Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas, everyone, and I hope you have a happy New Year! Here's the now-traditional photo of my "funky tree angels." Those were the search terms I used to find Charity on eBay, a few years ago now, and it kind of stuck as a goofy nickname. Faith was my grandmother's original angel, the one that inspired my book The Angel's Name. Obviously she acquired a name at some point, possibly when, as a child, I demanded that Grandma name her angel before I would come to dinner. Anyway, since I'm the only one who can tell the various angels apart (I have one more that's not pictured here, and my sister also has I think two of them now), this year I decided to label them by making gold sashes with their names on them.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

 

I'm a bit late this year, but I still wanted to wish everyone a merry Christmas and a happy New Year! And I'm posting my apparently now-traditional group photo of Christmas tree angels, because I think that's fun (here's a link to last year's). I spent Christmas with my sister, and between us we found four matching tree angels this year (or mostly matching, since one of my sister's is blue). The one in the back middle is my grandmother's original angel--the one I thought ought to have a name when I was a kid, which eventually inspired my first picture book, The Angel's Name. I actually misplaced one of my angels and didn't find her in time to pack her for the trip, but my sister recently bought a new one, so the choir is growing anyway.

I had a particularly wonderful Christmas this year, as we were able to spend it with my parents and sister and also my husband's parents. Also, I unexpectedly got a new job right after Christmas and New Year's, so I've been preparing for and starting that instead of blogging. I'll have less time for writing for a few months, but I'm close enough to the end of a couple of projects that I'll be posting about them soon enough anyway. I'm looking forward to an exciting 2025!

Stereo Photo--Eclipse Totality

 

I'm sure everyone knows there was a total solar eclipse last week. It was harder than I expected to make it into the path of totality--my planned ride had car trouble--but it was totally worth it (pun intended). We did have clouds, but they cleared up enough to give a great view. My phone camera wasn't really up to the task, but I tried to take a 3D photo during totality. We could see Venus and Jupiter. Four minutes feels like a really long time when the sun has just gone dark in the middle of the day! I'm posting the same photo with and without the moon edited darker in Photoshop, since the light shining around the edges confused the camera focus and washed it out. The edited photo looks more like it did in real life. It's as close as I could get to bringing totality home to show my friends and family members who weren't able to travel there. 

Christmas Angels

Merry Christmas! My internet hasn't been working at home lately, so I haven't blogged as much as I'd like. But I wanted to share this picture of my story-book angel with her real-life inspiration, plus two more "twin" angels--I guess they are triplets now--that I bought on eBay because my sister has the one that belonged to our grandparents (We spent Christmas together this year, so the angels did, too). They do all have their own names, of course. (Faith, Charity, and Mercy, since the book angel is Hope!) Faith was the original angel who needed a name--a previous post with a picture of her and the book she inspired can be found here.  Paper dolls of Hope are here and here, and a printable Nativity stable to go with them is here. Merry Christmas again!

 

Stereo Photos--Orange Daylily

 

I took these photos several months ago, but I just found them on my phone and put them together in 3D. I was very pleased at how well they turned out, too, especially since it was my kids' favorite flower that my husband accidentally cut down with a weed eater not long after I photographed it. They were all happy to see that I managed to save these pictures of it.

Stereo Photo--Venus Flytrap

My family bought a little Venus flytrap plant at Sprout's this week! My kids named it Speed Eater Buzz, or Buzz for short. Obviously I couldn't resist making a 3D picture of it, and that turned out pretty well, so I decided to share it. To view it in 3D, load this picture in landscape mode on a smartphone and put the phone in any device that would work with Google Cardboard (I do miss Google Cardboard). We're all enjoying our new "pet," though I have to dissuade the kids from watering it too frequently. It's even caught a couple of flies by now. 

Stereo Photos--Flower in the Street

While I was out walking yesterday I saw this little plant growing through a crack in the street, and I thought it would make a fun 3D photograph. There are two views of it here, one that shows more of the surroundings and another that is a closeup. They should be viewable on any smartphone in a Google Cardboard or equivalent viewer.