Night Moves

In my desperate attempt to get things ready for Christmas here at Procrastinatoe Gardens, I have been trying to get our Annual Family Photograph ready for mailing along with the Christmas cards.  All of the other blogs I have been visiting are in full swing, the trees (yes, many of you have multiple Christmas trees!!) are up and decorated fantastically along with the rest of your homes and gardens.  (I am feeling inadequate here and time is running out....but I do have an excuse-- I AM sleep deprived, ha!)

Some of you may remember my post about the actual photo session (In Our Natural Habitat) and how we just couldn't get our act together.  Out of a mere few hundred pictures (gotta love digital cameras) I think we had four that were slight possibilities.

The reason I am on this silly quest for the Perfect Family Photo is all the fault of a magazine article and the Win A Tractor!  Show Us Your Backyard Makeover Contest.   (More about that in the aforementioned post if you're interested.)  We were cutting it close to the deadline for mailing our entry, I know what else is new? and using a tiny digital camera on a tripod and the automatic timer along with Joel's fantastic sprinting ability, we managed to get a nice photo.  Not a tractor-winning photo (or even an honorable mention) but a nice photo nonetheless.  (By the way, when the magazine announced the contest's winner a few months later and interviewed the lady, she said she was going to sell the tractor because she had no room to even turn around in her very small yard with it.)  I used the picture we took for the contest in my Christmas card back in 2006 and many people said they liked it and the rest is history....we keep taking a family photo every year with mixed results.

Anyway, last night I went to work on trying to get a picture ready.  Some of the commenters on the photo shoot post thought we had some possibilities in October and one of them, I think it was Junebug, said we should make a mosaic of the pictures.  So, I've been trying out my vast, ok, teeny talents at putting photos together.

This was my first attempt...until Joel reminded me I have to stick to a size I can stuff in an envelope and keep the budget under a dull roar and keep the family photo large enough so people don't need a magnifying glass to see us.

Ok, here's that size........hmmmmmmmm.  Next.

Eileen over at Gatsby's Gardens suggested we use just the shot of Carl and I in the dome. (I do like this one!)

Here we are, busy bees in the middle of the lily bloom.....eh.

The one above isn't too bad, but on second thought, this doesn't look very much like Christmas, does it?

Since I am trying to do a mosaic, I thought why not add a Christmas theme to the photo?  The one area I do have sort of kind of decorated is outside.  (Did I ever mention I don't really like to be in the house much?  Gads, I miss the garden.)  Joel was home from work last night and I asked him to take some photos of the Christmas lights in the yard for me while nagging Carl to help me get the lights fixed on several of my decorations.  Here is the end result of the nagging and the photo shoot:

Reindeer on the Pachyberm

Back to Mosaic Land:

This one is ok.

Maybe......

I think I may have found one we could use:

Should I add the Christmas border, or not?

 

 Decisions, decisions.

If I had more time, I'd work longer on the mosaic editing, but one thing is sure, time is running out!  I still have to take these images to a local big box store and see if I can figure out how to make their machine print them up, which should be good for another post, I can about imagine the fun I will have with the machine.  Maybe I'll print off a few different ones just to be goofy. 

Oh, I did get a phone call from the sleep doctor (somnalogist?) on Friday just before 5PM. I had given up hope on hearing from him before next week.  Turns out I do have moderate sleep apnea and my oxygen saturation is not all that great, so they want me to come in for another sleep test, this time with the CPAP machine on all night.  I hope I can get in before the first of the year, even if it means I won't have everything done for Christmas.  

Maybe if I qualify for a machine, I won't be tired all the time....there will be no more procrastination...I won't need to Create A Crisis to get things done, why, I might lose weight, I'll look younger, I'll..........ok, I'll quit dreaming out loud here;  this Miracle Machine had better come with a Magic Lantern and a Genie too, huh?