Invisible Woman

Hoppy Easter!

Happy Easter wishes to all from me and our sweet shy Desert Cottontails.

    

joy to the world...

and wishes for

a Merry Christmas

or Happy Hanukkah

to family and friends

near and far.

♥

Peace.

wild, wild turkeys!

For several weeks before Thanksgiving, son Chris had been occasionally seeing a pair of very large brown birds at the edge of the woods bordering a business park across the street from his northern VA apartment. He described the birds to me, but I was drawing a complete blank.

Until I finally saw them myself, it had never occurred to me that they could be Wild Turkeys.

I first saw them on Thanksgiving Eve, and then again several times during the holiday weekend. They were very shy, so I photographed them using the car as a blind, since they seemed accustomed to passing vehicles.

This photo taken in the nearby business park's lot gives a better idea of the size of the bird, compared to a small SUV -- they're surprisingly large!

Finding these turkeys was an unexpected and timely discovery that topped off an extremely fun Thanksgiving weekend with our family. Wish they would hang around to become part of the annual tradition!

  

Lucy's rainbow

 
Early this morning, curled up at the front window, our lovely Lucy.

The breaking day cast a magical tiny patch of rainbow upon her as she dreamed her kittycat dreams.

 

time traveling via 6-pack

 
But not the kind of 6-pack you might imagine.

This is a 6-pack of Sprinkles cupcakes.

A special treat, indeed.

These taste like cupcakes tasted when I was a kid, back when cupcakes were made from scratch, or at least from a simple mix that didn't include pudding or call for (ick) vegetable oil.

These have buttercream frosting. Lots of it.

Some people say there's too much frosting (in our family, frosting was always icing) -- but I think it's a perfectly perfect amount.

Eating a Sprinkles cupcake makes me feel like a 5 year old at a birthday party, or a family picnic, or a cozy Sunday supper at Grandma's house.

Mmm...

Almost makes me want to dust off my vintage Betty Crocker cookbook to see if I can whip up some good, old-fashioned cupcakes myself.

  

Tess & Erik's Bermuda wedding

 

Last weekend, our nephew Erik Hedblom married his longtime love, Tess Hiller, on the beach of the Fairmont Southampton in Bermuda.

Such a beautiful wedding day... blue skies, aqua sea, pink sand.

A blissfully happy couple, joined by their families & friends.

And a robust celebration that lasted well into the night.

You can see my photo slideshow, or click through the photo set on Flickr.

 

birthday fun

 

We're just back from a quick trip to VA to visit our boys and celebrate son Chris's birthday.

Saturday afternoon, we visited some favorite Loudoun County wineries.

 
These iPhone photos were taken at the pondside area at Doukenie, which was our first stop. It was a beautiful sunny day.

 
The fresh spring air and a picnic lunch of salami, cheddar, freshly baked bread and a bottle of good red had everyone smiling.

 

hummer craziness, continued

 So the hummers continued their crazy airshow off and on for most of the day. Every now and then I would hear one bump against the window as it miscalculated an attack or escape. Luckily, there were no apparent casualties.

I went outside around 4 pm (when it was finally sort of warm) to try and capture some hummer photos in the afternoon sunlight. My little friends quickly showed up and resumed their squabbling.

 

 

One of the females settled in to feed, but trouble quickly arrived in the form of the male who claimed that feeder as his turf.

 

 
Although it looks like he's getting fresh, I think he was just trying to use his weight to push her off the feeder.

 

 
But she wasn't easily moved, nor did she seem the least bit impressed by his maneuvers.

 

 
She wouldn't budge, no matter how hard he tried to unseat her.

 

 
Finally, he gave up and flew off to annoy someone else.

 

  
This may be the same stubborn female (you go, girl!) at a subsequent visit.

 

 
And here's the little troublemaker himself, his feathers just a wee bit ruffled.

 

*     *     *     *     *

Thanks to all of you who come here, and especially thanks for enduring my endless fascination with the hummingbirds.

I'm resolving to try to get back to more diverse creative topics in the new year, which means I need to oil the sewing machine and dust off the printer and get busy.

Wishing a happy & healthy 2011 to all! 

 

scenes from a very merry day...

 

The dining room table, set for Christmas breakfast.

 

 

A gift of beautiful flowers was the centerpiece.

 

 

Through the window, the patio breakfast club showed up on schedule.

 

 

A dove relaxed beside the pool, away from the feeding frenzy.

 

 

Chris and Maddie had a snuggle/wrestle.

 

 

The guys, opening a shared gift. Notice John's handsome new official Ditka sweater vest. Go Bears!

 

 

The much-anticipated pecan rolls, this pan half pecanless by request, but still very delicious.

 

 

And a zoom of the pecan version. They were as good as they look.

 

 

Afternoon scrabble on the patio kept John & the kids out of the kitchen.

 

  

But the chessboard sat all alone on the kitchen table this year.

 

 

Finally, just before we sat down to dinner, a view of our Christmas feast.

We raised a toast to us, and to all we wished were with us.

It  was a very merry day.

 

oh Christmas tree

 
The semi-decorated Christmas tree... none of the kids' ornaments are on yet, but I like it this way too, just colored glass balls and a few vintage twinkler ornaments I found on eBay several years ago.

 
Here's the angel atop the tree, made by me many years ago. The glittery popsicle star of David was made by son Tom in first grade, and has graced our tree for 20 years.

 
This is a closeup of one of the twinklers. We had a set of these on our tree when I was a little girl, but somewhere along the way, they disappeared. So a few years ago, eBay came to the rescue! These are such fun because they have a metal blade inside that spins if it catches a warm draft, creating the twinkle effect. As little kids, we found them irresistible... and as a big kid, I still do!