I realized the other day that the photo I’ve been using for my “about” page (now updated) was from 2016. Somehow, 2016 was six years ago! How did that happen? I decided I better update it with a new one so I took a quick selfie using portrait mode on my iPhone. I’m trying to be better about getting in front of the camera this year so it was a good exercise.

I feel like my year has gotten off to a slow start. My daughter and her husband got colds at Christmas and were unable to travel to see us for the holidays. They were well enough to join us on January 5th and we finally had our Christmas with them on that date. Then we celebrated a belated New Year’s on January 6th. Better late than never! I’m finding that the date on the calendar doesn’t mean that much these days. It’s more important to just enjoy the moments when you get them.

I have an annual tradition of sharing our Christmas tree here each year. I’ve been doing this since 2013, which was the first year I started changing the theme of our tree each year. If you want to peek at the previous years, here are the links:

My favorite thing about surfing online is finding funny little gems that make me laugh. Here are some humorous holiday goodies to start your day off right!

Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and Cyber Monday all take place over the next few days. There are also a lot of shortages this year and slower mail delivery so I believe this will be a very big weekend for shopping. I’m not heading out anywhere, but I will be working my mouse and keyboard to get my shopping done.

I thought I would share a few of my favorite ideas here in case you are looking for inspiration.

My husband and I both love our iPad Pro tablets. He has the 11 inch model and I have both the 11 inch (1st generation) and the 12.9 inch (5th generation). Yes, I know that’s excessive! Yes, he teases me about it. I haven’t decided which one I want to part with so I’ve ended up keeping them both. And I actually use both of them. Someday I will probably trade one of them in. That was my original plan, but I ended up liking both sizes. So for now I’m just leaning into the whole too many iPads thing. lol! I know I’m lucky to have more than I need in this area.

Let’s start the week off with some giggles! Here are some funnies I’ve been saving to share here.

Halloween is almost here and if you are like me, you are looking for easy ways to make it more festive. Here are some of my favorite resources and ideas:

I love this time of year for many reasons, and the annual release of a new Adobe Photoshop Elements program is right up there on the list! I’m always excited when I get my invite to the press unveiling of the new release and it’s always hard to wait until release day to share the details with all of you. This year, the unveiling took place on October 7th - right in the middle of our family’s early Thanksgiving celebration (more on that in Wednesday’s post) so I’m a little late in posting. So let me get straight to sharing the cool stuff with you!

My daughter and her husband adopted a cute little golden doodle last year and named her Piper. This dog is so very loved! She has brought so much joy into their lives and my daughter couldn’t wait to throw a dog party for Piper and all of her dog park friends.

Not to alarm anybody, but as of today there are only 100 days left in the year! That means if you have certain projects you want to accomplish this year, now is the time to get going on them. It’s also a great time to start your holiday shopping a little early this year as experts are projecting that there will be shortages of many items, including toys.

For me, this is a great reminder to check in on my creative projects and goals and evaluate what I want the rest of the year to look like for me and my family.

The first day of Fall is on September 22nd this year. That also happens to be my daughter’s birthday and she is one of those ladies that lives for Autumn. It is my favorite time of year as well and I love the cozy feeling of slightly cooler weather. I’m lucky to live in a place where we are nearby to many canyons full of trees with changing leaves.

I also like the more settled feeling of Fall. With kids back in school, most people are on more of a regular schedule. Of course, this year isn’t exactly normal or settled in any way - but I guess we can still find ways to appreciate the season. Here are some fun links you might enjoy: