Family Tree

Our eldest son and his wife are expecting our first grandchildren in March!

He recently climbed around in our family tree as they consider names for two little boys.

He used an online service and shared the login so we could take a look. The truth be told, soon I was printing various graphic organizers and assigning ancestors' names, birth dates, and places of birth to various branches and limbs.

High up on one branch I met his great, great, great grandfather. Joseph was born in England in 1825 and passed away in Tennessee . . .  on July 12, 1864 . . . on Lookout Mountain. It's amazing what you can find. Soon I was searching old newspaper articles naming Civil War battles and rosters of soldiers. I found a historic photo of Lookout Mountain, the site of more than one battle.

Just a few weeks earlier I had discovered a holiday gift tag below the cardboard liner of the box that has forever held my mother's pinking sheers. It is one of the objects that secures my memory of her. The hand-written note said,

 "Merry Christmas, Mabel! Love, Mom and Dad"

And now, here they were, my mom's mom and dad, looking at me from my computer screen. Seeing photographs of my maternal grandparents midst the virtual pages of the site took me by surprise. It was suddenly personal.

It is our story . . . our family tree  . . .  with two new little budding branches!

Drawing Tutorials

I'm thinking about this great sketchbook I picked up over the holidays . . .
It is spiral binding   :)   and the paper is thick with just a little bit of texture . . .
And it is still blank.

Maybe I should draw some trees!

I did a Google search for "how to draw a tree".
The results were endless in quantity and variety.
This will be a good thing.
A great way to better appreciate something is to spend time with it!
I'll let you know how it goes!

New Sketchbook

Having spent a little more time

with my new sketchbook just now,

photographing it . . . 

I notice the cover design has a tree theme.

Funny!

and kind of embarrassing . . . 

Spirals Sighting!  

Thanks RB!  (A little bit of spiral . . . a little bit of tree!)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cameron_hf/4629657471/

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Typeface/Font

So what about typeface?
Which has the best snail symbol?

Blogger offers me these few options for posting:

@    Arial

@   Courier

@     Georgia

@   Helvetica

@   Times

@    Trebuchet

@   Vernana

Take a moment to explore the computer fonts at your fingertips!

Typeface is what you see. Font is the delivery mechanism.

--Taken from The Anatomy of Type. Thanks, Scott!

"Fontastic!" Thanks, Carol! You create the most amazing words!

New

Happy 2013!

New Year's Snail

I think back a few years: I set aside a can of Spam before I went to bed on the slim chance that the world would grind to a stop as I slept.
It was New Year's Eve, 1999!

Time passes . . .
                                time flies . . .

and now I find myself at the end of a blog year.

I raise my glass of eggnog 

to snails

 and to YOU!!!  

Thank you.

What JoY! What FuN!

What next??

I have a few more snail thoughts to complete . . .  there's the sundial project, the results of a font investigation with CF (for the best @), the container of papier-mache gel wishing very much and waiting very patiently to become part of a little snail pinata, and a few more "finds" and figuring outs!

And perhaps a second theme!

Trees and stars come to mind.

In the Get Moving Dept. there's the Hutchinson Water Carnival 5K in June. It would be fun and good for me to step it up and head for the start line once again! (Seems good to have a goal, my bike riding brother reminds me!)

2013

I think we can. I think we can!

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Getting A Head Start

Santa Snail

Being a bit s-l-o-w-e-r, 

Santa Snail sets out from the North Pole 

a few nights earlier 

than Santa.

Ho Ho Ho

Merry Christmas!

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Thanks, Brenda . . . 

this one's for you!

Relaxing

Tea and the treat of a book!

Helpful Snail

Thank you, Sandy!

The book I am enjoying is titled,

Cloth & Comfort:

Pieces of Women's Lives from Their Quilts and Diaries

By Roderick Kiracofe and photographer Sharon Risedorph

Online Recipe

The kitchen staff at school served a wonderful treat yesterday . . .  cinnamon rolls!

I just realized this morning as I sipped my coffee, that a roll would have made a GREAT snail photo!
I was obviously driven by my sense of taste more than my sense of snail-sight.

So here is the next best thing . . . a virtual roll!

Sweet Snail

If you crave all things bacon, you are going to want to check this one out!

Here is the link:

http://bacontoday.com/bacon-cinnamon-rolls-o/

Have a good day!

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http://bacontoday.com/bacon-cinnamon-rolls-o/