Christmas is for Children

….of all ages

I was actually organized for the first time in my life and ready for Christmas Eve. Normally I’m still wrapping gifts as the family starts to arrive but this year I finished all my wrapping the night before and I got all my deliveries of baked goods to the neighbours done earlier in the day.

Our granddaughter came early with her Mom and she was clearly excited. We kept her busy with stories and watching Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer. Papa gave her an apron and chef’s hat so that she could help us set up the table with Christmas goodies.

Later in the day she helped her Mom wrap some last minute gifts that her Papa needed help with and brought them downstairs and set them under the tree.1BFC492D-8642-4A7C-8A41-D6387E922B20

When all the family arrived we opened our stockings and Winnie helped hand out the presents. It was a wonderful evening and as always we had way too much food. We’ll be bringing some over to our daughter’s place tomorrow when we celebrate her birthday. Her twin brother is in London, England so hopefully we’ll hear from him like we did on Christmas Eve, unless the second grandchild decides to come early.

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Taking silly selfies with Auntie JoJo.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas or holiday celebration with family and friends this season. Wishing everyone all the best in 2020.

Carol

Christmas Lights After Dark

….I’m guilty of not putting up my Christmas lights this year….yet

Thank goodness that my neighbours had the energy to put out their decorations and string lights in front of their homes. So far I’ve only managed a wreath on my door and I purchased an outdoor arrangement that I placed on my new post by the front stairs. Unfortunately the winds have been so strong that it’s been blown over three times and the last fall completely shattered the container.

Here are a few homes that I managed to photograph a few days ago. I would have posted sooner but I was having issues with adding photographs taken with my new iPhone. Fortunately that’s been settled.

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Problems Again

….not sure if I’ve been hacked

Almost a year ago I experienced some issues with my WordPress account because I couldn’t like any posts or leave comments on anybody else’s blog. It turned out to be a Safari problem and thanks to some of my readers I was able to correct the problem.

The same thing is happening again but this time going into Safari looking for the same setting is not the issue. I’ve contacted WordPress and they’ve informed me that the problem rests with my ‘over’ usage of my blog. Here is exactly what they said.

…..please note that your account has been flagged for an excessive amount of social activity which made your account appear more like a spam-bot than a human being.

Please keep in mind that our like features are designed to help you keep up with your favorite blogs, give easy feedback to their authors, and nurture direct conversations. They are not to be used as a means of promoting your site through mass notifications.

Does this sound like me? Many of you have probably wondered where I’ve been because I haven’t been able to keep up with all my emails in the last two months. To keep from getting too far behind again I’ve tried to read emails as they come in and many of those I do ‘like’. I’m probably reading 50 emails a day on average. Is that considered over use?

When I questioned them on what is considered excessive this is the answer I received:

To clarify, I’m specifically referring to the amount of times you’ve been using the Like feature. When you like content on WordPress.com, the owners of that content receive notifications each time. This is intended to inform content owners about who is interacting with their content and is not intended as a system to attract mass attention to your content.

After blogging for seven years I think I know how to use the Like feature. I only have 2000 followers, many of whom I assume are dormant. I don’t have time to look for new blogs. Anyway after 24 hours the Like feature will supposedly be enabled again.

I apologize to those who haven’t heard from me in awhile. I have tried to remedy that but WordPress has made that impossible. Hopefully all will be sorted soon. Has anyone else had a similar problem? I’d like to know and any advice that you can give me would be most appreciated.

 

Lens-Artist Challenge – On Display

thanks to Amy for hosting this week’s Lens-Artist Challenge

On the weekend we discovered a new micro-brewery close to home. It’s called Stonehooker which refers to a boat that went out into the lake and dug up shale for the roads in the neighbourhood. It’s very clear when you walk in that the owner had a nautical theme in mind.

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Fan of…#46….Palms

…thanks to Jez for hosting Fan of….

I haven’t been anywhere tropical in over 35 years so I wasn’t sure how many palm pictures I’d find in my archive of photos. Turns out that the zoo, botanical gardens and countries like England and Italy are all keepers of this wonderful tree.IMG-1133-2
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I particularly like what you find under the palms at the zoo.