I don't know where I was headed on November 16 at 3:45 in the afternoon but I must have thought that the sky looked cool!!
I was looking through the hundreds of photos stored on my phone to change my home screen and came across this picture!! I think it looks like an eye n the sky. Very cool!!
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We finally got snow in northern Colorado!
For Thanksgiving, the kids and I went to Colorado Springs. When we arrived, we could tell that they received a good amount of snow. There was at least two inches of it on the grass! We haven't received any form of moisture in quite a while now!!
When I woke up this morning and looked out the window, I saw the blanket of white powdery substance! I couldn't believe that it actually snowed! Yay! Yes, I've come to like the snow and even shoveling it is not really a chore, but something that I do enjoy doing. It's fun to see how deep it is after the work has been completed! There have been many times where the snow has been waist deep after the shoveling has been completed at my home in Johnstown. This morning's snow wasn't that deep. It was more of a powder than a heavy snow, indicative of the dry season that we've had!
I know wher Danette lives, they get a lot more than any snow that I've seen here, and I don't think I would like the snow as much if we got that much!!!
With the snow comes winter driving. That's not so fun!! The drive in to work this morning was a slow-as-you-go commute. I believe my top speed was 40 and that was a little too fast! There were 4 or 5 accidents on my route to work on I-25. Mostly SUVs that travel way too fast for the icy conditions. One car was flipped on its side in the North bound lanes just before my exit from the highway. Thank goodness nothing was wrong with HWY 66 and Longmont wasn't too bad either. As long as there weren't any lead feet around the commute wasn't too bad!
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I've been lucky enough to have a very talented Father whom has made many artistic creations.
When I was in elementary school, I remember watching my Dad create oil paintings. This is one of them. This particular painting doesn't have a good history, as it was an object that my parents fought over in their divorce. My Dad won.
One of the things that my Dad really loves to draw, in this case paint, are columbines. I've had this painting for a very long time, and I honestly cannot recall when I took possession of it! I know it was after I was married. It was hanging in the stairwell to my basement and one day I realized that NO ONE besides myself and my family were able to enjoy the painting because of its location. I decided to hang it in my living room! I think it goes great in there!
I love the round frame this painting rests in. It's old and interesting, to me!
This plaque painting has companion paintings that went with it! There was a plaque with the name VANCE on it which had a few black ribbons that hung down with additional owls painted on them. I believe that my brother may have the other piece to this plaque. I wish that it could stay together, but at the same time, I'm glad that both my brother and I have these pieces. They tie us to our childhood with good memories of those times!
A blanket of leaves covers the lawn, smothering the green to a sea of yellow. The weather has been so nice for the past week. The day of this shot the temperature was in the mid 70s. This shot is looking to the West in the front yard that faces North. My Cottonwood is really the only one leaving this mess behind.
This shot is looking to the South from the NorthEast tip of my front yard. As you can see, I have a lot of work ahead of me. I didn't have Luke out helping me rake because he was with his Dad for his birthday weekend. Otherwise he would have been working off debt.
As I raked I made many piles. This one is just one of five piles I made in the front yard and was the largest!!
I loaded my wheelbarrow several times as full as it would let me fill it without leaving a trail of leaves behind to have to re-rake and deposit back into the wheelbarrow.
As fast as I filled the wheelbarrow, the leaves rained from the sky. Well, actually, they rained from the tree above and the tree itself still had quite a bit of leaves to fall and basically I was raking for no good reason because I'd have to do it again!
I hauled leaves to the back yard to my garden area. The leaves went from being a pile to a mound and what seemed like a mountain! There was a huge hole in the garden where Luke decided to dig what looked like a burial plot and I used garden dirt to fill a hole that my dog Bertha dug back in 2004 so the leaves filled these holes and still made a large mound.
After getting the huge pile of leaves in the front yard, I had a pile of leaves in the side yard that begged to be moved before I could quit.
Mika waited patiently as I raked, loaded, hauled, dumped, raked, loaded, hauled, dumped and repositioned my piles for another load to be loaded, hauled, and dumped in the back yard. I left the side gate open and even forgot that I left the gate open and she only ran after a neighborhood cat when I had stopped to get a drink of water and forgot about her being outside with the gate open.
Once I finished with the majority of the raking of the leaves and hauling of the same to the garden, I sat on my back porch and enjoyed the late afternoon light just as it hit the pumkins that the kids didn't take to carve with their Dad. I thought they made the most beautiful orange glow. You really cannot get that effect with my cell phone camera, but you get the idea.
After all that hard work, it was nice to be able to sit on the back porch and watch the sun setting behind the clouds, soon to the be mountains and then the entire earth as nights shadow settled upon the land.
As the years have passed, I've attempted my shot at painting faces on pumpkins. Of course, mine will NEVER be as good as my very artistic Dad's, but I think it is fun just the same and I have enjoyed sharing that creative urge with my kids, every now and again. This year, Ashleigh wanted to carve the pumkins I grew in the yard over the summer. They are really too small to be good Jack-o-lantern pumpkins so I told her that we could paint a couple and that she and her brother's could take the rest to their Dad's to carve for Halloween, since they will be with him this year.
This is the end result of my creativity. It's not the best, but I enjoyed spending the time with my little girl to do something that she has been begging me to finish.
This is Ashleigh's version of her creation. I didn't do the regular lesson that my Dad would do when building the face of the pumkin, first because I needed to get Luke moving on finishing his homework so he can get better marks in school, and secondly because I cannot remember the lesson that he would give while painting the face. I just let her go all in and do it the way that she wanted.
Ashleigh went all in and added a few written words on her pumpkin since I had added Happy Halloween, 2008 to mine. She added her name, and the phrase, I so pretty! She cracks me up! She even went as far as to add two faces to her pumkin.
I believe she was telling me this face was Jackson. A boy that goes to her school. She kept saying his name over and over again. I think she is crushing. I can't believe how much she is like her mother! I'm really in for the long haul!
Once we were finished painting our pumkins, we set them aside and there was paint left over on our little paint dish. Asheligh asked that we both paint our pumkins on a piece of paper. She handed me mine as she began work on hers. I think she had a different idea of what I was suppose to do, but in the end, she liked the picture that I painted for her!
I'm glad that I took the time to sit with Ashleigh and do an activity with her. Sometimes we let life rush by us without stopping to see what's in front of us. Before I know it, she will be an adult and all I will have left are my memories of her! I LOVE YOU ASHLEIGH.
Luke, my baby.
He has always been my most adventurous. Ever since I can remember he was running, jumping, and tackling like a football player. One of his teachers recently suggested that Luke join track. I think that would be a good activity for Luke to become involved with!
Luke loves to hang out with his older brother. A couple of years ago they had friends that were siblings and they all ranged in the same age, i.e. Matthew's friend was his age, while her sibling was Luke's age, and they would all hang out together.
Ever since the day Luke was born, he's been able to look into my eyes and reach deep into my soul. I've always felt more calm around Luke and have always enjoyed his company. He's mostly kind and considerate of other's feelings and he will do what he can to help someone that needs it in his subtle little way.
Luke let's a lot of things roll off his back. He even let's his older brother stand on him! I guess that makes up for all the times that he would run and plow his older brother over.
Generally, all three kids get along. Once in a while however, they go at each other and I would like to pull my hair out! They all know how to push each other's buttons and get each other worked up, however, Luke generally runs under the radar. Being in the middle sometimes makes him invisible.
I love when he and his siblings can do things together and enjoy each other's company without an adult around. I love to catch them in candid moments when they don't have any idea someone is watching. In this one, they were looking at slugs at Grandma and Grandpa Vance's house in Colorado Springs for Grandpa's birthday!
Thirteen years have come and are soon to go. Luke will be turning 13 next Sunday, November 2, The Day of the Dead (Día de los Muertos). I am learning as I go, just as Luke is learning. I want him to know that if he works hard and puts his mind to what he has to accomplish he will fly through life without problem.
