Kudzu, last year I got the purple peacock and two sparkly silver ones at Michaels. The purple fairy came from eBay, her outfit is sparkly beads. Marlene, I'm so sorry about your knee. I know how knee pain can really hinder one. Hope you heal soon. Over the last couple of years, I've collected purple ornaments when I saw them. Then someone told me Walmart had these little purple trees and I just couldn't resist getting one. Jeanne, sorry your body isn't your friend either. I've decided getting older isn't for wimps, LOL. SusieRose, WOW...elegant huh? You sure made my head swell right up like a balloon! Susiesunshine, bless your heart, you always make me grin like the Cheshire Cat. LOL Thank you for the compliments, Kathy. And Everyone! Oh, I think my family is lucky I only bought the little purple Walmart tree. (actually its lavender)....cause I saw this BIG purple tree on the web and WOW. How I'd love to have this one. By the way, if any of you love looking at Christmas Inspiration photos, I did a big ol' album for my Holidays Forum. Over 200 pictures in there. I love looking at it over and over, wish I lived in a CASTLE and could do all those neat things! hugs and Happy Holidays, Karen Here is a link that might be useful: Christmas Inspiration

I'm back again, giving serious test to Mary's comment about absent idyllers being welcomed back. I'm so happy that this group is always here waiting for me. Marian, I second your comment about liking all of the people here despite many differences. If you and I lived in the same town, chances are great we would never get to know each other. But I enjoy your different perspective and your stories from your life, even if you do think it's not very exciting. Perspective is a funny thing. I had dinner with a group of women last week, and one of them is one of the best-known dairy farmers in the state. She has done tons of work in support of ag in our state, not to mention those 260 dairy cows that need to be milked every once in a while. But she looked at me and another woman who works in the perennial business and told us we had such wonderful jobs that helped make people happy. Hmm, feed the world or make people happy? Isn't it funny how "the grass is always greener"? Honey, I liked the therapist's comment about eggs in the hardware store. Martie, I was talking plants with a customer the other day and she mentioned an herb that she can only get at Logee's - had I ever heard of Logee's? Well, of course, because Martie has raved about it! So have you grown Greek columnar basil? And are you still pushing dibbles in your neighborhood? LOL! Shh! I have four coleus cuttings that are out and out thriving! Funny thing is that I filled three pots with potting soil, stuck the cuttings and then put them all together on my kitchen counter. Two pots (same coleus) did great and the other pot (different variety) shriveled and died. But the two pots are still doing well. This evening, I switched hats and would have done Clik and Clak proud as I diagnosed a car problem over the phone. DD's car has sprung a leak in the cooling system. The complication is that she is supposed to drive home Friday night. DH thinks she should put in some StopLeak and come on home, but I think that there are too many miles of nothing between here and there. There are several exits on the interstate that don't even have gas stations within a couple of miles, and I don't want to worry about her getting stranded. So she will take the car in tomorrow and see how fast it can be fixed. She can get other transportation home, but then she wouldn't have a car to drive over break. Well, that wouldn't be the end of the world! Honey, smart move to call the police. In our old neighborhood, a couple of guys were going door to door ringing bells, and when someone answered they had a goofy reason why they were at the door. Finally someone called the police, and these two were caught trying to break in to a home where no one answered. We were on vacation at the time, and came home to find our sliding patio door slightly off kilter. It was the kind that you could lift off the track from the outside, but we had put screws in the track to prevent that. Those screws did their job! Mary, the teacup and longhouse are simply awesome! Glad to hear we will be discussing Michael Pollan's book. I'm looking forward to revisiting it and discussing it with this crew. I'm in the middle of his latest book, "The Omnivore's Dilemna", right now. Chelone, you talked about becoming a more adventuresome eater. I have always hated olives. Just 11 days ago in Napa, I had this little epiphany and discovered I love little balck olives. Like, I ate every single one I could get my hands on! Anyone hiding any olives around here? Okay, time to let the West Coast crew take over as I head to bed with a warm dog and a good book. V.

I've been in the kitchen most of the day. Baked a double batch of M & M cookies as requested by my 11 year old, and Pumpkin Cranberry Bread for breakfast tomorrow. Thinking of doing a baked, stuffed french toast for Christmas morning, and DH has requested sausage balls. Christmas dinner is usually a ham, and I just need to finalize the side dishes. We had family in town all last week, and did plenty of cooking then, so I'm looking forward to the slower pace of just having the immediate family for Christmas. With three small children, it's hectic enough! Merry Christmas, Dennis! Enjoy your time off. Bonnie

DD, so glad you have a tripod, I had mentioned about not using a flash before, but posts and messages get lost so quickly, but that is soooooo important for a great pic, to NOT use a flash, I have used a spot light (which I posted about before too), I will use to up certain objects in a room too. Some lighting in the room is OK too,(low light bulbs on in your lamp) even candle light going on in the room to add to the light and ambiance to the photo. Luckily my camera doesn't automatically flash. On my camera I have a little button to hit to "pop up" the flash, so I don't have to worry about how to figure out how to turn off the flash, thank goodness because I am not a real techie person with this "automatic" stuff. My dream is to have a really nice camera, but that is not about to happen any time soon, so in the mean time I get by with what I have. So just to recap, using a tripod, eliminates the blurryness just from someone holding the camera and shaking a bit and at the same time allows for a photo to be taken without a flash, allowing you to use the AVAILABLE light in the room and lights already in the tree therefore no blur again. PLUS, with the camera on a tripod, it is sooooo much easier to compose your photo, you look at the view on the back of the camera, then you can step aways from the camera on the tripod to make those adjustments that make for a nice finished photo.