Day Three Hundred Sixty Five 2013

COUNTDOWN TO 2014!

Granddaughter Shelby was ready to celebrate the new year all decked out in her Happy New Year hat.

Daughter Kelly and son in law Kerry hosted our New Year’s Eve get together at their new/old house. Kelly made some awesome salsa. We pigged out on that and a lot of other delicious goodies.

Grandson Knox had a great time playing trains with his Aunt Holly.

We all enjoyed a great game night while we counted down the minutes to the new year. Uno was lots of fun. The Five Second Rule was a blast.

We counted down the seconds to midnight and raised our blue Solo cups of sparkling cider as the ball dropped in Times Square and we toasted in 2014.  Good time with my great family.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
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Project 365 was a challenge to me when I started this little blog. I wanted to see if I really could take a picture a day for a year and share it with family and friends and whoever might stumble across my tiny corner of the universe on the world wide web. I can’t believe five years have gone by [whoosh! just like that]. At the end of each year, when day three sixty five finally rolls around, I always ask myself if I want to continue the challenge. This year it has been a real struggle for me to keep up. It has become less fun and more of a chore. I’ve been very torn about letting it go, and I didn’t decide until today that letting it go is what I need to do.

What I want to do is continue snapping those pictures and sharing them with you, just not every day. I enjoy combining photography with blogging, so if you’re interested in following me to a new blog, I’ve created one that is very much a work in progress [just decided this today!]. Other than the way it looks, it won’t be any different than this blog, except that I won’t post every single day of the year. I know I have some faithful followers here, and I appreciate all of you who have stuck with me the past five years, checking in each day or week or whenever you can. Thank you so much for letting me share a piece of my every day life with you ~ 1,826 days!

My new blog  [for the time being and maybe forever] is called Hunky-Dory, which is a slang word meaning perfectly satisfactory or fine. You can find it here:  http://krhunkydory.blogspot.com/                                                             
The new place will probably go through lots of changes as time goes by.  I hope you’ll follow me over and hang out with me there.
Three Sixty Five signing off

Day Three Hundred Sixty Four 2013

“Never laugh at live dragons, Bilbo you fool!”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

Neil and I took grandpeeps Shelby and Elijah to the movies this afternoon and immersed ourselves in the lives and times of Hobbits, Dwarves, Elves, Orcs, and the occasional human or two.

A bucket of popcorn is a must for a movie like The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug, which runs for nearly three hours [not counting commercials and previews of coming attractions].

Shelby found this piece of popcorn shaped like Mickey Mouse, so I had to take its picture. She said she couldn’t eat it because it was too cute. And then she accidentally dropped it between our seats. I attempted to retrieve it for her, but there was too much ickiness under there. We all enjoyed the movie. All the “ring” movies are fun, especially if you like Hobbits. Looking forward to part three.
“May the hair on your toes never fall out!”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

Day Three Hundred Sixty Three 2013

We forget just how painfully dim the world was before electricity. A candle, a good candle, provides barely a hundredth of the illumination of a single 100 watt light bulb.
~Bill Bryson
This may be true, but a light bulb can’t hold a candle to the delicious vanilla scent in my house right now. Smells good enough to eat, but I’d burn my tongue.

Day Three Hundred Sixty Two 2013

Some people never grow up. Grandpa was having fun building towers with grandson Knox’s blocks this afternoon. An episode of Thomas The Train was on in the background. And notice that grandson Knox wasn’t  paying attention to either of these things. He was having his own fun [playing with his trains, most likely]. Good times on a lazy Saturday. [thanks for the pic, daughter Kelly]

Day Three Hundred Sixty One 2013

It’s easy when your cup is full of boiled custard and whipped cream.

Grandkids Shelby, Elijah and Knox hanging out at my house today ~ finally went outside this afternoon ~ I told Shelby to jump into the picture, so she did

Beautiful day for a stroll in the neighborhood ~ Knox is loving his new car that his Aunt Holly and Uncle Jerry and cousins Shelby and Elijah gave him for Christmas ~ it’s fun to ride when somebody is willing to push.  Happy TGIF, everyone!

Day Three Hundred Sixty 2013

Grandson Knox [a.k.a. The Bachelor] hitched a ride on Thomas The Train this afternoon. He has a fierce passion for all things trains right now. And since 90% of his birthday and Christmas gifts were train-related this year, his mom and dad are hoping this passion lasts for another year or two or maybe ten. Chugga Chugga! Keep on chugging, Knox!

Day Three Hundred Fifty Nine 2013

MERRY CHRISTMAS                    
from The Mabry Clan!

Sister Ann and brother in law Terry hosted our annual Mabry Family get together tonight. We enjoyed yummy food and had a great time playing Dirty Santa [although settling on the rules of the game maybe took longer than playing the game itself]. Those who could attend this year from left: brother in law Don, sister Jane, brother in law Terry, nephew Ian, nephew Chris, niece Evan, nephew in law Shaun, niece Sarah, son in law Kerry, grandson Knox, niece Julia, daughter Kelly, sister Ann and front row brother Ken, moi, and hubby Neil and streaming live on Face Time on the iPad granddaughter Shelby, grandson Elijah and daughter Holly. Thanks, Ann and Terry, for hosting our good time. Love my awesome family. So blessed to be able to be together again on Christmas day.  Merry Christmas!

Day Three Hundred Fifty Eight 2013

MERRY CHRISTMAS!
from the Ranft, Myers, Kimbrough Families









My greatest blessing on this earth is my family. We had such a great time together tonight, celebrating Christmas. It came and went in the blink of an eye, same as all good times do. Merry Christmas!
The best of all gifts around any Christmas tree:  the presence of a happy family all wrapped up in each other.                                    
~Burton Hillis

Day Three Hundred Fifty Seven 2013

Grandpa and grandson Knox having fun with Knox’s Thomas Trains on the train table we got him for Christmas. Neil put the table together this evening, and we decided there was no reason not to go ahead and let him enjoy it now. We loaded it in the truck and took it over to his house. When we left, he was playing with his trains on his train table, having more fun than pint sized human beings should be allowed to have two days before Christmas.

Day Three Hundred Fifty Six 2013

Christmas - that magic blanket that wraps itself about us, that something so intangible that it is like a fragrance.  It may weave a spell of nostalgia.  Christmas may be a day of feasting, or of prayer, but always it will be a day of remembrance - a day in which we think of everything we have ever loved.                                      ~Augusta E. Rundel



Hope you don’t mind seeing more pictures of Christmas tree ornaments. Our tree is just about the only decoration we have in the house this year. I never get tired of looking at it [well, until December 26, maybe] because I love the way the lights reflect on the ornaments. [That’s my gratuitous Christmas selfie wishing you a Merry Christmas.]

Day Three Hundred Fifty Five 2013

Yes, Christmas is almost here, and yes, it would be nice to have one of everything [and we all know that ain’t gonna happen, right?]. That’s not why I took a snapshot of my computer desktop screen. See that? 66 degrees? First day of winter? Maybe it’s just me, but this time of year, I’d rather it be cold and sunny than hot and rainy. It’s also the  shortest day of the year, for all you daylight savings time people out there. We’ll be inching toward longer daylight each day, one minute at a time.
Wishing my bro-in-law, Terry, a big Happy Birthday today!

Day Seventy Eight 2013

Come, gentle Spring! ethereal Mildness! come.
~ James Thomson








And all about, the softening air
Of new-born sweetness tells,
And the ungathered Mayflowers wear
The tint of ocean shells.
The old, assuring miracle:
is fresh as heretofore:
And earth takes up its parable of life from death once more.
~ Whittier

[We’re in the final hours of winter. Finally. Spring begins with the vernal equinox at 7:02 A.M. (EDT) on March 20, 2013 in the Northern Hemisphere. Today was a beautiful sunny blue sky spring like day, this last day of winter. But we all know ‘Mother Nature’ doesn’t pay much attention to dates on the calendar when it comes to the weather. So, for what it’s worth, goodbye winter!]

Day Seventy Seven 2013

"March bustles in on windy feet
And sweeps my doorstep and my street.
She washes and cleans with pounding rains,
Scrubbing the earth of winter stains.
She shakes the grime from carpet green
Till naught but fresh new blades are seen.
Then, house in order, all neat as a pin,
She ushers gentle springtime in."
~ Susan Reiner, Spring Cleaning

Day Seventy Six 2013

It’s Saint Patrick’s Day. Neil and I stopped by our local pub [Poet’s On The Square Coffeehouse] and ordered up a brew or two. Couldn’t help notice this Post-It note on the counter. I said ‘really?’ The barista said some people let them know they don’t like it when the order takes too long to be filled. Wow. Some people, huh?

Actually, Neil and I weren’t celebrating St. Paddy’s Day or anything  else for that matter. We just wanted some frozen hot chocolate, or, in his case, frozen cookies and cream. We don’t need an excuse to have tasty frozen treats.

I do have a bit of Irish in me [more like Scotch-Irish, as my dad would tell me] but I suppose everyone is Irish on Saint Patrick’s Day.

Happy St. Paddy's Day, y'all!

Day Seventy Five 2013

I couldn’t have ordered a more perfect spring day than today. And it isn’t even spring yet.

Day Seventy Four 2013

Apparently, this is what Julius Caesar thought before he was assassinated on March 15, 44 BC.

In modern times, the Ides of March is best known as the date on which Julius Caesar was assassinated in 44 BC. Caesar was stabbed to death at a meeting of the senate. As many as 60 conspirators, led by Brutus and Cassius, were involved. According to Plutarch, a seer had warned that harm would come to Caesar no later than the Ides of March. On his way to the Theatre of Pompey, where he would be assassinated, Caesar passed the seer and joked, "The ides of March have come," meaning to say that the prophecy had not been fulfilled, to which the seer replied "Aye, Caesar; but not gone." This meeting is famously dramatized in William Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar, when Caesar is warned by the soothsayer to "beware the Ides of March.”  The death of Caesar made the Ides of March a turning point in Roman history, as one of the events that marked the transition from the historical period known as the Roman Republic to the Roman Empire.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ides_of_March

I do hope everything about your TGIF is totally hunky dory. Have a wonderful weekend, y'all!

Day Seventy Three 2013

Grandpeeps Elijah and Shelby spent the day with Neil and me as their spring break winds down. Lunched at KFC. Elijah was playing with his Jell-o and flipped some on the wall. Shelby is making the universal ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ gesture. Elijah did eventually wipe it off the wall.

Landed at the DQ for frozen treats with more peeps. Daughter Holly, sister Jane, granddaughter Shelby, niece Julia, and niece Sarah having a laugh which I missed cause I was taking this picture.

And here’s one with Elijah in the mix ~ the only man in a sea of cooties. Or is that cuties?

After stuffing ourselves with chicken and ice cream, we spent some time in the sunshine. Neil pitched ball to Elijah who is signed up to play T Ball this spring.

Batter, batter, swing, batter! He can really pop them out of the park (or into the street).

I love this picture of Shelby. She doesn’t even know I took it as she walked away, going after the big ball she’d been kicking around the yard. She’s eleven and such a great kid who is quickly growing into her teenage years. Nope. Not gonna think about that right now. Sure did enjoy spending the day with my peeps. Always do.