Gifts of the very best kind

This is a thank you to my son for helping me over the holidays. He stayed a week longer than originally planned and made sure all was well here before returning to his home.

This gorgeous stargazer lily is a gift he brought me on one of those days.

I call this blog Art and Life Interwoven and that is

what this is to me.

The art of living,

of celebrating what is beautiful

interwoven with love and caring.

Gifts, beautiful loving gifts

I have been regaining strength after getting a new hip.

Throughout this somewhat lengthy and intense process,

I have had many blessings.

Friends and strangers were truly there for me - were kind and loving and supportive during the challenge of these weeks.

Above you see a beautiful lady in front of a graceful tree that echoes her loveliness.

These are both gifts to me and like everything that I have experienced,

they compliment each other and yet were not planned to be so.

I think it is a life lesson to receive what others give you from the deep kindness of their hearts.

It is a treasure in my life to experience this.

I am deeply thankful for such blessings.

Before its entirely over

One of my neighbors across the street had their lights down by New Years Day. But yet another still has their small white twinkle lights gracing the cold winter nights we've been having lately.

As for me, I have candles in the windows and my wreath still gets lit by

a spotlight that is on for several hours each dark winter's eve.

I usually leave my candles in the windows until the end of February. Things are so bare that I feel it all needs a little visual warmth!

This image is one I made while playing around with my digital camera as I photographed our Christmas tree.

I almost like it better than the realistic photographs I took.

Artists - they play around! Here's to a year of happy playing around to us all!