Sunday, January 01, 2006
Christmas Today and Collage Print
We had a nice visit with my father and stepmother today. Sadie got another doggie, a Vermont Teddy Bear, and some cool books. We also got a tin of yummy fudge and baked stuff they’d made, and some maple syrup to supplement our remaining supply.
The best part for Sadie was the box the bear came in, of course.
My niece, Sadie’s 15 year old cousin, also sent her a gift via my father. It’s a gorgeous pair of pants and sweater shirt that will fit her in a few months and any time now, respectively.
Anyway, now that everyone has gotten the present we gave to several people, I can reveal here what it was. It went over pretty well.
Since we haven’t been good about getting prints made of Sadie for people (some people, not necessarily family, would even say I’m horrible not having had any professional pictures taken), that was a logical direction. Since it’s so hard to choose just one or two representative pictures to use from her first 14-odd months, I thought of creating a collage. Electronically, of course.
I set out to make an 8x10” print to be framed, with a 4” wide, recent shot as the centerpiece, and 2” wide shots covering more than a year surrounding it. Something really different.
We had the prints done by Wal-Mart, same as the cards, and the smaller prints we made last year. They do a great job and it’s reasonable.
So below is a small version that fits in this column. Clicking that will bring up an 8x10” version, which is what I’ve been using for wallpaper on this computer. The link below that is for the 900k or so version that I had to supply Wal-Mart. The rejected the 8x10 as not having sufficient resolution to make into prints of that size. Makes sense, given what I know of graphics.
Christmas Card Picture
For any who might be curious, here is the picture we used on this card.
The custom text said:
honest I have!
Love, Sadie 2005
Welcome to Next Year
On today’s agenda, we finally finish Christmas. Yay! My father and stepmother are supposed to come by in the afternoon, bearing gifts for the Sadie. Then we will undecorate and be done with it until next year, when who knows what will happen.
I reason to believe that today’s gifts will involve books and a bear, unless anything has changed. This’ll be cool, as Sadie has “aged” significantly since the last visit, and seems to be quite fond of them.
In fact, just days ago she hit the milestone of moving out of a highchair. Today she hit the milestone of being able to climb down from the booster seat on the chair at the table by herself. She’s also become attached to that being where she eats. At one point we were just going to hand her a snack and she insisted on sitting at the table. Such orderliness.
A funny thought: I have particularly strong memories of December 31, 1969, when the calendar was flipping over into 1970. There was some kind of party the parents were going to, though for some reason I only remember interacting with my mother that day. I think it was a year and a couple months after that they split up. Or maybe it was only a couple months, but 1971 counts for the divorce becoming final. It was all exciting, to me, because us kids were left home with munchies and noise makers, to stay up late and celebrate. The funny thought is that my mother was 35 then, nine years younger than I am now. I thought of this when we discussed being too old to appreciate all the partying people do this night.