Christmas Past and Presant and Future

I really had 3 Christmas' this year. We had one with Bobby and Claudia when they were here for the wedding. Then I had two today with Mom and then Dad. I thought it would be fun to make a little slide show to share the memories. The gifts were good but one that I am especially proud of is the one I made for Papa.

When he was in the military, his Aunt kept a scrapbook of his service and what was going on with the war, his friends and family, and the town. He came to me when I first moved back to see if I could fix it. You can imagine, after like 60 years, it is getting a little ratty. Actually, it was downright falling apart. So I found a website on-line called blurb.com and downloaded all the pictures, newspaper clippings, and documents that were in his album and put them in a book. Now he can look through it as much as he wants and not worry about anything falling apart. I was very happy to be able to do that for him.

It was a fun Christmas although it didn't really feel like Christmas. Usually we spend all day lounging around and watching movies. This year Megean and David had to leave at 12:30, Mom had to work this afternoon, I have to work this evening, my step-sister had to leave at 1pm and Bobby and Claudia are in PA. I miss having downtime but I know that soon life will reach a nice settling place where I can enjoy things again.

I feel like this might already be starting to happen. I was invited to a get together a couple weeks ago at a friends house and got to meet some great people. I feel like I am finally making friends again. The biggest thing to conquer after moving back to Kentucky was the loneliness. But now I have some really great people that I talk to alot and that make me laugh. Jokingly, I said I finally feel like have rejoined the land of the living. Alot of times, I just felt like I was going through the motions of life and not really living it. I hope through my new found friends and my new found inner strength, I can take the steps forward this new year to really live life again!

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

So I am not sure if this is something that is in good taste to blog about. Yet, since I get very few comments I figure there aren't that many people out there to worry about. The other day I was looking through Megean's facebook photos and there were some of when she came to Illinois to visit me last year. I found the photo (bottom left) of me and was so surprised how . . . full my face was. Now I have lost a bit of weight since returning from corn land but I had no idea it made an actual difference.

I am one of the odd women that has fabulous self esteem. I always think I look great and then I will see a picture and think "WoW, that is what other people see?" So I was more than surprised to see my round face take center stage in this photo. This year I put on the same shirt to go to my dad's Christmas and had Megean take a picture to see if there was as much difference as I was anticipating. I can see a change, what do you think?