A Little Bit of This and That

Believe it or not, I do think of y’all often. And I challenge myself constantly to come up with new and interesting stuff that will tickle your fancy.

Coming up with new and original material is not an easy thing. So I try to keep my eyes open for interesting stuff to photograph.

Sometimes I am successful. Sometimes not.

I did not shoot that cool frog photo (at left). I discovered it this morning when I was looking for clip art with a “conglomerate” theme.  It come from Cobalt123’s Flickr page. There are some other cool images there, too. Be sure to check out his stuff if you have time.

The images I have managed to capture are slightly less unusual than the conglomerate rock frog, but equally as cool.

Some of them are, anyway. In my opinion. 🙂

So, without further ado, I present you with my December conglomerate of images. In no particular order.

Joey, our youngest grandchild, is a bit obsessive about organization. He gets it honestly (from his mother). She gets it honestly, too (from Hubby). The organization gene was apparently suppressed in my family’s bloodline.

Just like I’ve always enjoyed toying with his Mom a bit (messing up the alphabetization of canned vegetables in her kitchen cupboard is one example that comes to mind), I like to mess with Joey. He’d pushed all of his refrigerator magnets into one large group at the top, front of the fridge. He had to use a step-stool to reach. I thought it would be fun to see how long it took him to discover the message I left for him.

That evening, I got a call from Amy who immediately said, “Someone wants to talk to you.”

It was Joey. He didn’t say “hi, G” or anything. He launched right into the angry voice (picture a face LIKE THIS ONE) and said, loud and plainly, “Don’t. MOVE. My. Magnets.”

It’s okay though. It took me about three seconds to convince him that I HAD to do it because I wanted to leave him a message so he’d know that I love him and was thinking about him.

Oh, and in case you are wondering, it was less than 3 hours after he got home that he saw my little note.

I’ve explained the dinner rotation thing we do at my house several times before, so I won’t go into it in too much detail. The week before Christmas was Shannon’s turn. It’s nice having someone new in the line-up. Especially since she likes to cook lots of different stuff. It’s like eating at a new restaurant (a good one!) five nights a week.

By now, she knows most of our various likes and dislikes, too. Notice I said “most.” That’s important. Because Shannon actually made me eat quiche, which I’ve always hated. It’s a texture thing. The thought of biting through what to me has always felt like thick, curdled eggs was enough to turn my stomach. The whole way to the table, I kept telling myself, “Don’t vomit. Don’t vomit. Don’t vomit.” Which is why my mind was a bit too preoccupied to think about taking any “before” pictures.

But, because I’m a big girl (as in mostly grown up), I tried a small piece. And guess what? It was actually very good. You may have already figured that one out from the picture above though. Shannon said the secret is the spinach-to-egg ratio. Keeping the amount of spinach high helps with the texture tremendously.

Speaking of being a big girl…

Now, I LOVE good shortbread. But I never buy it because it’s expensive. I could probably splurge and fork over $1 per ounce (about the going rate for these things) every now and then, but it’s the principle of the thing. Essentially that’s about $1 per cookie. So, when I saw this four pound, six ounce tin of Walker’s shortbread cookies at Costco for less than $19, I thought I’d died and gone to Heaven. That’s 73.6 ounces of deliciousness that I just could NOT pass up. Heck, I even went back and bought a couple extra boxes to keep in the pantry. It’s a good thing I saved money on those, ’cause I’m going to need to buy some bigger pants soon.

I can’t remember if I shared this picture before or not. I saw this huge grasshopper on one of the plants in front of our house. Months ago, obviously. But I like it, so am sharing it here, too.

I actually took this picture with the theme of holiday magic in mind. Because after my family quickly devoured one bag of these bad boys from the candy dish, more “magically” appeared. I tried various angles. There’s just something about this next shot that makes me smile…

Doesn’t it look like Santa and the one snowman are staring down at the other snowman who appears to have been eviscerated with all of his green, red, and white innards showing?

Maybe it’s just me.

Hubby took this picture a couple of months ago. K and Belle like to sit on Mama’s lap. It makes it sort of hard to use my laptop computer, but I have to let them bond with me sometimes, right? I wasn’t actually sleeping. How can you be so sure? No one ever takes pictures of me unless I say, “Person, will you take a picture of me?”

This frog desk organizer was a Christmas gift from the grand kids.  It’s tacky as all get-out, but right up my alley. He can hold an assortment of binder clips, pens and even a roll of tape. How’s that for handy? It makes for a pretty funny picture, too.

Speaking of funny pictures… there’s this foot-long hot dog place sort of near me that I only drive past occasionally. It sits at an intersection where it never fails that I catch the red light. Every time I sit there, all I can do is stare longingly at the front of the store and its mascot, which is prominently displayed on the curb in front of the place, because I always seem to be by myself. Or with Hubby. And he would just think the whole idea too stupid to bother with.

Last night was different. I needed to exchange some Christmas gifts and Shannon was with me.  I caught the light, as usual, but this time when I looked at Ann’s my mood brightened. Shannon was there and could actually take my picture!

We did the clothing exchange first then on the way out of the mall stopped at Ann’s for this…

I love cool (fun!) statues like that. So I can hardly resist getting a picture with as many as I can. I love hot dogs, too, and theirs are awesome. But I wasn’t even slightly hungry at the time.

Yes, I could have just asked someone to take the picture for me, but I was afraid saying “will you take a picture of me with the giant, foot-long hot dog” to a total stranger might launch me into hysterics.

This key fob was a Christmas present from Hubby. What it “represents” is his final agreement that yes even though there are cheaper bikes out there, we deserve to get ourselves the ones we REALLY want.

Really, really.

These were the motorcycles we rode in Europe and LOVED. The mountains of West Virginia ain’t The Alps, but there are plenty of fantastic roads and just as many dirt roads we have previously been a bit hesitant to explore. (You try riding a 900-pound, bulky motorcycle through dirt and gravel once. It’s a bit disconcerting to say the least.)

I don’t know what’s more exciting… knowing I’ll be riding a new motorcycle soon or thinking about all the cool new gear I get to buy to go along with that new bike. There’s a certain image we have to uphold you know.

Speaking of new images… the other night while we were at a friend’s house, having a grand old time if I do say so myself, Shannon mentioned the latest fashion trend to us. Jeggings.

While doing the exchange thing last night, we saw this sign. I just HAD to get a picture to share with y’all.

Here’s another shot I HAD to share. It’s not the most flattering self-portrait, but Meg hung out on my lap for the longest time Christmas night and I wanted to take a picture. She’s my crazy, old girl. (The dogs call me “Mama”, not ToadMama. They have a hard time with the tee sound.)

And speaking of Meg, I’ve also been collecting pictures of her in her bed again. I’ve never seen one dog lay in so many different positions! But I’ll save those for another time. This post is already WAY too long.

If you actually made it to the end, be sure to leave a comment to let me know. Please?