point and shoot beauty

This Christmas, I captured a handful of images around the house that will remind me of the beauty of the season. Here are a few of the shots.












Most people know I love songwriting. But I really love creating of most any kind... scrapbooking, card making, cooking, photography.... whatever I have the opportunity for. This Christmas I made a painting for someone in our family and in the process rediscovered how very much I still love to paint. (The last time I did that regularly was in highschool. And it may very well take another decade before I get the chance to pick up a paintbrush again!) 'Creating' in almost any way seems to be part of what I was made for. Not surprising perhaps, since, like you, I was made in the image of The Creator.

Over the years, Tim has heard me vent my little frustrations here and there about the limits of a point-and-shoot camera. I once had a great camera, but it was stolen around the time we were dating. So although he and I had made plans to use an unexpected cheque we received to purchase a dishwasher for each other this Christmas, he decided a better gift would be that he would keep washing dishes by hand so that I could have a really nice camera this Christmas. That's basically what this little letter in the tree said:




It all sounded so lovely at first. I mean, really, what a sweet and thoughtful thing for him to want to give me. But after a few days of thinking about it, I came around and decided that I'd rather trade an extra hour of dish-doing each day for family time, instead of having more beautiful family photos and less family time together.

So after a little convincing, Tim agreed, we took advantage of an end-of-year appliance sale, and today our friend Darcy installed our new dishwasher. One load already done. Man, am I ever glad for this purchase! My counters are clear. We all played a family game in place of dish duty tonight. No more funny hole between my cupboards. (Not that it matters, but it sounded good to have a third benefit there.) Here is the new beauty, doing its magic...



One of the highlights of my day was watching Maia watching Darcy as he installed it. He was a very good sport, fielding all her questions and, er, corrections. That little teacher-slash-neat-freak! She found a hat I'd put away, thinking it was too small for her, and insisted on wearing it all afternoon. She is such a character. Here she is laying on the floor next to Darcy. Could she be watching any more closely?



So, as for the lovely SLR camera of the future, that will just have to wait. And that seems just fine to me, as I listen to my dishes made sparkling clean with no effort at all.