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My Friend Andee brought up a very valuable question in her (fabulous) Blog:

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

She asks THE question:

It brings up this question: In a day and age with no Little Yellow Birds and no Expectations of behavior, do I continue to try and instill these old-fashioned values in my kids, or do I throw in the towel and give them a fighting chance amongst peers who have no respect for others, much less, themselves?

And this brings me to a topic that is eating at me since some time now (since it happened, actually). Here is the story [rant on]:

I have the same problem. Here is our personal conundrum:

We have 5 sets of direct neighbors (as we are in the middle of a settling). One family has one kid, Mark, who is 4. The other family has two kids. Their smallest, Alice, 5, plays with Mark. Their older boy, Peter, 8, plays, well, not with many kids, it seems. (Btw, I changed the names. They’re not their real names).

I cannot say I initially disliked them. They are very different than we are, rather uptight and closed. But I remained friendly and did all the necessary neighbor stuff: Invited them to garden parties, wrote them Christmas cards, gave them an Easter basket and so on (although none of this was ever reciprocated, but these are things I do not measure, so I don’t care).

The kids are EXTREMELY well behaved. As far as mute counts as well behaved. You seldom hear them talk at all, and surely not in the presence of adults. But. I am continuously finding out they are… mean. Just evil. I mean it. (more…)

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OK, as you already know, my little meerkitten brother came visiting for the holidays. And as you already heard (or read, if your read attentively) he had the most awesome present for hubby and me.

t was so incredibly awesome on so many levels that I spontaneously broke into tears when I unwrapped and saw the gift. Even my dirty-harry-hardfaced hubbylove teared up a bit (but don’t tell him I told you). And despite being still a little sick and exhausted from Christmas joy, I was too hyper to sleep until 5 AM because I was working on realizing the awesomeness of our present and the incredible generosity and kindness behind it.

I have wanted a “real” camera forever and ever. I more and more felt that my crappy point-and-shoot was not up to what I wanted to do, and I really wished for a DSLR.

Before we bought the house, my and hubby’s plans regarding this were more or less like “OK, if we save money, in one or two years, we’ll buy one”.

But then along came the house. As some of you might have followed a year ago, we were in a really stressful situation at home and had to move out. We jumped into the adventure of buying a house rather quickly, and all our monies went into it, and will go into the mortgage for, well… centuries.

So the plans of getting a DSLR went down the drain. Apart from the mortgage, this is an old house that needs repairs. Sudden surprises like mold in unexpected places eat up resources like nothing else, believe me.

Do you know when you wish for something really badly, but you know it’s just not possible, not ever will be possible? You push it so far away that it is almost nonexistant anymore.

But still, being a true friend, and doing quite our share of photography talk amongst us, the meerkitten knew all of this.

So Christmas Eve. The candles on the tree are burning, we have sung sufficiently many Christmas carols, read the Christmas Story, and now it’s time to unwrap the presents. We all are quite happy with everything: Books, some games, some trinkets, some more books. Then, my son brings to me a cute, unobtrusive box…

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Each year, the photographers of Worth share their “12 Hours of Christmas”. Each of them chooses one of the Christmas days and posts an assembly of pictures: One for each hour, 12 hours altogether.

This year, we had my little meerkitten brother over from Stockholm for the holidays. So that made, together with my husband and me, three Worthians! Of course, we had to do the challenge.

Here is the thumbnail. To view all pictures, click “more”:

12 Pictures of Christmas

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Or it was snowing the last days. Now it started to rain. Blargh. I want a White Christmas!

I know I didn’t post much. What with an almost full-time job a new (old) house begging for renovations, and a lovely family demanding care and entertainment, I feel thetime for zeh internetz is limited. And what I have, I usually spend on Worth (as well you know).

But! A time will come where you will hopefully see a post each day. Right, EACH day!

I committed to the 30 Days Photo Frenzy of Worth, where a photo will be taken each day according to a self-chosen topic. I already have my topic, and it will be fun!

We also decided to do a 12 Hours of Christmas photo series, so you will see some Christmas pix for sure. So stay tuned, photos are bound to come.

… and all that is left to do is sending Christmas blessings out to you all.

I am sorry that my Audio Autumn did not last longer. There is so much more music to share. But major changes occured in my life. I will let you in on all of them, comes time. Promised.

I’ll also dive into another project soon, in January. Chances are good that it will be photos again, the Worth photogs are preparing for another 30-days-challenge.

So stay tuned. Things will happen.

Try to be true to yourself. Love matters.

Xmas wishes 2008