Best Of

Every once in a while, I have to go back through my 13 years of blogging to find the history of a quilt I made or the inspiration for a snowflake I designed or when I bought a new camera or achieved a bicycle goal. Almost every time I go back in time, I find memories I'd totally forgotten. I keep a journal, too, but my blog is where I typically come when I'm trying to remember something.

I began compiling this list early in 2022 because I'd been really struggling the last couple of years to keep the blog going. (Obviously, that was before I actually lost my blog for six weeks during the summer!!!) Lack of time and lack of new photos sometimes make me feel Snowcatcher is not a place I need to spend so much of my limited free time. Going back and reading special posts like these make me so thankful I haven't given up yet. I only hope I can still find something meaningful to write about now and then so this blog continues to have its magical moments.

Here are some of the posts for which I am most grateful.

15 Quilts for Christmas

Unspent Dreams

Centuries

The Dark Side

A Little Late for Halloween

Ownership (with GREAT reader comments!!!)

Earned Jerseys

Hawaiian Dreams (three parter, but only one is linked here)

Surgery

Unwired (and that iPhone 5 totally died without warning right before 2020, I guess providing warning of what was to come...)

The Day I Lost...

No Respect

Tour de Lavender

Matcheypoo

How can I write anything about gratitude without including a favorite photo or two? I am so grateful for the world we live in, for the ability to capture the finest things in life and the yearning to share the images. Thank you, God, for giving me eyes, talent, great cameras, a magnificent place to live and awesome technology!

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Best of

I was scrolling back through my published posts when I came across a memory from 2021 that is one the best highlights of my year. I decided a trip down Memory Lane might be the best way to end what has been a challenging year.

I planned to do a top ten list of my own favorite blog posts for 2021, but I had a few honorable mentions, too:

  ●  Finding my adopted daughter's best childhood book fair entry.

  ●  Another milestone for Lizard.

  ●  And you can never have too many milestones...

And now, on to the real countdown...

10.  Getting jabbed was far from my favorite accomplishment this year, but only because it didn't bring about a permanent better situation. I'm still glad I got vaxxed, and I'm still hoping for the day I can freely visit family again.

9.  Making hot chocolate bombs for all the grands for Valentine's Day was a real treat. Especially the leftovers!

8.  Our sixth annual Snowflake Ball was the first virtual event I did on my own outside of work.

7.  I was so thrilled to capture pretty awesome photos of a hummingbird right through my window!

6.  And what could possibly be better than hummingbirds?!?

5.  I didn't remember writing this year's White Friday post last year, and after I read it the second time (shortly before it was due to be published the day after Thanksgiving), I was excited about my blog again and so thankful I haven't fallen to the temptation to let it go yet. I'm so thankful I'm able to try to look for reasons to smile when the world has me down. I'm grateful my blog can document that.

4.  Every tiny improvement Lizard makes goes down as an AWESOME day, in my opinion.

3.  Lots of good days with our new mini lavendar farm, even though it's not finished yet.

2.  Probably the second best day of my entire year.

1.  I saved the report of my best day ever for Thanksgiving. And it's still my best day ever!

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Friday Fun

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Wordless Wednesday

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Bearly Home

Yet another case of being in the right place at the right time...

We arrived in Gardiner, Montana, too late to try to make it through Yellowstone and still get photos. It probably was too late to get a camping spot anywhere in about 100 miles, as well. Driving through the tiny hamlet, we saw a few hotel/motel signs proclaiming "vacancy." We both assumed the rooms were available because they were too expensive. However, the further from the park, the more chance of vacancies.

So we decided to give the furthest one out a shot...


And we got a room! With a quilt on the bed! Not a cheap, run of the mill comforter just like all the other hotels on the planet. A real quilt! And on the front door...

Our room was the only one sporting this little harbinger!


We settled into the room and then traversed into Mammoth Hot Springs for what we thought might be a little sunset gold reflecting on the falls, but overcast skies and a foreboding-looking storm to the east dashed any hope of radiant hot springs. The springs also were MUCH dryer than I remembered from my last visit, more than a decade ago.


Yellowstone rarely fails to accommodate hopeful photographers, though. What it lacked at Mammoth Hot Springs, it made up for in wildlife. Before returning to our hotel room well after dark, we'd caught a few glimpses of some favorite characters.








We also picked up a carton of TruMoo chocolate milk to share the next morning, since we planned to depart before the complimentary continental breakfast at the hotel the next morning.

Another night NOT in sleeping bags was a bonus for two road-weary travelers. Home was beginning to seem so far away, even though it was inching closer. We must be getting old!

The final leg of our journey took us through Yellowstone during daylight hours and whittled off so much on our memory cards, we can't wait to go back. The fountains and geysers were so overcrowded by the time we passed, we decided we HAVE to go back, when the national park is not as insanely crowded.

The Lizard had given Old Faithful just a quick drive-by back in the thesis days. I, on the other hand, had spent many vacations here with a pair of pint-sized, excitement-addicted, ritalyn candidates. Even though Yellowstone and Alaska make jokes about the mosquito being the state bird, both venues have a stranglehold on me I just can't fight. I don't want to. The Lizard knew this, but wasn't as excited about Yellowstone until this trip.

This trip changed everything.










We had bearly (yes, I meant to spell it that way) 24 hours between Gardiner and Jackson. No Bullwinkle this trip, yet this trip cast a whole new meaning on the phrase, "a day in the park."

We can't wait to go back. Both of us. Together. Perhaps even with bikes. We can't wait to go back!

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My New Top Ten (or My Baker's Dozen)

10.

9.

8.

7. (tie)


6. (tie)


5. (tie)



4.

3.

2.

1.

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My Top Ten

10.

9.

8.

7.

6.

5.

4.

3.

2.

1.

What's yours?!?

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