November and a new passion!

General stuff.  Chat.  Nonsense.  Sort of how I feel in November.  Scattered, gray, looking for comfort.  The best side of Nov are the birthdays and Thanksgiving.  After all the good stuff, Nov is just a prelude for the winter.  On the other hand, in 5 months it will be April, and that's pretty good.  I think I'll ignore winter this year.  Pretend it is not going to exist.  Tee hee.

Birthdays:  the Mommie, who turned 96!  A most amazing woman.  Yep, the memory is somewhat wonky, and her hearing is sketchy, but when she is on, wow!  She quips, she's fast, and she's funny.  Really funny!  Not "I'm mocking you" funny; just plain funny.  You make a comment to her; she comes back with a quick rejoinder.  Who knew this woman lived inside her?  She wasn't that way when we were growing up.  She is, beyond doubt, the person in this world whom I most admire.  She doesn't whine, complain; she's never negative.  She just gets on with life, and has always done so.  On her birthday, I asked her:  "Hey, Mom, guess how old you are?"  "96?"  "yep."  "Hmmm, I may get to 100."  And she just may do that, too.

More birthdays:  DSD and the Hubbo.   My dad would have been 101 on Nov. 19, which is also the birthday of my dear step-daughter.  And the Hubbo's birthday was yesterday, which is my parent's wedding anniversary.

Thanksgiving.  My favorite holiday of the year, especially since I've retired from big company.  I did lots of big Thanksgivings over many, many years, but a few years ago, I stoppedt.  Lots of work, not much cooking help other than the Hubbo, and enough was enough.  So now, we have BFF and her darling Hubs, DD#1, the Mommie, and the 2 of us.  A grand total of 6 people.  Perfect.  Mind you, I make the same number of dishes, but chopping veggies for 6 takes a lot less time than for 20-24!  And I really relax and enjoy myself, and I get to eat while the food is still hot.  I'm still exhausted at the end of it, but it is just a wonderful day.  No presents, no nothing except good food, good friends and company, and thankfulness for all that life has given us.

New Passion!  Kaleidoscopes!  I have always loved kaleidoscopes, and the Hubbo has gotten into the game.  So last week he brought home the most amazing one yet!  This one aims downward, and looks at a ball in a cup.  You'll have to excuse the crummy pics; sometimes cameras and I don't see eye-to eye!  (bad pun, not intended.)

Here it is looking downward, looking at (and through) the aperture.  All those little round balls are what can go into the cup.  This one is supposed to look like a night sky, and in fact, the best viewing is when it's darker in the room. 

This last picture is how the cup looks without any balls in it.  The colors you see at the bottom and along the right side are just how it reflects what was adjacent to the cup.  Neat, no?

Here are more pics.  The first batch is what I took just now at around 9:45 this morning.

This one is taken of a music box in a snow globe with a green, sparkly bird in it.  At night and late afternoon, the images just sparkle!






Here are pics taken much later in the day yesterday:

And here are some pictures taken through a couple of other kaleidoscopes we own.  I'll show you want the scopes look like another day.  I need the Hubbo to hold some of them so that I can grab the camera and shoot.

This little one is about3 inches long.  Try taking a pic and holding it at the same time!

Scrabblequeen - A lot of ours were acquired in garage sales!  Now the Hubs buys 4" ornaments that can be filled with stuff. We put in anything, and even yarn looks amazing through it.  I'll take more pics every day, especially the yarny ones.  As the room gets darker, the images look like constellations and the night sky.  Just gorgeous!

Wall-to-wall books - He's 63!