wishing everyone a very blessed New Year!

Our Christmas tree this year...2013

love this retro look

if you look closely in his eye...you can see me holding the camera

the Pioneer Woman's homemade cinnamon bread...WOW..it is delicious and WORTH THE WAIT!

 

I got in the mood to bake some homemade bread...decided since I rarely if ever make any sweet bread with yeast..I would try making a loaf. I decided on cinnamon bread..NO raisins....and chose the Pioneer Woman's recipe. http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2010/08/homemade-cinnamon-bread/

WOW..it was delicious...took like a total of 4 hours rise time..but so worth the wait. My house smelled so good and it reminded me of Cinnabons in smell and taste. DELICIOUS!  Check out the recipe at the link above...I did not bake mine for 40 minutes though..mine only took about 30 minutes to bake and I put some glaze on the top.

sunlight through bunny ears......

homemade cheesy artisan bread...best loaf ever!

A Mayfly on my front door and check this bird on McDonald's ad...looks like he wants a drink!

Gorgeous clouds!

BLUE ORCHIDS!

 

Our local Krogers had the most beautiful BLUE ORCHIDS! I had no idea there were BLUE orchids...and these are gorgeous!

look what showed up at my birdfeeder....

I figure he must have been pretty hungry to try to eat from a regular feeder!

Giant Vidalia onions...ooooh...I do love em!

Love em! Wish I could get them year round....here is a link to a wonderful Vidalia onion relish you can can

http://www.instructables.com/id/Canning-Vidalia-Onion-Relish/

I guess Blogger is fixed...just takes a very long time to upload pics

 

Cute idea!

issues with Blogger

I will update once I am able to post pics again. I have not been able to post pics on Blogger for over a month

testing out new camera my dad got for me...

My dad surprised me with a new Lumix...a DMC-ZS20 and I have to say it is exceptionally nice. I loved my first Lumix and still use it...but occasionally it will do strange things like have weird colors and stuff....so I found I was not always taking it out and taking many pics anymore. Not sure why. How many sunsets or moon shots or macro shots or "regular" shots like that can one take I guess I was thinking. My family ALL have cameras and at all our get togethers everyone has them out snapping away..so I never really had to take mine out to take any shots as everyone else had good  pics and I could always get what I wanted from them!

BUT this new camera has sparked the interest again and I have been experimenting with it. My first Lumix would only zoom out to about 40x. This one will go to 135x so I was curious what shots of the moon might look like.

I shot these next 2 shots THROUGH my window (which was probably pretty dirty) and WITHOUT a tripod and I could not believe how the craters are showing up with such detail!

This was 67x out....

this

this was 135x out....

yes...I think I am going to have fun experimenting with it...so many more features than my other Lumix had....even panoramic shots...and 3D....lots of things to try out. THANKS DAD again for the nice and totally UNexpected surprise! Love ya!

memories from a yesterday.....I am sporting the red cowboy hat!