Christmas Decorations

Man I tell you this house is humongous! Ruben has put up lights, but they are hardly noticeable. We have numerous yard displays, but not enough to cover our yard! Our house is on a corner, so we have front and side yard visibility. Ruben has already overloaded the circuit a few times with what little we have - then yesterday it happened. One of our neighbors decorated their house. OMFG, let me tell you I swear you can see it from space! They have some really cool, but unusual pieces. Keep in mind this IS Louisiana when I tell you that they have lighted displays of Santa fishing, fish whose lights have movement so they look to be jumping, frogs that do the same, a gator that I love, a crab, a shrimp, a crawdad, Santa on a boat lead by 2 gators, several candy canes, 2 huge wreaths and 2 huge angels. Oh, and none of these displays are small by any means! I will try to sneak over after dark and take some pictures. I couldn't get any last night as it was too late by time we got home and their lights were off. What's cool is that Nina used to have a shop where she sold these things (that why she has so much!) Craig took us into the attic and they have tons of pieces for sale. I'm not sure what it's going to cost us yet, but we picked up 2 lanterns, a nutcracker drummer boy, and a nutcracker horn blower - oh and a big snowman which they are working on. I'm afraid of the price she'll charge, but these things are awesome! So here is a picture of our house kinda as a before shot, like as in before we found the good stuff. We plan to change quite a bit, but not sure when we'll get to it. I'm hoping to drive over to River Road (borders the Mississippi) and take our annual family picture there with one of the bridges in the background - it's slightly overcast which may be a good thing as I am aiming for a certain look. So I don't know how much we'll get done on the house - it's like 80 today, and the mosquitoes come out at dusk and attach with a vengeance. But I will take plenty of pictures as we go about and get it all done. The first year of decorating is always the hardest, lots to figure out. Next year we'll have a better plan I hope. I posted lots of pictures on Flickr, some of outside, ones of some of the rooms (so you can finally see how we remodeled), pix I played with in CS2 using different action preset made by Holly - whom I am still waiting for assistance with my Bamboo Fun. No I haven't figured it out yet, and she said she'd help me accomplish at least one thing I'd like to be able to do! But in the meantime I am having a blast playing with & figuring out my new camera. Man I can't wait till next year to take those Photography and Photoshop classes! You know I have Photoshop 7, CS2, Element 4, 5 & 6 and I'm hoping to soon add Lightroom to my collection. I have all this software, and lots of actions, filters and stuff, but I really don't know how to use it fully.



Oh, almost forgot - tomorrow I go back to my surgeon to start my pre-op stuff. Get my lab orders, RX's, and such. So tomorrow I will hopefully have a nailed down date for surgery. We have been shooting for the 10th, but tomorrow I will know for sure. I'll keep you posted.



Take a look at all the new pix on Flickr and enjoy them. I will post more soon! In the meantime, I'll be doing the usual - laundry, cooking, wrapping gifts and playing Lego Star Wars The Complete Saga. Yes I found a game I like to play! Woohoo!