Almost Christmas

Fog on the Dike

http://nature.desktopnexus.com/wallpaper/533601/

http://www.getpersonas.com/en-US/persona/343912

Hello all...I wanted to post this photo my husband took with my old camera last week. I wish I could say I took it but I was home working on Persona designs while he enjoyed the last day of hunting season.  The iGoogle theme is available, too and called Early Morning Fog by MaDonna.

We did our Christmas decorating over the week end. Instead of lots of tinsel and shiny things we chose to do a more natural look. So we went out and cut holly, western red cedar, Alaska yellow cedar, noble fir and pine boughs from our trees. We put them on the hearth and coffee table. The smell is wonderful and all the little cones on the boughs are so pretty. I had some left over boughs, so I filled a big clear glass vase with greenery for the dining room table and a smaller clear glass vase for the kitchen table where all the food will be. Of course we put up some of the old standards, mainly items my wonderful Mother made over the years. So we are pretty much ready for Christmas Eve. That will be our main celebration this year. All three of our children, and 6 out of the 7 grand kids will be here. One grandson can't get too far from home as his son is due any day and may even be here by Christmas.  One great grandson will be joining us on his very first Christmas. The food is figured out. We don't cook a big Christmas eve dinner, so a lot of snacking is in order. My daughter is making her super potato salad that my Mom taught her how to make. We will have sandwich makings and I HAVE to cook the chicken wings! The kids and grandsons love them so I will make 10# again this year. I thought I might share the recipe with you. This recipe is for 3# as most people won't want 10#!

OUR FAMILY CHICKEN WINGS

3# chicken wing pieces placed singly in large cookie pans with sides

(I use jelly roll pans)

1/2 cup soy sauce

1/2 cup water

2/3 cup brown sugar

1/2 Tablespoon garlic powder

Heat the above just until steaming and pour over the chicken wings. 

Cook at 300 to 325 degrees for 3 hours. Turn 3 times.

The kids usually take turns turning them as it takes me quite awhile to turn 10#.

If you decide to make them, let me know how you like them.

I want to wish you all a wonderful, happy Christmas or whatever holiday you celebrate. Take time to write or phone loved ones that can't share the holiday with you. You never know if they will be around next Christmas or not. My wonderful husband turned 75 last week and I will be 72 in a few months so at our ages we want to let our family know how proud we are of them and how very much we love each and every one of them.

I also want to thank all the people that are using my designs and have written to tell me how much they enjoy them.  Thank you.

And to all a good night!

Family Values

Family Values

http://www.getpersonas.com/en-US/persona/307601

 

I was so surprised this morning when I checked the Up and Coming Persona's to see that one I made just for my own enjoyment was gaining popularity. These are cherished family photos. My parents wedding picture, my Dad in his Army uniform and with the car he was so proud of, my beautiful Grandmother and the Great Grandparents I never got to meet.

This will be short and sweet but I was so happy to see others actually using this specific design when everyone is busy and thinking about the holidays that I just had to post this. It made my day. Thanks to all who are using it and now you will know a bit about my history and how much I value my family.

December, December

December Sunset Barn

December Sunset

http://www.getpersonas.com/en-US/persona/338537

December is here and time to start thinking of Christmas decorations. Time to take the fall decoration off the door and put the reindeer on.

The latest news is I got a new camera and haven't really learned how to use it and all of its settings yet. Probably never will. It has an automatic setting and I am sure that is what I will use most. I did use the sunset setting the other night so I could try it out. The December Sunset Barn shot turned out really well and the December Sunset Persona turned out clearer than my old camera, so that is good.

I discovered that a bunch more of my designs are on iGoogle now. Took a long time for them to show up and in the mean time I gave up and threw the paper away with the names of the designs on.!  I use iGoogle as my home page and am really happy with it. You can set it up to your liking and that is why I like it so well. Anyway,  if you use iGoogle and want to use any of my designs, you can go to where it says Change Theme from.....and when the search page comes up, put MaDonna in the search and some of my designs will come up. Winter Snowman by MaDonna is the one I am using now. It goes with the Persona called Winter Snowman Collage. So now that I know it, I am going to be adding some more to the iGoogle site. I will just be patient and wait till they show up.

The new venture I wrote about several months ago turned out to be a dud. The fellow that brought it to my attention and asked me to help design got too impatient because things weren't selling right away. So I am no longer involved with him or his sites.

I also found out that Persona's can be rated. I didn't know anything about this as I don't do a lot of surfing. I just work on designs and screening. But I noticed someone had mentioned it. So I clicked on the link. I honestly don't know how you go about rating them, but you can go to:   https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/personas/ and rate designs. Looks like you have to sign in to do it, but if you have time and want to try rating designs, let us know how it works out. Mozilla hasn't done a very good job of making people aware of this feature, so it isn't very popular yet. Let me know if you figure it out.

Today is Pearl Harbor Day so think about all of our men that lost their lives on this day many years ago. And hope something like that never happens again. If we could only have peace all over and not have things like today to have to remember!

Hope you all have a good week and don't get too tired and busy to let your loved ones know you love them. 

Till next time!