I know the holiday is behind us. We’re climbing free of the mountains of shredded wrapping paper and the tangle of ribbon. Our trees look forlorn and naked without the heaps of packages underneath them, and if we hear the saccharine strains of one more Christmas song, we’ll heave something heavy at the stereo, but I couldn’t leave the holiday behind without talking about my favorite Christmas tradition: the holiday movie!

In my house, it’s forbidden to watch Christmas movies before Thanksgiving. So by the end of November, pulling out the stack of DVDs is like opening a gift a month early. Holiday movies are a time for all of us to curl up on the couch under mounds of blankets with bowls of popcorn. We begin right after Thanksgiving with THE MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET—the original with Maureen O’Hara and Natalie Wood, of course. From there, each night brings a new jewel of Christmases past.
The classics:

WHITE CHRISTMAS with Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye.
Barbara Stanwyck and Dennis Morgan in CHRISTMAS IN CONNECTICUT.
THE HOMECOMING—a TV special that spawned the Waltons television series.
IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE—no explanation needed

Then there are the ones we cherish from our childhood:

RUDOLPH THE RED NOSED REINDEER
FROSTY THE SNOWMAN
HOW THE GRINCH STOLE CHRISTMAS
A CHARLIE BROWN CHRISTMAS
THE CHRISTMAS STORY—“you’ll shoot your eye out, kid.”

And finally, newer additions to Hollywood’s celebration of the holiday:

CHRISTMAS VACATION
ELF
THE POLAR EXPRESS
THE SANTA CLAUSE
SCROOGED
THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS

As you can see, we spend a lot of nights this way!

Some families bake. Some stand in freezing lines of shoppers on Black Friday. Still others get together for caroling parties or to trim the tree. We all have our own ways of connecting during the season. My family chooses to come together to watch a host of feel-good Christmas films. And as I put away the decorations, sort through the presents, and eat the last gingerbread cookie, I know that next year will bring a return of a treasured tradition: the holiday movie.

Does your family have a special way to celebrate the season? Or a favorite movie you have to watch every year? I’d love to add to my list!

Around the time my children became teenagers, I told them the only reason I didn’t staple their lips shut — or worse — smother them in their sleep, was because I wanted grandchildren someday.

As of last spring, my 32-year-old son­ (yes, I conceived him when I was just six years old) had been married for nine years with no progeny, and my still-single 27-year-old daughter had been torturing me for eons, saying she wasn’t sure she wanted children (she now admits this was purely to push my buttons).

I wondered if—after listening to me threaten their existence throughout their adolescence—my kids possibly feared for their lives.  So I promised, if either of them was inspired to procreate, I wouldn’t bump them off after they reproduced.  Now, I can finally shout it to the world.  I’m a Grammy!

My grandson, Samuel Reason (I think they’re hoping for a sensible child) Kellogg, was born at 10:31 a.m. on Friday, December 18th, weighing 7 lbs. 14 ozs. and measuring 21 1/2 inches.  Here he is (RIGHT) at only 5 minutes old.  He doesn’t like those bad bright lights! He enjoyed his first bath even less.

An hour later (LEFT) our Santa Baby was sleeping peacefully after filling his belly. I made that little Santa hat for him)

I love kids, and family is the number one priority in my life.  I loved being a mother, so it’s no surprise my favorite novels are stories featuring children and teenagers, or that I’m inspired to write books about family relationships.

Unfortunately, there hasn’t been a big market for hearth and home stories outside of category romance (part of the reason I’m still unpublished). And the shorter length of series books and the strict parameters of tone and content limit the scope and subplots of those books.  However, things may be looking up.  I just read in a Publishers Weekly article that there may be a resurgence in contemporary romances, so perhaps that will include some single title home and family stories.

http://www.publishersweekly.com/index.asp?layout=talkbackCommentsFull&talk_back_header_id=6633494&articleid=CA6707062

One of the things I enjoy this time of year is most of the Christmas stories and anthologies have family relationship themes.  It makes me wish the single title publishers would print more of them all year round.  In the last two or three years, it seems the only contemporary single title romances editors will buy involve paranormal elements or murders.

For some strange reason, publishers and producers think if a subgenre becomes popular it’s the only thing they should produce.  For example, when was the last time you saw a Western on TV?  All we get on the boob tube are detectives, doctors, or psychics.  This all-or-nothing mentality is tantamount to the restaurant industry saying, “People love steak and lobster so let’s forget about serving any vegetables.”

Publishers are crying that books sales have fallen off.  Wouldn’t you think they’d realize more diversity might boost sales?

How about you?  Are you  in the mood to read more big contemporary romances with family dynamic subplots that don’t include vampires, ghosts, or dead bodies?  Or are you one of those readers who still can’t get enough of ghoulish novels?  There’s no judgment here.  Everyone is entitled to their taste.  Do you think readers’ preference is directly proportional to what’s being published today?

Don’t forget to enter the Super Secret Santa Giveaway and get some great reading material.  For your chance to win, just email nobodywritesitbetter@yahoo.com and tell us the Super Secret Santa Code (Hint: It’s what Santa says when he laughs).  Gail Fuller will announce the lucky winner on Christmas Day!

This is my last Nobody Writes It Better post for 2009, and this has been one helluva strange year for me. We’ve moved our entire household twice. (And yes, each move was every bit as painful as you might think.  >:-/ ) But now I’m unpacking into a large home office and experiencing fresh glee every time I come across something I love. Given that this is the week after (American) Thanksgiving and these items definitely inspire my gratitude, I thought I’d share them with you.

My Favorite Home Office / Writer’s Office Things:

1. Bookshelf Space.

Okay, so I can only fit three of my seven bookshelves in here along the wall. That’s because the second wall has all my desks/tables/surface area, the third wall is all sunny bay window, and the fourth side has two doors (bathroom and closet), a ginormous lateral filing cabinet…and a built-in bookshelf. Hooray for home builders with taste. (And for the husband who let me snag the master bedroom for my business office!)

2. My Amazon Kindle.

Great for uploading manuscripts to proof AND for downloading fun books. I’m currently reading Jana Oliver’s Sojourn and George Carlin’s Last Words.

3. Sunshine.

See aforementioned bay window. And one side of it looks out over the Sierra Nevadas. Now see aforementioned thumbs-up to husband.

4. Feline Assistants.

No writer’s office is complete without at least one. Especially if that one is skilled at “helping” me unpack.

I have to admit this is a pretty darned great setup.

What would make this space perfect?

1. Better heating. It’s only 63 degrees in this room in the mornings, thanks in part to those bay windows. For a former Georgia Peach, that calls for drastic measures. I’ve installed a space heater near my ankles and have a pair of gloves with USB-powered heating elements. Seriously.

2. A super comfy recliner for reading. Probably located next to the bay window. (I could always drape an electric blanket over it. )

3. A real desk, instead of my “slab of wood on top of two short filing cabinets” plus folding card tables setup. Still, surface area is surface area. And with a clutter monkey like me, it’ll all be used soon. And meanwhile, at least I have a couple of really good desk chairs.

You probably have ideas for a perfect writing, working, or reading space. What do you want in yours?

Someone made the mistake of giving me a platform on Thanksgiving.

I love turkey.

I fell in love with my first turkey at age 10. Oh I’d eaten plenty of them before that, but that was the year I got to pull the wishbone and my pull ended up with the largest part, thus my wish would come true. If you don’t know the legend of the wishbone you can read it here. 

The next turkey I fell in love with I married. I got up at 3 am on Thanksgiving day to prepare our first Thanksgiving meal. I discovered the bird (20 pounds) only took 4 hours. (I went back to bed) All those years my mother got up in the middle of the night to prepare Thanksgiving dinner. To this day I am still confused.

Today I will have officially prepared …wait, I can’t tell you how many turkeys I’ve made, you’d do the math wouldn’t you?

Let’s just say more than forty and less than seventy.

That’s a lot of turkeys I have loved. All those turkey dinners were made from scratch: stuffing, potatoes, pies, breads, yada, yada, yada.

After all those turkeys the lightbulb has finally gone off. 

I’d rather be writing!

Here’s the plan for today:

Up at 8: Work on WIP (writer lingo for my work-in-progress) until ….

10 am: Throw the bird in oven. Take Marie Callender’s pie assortment out of freezer to thaw in fridge.

10:15 am -1:30:  Work on WIP.

1:30 pm: Microwave instant mashed potatoes (4 minutes),  Zap the Reser’s green bean casserole, and mashed sweet potatoes. Throw jars of gravy in saucepan (heat on low).  Prepare Stovetop stuffing. Keep family member’s busy making tossed salad and opening cans of black olives and jellied cranberries.

2 pm: Remove turkey and slice. Toss rolls in oven. Set table. Pour generous glass of very nice Washington State wine.

2:15: Eat with the family.

2:30: Throw dishes in dishwasher, leftovers in fridge. Insert DVD- Die Hard 17 for family to watch on the couch.

2:30 - 9 pm: Work on WIP

THE END

Happy Thanksgiving!

I just got home from an exhausting and fun-filled day of pre-Black Friday shopping. Because I teach, Christmas shopping presents a challenge. When I’m elbow deep in end-of-semester grading, it’s hard to find time (or energy) to find that perfect gift. This year, I really wanted to get some of it out of the way early, which got me thinking of our holiday shopping rituals.

Today, we spent our day at an outlet mall. This particular outlet will open at 12 a.m. this Black Friday. After filling up on Turkey, shoppers from near and far check in to the adjacent hotels. They take power naps before piling into the stores where they hope to find that deeply discounted Coach bag or Nike sweat suit. Some people come for the sales; some people come for the fun; some people come hoping to catch two grandmas duke it out over an extra frilly Christmas dress. Others stay away altogether.

I’m a member of the latter group. Crowds make me…nervous. The one time I made it out at an ungodly hour to go shopping on Black Friday, I didn’t even leave my car. One look at the line snaking through the parking lot had me heading right back home. In my house, we’re big fans of “Cyber Monday” (though we watch online sales all through the weekend). No crowds, no sore feet. (Admittedly, however, less fun than scoping sales with friends.)

I have several friends who never miss Black Friday. Some of them carefully plan their days and know which bargains they’re after. They have lists and time tables, and I wouldn’t put it past one of them to throw a couple elbows if that’s what it took. Others go because they see Black Friday as a spectator sport. If they happen to grab a couple deals, all the better.

But today, as we went store to store at this outlet mall, the one thing we kept hearing from retailers was that today’s sales were either the same as or better than the ones they would put out on Friday. Retail games. And that makes sense, doesn’t it? When Friday brings a mad rush of frantic shoppers determined to cross gifts off their lists (much like me today), they’re primed to buy. Not every item needs to be its most discounted price to score a sale.

Then again, maybe telling us that today’s deals are as good as Friday’s was just another retail game. It’s hard to say. However, my living room full of bags is proof enough that the deals seemed good to me. I surely won’t be headed back Friday to do price checks.

So what about you all? Do you do any holiday shopping? Have you started? Will you go Friday? Or do you wait until the last minute? Or perhaps you prefer to shop online? Whatever you choose, I’d love to hear your bargain shopping tips (holiday and otherwise).

We’re on the internet and things are (mostly) anonymous.  So, be honest… What does your house look like when there isn’t any company coming?

If you’re one of those people who have beautiful, tidy, organized homes, the kind of person who always straightens up before you go to bed or leave the house, then I applaud you. If you’re one of those people who vacuums daily (and I have friends who do!), my hat is off.  If you’re one of those people (hi, Mom!) who never leaves your clean laundry in the dryer to get all wrinkled… wow, want to come visit me??

I am not one of those people.  My house generally looks like a bomb just went off it.  And it doesn’t seem to matter how much cleaning we do.  Even if our house is neat as a pin when company arrives, within 48 hours, we’re back to our normal, cluttered house.

Now, we’re not squalid, I should point out!  We do the dishes and scrub the toilets regularly.  I run the mini-vac daily (or more often!) to clean up the crumbs in the kitchen and the leaves that get tracked in the back door.  But the thing is… we have clutter.  We have a lot of clutter.

There’s the mail that piles up by the front door.  Not the junk mail; that’s easy to discard.  It’s the other papers, the ones that we need to keep but don’t necessarily have to DO something with that accumulate so quickly. The bank statements (that we check online anyway), the bills (that we pay electronically), the statements from our insurance company (we know, you’re not paying for this test or that doctor’s visit).  The magazines that we do read and enjoy, but maybe just haven’t had time to get to yet.  There are the stacks and stacks of papers that the kidlet brings home from school, homework and classwork and exams that we need to look at or send back.  (We won’t even go into toys.  I swear they multiply at night while we sleep.)  My husband brings home books and papers from work.

And I have pages and scribbled thoughts from my latest manuscript.  To-do lists and notes for the websites I’m currently designing.  Knitting patterns and yarn and needles for my latest knitting project.  A stack of books by my bed in my to-be-read pile.

I used to view our clutter as a sign of failure, a testimony that I was failing to live up to the high standards my mother set (and I assure you, her house is almost always spotless… or at least it is when we’re not visiting!). I used to find it depressing, and it added to my overall stress level.

But not too long ago, I had a change of heart.  I looked at a picture of one of those “decorator” homes… you know, the beautifully decorated rooms that have nothing in them.  Big, spacious, empty rooms.  Shelves with one carefully chosen objet d’art, instead of crammed with books and photos.  Chairs and sofas that were probably more comfortable than they looked… but with no books or yarn in reach.  And I realized something.  Our house is cluttered because interesting, creative people live here.  My husband plays guitar and writes music in his spare time.  The kidlet is obsessed with animation at the moment, and leaves piles of storyboard-like pages all over the house.  I am a writer, a web-designer, and an avid knitter.  Our home reflects who we are and what interests us.

And so my house won’t make the front page of any decorator magazine.  My mom may suppress a shudder when she visits and wonder where she went wrong in raising me.  But we’re happy and creative and comfortable here, and isn’t that what the idea of “home” is really all about?  You won’t be bored if you visit us!  Hey, want to learn to knit?  I’ve got some extra yarn and needles right here…

So tell me… what kind of home do you have?  Are you really tidy?  Have any tips or tricks for those of us who aren’t?  If you have clutter, too, how do you feel about it?  Does it make you feel anxious or depressed, or have you come to a place of peace with it?

Do you have a view on soul mates? Are you destined to meet yours or do you think it’s a matter of luck?

I tend towards optimism and believe in fate whereas my sweetheart believes life is based on chance.  

My hubby says, “I don’t believe that love is fated. I could never have received a fate as good as the woman I got.”  

    Yes, folks, he’s a keeper!     

Some say meeting a soul mate, or any occurrence in life, is coincidence, and how we arrive at the point we are today is simply a series of random events.

Some might say that but not me. Sure, we make choices that affect our outcome, but rightly or wrongly I believe one’s life mate is prearranged.

Certain religions support the concept of a soul mate. There’s a Jewish belief that says forty days before a foetus is formed, heaven decrees which girl will marry which boy. Talk about divine intervention!

Perhaps I left myself more open to opportunities for meeting my love because I knew he’d eventually show up. Of course depending on your point of view you might interpret that as making my own luck.

One could write a Ph.D. thesis on the subject of destiny versus luck. Instead I’d rather take a mini poll. Which outlook do you prefer – destiny or luck?

Good fortune (or possibly Google) provided me with this sweet song about waiting for one’s soul mate.

watch?v=zcx9cZEqP1U

One lucky (dare I say fated? *G*) person who comments will receive Michael Bublé’s upbeat CD, Call Me Irresponsible. No, it’s not his latest. Hey, I don’t have that one yet. However I’m optimistic that with a few subtle hints, my dearest love will buy a copy for his ‘wife by chance’ someday soon.

I seem to be surrounded by a lot of single dads lately. And the truth is, they are great fathers. For whatever reason, the mothers are MIA, and it doesn’t seem to be such a bad thing. Most mothers are protective, sometimes nurturing, and are the teachers of “how to be safe.” Which is probably why the mothers of all my adventurous heroines are good and dead. They definitely would have tried to hold back their daughters.

There is certainly no beating a great mom, but I think we’ve actually underestimated the value of fathers on children – especially on daughters.  

I interviewed a few of these single dads to ask them what they thought was the most important thing they gave their children. Here’s what I got back.

Faith – Fathers are best at instilling faith in children because the example of the strongest man they know, turning to or trusting in a higher being, seems to have more street cred with kids than when their mothers do it. (Personally I think this might be more important with boys.)

A Sense of Play – Mothers are bombarded with keeping the home running and while they might be good at scheduled play, AKA “Mommy and Me” classes, it’s often the fathers that bring spontaneous fun and laughter. Keep in mind, these are the same fathers who either didn’t want to grow up, or who always knew how to have fun, or who are just more laid back. They don’t sweat the small stuff. The fathers felt that they were more relaxed about letting their kids express themselves, or be silly. Plus, not many moms know how to make fart sounds with their hands, and are willing to entertain people doing it.  

Mental Toughness – While mom’s might tell a child it’s okay if they don’t want to do something because it’s too scary, or will gladly comfort a child over every bout of tears, dad’s are more “realistic” about life. There is no crying if you want to hang out with the big boys – unless there’s blood. Fathers are less accepting of tears, and for daughters this might be a good balance to have now and then, to teach them control and restraint of their emotions, and help them to deal with the “real world” when it’s time to step out alone. And all the fathers agree that no boy “comes of age” with a woman, no matter how great she is. She is not the example they want to emulate. (But with any luck, they will look for some of their mother’s qualities in a life partner.)

Self-Esteem – A good mother’s love is unconditional. A good father’s love is as well – but a father’s approval seems to be more highly valued by children. It might be that the fathers are not home enough to show it. Or because they don’t know how to express it. Or maybe they are careful about giving it. People smarter than me have likely tried to figure all this out. However, boys very much need their father’s approval and respect to develop their self-esteem. And girls need it even more, so that they think highly of themselves and realize they deserve more from men in their personal relationships. If their fathers don’t “like” them, they will look for love in all the wrong places and wrong ways. This attribute has really made me wonder…while we want both parents to love and respect their children so they grow up knowing they are worthy of good things, who would you pick if you could only have one? Who’s approval and respect is more important to a child’s development? I’m not sure that can be answered, since there are so many good moms. But I have seen what happens with woman who don’t get that from their dads, and it is detrimental. There is always a lack of self-esteem and confidence missing. So that makes me wonder something else. If a bad dad, is it better a dead dad? You know, not literally, just, is it better not to know him at all rather than be scarred or severely wounded by lack of love?

I’m not sure about any of these questions or answers but invite your thoughts. Look forward to hearing from you.

Trish Albright

I started tweeting in the Spring of 2009, mostly so our kids (who are techno-geeks) could keep up with us via pictures and short messages when we took a two week trip out west. It worked great! We felt connected and they enjoyed seeing what Mom and Dad were up to. What began as a short term communication experiment for the family has become an important communication tool for me. I spend a good bit of time on Twitter, but it isn’t wasted time. Well, not all of it.

In fact, my Tweeps tweet and retweet tons of information. I click on an interesting link and voila, I’ve solved the problem of bath towels that get stinky too quickly, courtesy of a post on Lifehacker’s blog found via @AngelaJames. The secret? Wash towels once with hot water and one cup of vinegar only. Rewash with hot water and a half cup of baking soda only. Towels are stripped of leftover detergent and softner and smelling fresh! Who knew?

You can join me in following President Obama (@BarackObama) to see what’s going on in the White House. For contrast, I follow Senator John McCain (@SenJohnMcCain). I follow Phillip Elliott(@PElliottAP), an AP reporter on the White House beat, just to see what his life and work is like.

As a writer, I find it interesting and helpful to follow Sue Grimshaw (@SueGrimshaw) of Borders Books and Music to see how the book selling/marketing side of the business works. By following a couple of literary agents, I’ve found great information on the royalty rates publishes pay and how publishers decide what they will pay an author. Since I’m seeking an agent, I’ve discovered what agents want to see, when they are open or closed for submissions, tips for great query letters, and a little insight into their personalities. An agent provided a link to a blogger who profiles agents http://caseylmccormick.blogspot.com. A lot of publishing professionals will tweet tips with the hash tag #pubtip. To see all #pubtips in one place, simply do a search on Twitter using #pubtip. A wealth of information for inquiring minds.

You can find editors on Twitter, too. I dicovered that my taste in TV shows is very close to those of a certain editor at a certain mainstream publisher. We’ll have things to talk about next time I bump into her at a conference.

As a dedicated reader as well, I follow several of my favorite published authors. Their tweets give me an insight into who they are, how they write, how they work, how they see the world and how they put that into their writing. I believe this helps and inspires my writing. I’ve also found a great network of writers on the path to publication just like I am. This network is inspiring and encouraging. Check out #amwriting; #wip; #writegoal to find new friends and cheerleaders.

Through casual mention in one of  author Connie May Fowler’s (@ConnieMayFowler) tweets, I found out about a terrific workshop for which she was packing to go teach. P.S. Ms. Fowler: I will be applying for the 2011-2013 Writing Below Sea Level class.

For kicks, I follow my novel. Yes, my novel sends me tweets about how neglected and lonely it is out there in mind/space/ether, and how much it wants me to get to work and make it real. It even responds to my apologetic and sorry tweets to it. Sometimes, I wish I could write the novel through dialog with it. Hmmm.

If you need a nudge, maybe your novel will send you tweets, too. Try @Your_Novel and see what your book has too say.

But there’s more. Check out TWITTER GUIDE FOR WRITERS by Debbie Ridpat Ohi www.inkygirl.com/a-writers-guide-to-twitter. Ms. Ohi provides insight and instruction in how to use Twitter and get the most from it.

So for you Twitter virgins, venture over to www.twitter.com, watch the tutorial and see if you think Twitter would be useful to you. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised at what you find! See you there: @Telliottbrown. Look for my Twitter avatar:

I recently updated my photo albums, a task that lingered on my to-do list for years. Five years, to be exact. And it took me a year to do it! No kidding.

I began keeping photo albums when I was fourteen. I am now on photo album #41. Forty-one! Yikes! When you factor in that I am several years away from turning 55 (14 + 41), that amounts to an average of more than one photo album per year.

In my defense, my first 8 albums didn’t hold many pictures. By the time I reached photo album #9 at the age of 21 following a three-month backpacking trip to Europe, I realized I needed to progress to the Fattest Damn Photo Albums the World Has Ever Seen. That trip alone took up 3 albums.

Will anyone other than me ever look at these albums? Won’t they just wind up in a post-Cindy’s-funeral dumpster someday?

Maybe, but I don’t care. I love keeping albums. Yes, even in this digital age, I insist on keeping them. My process has definitely changed, however. Back Before Kids, I updated my albums whenever I received a roll of developed film from the drugstore. Now, I have a drawer in my writing desk where I store items for my next Great Photo Album Update: pictures, newspaper articles featuring family members, ticket stubs and souvenir items, etc. The idea is that when I can no longer close the drawer, I update my albums. However, usually I just move a box into my office and move the pile of stuff into that box, begin refilling the drawer anew…then forget about the box.

I refuse to give up and never update my albums. This last update took so long because I ran out of albums. For some reason, rather than hopping back down to the drugstore for a couple more last fall, I allowed several months to pass and by then I had filled the darn drawer again!

Another way my photo album collection has changed…I used to keep 99% of my developed pictures. Even the utterly crappy ones. I think this is because photography itself has changed so much in the last 35 years. Getting pictures developed in the mid-Seventies was not cheap, so no way was I letting any of my pictures go to waste, no matter how crappy they were.

My first camera was a 100 Kodak Instamatic that used 126 Kodacolor film. I know this because I wrote the information inside the cover of my first album. My Instamatic looked something like this:

 No offense to Kodak, but it took lousy pictures (or maybe it was me). Evidence:

Yes, a photo featuring a cat that’s not even looking at the camera is definitely a keeper!

In my defense, I was only fourteen.

I figured I must have progressed to a better camera sometime during my teen years, because the pictures became larger (3 x 5 inches) and the resulting photos much more clear (or maybe it was me). But I didn’t notice a decided improvement in my photography until I received my first 35mm camera at 20, a Pentax K1000.

Then, wow, it was like a whole new world opened up to me. I loved that camera. A Pentax K1000 is pretty indestructible (I know, because I accidentally bashed it on a temple in Greece to no ill effect a few months later). It’s the perfect learning 35mm camera (BDP – Before Digital Photography). I could manually focus! Actually, I had no choice, because the K1000 didn’t feature automatic focus.

Here’s my now-husband (right) and his brother heating all our “emergency rations” our first night in a Paris hotel:

Talk about an improvement! (Or maybe it was them). (You gotta admit, they’re pretty cute).

I loved the K1000 so much that I eventually coerced my husband into buying me a zoom lens for it. Sometime during our marriage, he decided we needed a point-and-shoot camera. We invested in a compact Canon that cost more than what digital cameras cost now. I can’t recall using it much. The DH did.

Then, in 2003, we bought (or he bought, I was still addicted to my K1000) our first digital point-and-shoot, a Canon PowerShot S45.

We still have this camera. I take it to RWA conferences for ease of fitting inside a purse. It snaps good pictures, but I can’t manually focus and the zoom capabilities don’t even begin to approach my old K1000’s. Evidence:

My K1000 was 23 years old when I snapped this photo in the days before the 2003 RWA conference in New York City.

My husband traveled with me, bringing his new Canon S45. Remember I said the K1000 survived a smack-down against a Greek temple in 1981? Our new digital point-and-shoot didn’t even survive our trip to New York! My husband accidentally shattered the LCD display screen when he collided with a table in an Abercrombie & Fitch.

Alas, my K1000 didn’t survive NYC, either. When we returned home, we had the digital Canon repaired. But my 23-year-old K1000 had begun to get finicky about film. I don’t know if the gadget that holds the film inside the Pentax plain ol’ wore out or if film grew skinnier, but when I opened the camera after filling a 36-exposure roll with photos, I discovered that half my NYC pictures were missing, because the film had never caught on the gadget. Sob!

This had begun happening to my films at about the 21-year mark. After our NYC trip, I gave up. I put away the K1000, and I have never used it again. I converted to digital…but I always mourned the loss of my 35mm camera.

In fact, now I realize I stopped updating my photo albums following that trip to New York. Could it be I was in such grave mourning over the lost of the Pentax that I could not :::sob::: bring myself to update my albums? (Sounds better than laziness, no?)

However, now I own this baby along with a 300mm zoom lens, my Christmas and birthday gifts from last year:

A Canon Digital Rebel XSi. After five long years without a 35mm or a zooms lens, I am in heaven! I can manually focus again (I love manual focus). I can get creative…

 ”Cat Paw, with Foot”

I adore my new Rebel! The problem with digital photography, however, is that I take wayyyyyyyy more pictures than ever before. I save them to my hard drive, but I also get some developed for my photo albums. I try to be discerning. When I upload my camera card to the photo kiosk, I only choose those pictures I think I absolutely must have developed into prints. And then, while updating my albums, I realize I don’t need to keep a good 10-20% of those I’ve had printed. Finally, after all these years, I’m learning. No more pictures of cats not looking at the camera (unless the idea is that you don’t want the cat to look at the camera).

How about you? In this age of digital photography, do you keep photo albums? Did you ever keep them? How far behind are you in your updating? Does anyone have more than 41 albums? (I ask this so I don’t seem so weird).