Photo Catch-Up

I have a collection of photos to share with you all today, and I have still more that I need to go through. These are from a couple of weeks ago.

This one is for Annette. I'm cutting up a piece of cardboard to make a sheath for a new knife! This is something that makes complete sense to me. It makes Annette laugh.


Here are photos that I took during our photo club's photo shoot in downtown Tucson:




Huh?






















I love photographing old stuff, peeling paint, and the like. This first one I call "Broken Heart."



We did another club photo shoot this past Thursday at the La Rienda Ranch. The light was so harsh that few of my photos were worth keeping. Here are a few that I liked:






Otherwise, things are going mostly just fine. Practice for the show is progressing. My role has changed a couple of times, most recently, because a woman for whom I was to sing backup decided not to be in the production. Now it's looking like I'll be doing a bit of backup singing for someone else, and I'll be doing some comedic acting

We went on a neat hike on the 26th of January, heading up to Ventana Canyon. That's the same place where we hiked in the spring when we saw the little Ventana Canyon frogs. No frogs yet this year, though!

We went yesterday on a marathon-style hike up toward Finger Rock. This time, we made it further than ever before, but still didn't make it all the way to Linda Vista, I don't think, at least. From the descriptions of the trail that I've read, I think that we probably just missed that vista by 20 minutes or so. We did go far enough to exhaust us and make us very sore today! This is the first soreness I've had from a hike this season.

A Great Week

What a fine week we've had! The big news of the week is that my house has been sold! The offer was good, I accepted, and closing is February 18. Now the challenge is to get my stuff out of there as soon as possible, and Annette and Steve are going to take that on. The real estate folks will be doing all the paperwork with me over email, fax, and snail mail. I'm tickled!

Things are going well here, too. The weather has been wonderful, with highs in the 60's - 70's and most days are "severe clear." We're staying very busy with our park's activities, and having fun with it all. Hiking has been great! We did Ventana Canyon this past Tuesday. I led the hike and everyone enjoyed my pacing. I'm in the choir now, and I really love that.

We got our play parts a week ago, and I got a couple of parts. I'm going to be singing backup behind my new friend Julie, who sings like an angel. (I love to sing, I can carry a tune, but I don't sing like an angel. Wish I could!) I also have a small speaking/acting part. Should be fun!

Ballroom dancing classes have been very fun for Jack and me. He's a natural, supplying a very strong lead, and ... if you know me well, you know how much I love that!

Foto Fun has remained fun. We did a photo shoot downtown a couple of weeks ago, and last Thursday, we had a guest speaker, who was very good. He is a commercial photographer who shoots compelling advertising images. Neat stuff. He was supposed to talk to us about how to do better lighting, but he didn't. No one really cared, though, since his talk was so interesting.

Annette sent me this great shot from central Indiana.
Church has been good. We got a cold shoulder from the church where we had gone last year, so we went to the church up the street -- St. John on the Desert. The congregation is small, but they are active, friendly, and the pastor is very good. Oh.. and did I mention the delicious cookies that they have on the patio after services? :)

We had a small dinner party here a few nights ago, entertaining Robert and Mike, a really nice couple from down the street. They are retired from professional careers in Colorado. We met them in the hiking club the week we went up to Wasson Peak. Really fun guys. We enjoyed a dinner of grilled pork tenderloin, Jack's grilled potato wedges, and my yummy Italian squash sautee. We ended the meal with smores, which we cooked on on our little fire tower on the deck! We used dark chocolate squares.

So all is cool in Coolville, and that's where we are!