned 50 today" self-portrait. 

All I Want for Christmas are My Two Front Teeth

Picture of the Day for 12/9/2012. My great-niece Sadie recently lost her two front teeth. Right before Christmas! What great timing! The lyrics of that classic Christmas song actually apply to her!

Breaking Out of a Food Rut

Picture of the Day for 12/8/2012. I did it! After nearly two years of ordering nothing but the Chick-Fil-A 3-count chicken strips meal (with Chick-Fil-A sauce) at the Fashion Place Mall food court, I finally deviated from my go-to food choice and ate at Panda Express today. 

Photo Sketches

Picture of the Day for 12/7/2012. I found a great new iPhone app called PhotoFunia that turns photographs into what looks like pencil sketches. It's kind of addictive.

Contrasting Styles

Picture of the Day for 12/5/2012. Don't you think these glitzy gold earrings I picked up on sale look good with this muscle t-shirt? I guess the thing they have in common is they're both kind of trashy. 

Navy Seal Museum

Picture of the Day for 12/5/2012. A bit of advice- it's not a good idea to make a so-called "quick" detour off the I-95 to visit the Navy Seal Museum in Ft. Pierce, FL when you're in a hurry to catch a flight at the Orlando airport. It was several miles away from the airport, there were construction roadblocks, and I had to wait 15 minutes for boats to pass underneath a drawbridge. By the time I reached the museum, I only had 1/2 hour to spare before I had to resume my journey north. What I did see was pretty interesting. I particularly liked the exhibit about the role the seals played in retrieving the Apollo astronauts after they splashed down in the ocean.

First Teachers Pay Teachers Sale

Picture of the Day for 12/4/2012. We made the first sale of one of our You Can Teach Speech Now speech therapy manuals on the Teachers Pay Teachers website today! Yay!

A Very Henchman Christmas

Picture of the Day for 12/3/2012. I'm stealing a picture my niece Chantal sent of her henchman son Ethan. As you can see from his t-shirt, he's managing to celebrate the Christmas season while maintaining his henchman persona. Nicely done. 

Beautiful Florida/Tacky Florida

Picture of the Day for 12/2/2012. After dropping my brother-in-law Will off at the Orlando airport, I drove to the outskirts of town in the hopes of making it on the last Boggy Creek airboat ride of the day. (Readers of my blog are aware that I'm kind of an airboat ride junkie.) I didn't make it, but I thoroughly enjoyed the drive and the scenery. I spent a few minutes taking in the view on the shores of Lake Tohopekaliga before heading back to my hotel.

Contrast that serene picture with the increasingly tacky tourist attractions lining the roads approaching the Disney World/Universal Studios/Sea World area where I've been staying. I saw this gift shop and was absolutely compelled to stop and check it out.

Candy Cane Headband

Picture of the Day for 12/1/2012. A woman in my real estate investing class wore a candy cane headband in honor of the start of the holiday season. I was impressed she was committed to her fashion statement and wore this the ENTIRE day. She was nice enough to allow me to take a picture of her. 

Culinary Good Sport

Picture of the Day for 11/30/2012. My brother-in-law Will arrived in Florida last night to attend a 3-day real estate investing class with me in Orlando. After I picked him up at the airport, I whisked him straight out to one of my favorite restaurants, Dixie Crossroads, in Titusville since I've been dreaming of their royal red shrimp and HAD to have them. This is a 40 mile drive each way. Poor guy- I didn't even give him a minute to rest and recover from his long flight from Salt Lake.

Tonight I informed Will we would be going to Bahama Breeze since I just HAD to have their spicy jerk chicken pasta. Again, he was a very good sport.

Hmm...wonder where I'll just HAVE to go out to dinner tomorrow night.