Making it all seem effortless

Goomp was stumped by the dynamics of this image from yesterday down Maine that we emailed him this afternoon. Check out his beautiful black pussycat Lucie at the center, perched upon the wrought iron railing facing right outside the seaward door,  with nearly perfect symmetry of tree and house elements reflected in the winterized glass panel of the door (left), screened in summer and oft velcroized by the Babe.

Your photo-management program really does make a difference.

We were using the ponderous Microsoft Windows 98 down Goomp's for the last few days of intensive family bonding and intermittent photodocumentation of Christmas cheer. Unlike our Apple iPhoto that brings up every new batch of images in a thumbnail-heavy contact format, with Windows you have to plod through a text window with pauses for each image you want to view. Once we got back home with iPhoto, we realized what a damper the Windows program had been on our "creativity." There were several fab images we hadn't noticed at all, and others we had seen in a quick review but never got back to. You gotta have iPhoto. Now on to some of our faves that dropped through the cracks the last couple of days:

Rosemary on a bed of overlapped slices of bacon, carapace for our beef tenderloins as they went into the oven.

Madonna and childs:  Chris, Susan and Matthew mug for the cameras as they and other celebrants cook up a storm in Goomp's kitchen prior to our Christmas Eve extravaganza. The days the kitchen bonding happens are the happiest.

"That's my Barney" is one of Susie's favorite quotations from her favorite musical, "The Music Man," the words every proud mother calls out when she sees the flesh of her flesh doing her proud. These are her Barneys, our own beloved and totally awesome nephews.

In the night kitchen, cats loom large and small, depending upon your point of view (tiny Baby, left and bigfoot Tiny, right).

Just because it was so beautiful, a parting shot of yesterday's Christmas Luncheon of Coquilles St. Jacques with Salad à la Sisu.

Tradition. We made it through with flying colors, for the most part achieving our goal of making it all seem effortless as we depended on the kindness not of strangers but of family members. But despite our own self-protestations, today as we drove back home with Tuck at the wheel and Baby and Tiny as our co-pilots, for the first time in ages, we felt so relaxed . . . No tightness in the chest or compulsive clearing of the throat. We think Dr. Helen may be onto something in her provocative "Sloth: The New New Year's Resolution?" post:

Now I congratulate myself on a day where I sit in pajamas until 3:00 in the afternoon contemplating getting up long enough to check my email or post something.

Happy New Year.

Comments

[goomp]

And a hearty thank you for managing a beautifully prepared and managed Merry Christmas.

[Helen Smith]

Glad you are having such a relaxing Holiday! Happy New Years!

[Zendo Deb]

Not that I'm a defender of Windows, but you can set the default view for any folder to be thumbnails.... don't ask me where.

[Sissy Willis]

Thanks, Goomp and Helen for your kind thoughts. ZD: Goomp has Windows 98 -- not XP -- and I don't think it has the thumbnail feature . . . Even so, the "look" of the Mac's iPhoto "contact sheets" is a revelation.

[Laura Lee Donoho]

Happy New Year! Your holiday dinner looks lovely. We had planned on going to my husband's sisters house for her always elegant Christmas dinner but my husband felt too ill with his bad cold and our youngest daughter also was coming down with a stomach flu so we just snacked all day until at the end of it everyone wanted Christmas turkey. The hardy ones in the family went out and found a Chinese restaurant open. It was fun! And everyone seems better now.

[mog]

The thumbnails are neat, can adjust the size, and you can zoom in on each photo but nothing beats Photoshop for editing.

And nothing beats your photos. I just adore them. You have an eye for composition that makes the seemingly mundane mouthwatering.

Sides which, you make me homesick seeing as I grew up in Massachusetts.

[Sissy Willis]

Thanks for all the good words, Mog. I have set up my iPhoto -- in Preferences -- so when I click on a thumbnail, it opens in Photoshop. Talk about instant gratification. :)

[Teresa]

I'm so glad you had a lovely Christmas - sounds absolutely wonderful! Maybe Goomp needs the gift of a new computer ;-)

As usual - terrific pictures too... what more could one ask for!

[Sissy Willis]

The only thing more one could ask for would be you, my darling Teresa. :)

[Teresa]

My dear - you are wonderful. *grin*

[Doodee]

Thanks for sharing