An Old Decade / A New Year

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Be Careful What You Wish For! :-D

A New Jersey Winter Wonderland



We got dumped on last Friday into Sunday. What with all the shoveling, extra work with the animals and Christmas stuff, I haven't gotten a chance to post here since then. I didn't dare take my big Nikon camera out in the mess, but I did get quite a few shots with my trusty little Canon point and shoot tucked into my pocket.




Rudy, my soon to be 30 year old Paint, loves the snow. I call him my big Nordic Pony. He was out in the storm every chance he got and was happy as a clam just trucking around his paddock, plowing through the snow like he was a four wheel drive Snow Cat.


Rita, on the other hand, is just like a cat. She doesn't want to touch the stuff, let alone walk in it.


I had to shovel a loop for her just to get her out of her stall. (A potentially dangerous venture to be caught in the trenches with nowhere to go when she decided to bolt. Once I did end up in a snow pile with just my hand with my camera sticking out.) Later that day she got brave and ventured off on her own. She has a nice sense of design, don't you think?


Compare her trail to Rudy's well worn network of pathways here.

You can see my entire "After The Storm" slide show here.

I'm Dreaming Of A White Christmas!

Our probability of a white Christmas just increased from 10% yesterday to 50 - 75% today. We are expected to get dumped on tonight, all day tomorrow and into Sunday morning. Woo Hoo! Can't wait! Here's a shot from this past March taken here on our property. Will you be waking up to a winter wonderland this Christmas too?

Winter came down to our home one night
Quietly pirouetting in on silvery-toed slippers of snow,
And we, we were children once again.
~Bill Morgan, Jr.

Will You Be Getting A White Christmas This Year?

Will you be waking up to a winter wonderland this Christmas? Find out here.

Christmas in the Head, Na, Na, Na, Naa . . .

I have to put Christmas music on these days just to drown out the carols in my head! Yes, the music is nonstop, 24/7, even in my dreams. I was just wondering if it was just me or if any others out there are experiencing this phenomenon. In my large collection of holiday tunes, of course I've got my favorites. For the past 24 hrs. it's been: SO THIS IS CHRISTMAS, AND WHAT HAVE YOU DONE, ANOTHER YEAR OVER, A NEW ONE YET BEGUN, NA NA NA NAA, and repeat. Then, A MERRY MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR, NA NA NA NA NA NAA, NA NA NA NA, NAA. :-D ! !

This snowman image (without the copy of course) is available for licensing here.

Resurfacing GOOGLE "WORK FROM HOME SCAM" !

I am embarrassed to report that I got hooked into an old, yet initally very convincing scam this morning. I have gotten hundreds of similar "offers" like this one from "Google" before, however this one peaked my curiosity and somehow suckered me in. The offer was to send $1.95 for more information on how to make money with Google. It was only after signing on for "the kit" that among other things, I get a link to "Disclosures". "Disclosures" stated that you have to cancel within three days or you will be charged a $129. intitial enrollment fee and $40. p. month thereafter to remain in their "program". Yikes, what did I do! ?! I tried three different numbers they provided to "speak to a representative" only to get caught up in a long list of phone recordings and prompts. Finally after waiting for 5 or 10 minutes, I would get abruptly disconnected. On my forth or fifth try, I finally did speak to a real person who said their company had nothing to do with the company I had signed up with. That's funny, because the confirmation email from "support" listed their phone number. Then I called the credit card co. They said it happens all the time and that the scammers could "legally bill my cc if I didn't cancel in 3 days because of a loophole". They assured me that I had "protection" against such fraudulant charges and not to worry. I was worried. The whole thing was and still is extremely bothersome. After calling the credit card company for a second time, I was put on hold for 5 minutes and when the CC company phone clerk came back, she had another phone # for http://incomemembership.com alias http://creativesearchtraining.com for me to call. I called it and shortly got through to a real person! About an hour later, I had a cancellation email from support! ALL this seems very fishy to me! Are the credit card companies in on this? Do they have a quota of fraudulant charges to meet? Insights would be appreciated. Even though I feel like a complete and utter idiot, I'm posting this senerio to hopefully help expose these swindlers and save somebody else out there in cyberspace from these vultures, these leaches of society. Wouldn't it be nice if people worked this hard at coming up with a legitimate way to build a web based business, like Google did!? Be careful my lambs, the wolves are more than ever at your door. Check out what Snopes has to say about this here.

Thought For The Day

This is one of my new holiday backgrounds that is now available for licensing as royalty-free stock.

The Beauty Of A Naked Tree