Look Up In The Sky!

It's not a bird, it's not a plane, it's not even an alien spaceship! No, it's Venus and Jupiter shining super bright for all to see. I first notice these two shining objects in the southwest sky about a week ago and just found out what was going on. These two planets are putting on a show in which astronomers call a planetary conjunction. I've been trying to get a decent photo for a week and no this first photo is not mine but is from Nasa's site. Go here to read all about this planetary conjunction.


So after reading about this in our newspaper and seeing that our Cincinnati Observatory was going to have some classes, tours and viewing through the telescopes about the conjunction, my sweetie and I went there to check it out. I can't believe I have never been to the Cincinnati Observatory. It is totally worth the visit. It is located on this cute little street with some really pretty homes and the property itself is rich in history. They had a viewing of the conjunction last night from 5:30pm to 7:30pm and they will do the same on Monday night at the same times. So if you are anywhere near the Cincinnati area, I highly recommend it. We seen a close up view of Venus and Jupiter through their super duper telescopes. Oh and to top it off a satellite came zooming by while we were waiting for our turn at the telescopes and that was very visible to the naked eye. And on Monday night the crescent moon will join these two guys in the sky and make for some great photo opportunities.

Here's a couple of photos of their big guys! These are the only photos I took. If you do go, dress warmly because my sweetie and I didn't realize that most of this takes place outside and we were a little chilly so afterwards we headed to the nearest Starbucks and got a nice hot cup of coffee. And if anyone gets a decent photo of the conjunction and posts it, let me know so I can come by and see it. I love this kind of stuff. So all and all I had a wonderful day yesterday, we went to see an afternoon show of the Radio City Rockettes with all the girls and I'll share more of that later this week, seeing little Maddie's face was worth the price of admission and then going out last night to see the planets and having coffee with my sweetie, it was just one of those great days that happens every so often. Have a great Sunday and don't forget to look up in the southwest sky just after sunset to see the show!

BRENDA'S PHOTO CHALLENGE ~ FROM AN ANT'S VIEW ~

It's time for Brenda's Photo Challenge and Jeanne from Life or Something Like it is our hostess this time and the theme is "from an ant's view". These challenges seem to pop up fast these days and with the holiday this one came up on me before I knew it. So I asked my little Cameron to help out his Grandma. This one was fun and I had lots of ideas but just ran out of time. Thanks Jeanne!
There are captions on all of the photos. I am having fun adding captions. :-)
Here's what my little bunny who sits out in my yard would look like to an ant.

Here's what my little Cameron would like to an ant.

I wanted to show what my Christmas tree would like like to an ant and had to add Cameron in the photo. He was pulling on all the low hanging ornaments that Maddie had put up the night before.
And I added Cleo's bowls because ants really did get into her bowls last Spring. They covered her bowl of food and then I called the Terminix guy and they were gone for good. LOL

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving and I'll probably post about ours next week sometime. We ate too much but had a wonderful one. We are going to try and see the Rockettes today so hopefully I'll get around to visit and see everyone's photos soon. Have a great Saturday!

BEING THANKFUL

BE THANKFUL THAT YOU DON'T ALREADY HAVE EVERYTHING YOU DESIRE
IF YOU DID, WHAT WOULD THERE BE TO LOOK FORWARD TO?
BE THANKFUL WHEN YOU DON'T KNOW SOMETHING,
FOR IT GIVES YOU THE OPPORTUNITY TO LEARN.
BE THANKFUL FOR THE DIFFICULT TIMES.
DURING THOSE TIMES, YOU GROW.
BE THANKFUL FOR YOUR LIMITATIONS,
BECAUSE THEY GIVE YOU OPPORTUNITIES FOR IMPROVEMENT.
BE THANKFUL FOR EACH NEW CHALLENGE,
BECAUSE IT WILL BUILD YOUR STRENGTH AND CHARACTER.
BE THANKFUL FOR YOUR MISTAKES,
THEY WILL TEACH YOU VALUABLE LESSONS.
BE THANKFUL WHEN YOU ARE TIRED AND WEARY,
BECAUSE IT MEANS YOU HAVE MADE A DIFFERENCE.
IT'S EASY TO BE THANKFUL FOR THE GOOD THINGS.
A LIFE OF RICH FULFILLMENT COMES TO THOSE WHO ARE
ALSO THANKFUL FOR THE SETBACKS.
GRATITUDE CAN TURN A NEGATIVE INTO A POSITIVE.
FIND A WAY TO BE THANKFUL FOR YOUR TROUBLES,
AND THEY CAN BECOME YOUR BLESSINGS.
~AUTHOR UNKNOWN~

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

And this one is for my sweet little Maddie who loves Mickey and Minnie!



Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Happy Birthday Judy and Stephanie!!!

Today is my sister Judy's birthday and nothing says Happy Birthday like old photos from the 80's. This is a photo of all of my sisters and me at June's wedding. From the left it's Gail, Judy, June and me. June, how could you have made us wear these beautiful dresses??? We're all a little bit older(just a little) now but I just wanted to wish you the best birthday ever. Happy Birthday Judy!!

And tomorrow is my sweet lady bug's 21st birthday, but since it'll be Thanksgiving I wanted to post about it today. Stephanie is my niece and her mom, Lisa was one of my very best friends. Lisa passed away when Steph was a little girl so Steph and her brother Nick spent lots of time at our home. My two girls think of her as the younger sister they never had. The top photo is one of the last photos of Lisa and her kids before she got sick and the bottom one is of Steph and Sas. Your Mom would be so proud of the woman you have become Steph! I know you are going out to celebrate tonight and I want you to have a great time but be careful. We love you!!!

Awards and Getting ready for Thanksgiving!

My sweet friend Kat from Just a Beachkat has given me these wonderful awards. I think Kat may have been one of the first people to comment on my blog when I started it last year. Thanks so much Kat for these great awards and I am thankful for all of my blog friends and their friendship and encouragement. I am passing on all of these awards to all of you because I am so thankful to have you all in my life.

So is everyone ready for Thanksgiving? I went to the grocery yesterday after sitting in the dentist office for a couple of hours getting a new crown fitted. Before I talk about Thanksgiving though, I just want to know why crowns cost so much? I guess a new crown is my Christmas present this year. LOL So after the dentist I met my daughter Melissa and the two girls and we went to the grocery store with the whole left side of my mouth looking like I had some kind of accident, I was numb all the way up to the top of my cheekbone for hours! We got the turkey, dressing, all the ingredients for the green bean casserole and we are going to try the Pioneer Woman's pecan pie that you can get here. First time in trying to make a pecan pie so I'll let you know how that turns out. My Dad is taking us out to eat on Thanksgiving day but on Friday all the kids are coming to our house for Thanksgiving dinner. I am behind in my blog visiting because of the holiday and being so busy, which I'm sure is the same for everyone but I am trying to visit and wish everyone a VERY HAPPY THANKSGIVING! I also just couldn't wait to decorate my blog for the holidays so it is now all nice and festive for Christmas! Happy Tuesday!

The City Examiner has Six Random things about Joan in it!

You better run to the stores and get your copy of the Six random things about Joan before they sell out! :-) I've been tagged by my good buddy Donna at Cottage Days and Journeys to name six random things about me. That cute little doll baby on the cover of the City Examiner is me when I was a wee little baby. So here are the rules and my six random things:

1) Link to the person who tagged you.
2) Post the rules on your blog (copy and paste 1-6).
3) Write 6 random things about yourself (see below).
4) Tag 6 people at the end of your post and link to them.
5) Let each person know they have been tagged and leave a comment on their blog.
6) Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

1) I love to wander around book stores, I could spend hours in them and if they have a coffee shop in them I could spend all day there.
2) I don't watch a whole lot of regular TV but I do love Lost(which will be back in January) and 24(which has a show on tonight,yea!). Jack Bauer will save the world in 24 hours!!!!
3)My favorite restaurant is Brio's Italian Grill. I always get the same thing, the salmon, yum!
4)I am not much of an athlete. I always wanted to be good at some sport but I am sadly very uncoordinated.
5)My sweetie and I took dance lessons before our daughter was married so we wouldn't look like total idiots dancing at the reception. It was a blast.
6)My favorite snack is pretzels, give me chocolate cover ones and I'll be your best friend for life. LOL



I am a rebel so I am not going to tag anyone but everyone is welcome to play along and let me know if you do so I can read your six random things! Have a great Sunday!

Mixture of Everything!

This post is a mixture of everything post because I've have nothing right now to post about. LOL I've been downloading some Christmas music on my Ipod. I love my Point of Grace Christmas CD, these girls are great! Do you like my little kitty that sits next to my laptop? She keeps me company while I read blogs and sometimes work. We have slowly been getting the Christmas stuff out and putting them up and I bought my first Christmas present this week, it's a Fisher Price digital camera for my granddaughter Maddie. It's rough and tough for little ones to handle and it's pink, just like Grandma's. I am going to get her to join in on Brenda's Photo Challenge with us. Those ought to be interesting photos. LOL Speaking of Brenda's Photo Challenge ,the next challenge is November 29th and the theme is from "an ant's view". It's always fun and everyone is welcome to join in, just go here to sign up and play.
Okay so it's been really cold here in Ohio and I was a little bored one afternoon so I decided to torture my poor little kitty Cleo who had found a nice warm spot in the sun. Look at her, all nice and cozy and sleeping soundly until Mom comes along with her camera and decides to practice different camera settings on her.

Cleo, your paw is really kind of scary looking up close...................

Please Mom, just leave me alone..............

I just want some peace and to enjoy the sunshine. Cleo is getting a little old these days and we've had her since she was a kitten but she's still my girl.

Also, I just have to tell you because it made my day and yes I am a geek but I love learning stuff like this. Donna from Cottage Days and Journeys told us in this post how to add captions to photos and I did it!! Run your mouse over all of my photos, they have little captions. Thanks Donna! Go here to learn how. Not much else going on this weekend, last night we went to Sam's Club where we stocked up on giant packages of toilet tissue and ate our way around the store, they had some great Thanksgiving food. I had turkey, dressing and pecan pie. I told you this was an exciting post. LOL Have a great weekend!

Santa Baby!

Nothing says Christmas like a baby in a Santa leopard cap! This is my sweet grandbaby Sas (aka Sydney) being a good sport for her camera happy Grandma! :-) Happy Wednesday!

The Family Business

For those of you who don't know, our family business is in the produce business. My sweetie and his brothers are third generation in this family business. Their grandfather Sam came over from Sicily and started the business. I know he is somewhere in the photo below but I am unsure which one he is(he kind of looked like Vito Corleone). I met my sweetie in 1972 and Sam died shortly after that so I never met him. My sweetie's Dad(he died in 1994) ran the business for years. He's in the top photo with his 1970's look and his four sons. My sweetie seems to be hiding behind a bunch of veggies. LOL Three of the brothers still work in the business, one moved to Hilton Head years ago. These boys started working and learning the produce business at a very young age. If you ever go to the grocery with my sweetie, you would never leave the produce section but you also wouldn't go home with bad produce. He knows what's good. I love this legacy of a family business and all of the stories and sometimes headaches that go along with it. The business also sells Christmas trees and fruit baskets at Christmas. This is a crazy time of year for the guys.

So they hired a little help. Our daughter Christina actually does work there with her Dad but the other day my oldest daughter Melissa and I and the two little girls decided to pay them all a visit. I think they need to look at the fifth generation of children to carry on the family legacy.

Look at little Sydney working hard at the computer with Aunt Christina. It's never too early to learn about produce. :-)

Gotta take a break to play! There's no playing on the job or Papa and Uncle Steve will get mad.

Papa could never get mad at that cute little face. She might just be the future generation in the family business.

Brenda's Photo Challenge

It's time for Brenda's Photo Challenge again. Doesn't it seem to roll around fast? The theme this time is "WATER" and Maria from Let the Good Times Roll is our hostess. I loved this theme because there is so much you can do with water. I love taking photos of water and reflections in water etc.. So thanks Maria, this was fun!

These first two photos were taken last weekend in downtown Cincinnati on our Fountain Square. I couldn't decide which angle I liked best so I posted both of them. The fountain is called the Tyler Davidson Fountain but everyone just calls it "the fountain." You can read all about it here.

This photo was taken this summer and I was playing with the macro setting on my little camera. I like how you can see reflections in the water drops.

And this last photo is of my little Maddie at Hilton Head in September. I love photos with reflections in the water. Oh, this makes me want to go back to the beach....... This was a fun challenge and I am looking forward to seeing everyone's photos. Happy Saturday!

Happy Friday!

I've been a busy little bee. Meet my new friends, Isabella, Lila and Olivia. Yea, I named my jewelry holders, yea I probably am a complete nerd. LOL But I've been busy working on my wire wrapping, which is the technique used to make earrings. I finally figured out after about an hour that the cheap headpins(the stick pin thingys that the beads go on) that I bought at Hobby Lobby were not very flexible to do the wrapping with and when I used the better headpins that I got from Fire Mountain Gems it worked so much better and my hands felt alot better too. One little tip, don't try to take photos of jewelry after drinking two cups of coffee. I couldn't figure out why they were all so blurry(caffeine overload), so I got my tri pod out and took a few and they were much better. LOL

I think I am a perfectionist because if it doesn't look good, I'll take it apart and start all over until I am happy with the end product. I am not happy with the sparkle snowmen yet but I do not have good silver headpins yet, so they'll have to wait and then I'll redo them. So these are what I am giving out for Christmas presents this year.

Thank you girls, you did a fine job of showing off my treasures.

I love, love this bracelet I made. These are not the colors I usually go for. I'm a pink and red and silver girl but there was something about these colors that I loved. I am having so much fun with this hobby but I think I have a problem. LOL Because the other day I was looking at Swarovski Christmas ornaments and the only thing I could think of was how pretty a couple of them would look on a black velvet cord with a black turtleneck. Not on a Christmas tree but as a piece of jewelry. I'm hopeless I know. :-)

Anyway, I am spending the day with one of my favorite little girls. My daughter Melissa is sick so I picked up Maddie and she is spending the night with Grams and Papa. Woohoo, I think we might take her downtown and see if they have any pretty Christmas lights up yet because ya'll know Maddie just loves Christmas. And then dinner at her favorite place, Subway.

And don't forget Brenda's Photo Challenge tomorrow. The theme is "water" and I think I forgot to sign up again. Hey, you gals know I always play. LOL I know which photos I want to use, it's just finding them in the thousands(yea I said thousands) of photos that I have in my files. Have a great weekend, I'm off to find those photos before Maddie wakes up from her nap!

Walking Through The Graveyard

Does anyone else love to check out graveyards? I know a few of you do because you have mentioned it on your blogs. Today I went visiting to all three of the grandbabies and on my home I noticed that there were still a few trees in the graveyard close to our home that had some pretty leaves on them(most of the leaves are gone). It's been overcast, cloudy, rainy and just plain yucky out so I thought a few pretty photos was just the thing to make the day a little brighter. Maybe I am weird but I find looking at these headstones fascinating. First I read about the person who died(their names, date of birth, date of death etc..) and I always wonder what their life was like when they were here on earth. But today I was mostly looking at the statues. Some are so ornate, most all old and they made me wonder why their families picked them out for the graves.

This guy sits up high and he looks like he contemplating something. Was the person who is buried here a big thinker? Is there any meaning to the flowers on his arm? I liked the contrast of the stone with the red leaves.

This one I just liked because of the white cross and the pretty leaves.
Now here's one that really puzzled me. First off, the stone on this statue is really dark, I never play with my pictures in photoshop(mainly because it confuses the heck out of me) but I had to lighten her up a little because she was so dark. But my question is what is her book and what is she suppose to be writing in it? See the pen/pencil in her hand?

There was not a soul around as I walked through this graveyard. It was so peaceful and serene and just what I needed on a cold gray day.