Focus Week 49 - Add Sparkle

Merry Christmas - early...I am slowly getting into the mood....it has been crazy since Thanksgiving.  I haven't had a chance to get around to the blogs from last week...and I will...I am trying to finish up my Jackson Hewitt Tax class.  I have an interview on Monday and I must be finished with all the classes.  So I have been trying to do 2 -3 chapters a day. Needless to say I have been busy!

I haven't had a chance to get out and see the Christmas lights yet, but have started with decorating my living room.  Below is a favorite of mine. The Nativity Scene.  I bought it yyyyeeeaaaarrrssssss ago...I have to have it out each year or it doesn't feel right...Same with the little train station. We bought that in 2002 for my son (now 21) as he was into trains.  The plant is my dads Christmas Cactus.  It is just covered in blooms. This was from a few days ago.

As many of you know...this will be my first Christmas without my parents.  One of the many first I know. I will have to go through. But it still isn't easy.

I know we will have more great prompts before the end of the year and I promise to have my living room finished so I can show my tree.

For more great "sparkle" head over to the links below!

Focus On Life - Week 48 - Giving Thanks

Well I know all of us have been slammed, I know I have....and the week was here with family showing up and enjoying Thanksgiving...then hitting the shopping tour...ON FRIDAY...we didn't stick out noses out on Thursday!  Now everyone has gone back home and I can relax...but I did put together this collage to show my thanksgiving.  My oldest in SC, couldn't get down, but the rest of my crew were here.

Hopefully everyone had a great time. And now the mad dash to Christmas and New Years.


What a Year!!!!

Til Next week!!!!

For more great Thankful pictures check out the links below...

Focus on Life - Week 47 - Centerpiece

Wow, the weeks are just flying by...I can't believe the end of the year is almost here! What do we do then....(sad face).

Anyway, Centerpiece. At first I thought a center piece for my table...but then I opened it....Then it was a piece of cake.

As most know, God is the center of my world, being, soul.  I know I am not perfect, but God is there just the same! Then around him are some of the gifts he has given me over the years, my husband, my children, my sister and her son, my niece and her family, my parents and even my dog. Memories that will be with me for ever, forever keeping me tethered because I know that they are gifts from God.

May all of you have a solid centerpiece and may this Thanksgiving and Christmas time be a time of remembering old memories and making new ones!

For more hop along the links below.

Focus On Life - Week 46 - Reflect

Ok...at first I am thinking shiny reflects...mirrors...windows...jewels....but our wonderful Hostess is thinking ahead of the game and knows as the year winds down...(can't believe it has already) that we all tend to get really busy.  So her prompt for this week was a Reflection on those who are important to us.

Of course I had all these great pictures to choose from....but....as Life will have it..my computer died the other night...power supply shorted out...so ALLLLLLL of my pictures are on that computer of course...

Luckily I HAD moved some of my older folders of pictures to a thumb drive...So I had to scour through them and the hit up Facebook for more....But I was able to get a fair mix...the big one is of my family (minus my oldest who lives in SC) with my parents this PAST Christmas.  Most of you know both passed this year so this if the FIRST Christmas without them...so it will be kinda bittersweet...but I know they are much more happier in Heaven with their heavenly family.

The rest around the edges are of my kids and grand kids.

Starting at the top right is my middle son, Nicholas, then my daughter Sydny, then a sweet picture of them "back in the day". The in the bottom right corner is my both of my sweet granddaughters, Selena and Elfie, then just Elfie, then Larry, my oldest and his wife and Elfie. Then the last picture is of my daughter Sydny and her boyfriend Aaron.

I really love how this came out...I may have it printed and put is on the wall in my studio to look at....

For more sweet reflections check out the links below and thanks for stopping by!

OH and BTW - I have a google friend counter now...it needs some love....

Focus On Life - Week 45 - Industrial Photography

Good morning all!  Let me first say...I am sorry if I haven't been as active as I usually am.  I have decided to take an online Jackson Hewitt Tax course and it has really taken up a lot of my time.  Plus I have decided to take the NaNoWriMo challenge and write a novel in Nov.  So I have been working on that also.  And ....my jewelry, and crocheting for Christmas, and making more healthy from scratch food items, even healthy dog biscuits for my dog.  Add that to taking care of my hubby and helping my son with his college work and I am lucky to get a good night sleep.

SOOOOOO without being too long winded....if I seem absent from the posts...I do apologize and promise to try and do better....

When Sally posted this weeks FOL...I was a little taken aback as Industrial Photography was a new concept to me.  And so it kinda got shoved to the back burner....until last night.....lol.  I haven't been outside or gone anywhere to have taken any pictures so I had to go back through my stash and make a call to my daughter for help....Once I got going though...it all seem to click and I realized what a great medium we were missing out on in life.

So below is my interpretation of our prompt for this week...and before you ask...the picture in the upper left hand corner are barnacles from a beach trip we took a few months ago. The buildings are from Kissimmee and Orlando Florida. The car with the caution tape is from a show in Dunnellon and the car in bottom left is a picture taken in 1940 outside my grandparents house in Orlando Florida.  The bottom two on the right are of the beach and the power plant here in Dunnellon...thanks for looking and for being patient with me.

For more great pictures hop around to those shown below...

Focus On Life - Week 44 - Saints, Souls, Sugar Skulls, and Scares

What a title...and ...Halloween IS ONE of my favorite holidays....so much

stuff and so much 

 stuff!!!!!

We didn't go anywhere this year...and we live in the country..so no cute kids came here. BUT my daughter and her bff did a photo shoot and she sent me some of those. Then she took some pictures of

  stuff in the stores. AND my daughters bff worked Halloween Horror Nights at Universal, so I "borrowed" some pics her mom took. AND then of course the pictures of the cute little witches are my granddaughter, my great grand cousin....and my grand niece....AND then the picture of the three kids in a living room are my son, my nephew, and my niece...mother of the cutie in orange, in the late 1980's....(hehehehe),  I think that covers it...

Oh yeah, the one in red with red hair is my daughter...the guy next to her is just an extra at Halloween Horror Nights that we had a pic of.

Anyway I put them all

in a collage...enjoy...

For more

 pictures hop over to the blogs below and 

 they might be scary toooooooo!

Focus On Life - Week 43 - In The Shadows

Well...I don't think this weeks prompt needs any intro.  I just took pictures of the shadows around the house.....Didn't go anywhere this week, so I just used my yard.  Enjoy...and thanks for stopping by.

For more shadowy pictures search no further than down below.....

PS..For those of you that know how multifaceted Miss Sally is, she is listed in my jewelry blog about teaching those of us how to bead cabochons... www.veradesigns.blogspot.com