Go Bulldogs!

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State cheer competition.  Springdale Bulldogs.  That's my sister-in-law on top.

The fog rolls in

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The fog rolled in on Lake Hamilton.

Raindrops

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Mother and child... and deer

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Statue in front of the Arlington Hotel.

Frosty the bathman

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Storefront display.  Frosty the snowman in a bubble bath.  This was a bath soap shop.

Haunted?

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The Medical Arts Building.  A 16 story medical complex built in 1929.  Until 1960 it was the tallest building in the state.  It is abandoned now and falling apart.  It is also rumored to be haunted.  
Standing under the front to take this photo, the upper floors seemed to lean out over the sidewalk as though it was also looking down on us.  My husband had to stand behind me when I took this photo just in case I lost my balance and tumbled backwards.

Evening streets

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Bathhouse Row

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Historic bath houses... now mostly spas and gift shops.  Many existed in the gangster days of the 1940s.

Steam

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The hot springs that the city is named for feed all the fountains on the downtown strip.  Even though it was over 50 degrees and very humid there was still steam rising from all of the spring waters.  The water in the fountains ranged from lukewarm bathwater up to too hot to keep your hand in for long.  This was a very lovely experience, especially considering that our area up in the northwest part of the state had an ice warning for this very evening.

Welcome to Hot Springs

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Welcome to Hot Springs, Arkansas.  
It was raining the entire time we were there so the photos that I have from the Historic Downtown area are late evening and after dark.

Oh Christmas Tree...

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When I was a kid, my "family" (such as it was... not a discussion for this blog...me, mother, sister, stepfather) always had a fake tree.  The tree never bothered me... it was just a typical Christmas tree as far as I knew.  But for a few years when I was little my great-grandmother had a real tree.  They were always these great big cedar trees that were tied to the wall with ropes so it wouldn't fall over on anyone.  I don't remember most of the details about the trees except that they were covered in tinsel... the stringy icicle kind.
  
After my great-grandmother passed away, my uncle and aunt (brother and sister that never moved out of their mother's home) didn't continue many years of putting up a tree.  We still had the fake tree at our house, but it was never quite the same.  I have had a fake tree every year that I have put up a tree since then... and it has been fine for me.  Been driving me nuts every year having to fluff out the branches, but they have always looked good to me.

Over the last summer, our tree had a bit of an accident in the garage and got broken.  Due to cutbacks in my family this year, we couldn't afford to replace it with a new decent tree.  I didn't want to spend the money on a sub-par tree I didn't really like.  

My husband hates real trees.  So of course that only strengthened my resolve to get a real one.  

We took a nice country drive one afternoon... with a hatchet.  We drove up and down dirt roads until we found a tree I liked.  When I got out to go look at the tree closer, I knew it was too big.  My husband said that it would be fine... it was too big.  The base branches took up about three feet from the trunk in all directions.  They top branches were bent over double touching the ceiling.  I had to hang the few ornaments that were on the top of the tree using the handle of the broom.

And of course, tinsel.

The tinsel makes the tree.  I loved the feeling that I got when I got the tree up with the shiny tinsel and the ceder smell.  
I hope that by having a real live tree, my daughter will be able to store up some of the memories that I have from when I was her age.  Of course Christmas is more than the tree or the gifts under it, but it is a good place to start.

As for the photo above:  I processed the photo of our tree to look vintage... like the Polaroid photos from my childhood.

Another snow day

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Stuck inside the house again today.  Good thing Kiera has her TagReader to keep her entertained.

Icicles

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Catching snowflakes

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Christmas Train

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Saturday morning on the Children's Christmas Train.  All the proceeds go to charity.  It is about a 40 minute round trip on the Arkansas-Missouri Railroad.  Kiera got to meet Santa and sing songs on the ride.

In the snow

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My dog Carl does not care for being in the snow.  Especially since I made him sit down in it to get this photo.  He got to come in the house right after this shot though so don't feel too bad for him.

Atteggiamento

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Atteggiamento means attitude in Italian.

Headlight blurs and a tilt-shift

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I was stuck at my husband's work one night while he was helping out after his shift... so of course I was bored out of my mind!  I was lucky enough to have my camera with me though so I wasted some time getting headlight blurs.

Bonus:  Same photo as above but I was playing around with a tilt shift action from the CoffeeShop Blog.  I find tilt shift photos interesting.  They always remind me of model trains... probably something to do with old school Thomas the Tank Engine shows from when I was a kid.  Not the newer animated one but the actual model train setup.  Hope it looks interesting to you.

Let sleeping ducks lie...

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Carl sleeping in the hallway.  He somehow manages to curl himself up to the size of a much smaller dog.  I had to take this photo because he reminded me of a duck sleeping... the way a duck will tuck it's head under it's wing... Carl would have been doing just that if he had a wing to do it with.  Please excuse the dog hair in the carpet and my dusty floor.

Tossing leaves

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Bold is the beginning of decay...

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Shoreline

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A path

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O hushed [Autumn] morning mild, 

Thy leaves have ripened to the fall; 

To-morrow's wind, if it be wild, 

Should waste them all. 

The crows above the forest call; 

To-morrow they may form and go. 

O hushed [Autumn] morning mild, 

Begin the hours of this day slow, 

Make the day seem to us less brief. 

~Robert Frost

Climbing

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Look at her arms!  She loves to climb trees.  She asked me if we could take this tree home because she wasn't done climbing it.  Thinking maybe its time they start science at school.

Stolen moment

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This couple was on the pier as we were leaving it.  They were sharing a quiet intimate moment together.  Beautiful.

Cardinal

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Duck in a doughnut

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When I was editing this photo, Kiera was standing beside me... 
Kiera:  What is that?
Me:  It's the top off an acorn.
Kiera:  Oh. (pause)  I thought it was a baby duck inside a doughnut. 

What an imagination... I love it.

On a wall

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When Kiera poses for a photo she has this fake smile that she plasters on her face.  I told her to not smile like that for this photo.  The left was her response to not fake smiling.  So I told her to pretend that I was tickling her... such a ham.

One is the loneliest...

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Pine needles

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Mossy Rock

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Chipmunk

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Two in a tree

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Evergreen

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Berries

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I am so behind

Even though you won't be able to tell it after this post, I am so far behind.  So to fix that I went out and took a bunch of photos.  Mostly nature shots but there will be some of Kiera too.

Cheese thief

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Xbox Adventures

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Kiera has an Xbox Kinect with one lonely game... but she loves it.  She plays it on my husband's projector so it is always dark in the room and she gets in the way of the screen sometimes.  She doesn't mind it though.  Here she was jumping to make her raft jump.  Love that there are kids video games that make them exercise while they play... that's a sneaky mom thing.

Homework

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Spelling words.

Cowgirl

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My darling cowgirl riding a horse named Kisses.  She was only being led because this horse is one of the most stubborn animals alive and wouldn't budge for her using the reins.

Rooster

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Spent an afternoon on a farm.

Frost

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The end of fall is rapidly approaching now that we have gotten our first freeze.

Chandi and Caley

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I also took photos of these two beauties.  These are my husband's younger sisters. 

One in the leaves

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Okay one more of one of the girls from yesterday.  I just love the fall.

Kalli and Teagan

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I took photos of my friend's daughters for a pageant.  They were fun to work with.  Although it was windy and a bit on the cold side, both of them made the best of it.

Old Main

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Located on the University of Arkansas campus.

Marigold

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I cannot believe that I still have flowers in my garden!  It has been so cold and even frosted some over the last couple of weeks but my flowers are still going strong.

Bonus
When I process my photos, I always open them with camera raw in photoshop.  The first thing I do is change the white balance from "as shot" to "auto".  Most times I do not use this because it almost always changes the balance to the other extreme and I don't like it... however, sometimes it looks fun.  When I changed the setting on this photo I liked the creamy muted color it gave the flower.

Play-Doh

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Goldenrod + textures

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I don't usually add textures to my photos.  Usually I completely forget about textures to be honest.  But today I was in the mood, so I used two of the textures that Rita over at the CoffeeShop Blog makes.  I used one of her painting textures and a grunge texture, both brushed off the flower itself.