Today, I put our little Christmas Nut Cracker soldiers alongside the courtyard entrance. I also hung about a dozen red ornaments on the green palo verde by the road. Click on the image to enlarge.

I haven’t posted one of my nerdy 3D pictures for a while, so here’s one I took today on our shopping trip to the Valley Metroplex.

There is a roadside rest stop a few miles southeast of Wickenburg that is situated along the banks of the Hassayampa River. The area is habitat for riparian wildlife unique to this part of Arizona.

The tree trunk in the foreground is a mesquite, with a variety of other vegetation in the background. We did not see any of the birds or woodland critters today, but this is still a pleasant spot to pull off of US 60 for a rest.

Click on the thumbnail image above to see the full-sized 3D anaglyph. In case you don’t have a pair of red/cyan 3D glasses available, you can see the 2D image here.

I took my truck in for service today. Verna came to pick me up while the work was being done. There is an antique store right next door to the auto place, so we went in to look at the “Treasures” within. There was some interesting and very old stuff. Verna gave away a lot of stuff to her son just like we saw in the store. Click on the image to enlarge.

Too much football, family and food to blog. Have a nice day!

A little at a time, we’re going to decorate our little desert house for the Christmas Holiday. Today, I started out by trimming our little mailbox with poinsettia flowers. They are the plastic kind, but look very nice around the rim of the milk can that serves as an anchor for the post. Click on the image to enlarge.

Happy Thanksgiving! Our dinner consisted of turkey breast, mashed taters, cinnamon carrots, green beans and Verna’s Thanksgiving Dressing all topped with her killer turkey gravy. We’re all stuffed now. Not shown are the dinner rolls and cranberry jelly. Click on the image to enlarge.

A couple of weeks ago, I had an appointment with my medical caregiver to remove a dime-sized growth on my right shoulder. I went home with a little round bandage on the excised area.

The lab at the clinic performed a biopsy on the removed tissue and it turned out to be a basal cell carcinoma - skin cancer in other words. I got a call last week that they wanted to schedule a second procedure that would remove additional tissue that would “get it all.”

On Monday, I went in to have the second procedure performed. After it was all finished, I had a two-inch gash on the shoulder held together with a bunch of sutures.

This is actually the second time I have gone through this; the first basal cell removal and follow-up occurred before I retired in 2009 and left a nasty, jagged scar in the middle of my back.

This time, this surgeon did a much better job of stitching me up; if you’re inclined to view my new nice, straight incision, you can click in the rectangle above and to the right.