Santa came early! (late?)

WOOHOO I got a 18mm-200mm lens for my Nikon D40 camera. These lenses are pricey. The Nikon D40 does not have a focus motor in the body, so the body can be more light weight and less expensive to buy. But, the catch is then the lenses have the drive motors and they are expensive.

I love this lens. I have wanted it for a long while. I will use it as my main lens on my camera as it does it all. Hubby suggested that we purchase this lens with our tax return and I jumped right on that band wagon. It arrived by UPS on Wednesday. (Every notice how the UPS men have such great legs? It must be a job requirement.)

Ofcourse it's been snowing since it arrived and I can only take so many pictures of white. But this was a wet snow and I did get some really nice pics of the snow clinging to the trees and bushes. Thursday morning was just plain gorgeous, no other way to describe it. Here are my favorites.

So next time you think that Santa has forgotten you have patience and maybe you will get your heart's desire. I did!

Here are some interesting camera facts:

1870-William Jackson took the first pictures of the West

1900-Kodak Brownie Box roll film camera introduced

1985-Minolta markets the world's first autofocus SLR system called Maxxum

A fun fact: The average person laughs about 15 times a day.

Have a good one.

Honey I'm Home

We had great days with our family in the Valley. We were 10 for spaghetti dinner Friday night at the place (In-laws homestead has been called "the place" forever) -- LaVerne, Wayne, four Daly brothers, Uncle Bob and Aunt Marilyn, Punky's wife-Vikki and me.

Kurt has five brothers, three of whom were there for the week-end of family gatherings and racing. Two came in from the Denver area and one lives in the west Valley. Uncle Bob and Aunt Marilyn are from Denver and they are staying two weeks. Uncle Bob and Wayne are brothers.

The whole clan loves sprint car racing. Uncle Bob and Uncle Don both were sprint car drivers at one time. Brother David raced Midgets for awhile. So off they went early Saturday afternoon for the 2nd annual "Copper on Dirt" race at Manzanita Speedway. Three categories of race cars were featured: Sprints, Midgets and Silver Crowns. They are all considered open-wheeled cars.

They were all so happy to be out of the snow and in the Valley of the Sun. They froze to death! The wind was blowing briskly. It rained off and on and the temp dropped to about 30 degrees after the sun went down. They were outside in the bleachers for 9 hours.

While LaVerne, Marilyn and I went out to a nice dinner in a restaurant and then home for coffee and dessert and a great gab fest. We were warm as toast!

The sun finally came out to stay on Sunday and I got some great photos of the lovely desert which surrounds the place. Here is a page I made for a challenge called,"My View From Here"

All-in-all everone was so happy just to be together and plans are being made for the World of Outlaws race in March.

All the family stay in touch easily now days with email and cellphones and our regular land-line telephones.

Here is an interesting fact about telephone communications: 1,525,000,000 miles of telephone wire are strung across the U.S.

Have a good one.

Happy V'Day

It's Valentine's Day. My hubby gave me the funniest card. Outside said, "The Man Who Could Clean" He left her with spotless upholstery...and dirty thoughts. by Anita Maid. With a sleezy picture on the front too. Inside, "Hope your Valentine's Day reads like a trashy romance novel."

My husband delights in picking out cards for people. They look forward to seeing his next selection. He also gave our daughter THE box of chocolate covered cherries. This is a running gag that has been going on for about 15 years. When she was younger she gave him chocolate covered cherries for Christmas. He didn't tell her for the longest time that he didn't like them. Then a few years after she found out she gave him some again as a gag gift. He saved them and then surprized her with them at the next occasion. Well the chocolate covered cherries war was on. It's been some years now since the box has been passed and he passed it back to her this year in a beautifully wrapped package. He gives her a gift every year so she won't have a clue that the cherries are in it this year.

We are going to babysit for our son's two little boys tonight so that son and wife can have a nice date night. It will be fun for us too.

It is really snowing again. Supposed to last through tomorrow. We have sure had a more typical winter this year. We are leaving tomorrow for Phoenix and will return on Sunday. Hubby is going down for the big sprint car race at Manzanita Speedway. Three of his brothers (he has 5), his Uncle Bob and his Dad are all going to the race together. His Mom, Aunt Marilyn and I will just stay home and see what mischief we can get into. Am looking forward to going, but not to driving in the snow. For 40 miles the roads will be snowpacked until we drop down off the Mongellon Rim. Then it's smooth sailing. The inlaws live between Surprize and Wickenberg in the high dessert. They built a beautiful retirement home there on 10 acres. We go down on I-17 to New River and then across to Lake Pleasant Road and then cut through the dessert on a dirt (unmarked) road. We miss all the heavy traffic congestion of Phoenix this way.

Well, there is my boring life for a few days. I made this scrapbook page about my love for my slippers and Valentine's Day seems like a good time to post it on my blog.

I made this page for a class assignment to write a love letter to something besides a person. The journaling reads: "Dear Fuzzy Wuzzy Warmers, I love you! After a long day you caress me. You wrap your warm goodness around me. You always know just what I want, just what I need. You are the best and you ask nothing in return. For that I love you and want you. My love always, Until you wear out!

Here is an interesting fact for Valentine's Day. Your heart beats over 100,000 times day!

Have a good one.

Tagged! (again)

I have been tagged by Liv. This is a new tag game but similar to the old one.

These are the rules: You must post the rules before you give your answers.You must list one fact about yourself for each letter of your middle name. Each fact must begin with that letter. If you don’t have a middle name, just use your maiden name. After you’ve been tagged, you need to up-date your blog with your middle name and answers. At the end of your post, you need to tag one person for each letter of your middle name. Be sure to leave them a comment telling them they’ve been tagged and need to read your blog for details.

Well this will be short and sweet. I go by my middle name. It is Ann.

A is for accessible. I am always accessible to all my friends and family. I am happy to be available anytime of the day or night.

N is for nifty. I love this old-fashioned word. It rolls off the tongue so easily. I am a nifty person. I am neat and cool and fine and swell (all words used as synonyms in the thesaraus) but I also think so many things are nifty. Having this blog is nifty. Having so many cyber friends is nifty. Being able to make digi scrapbook memories for my family is nifty. Nifty is just a nifty word.

N is for neighborly. I try to be neighborly and watch out for my neighbors and keep in touch. I like to know if they are needing things and if I can help them out in anyway.

It is always fun to find out things about people. So, I am happy to leave these few facts about me here for you to read.

Here are a few nifty facts to cheer your day.

1. A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds.
2. A 10-gallon hat hold barely 6 pints.
3. Butterflies taste with their feet,

Have a good one.

Nerdy Little Secret

I love bingo! I play in town at the Elks Club and the American Legion Hall. Sometimes my daughter will go with me, very occasionally my hubby will go and he always seems to win the big prize. Does he share it with me? Heck no. Most of the time it's just me.

I have found a great place to play online it is http://www.pogo.com/ I play in a league called Bingocrazy www.myleague.com/bingocrazy . Bingocrazy is just a blast. I play with Wendy and Vital and Smokie and Brks. Under is there and LaStonz and budgie. There is cherries and Loopy and doughgirl and nnny and many, many more cyber friends. I once won the Tournament of Champions and I did my happy dance all over my family room.

They love me there. I play under the name pinewoodtoo and everybody calls me Piney. Piney always brings cyber snacks like spam and pate of okra. She shops at the swap meet and finds lots of good snacks for all of her bingo friends. The caller in Bingo is named Dottie and we hate her! Sometimes Brks has to take a club and whack her upside the head good.

Today in my digi scrapbook class we had to make a page about our nerdy little secret. I chose bingo! We had 30 minutes from start to finish to post the page on the gallery. My hubby took my picture playing at Fortune Bingo at Pogo. I downloaded it, edited it and made my page using images from Pogo bingo. I will post it here.

This page was so much fun to make and I dedicate it to all my cyber friends at Bingocrazy. Piney loves ya.

I will leave you with this interesting fact for today.

There is a "caller of the year competition" in which bingo callers compete for a two week holiday.

Hey maybe Dottie can win that and leave us in peace for two weeks. I know all of us at Bingocrazy will be pulling for her.

Have a good one.

A little culture

Tonight we are going to the final rehearsal of the the Northern Arizona University play, " The Cripple of Inishmaan". A wonderful comic tale in the great tradition of Irish storytelling. It is the final rehearsal on campus as the production travels to Los Angeles for the Kennedy Center College Theatre Festival.

This certainly brings back memories. My husband has a degree in theatre design and when he was a senior in college he designed the set for the festival play, "Another Antigone". The play won the state competition and then went to the regionals in San Francisco. His set design won the regionals and went to The Kennedy Center for the national competition where he won an honorable mention. It was so exciting!!

So, we love to go to the festival play each year and are thrilled when it wins the state and goes on to the regionals.

Northern Arizona University has an excellent theatre department and we try to stay active in the booster organization. The plays are great and we love live theatre. LOL we go to all the high school plays too.

My husband is very creative. He is a photographer specializing in black and white photos. He uses a 35mm camera but has taken an interest in my Nikon D40 SLR. He is musical too. He plays many instruments: banjo, guitar(6 string-12 string), dulcimer (both kinds), mandolin, fiddle, bodhran (Irish drum) and messes around with flutes. He collects antique banjos and even has a gourd banjo. He even loves to draw and paint.

Bless his heart he is so encouraging when I do my digi pages and make cards and do paper scrapping. I am a crafter. He is an artist. That sums up the difference.

Here are two pages I made from pictures of him at last year's annual folk festival at Sharlot Hall Museum in Prescott, AZ. He plays in this festival every year and it is so great to renew old friendships each year and jam with everyone. I play the auto harp and the bodhran, neither very well but good enough to have fun jamming.

Well, I need to start making my Valentines.

In keeping with this blog on culture I leave you with this intersting fact. The sound of E.T. walking was made by someone squishing her hands in Jello.

Have a good one.

I've Gone to the Darkside

I have been consumed lately by my digi scrapbooking. I am taking a great class right now and it keeps me very busy. Also, on the message board and in the gallery folks post the most wonderful sites where I can go and buy new digi supplies. Now digi supplies are not too expensive and they can be used over and over again, a real bargain right? Well, that is the point of it. I just have to buy more and more because it's a bargain, right? I just know my paypal account angels are watching in horror as I spend more and more and go farther and farther to the darkside. Where are you Luke Skywalker when I need you? huh?

Speaking of Digi, my good cyber-friend and mentor, Liv (See my bloggy friends list) has won a major contest at O Scraps http://www.oscraps.com/ an awesome digi site/store. Here is her winning scrapbook page. Go to her blog to see more of her wonderful work.

I have met some of the most creative and interesting people from being involved with my digi scrapbooking. They inspire me.

Well, I just got an alert about a 40% off sale. Gotta run!

I leave you with this amazing bit of information. Two-thirds of the world's eggplant is grown in New jersey.

Have a good one!

Some of This and Some of That

Hey how ya been? It's been a few days since I've been here. Now I know that everyone is entitled to my opinion everyday but somedays I just can't make it...life gets in the way. I have been busy but can't really pinpoint exactly what has kept me away. Just been scattered I guess. Now that I'm retired having a list of things to do with more than three items on it puts me in a tailspin.

Here is what I've been doing:

• went to my eldest grandson's birthday party dinner, he turned 10


• went to see the movie, "The Bucket List", it was pretty good.


• went out to dinner at a new restaurant, Bella Donna, it was real good but $$$


• made all the arrangements for my sorority Valentine's luncheon at Olive Garden


• went out to lunch with hubby


• did the 30 minute challenge for my digi scrapbook class, will post it below

Plus all the usual ends and outs of just living. Whew! just makes me tired listing it.

It is snowing again. Supposed to get up to 16 inches by noon tomorrow. Looks like it might make it.

Here is the scrapbook page I made for my 30 minute challenge. We had to take the pictures and edit them. Then had 30 minutes from that point to post the page to the gallery. The theme was, "This makes Me Happy".

Thought you'd like to know:

The world's oldest piece of chewing gum is 9000 years old.

Have a good one.!