Sparkling Grass

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Taken in the parking lot of a doctor's office. This grass always catches my eye, and I try to take a few pictures of it each winter. The bokeh is shiny material in the asphalt.

Crystal Mickey

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Taken on a trip to Cary Towne Center mall.  This is a Swarovski crystal Mickey.

The Character of an Old Ceiling

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Fuquay-Varina, NC has a great small bakery on Main St. called Stick Boy. It's an older building and has this great tin type ceiling. I can't help but snap a few pics of it every time we visit. I'm always looking for the perfect pov. I like this one because you can almost get lost tunneling from the bigger to smaller squares.  I did some processing on this to try to bring out the details and shadows.

Here are a few other unedited pics of the ceiling.

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And of course here's the cutie that I took in for a sweet.

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Lego

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The boys and I went to the monthly Lego Mini Build yesterday.  This month's build was an alien, and the boys had a good time putting him together.  There were a few changes.  One, the kids got a passport that they can get stamped at each Mini Build that the go to.  Second, they were allowing kids to take the kids home to build instead of building them in the store.  The boys wanted to build in the store, so we waited about 45 minutes, a typical wait for this activity.

I'm always fascinated with the lights in that store.  I've taken pics of them before, and I like how they convert to B&W.

Next month, the Mini Build is the Space Shuttle!

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Winter Wonderland at The Garden Hut

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Johnny and I stopped in to The Garden Hut today.  They haven't packed up their Christmas shop yet, and I was glad.  I enjoyed walking around and taking some pictures of the decorations.  I always hate it when the holiday season comes to an end.  This year I don't feel like I got in enough Christmas pictures, so I was glad to take a few more today.

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Pine Warbler

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Two of the birds at my feeder today.  The cute yellow bird is a pine warbler, and the white and black bird is a white breasted nuthatch.  I also saw the smaller brown nuthatch today too.  I continue to do my weekly Project Feederwatch counts on Sunday and Mondays each week.

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Elf Invasion

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I started putting away some of the Christmas decorations and collections today.  There was a tear or two.  I hate it when the holidays come to and end.

Each year, I gather all the elves for a group photo shoot.  Each year there are a few more including the ones that deliver the boys' presents on Christmas morning.

Each elf has a name and a story.  I can't remember all the names, but the boys can.

This collage shows all of the Annalee elves.  A few are new, but most came from eBay or thrift stores.  Starry, Jingles, Ginger to name a few.

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We have a group of vintage elves we call swingset elves:-)

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This is our very special Pillowtop Elf.

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Here are the rest of the vintage elves.

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There's also a group of elves the boys and I collected at Michael's Craft Store.  Ah...good memories there.  For several years they came out with new versions of this elf face, but no more...too bad.

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I've had this elf since I was a kid.  I'm pretty sure it's the elf that started it all.  My grandmother Long used to have an elf on the chain of her kitchen table chandelier.  Although I can't find a picture to prove it, I'm pretty sure this is that elf.

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