Blessed Friday

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He Heals

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Because He Lives

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Glorious Sunrise

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We've had some spectacular early morning and late afternoon color the last few weeks. Lizard typically is sleeping peacefully, so I step out into the backyard and shoot over the fence.

Yes, I'd rather be shooting at a body of water, getting a great reflection, or shooting silhouettes in my summer garden, or shooting the pink or lavender glow on a fresh blanket of snow!!!

Yet, it is such a big blessing when Lizard is able to sleep peacefully. We're hoping, in time, better sleep might relieve some of his symptoms.

Regardless, colorful skies are among the best Christmas presents in my life!

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The Most Wonderful Time of Year

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For Unto Us

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Breath of Heaven

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White Friday

Only one pot of Christmas cactus remains at my house after giving away almost all my plants back in 2023 to eliminate tripping hazards for my sweet husband. The final Christmas cactus, as well as my final hoya plant, were to be personally delivered to my mom in California the week after Thanksgiving last year. She'd never owned either species, and she loved the photos I sent, so I saved the last two for her. The Thanksgiving week snowstorm over our Colorado Rockies prevented us from road-tripping, and I was rewarded on Thanksgiving Day with beautiful red blossoms. When I converted White Friday photos to black and white, my red Christmas cactus rendered the perfect hue for my tenth annual White Friday blog post. (Wow!!! Ten years today!!!)

We received another five inches of snow the day before Thanksgiving last year, and I was able shoot 188 photos of mostly quickly melting snowflakes. Out of that batch, I got 88 halfway decent shots. I finished editing my photos at 1:30 a.m. White Friday 2024, so snowflake photos were my first official 2024 White Friday project.

When Lizard awoke, he decided he wanted a tortilla with cheese for breakfast instead of homemade waffles. White Friday again. I put a mixture of white Italian cheeses on a white tortilla, and second project of the day was soon doing a great disappering act. Lizard loved it!

My next White Friday project was the daily hip pain management course my insurance company provided a couple of weeks earlier. It was a free service provided to help me (and presumably all the company's clients) stay healthy. Most of the exercises they gave me were very easy, but anything that can take the jolt out of arthritis is worth a shot, right?

Finally, it was time to crochet. I kept wondering what WIP I could work on that might satisfy my White Friday yearnings. I could make a Christmas T-shirt or sweatshirt; I had three unused Ts and two unused sweatshirts hanging in my closet leftover from craft fair goals at least a decade ago. I could work on my Moda Blockheads project; it could certainly use any kind of attention. I could work on Hawaiian Punch. I could craft any of my Spoonflower panels into a mini or baby quilt; all the panels are white on the backside. If I used white thread, that would count, right? Ultimately, I chose to make a new snowflake for my Snowflake Monday blog post ten days away. (The following week was already done.)

I ended up using the pattern to make a couple of snowflake necklaces, too. I'd just found out exactly two weeks earlier to the day that my sister had been diagnosed with breast cancer. I had a pink glow stone, and covering it with sparkly thread provided by Sisters of the Snowflake founder Autumn gave me courage to go forward in faith on behalf of my sister.

We had a backyard visitor while I crocheted. Vanilla sky provided the perfect background for this particular photo.

We celebrated Thanksgiving with Lizard's mom a week late because of the big Thanksgiving snowstorm. This provided a second chance at more White Friday photos a week late. I count them because I could have gone shopping, or I could have gone for a haircut. Instead, for the first time in many years, I took snow and snowflake photos on the Grand Mesa!!!

No better way in the world to celebrate White Friday, in my opinion! Well, perhaps attending the brand new Grand Junction temple will make this year even more special. It wasn't yet open in 2024.

Grand Mesa snowflakes. Oh, my goodness! It was so cold, but the flakes were SO big! I can't wait to go back!

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Love One Another

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Sunday's Coming

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He Reigns

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Light of the World

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Why We Need

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Friday Fortius

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Friday Fortius

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Light the World

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Friday Fortius

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White Friday

White Friday last year is such a blur. That week turned my life upside down, but in writing today's blog post in early November of 2024 (I traditionally have composed my White Friday blog posts a year in advance, as they happen, or right after), I realized my life wasn't the center of the universe last year. Lizard's life took the biggest hit he's ever faced, and we're still dealing with some of the repurcussions. What began on Thanksgiving 2023 may influence the rest of his life. It was not something we planned for or expected, and now it's something we are forced to deal with on an almost daily basis. But Thanksgiving is a time for giving thanks, not moaning and groaning about things that can't be changed.

I'll start with the White Friday soap. I thought I'd detailed our White Friday ordeal on my blog earlier this year, but a search turns up nothing except the aftermath. I hinted several times at what happened, but I never explained. It all started with White Friday soap. In a hotel room. During our Thanksgiving celebration with Lizard's family. Even that is foggy now. White foggy.

Back in about April or May, I thought I should probably write in more detail about what happened. Now that the annivesary is upon me, I'm not sure I can do it. It might take a bit more healing. A bit more gratitude. A bit more distance. If it doesn't appear weekly or monthly on my blog beginning next week, rest assured I kept a good journal. I will share the story at some point.

Lizard was up for only a very short drive on White Friday. Although we did get a few fog photos, I was mostly limited to White Friday photos I could take in the neighborhood and white thread crochet, which, I confess, I wasn't as motivated to do at that time, and white thread hand-quilting.

Higher elevations of the nearby canyon got a bit of snow Thanksgiving night. So a touch of white was just waiting to be photographed. At the time, I wished Lizard felt better so I could shoot more. Now, in retrospect, I'm so thankful he agreed to go out at all. We got snow White Friday night. The white Grand Junction temple made for perfect White Saturday photos.

The drive home was treacherous for the first three or so hours because road conditions did not improve without the blast of sun the canyons got later in the day, after we'd already nagivated our way through. It was too dangerous to pull over to take photos, so I got only a handful of photos before we got into the canyon shadows and only one snowy shot at an official rest stop.

The snow followed us home, and we had a White Monday while I worked from home.

I finished only one snowflake during the Thanksgiving holiday. It wasn't totally original. It was inspired by an old snowflake.

My White Friday hand-quilting still is not done yet. Still packaged from our 2023 Thanksgiving trip. I never took it out of the bag after we got home. Never had time. Now I'm two weeks and a day away from White Friday 2024. This project will be one of my goals for next year's White Friday blog post. And I'll try harder to snap more White Friday photos in 2024. But you won't see them until 2025. :)

Another 2023 White Friday goal was to finish the hand-stitching of my QAYG Hawaiian Punch, which I fully intended to gift to my 50-plus-year penpal in April 2024 for her birthday. I finished this part of my White Friday stitching in January of this year, so not totally White Friday. I was able to finish this portion of the project once Lizard's White Soap skin trauma abated. Working on this piece in peace for the first time in a couple of months reminded me of the true spirit of Thanksgiving and my very own White Friday tradition.

I just recently learned it's okay to pat myself on the back, quite literally, for making it through one of the darkest times in our lives, the six weeks there was no white and no light. Almost no hope. Just fear. Just panic. The resulting gratitude is something I hope I can incorporate into every day, not just Thanksgiving, and not just White Friday. I am thankful for Lizard, for faith, for prayer, for overcoming, for healing, for friends and family, for hobbies, for snow, and for being able to stay home and keep my wallet shut on the biggest shopping day of the year.

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He is Risen

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Good Friday

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