Oh, Christmas IS upon us!

My oh my! The whole week has been very very busy for me. Presents must be bought/made and wrapped and delivered, plans must be made, parties must be attended, and last night my very close friend Elránia and I went to a symphony performance. It was AMAZING... they had this tenor singer/actor come, and all these dancers, and the orchestra was soooo good. Elránia goes every year, but this was my first and I LOVED it.

I don't post many photos of myself... well, none, really. But I wanted to show you all THE Little Black Dress. This dress is really my mother's, and I swear it's MAGIC. She can wear it, she wore it when she was pregnant with me AND now, and somehow it also manages to fit little old ME! I think it's a combination of the cut, the corset-like ties in the back, and some jolly little fairy godmother laughing herself silly right now. ;-)

So, here I am all dressed up. If you look closely you can see my necklace is a bee... I also have matching earrings on but they're hidden by my (awful) hair. The tights are also my mother's, but the 40's heels are mine, and the purse is some antique we found in the basement. I am thoroughly infatuated with that purse.

My mother took this photo in low light, so it's kind of bad quality. And yes, I blanked out my face, drew a new one, and added wings. And no, I won't post the original. ^_^

And I would like to thank Elránia for having me along, and for the DELICIOUS bag of Lindt chocolates. I've only eaten two so far... think I can last until 2010? LOL... probably not.

Today my Christmas labors include baking cookies and making our annual gingerbread house. Most of you saw the one from last year in my "Christmas traditions" post, and this year it will be sort of similar... only my mom won't be in on it so it'll be a little sloppier (I'm not a five-star chef yet, okay?). But it'll have a barn and animals and everything. =)

So. Gotta get cooking (ha ha)! Sorry I skipped the Daybook yesterday and Quirky Thursdays too... as I said: BUSY BUSY BUSY!

I'll leave you with a few Christmas quotes. Have a wonderful Sunday!

Christmas is not a time nor a season, but a state of mind. To cherish peace and goodwill, to be plenteous in mercy, is to have the real spirit of Christmas. (Calvin Coolidge)

Love is what’s in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen. (Author unknown, attributed to a 7-year-old named Bobby)  

Christmas gift suggestions: To your enemy, forgiveness. To an opponent, tolerance. To a friend, your heart. To a customer, service. To all, charity. To every child, a good example. To yourself, respect. (Open Arnold)

PS- Looks like a lot of people's lives are a little better with HorseFeathers–of the 39 people that voted, 4 said HorseFeathers did not enrich their lives, and the other 35 said it did! Thanks to everyone who voted.

Realization

Ever get one of those ideas? One of those big, huge, life-changing ones that make you feel all quivery inside and you just want to shout them out, but you don't because then everyone would think you're crazy? Those ideas, those REALIZATIONS, that you just want to write down on scraps of paper and throw them into the air so the pure genius of them will rain down upon you and your loved ones. One of those ideas that other people may have had, and maybe you knew about them, but the experience never came upon you where you really UNDERSTOOD.

Well, I had one of those ideas last night at about nine-thirty at night. Naturally, I scrawled it down in my diary under the title, LOOK WHAT I FIGURED OUT!!! in big, blue letters.

Because this was a big, huge, life-changing idea.

This was an idea that you, dear readers, need to help me out with.

What's that you say? I haven't told you my idea yet? Oh my, you're right! Dear, dear... well, that will have to change.

Here goes:

If it doesnt make someones life better... it's not worth doing.

Plain and simple. Just like that. I know many of you are going, "Well duh, Olive Tree, isn't that obvious?"

But may I ask you this: did you ever have a realization over it? Like I described above? Because though I had previously thought about this, I had never really REALIZED it. There's a big difference.

So here's where you come in. I need you, my readers, to think very, very hard about something. Then I need you to vote on the poll. Please only vote if you really mean it.

Does HorseFeathers make your life better?

For example, have you ever had a bad day, but came here and felt a little better? Have you ever been excited for winning something and/or receiving a blog makeover? Those make your life better. Right?

If HorseFeathers is just another blog to you, just another girl with a computer and a camera, please vote "no." Because though HorseFeathers hasn't harmed you, it hasn't enriched your life either.

Thanks guys! I'm having a self-revelation phase here, discovering a lot of important truths one right after another. Like, "smile" and "think" and "just because they're ticked off doesn't mean you can't stay cheerful". A side effect of this is realizing, "oh my gosh I must have been a horrible person before", haha. ^_^

I would just like to call your attention...

...to the new animated header I have up! It took me two hours to make it after an additional two to figure our HOW to make it and get it up, and it takes a while to load, but there ya have it, a prototype for future animated headers for HorseFeathers! All it is is Santa taking off, but it's sorta cute, isn't it?

Note:

I just know I'll have some people asking for a tutorial, so I'm going to tell you outright that I am not prepared to do a tutorial at this time. I have several reasons for this: first of all, I don't have the technique down; secondly, it is incredibly complicated and time-consuming and I must doubt whether or not I could actually WRITE such a tutorial, let along have people understand it; and third, you must have both Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator to make it work. And those both cost money (lots of it) so GIMP users couldn't do it.

Christmastime is here again!

Well, we decorated our tree last night and I promised you all some photos, so here goes!

Willa liked the Christmas tree lights. =)

The snow from the blizzard on Wednesday left everything coated in snow, including the wreath I made.

We had fun decorating our tree; each ornament has a little story to tell.

I love this song, and this ornament.

And a little hint of yours truly in a Santa cap. ^_^

So there ya go! There's sort of bad quality because of the unnatural light, but that's OK, right?

Merry Christmas!

(And Happy Hanukah too!)