December 9, 2013

As I drove home from work the sun was setting behind the cemetery across from the Kramer church.

I took Daisy to work today; it's the Monday of finals week and she helps relieve at least a little bit of the students' stress. However, a full 8 hours of constant love and petting left her ready for a nap...

To close, here's the view from my office window:

 

Google+ Christmas Effects

So, as a little bonus to the photos I just posted, here are two with Google+'s "Auto Awesome" effects applied. Auto Awesome detects photos with lots of snow or twinkling lights and animates them accordingly. It creates a separate GIF of your photo so the original remains untouched. Yeah, it's gimmicky, but also kind of cute (at least in my opinion). Here's our tree:

And here's one of the pictures of Daisy with snow added:

 

December 7 & 8, 2013

Here's my official photo project pic for Saturday:

I wish I was a lot better at playing the guitar, because this one sounds beautiful! Maybe someday...

It snowed this morning and throughout most of the day...Daisy really enjoyed that!

In the Bleak Midwinter...

In the bleak midwinter, I try to stay upbeat. And let me tell you, it's always a challenge. See, I'm one of those people that's given to dark moods and gloomy thoughts anyway (though I still believe that God commands me to be joyful). So when you take away the sunlight and the warmth and replace it with chill, grey, unfriendly skies... I have to struggle not to just. shut. down. All I want to do is be alone with my sad thoughts and all life/God wants me to do is be with other people. Bah humbug! ;) (just kidding)

So, I eat a lot of chocolate, listen to a lot of music, drink a lot of coffee, and take a lot of Vitamin D. You know, everything in moderation excess. Fortunately, I've also been reading a lot of Scripture.

The other day, I made banana bread for the first time. It had a lot of nuts in it.

Today, I made a lot of tacos from this recipe. I know it seems weird to use a recipe for tacos, but I would have never thought to put the lettuce in first, or to make the tasty dressing. 

It's not that I'm saying I don't find this beautiful:

...because I do; it's just that I need sunlight to thrive! 

Anyway, if you feel even remotely the same way, read the ever-encouraging Psalm 103. It's delightful!