Christmas Ornaments 2

I am trying to finish up my Christmas ornaments posts before I run out of Januarys.

Here are three porcelain hearts we had made for three of our cats who we had from 1998 to 2014: Sherman (d.2010), Smokey (d.2014), and Max (d.2010). 

 


In the center picture above, you can see the Scottish piper from our 1996 trip to Scotland.
We bought the Hamish one on our 2006 trip:

Here are a few from our 1998 trip to the Southwest (The Poderosa); 2009 to the Northwest (the Sea Lions Cave in Oregon), and a sand dollar from the 2015 Outer Banks trip: 

 

There are many, many more but I will leave them for next year since the tree was taken down over two weeks ago.

Christmas Ornaments 1

The (artificial) Christmas tree will be coming down in a few days. We left it up later than normal because we put it up late. I like this fake tree better than any we have had before. It's a 7-ft tree and narrow. Our others -I think this is only our second - were about the same height but fat. I can't remember when we began with artificial trees, but I believe it was when we were in Scotland (PA).

I decided this year to take some pictures of some of our tree decorations. I got the idea from Far Side of Fifty's blog. We have so many it will take me a few posts and I still did not take pics of them all. Here is the tree this year.

My wife would buy ornaments whenever we traveled. Two of these were from a trip to Nashville a couple of years ago when we visited our middle daughter. The Hershey candy bar was when we took our two youngest daughters to visit both the plant and the park about 25 years ago.

 

The elves were the original shelf elves. They were my mother's mothers. (we called her Little Gram since she was only five feet tall. Our other grandmother, Big Gram, was six-foot.)

This was the Cape Hatares lighthouse from the Outer Banks in North Carolina, where we went for our 25th wedding anniversary.

These are two from the Stonewall Jackson House: his house and TJ himself.

                                    

 


More later when the tree comes down.

An Accident and Other Things

Today I lost my favorite whisky crystal glass. It got cracked when it slid into the kitchen sink when drying another item. Fortunately, it didn't break and go into the garbage disposal. Here is a picture of the last time I used it just a few days ago.

I bought it when we went to Scotland in 1996, almost 23 years ago. It was from Dalwhinnie, the first distillery we visited. If you look closely you will see the name "Dalwhinnie" spelled backward on the other side of the glass. I only my single malt whiskys from this glass. Now I have to choose a replacement. I have several, but none quite as good.

I took out a very interesting book about Shakespeare from the library this week. It's about a jubilee that was organized and took place in September 1769, in Stratford-on-Avon, where Shakespeare was born and lived off and on when he wasn't in London. The author writes a little like they talked and wrote back then. Not completely, but just enough to make it an interesting read. Reading the flyleaf, it says that rain washed out most of the festivities. 

I'm three quarters the way through Armageddon. I only read it late at night before I go to bed. It is very much as I remember it. I am just about to the beginning of the Berlin Airlift. I last read it in 1967 when I stationed in Fulda, Germany.

Happy New Year!

Well, another year, another decade. It just seems like yesterday that I was sitting in bed (with the flu) watching Peter Jennings and the world stepped into 2000, all hoping that Y2K didn't come crashing down around our Internet heads. I watched as each time zone celebrated the new year, the new decade, and can I say, the new century (there was and is still some argument as to whether it's actually 2001)? In any case, tempis fugit, as Caesar said I believe my Latin is correct).

Last evening was spent as we normally spend New Year's Eve, or at least for the last twenty-some years. We have a seafood dinner - lobster, shrimp, scallops crab; this year we saved the lobster for Valentine's Day. Then we watch our usual movie for this day - When Harry Met Sally. If you have seen the movie then you know it is a movie for New Year's Eve. We love it and have watched it every year - except 2000 - since the early nineties.

I finished my 64th book of the year earlier in the day. About average for me; more than last year. I'll probably be writing more about my reading in the next few days so I'll leave it there for now.

As far as resolutions are concerned, I was reading one of my very favorite blogs this morning,  "Far Side of Fifty", on Blogspot, and she uses just a one-word resolution each year. She says it seems to work. I think I am going to try it. Now I just need to choose the right word that will cover so many areas I need to cover.

Anyhow, Happy New Year and let's get on with it!