Pic 15 of 365 It's snowing

It's snowing. Big whoop.

Hubby is very excited. He just got his Blazer with the snow plow functional again. Hasn't worked since before his Dad died almost 6 years ago. We're supposed to get 4-8 inches tonight and it'll continue into tomorrow. Thought I had dodged the storm for tonight and would make it home from work okay but then right after 5 it started snowing and by the time I got home (45 minutes later for my 25 minute drive) the interstate was totally iced over and snow covered, Yuck. I only like the snow when I'm at home in front of the wood stove or pellet stove, nice and warm. Those are the best baking days ;). Not looking forward to tomorrow when I will have to venture out to work at some point.

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I love the row of birds on top of the light. When I saw them, I just had to get this shot.

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I just love it when you can see the sun shining on the clouds like this, it makes for such beautiful contrast

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Mountains, again :)

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I love the mountains. I don't think I could live in a flat place again. When we go on vacation somewhere flat, it's always a relief to come home to mountains again.

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I love the contrast with the clouds

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I took this photo one night driving home from work, I thought it was really neat how you could see the bright sunset in the mirror and right in front of me, the sky was already dark.

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Driving down my dirt road one morning to work, I love it :)

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Here is another one from the same night as the previous picture. It's not really cheating on my 365 pics because they were still different pictures, right? Right.

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Here's one with a little bit of the terrain against the sky, it was past sunset but it was so beautiful, when I got home from work that day, I just had to take a picture even though it was dark. I'm glad the picture turned out so beautiful.

Project 3 of 52 Chocolate Chip Valentines Day Cookies

This project was one that my nephew and I did together the other day, these were "Unca's" cookies though. Hubby loves chocolate chip cookies so I was so excited when I found a cut out chocolate chip cookie recipe posted by SugarBelle. I have to say, they turned out great, Hubby loves them and Nephew had a great time helping me roll them, cut them and put them in the pan, the odd shaped cookie above was his "Unca" cookie he made from the scraps.

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Okay, I see a theme emerging here, I love the landscape and sky here, if I had a better camera, they would all be shots of the mountains against the sky.

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Black and white cloudy New Mexico Sky. It looks so dramatic.

Project 2 of 52 Gluten Free Sugar Cookies

My nephew cannot have wheat, he's not a celiac he is just allergic to wheat so he's on a gluten free diet. My sister-in-law and my nephew live with my mother-in-law, right next door so when my sister-in-law told us that my nephew couldn't have wheat anymore, I started doing research on gluten free baking. I was so incredibly scared to try it, I'm already trying to bake high altitude, I'm already compensating for being in an extremely dry climate (it really does make a difference) and now I have to try baking without wheat, YIKES. 

The law of the garbage truck

I have been trying to clean out my email this morning and ran across this forwarded email, I have no idea where it started but I thought this was a really nice message to pass on.

One day I hopped in a taxi and we took off for the airport. We were driving in the right lane when suddenly a black car jumped out of a parking space right in front of us. My taxi driver slammed on his brakes, skidded, and missed the other car by just inches! The driver of the other car whipped his head around and started yelling at us. My taxi driver just smiled and waved at the guy. And I mean, he was really friendly. So I asked, 'Why did you just do that? This guy almost ruined your car and sent us to the hospital!' This is when my taxi driver taught me what I now call, 'The Law of the Garbage Truck.'

He explained that many people are like garbage trucks. They run around full of garbage, full of frustration, full of anger, and full of disappointment. As their garbage piles up, they need a place to dump it and sometimes they'll dump it on you. Don't take it personally. Just smile, wave, wish them well, and move on. Don't take their garbage and spread it to other people at work, at home, or on the streets.

The bottom line is that successful people do not let garbage trucks take over their day. Life's too short to wake up in the morning with regrets, so ... Love the people who treat you right. Pray for the ones who don't.

Life is ten percent what you make it and ninety percent how you take it!

Have a garbage-free day!

"Faith is not believing God can, it is knowing that God will."

Project 1 of 52 German Chocolate Cake

Last weekend I made a german chocolate cake at my husbands request. Because it is only the 2 of us I made a 6" cake and made cupcakes with the left over batter to take to work.

 Chocolate cake with coconut pecan filling and topping frosted with chocolate buttercream.

Lessons

I had my 2 1/2 year old nephew this afternoon and decided that we should decorate cookies, I learned that you really should think twice about giving a 2 1/2 year old sprinkles and telling him 'just a little' and expecting him to understand and listen to you.


I also learned that especially when distracted by a 2 1/2 year old, make sure you double check the dry measure cup you pick up BEFORE you measure the sugar.

Pic 3 of 365

I took this picture looking out my kitchen window. Beautiful if you ask me.

Pic 2 of 365

These are a couple of the yucca plants outside my kitchen window. We live on the side of a hill so my husband had to level a space in the side of the hill for our house. Because of this there is a huge dirt wall directly behind the house and these plants are at eye level on the hill when you look out the kitchen windows. This was in the early morning sun they just seem to glow in the sunlight.

Food for thought

Being happy doesn't mean everything's perfect; it just means you've decided to see beyond the imperfections

From Wisdomtips.com By Debbie Hartman from Loveland USA.

I love it, this is just so true. When I am unhappy, it's usually because I am focusing on the negative things in the situation instead of the positive things. There is always something positive in every situation, you just have to remember to look for them.

Pic 1 of 365

This is a picture of our beautiful New Mexico sky at sunset. This is the view that I am getting now when I leave work at 5:00. I can say that I will be completely thrilled when we get our sunlight and warmth back but these sunsets sure do make you forget the cold for a few minutes.

Project 52 and 365 Pics

As part of my quest for creativity, I decided to do a project 52. My goal in this project is to do 52 creative things in 2011. I haven't set any limits on what they have to be or how they have to be done, they just have to be creative.


I have also decided to do 365 pictures in 2011. Right now I have the cheapest point and shoot camera that Wal-Mart carries so please bear with me if my pictures are not that great until I can convince my husband that I need a better camera.

Hello World

A few months ago I stumbled on a few blogs done by some pretty amazing bloggers and I started thinking that I should do a blog. I had no idea what I should blog about or what to call myself, I just knew that God was directing me towards this direction. Today, driving home from work, there was a man standing in the median waving at each car, he wasn't begging for money or food or anything, he just waved at everybody. As I drove away from him, it made me realize that all this man wanted was to bring a little bit of joy into someone else's life. This got me thinking about one of my goals for 2011. I realized that to be the type of person that I want to be I need to put others needs before mine. I need to bring joy to the people surrounding me. The best way I know how to do that is by feeding them and trying to bring a smile because smiling is the best medicine. I finally realized what my blog had to be about, my search for my creative talent and bringing joy and smiles to the people around me.

I hope my blog can bring a smile to your face and I hope that you can share that smile because a smile is the greatest gift we can give. It costs us nothing and can be given in an instant.

Stacy