A Victorian Christmas (Lots of Pictures)

O Christmas Tree, O Christmas tree,
How lovely are your branches!
In beauty green will always grow
Through summer sun and winter snow.
O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree,
How lovely are your branches!

Hope that everyone is well as the Christmas Season begins! Over the weekend, my parents and I went were out of town and we went to the home of a senator from the 1860s. Each year, they decorate the house with all sorts of Christmas trees and other Christmas decorations. The house has a lot of donated period furnishings too, so I spent a good part of the time there simply taking pictures. Here are some of the pictures! Some of them are of pieces of furniture in the house and might not necessarily be Christmas decorations.

One of the smaller Christmas trees.

Love the piano they had there! It was so nicely decorated with lace and Christmas decorations.

A Most Beloved Sister

The past couple of days have been very rough. I still can't believe that my sister is gone. I feel this empty void inside of me. She, along with my mom, was my best friend. My mom, my sister, and I would talk all the time, especially in the evenings before going to sleep. About three years ago, she started to feel unwell, and about two and a half years ago, she was diagnosed with Pulmonary Hypertension; the type that she was diagnosed with is a very rare form of it that only 200 people in the world have. She suffered for two and a half years until Monday, December 12, when she was called up to heaven at the age of 27. I truly miss my sister, but I know that she is in heaven and isn't suffering anymore.

My sister's name was Sunny. She had a blog called Peering Out My Window. She loved to take pictures of everything. When she got sick two years ago, she was limited to what she could take pictures of since she couldn't go out like she used to. She started to take pictures of what she saw outside of the window she was at, whether it was in the house or in the car when she was feeling well enough to get outside of the house. She started Peering Out My Window, but unfortunately she didn't post very much on it. I'm posting here some of the pictures here that she took. I invite you to look at her blog.

Peering Out My Window

This is our dog Coco (before getting groomed)

This is a reflection of my dog Ali while we were on a trip.

Thank you everyone for your condolences over the past week. I very much appreciated all of the Bible verses that everyone has been commenting here: I need to trust in God now more than ever. I truly believe that I have some of the most caring followers in all of the blogging world, and I thank you all for that.


 God Bless,
 

Independence Day Fireworks (And Some Fireworks Photography Tips!)

 Yesterday, I enjoyed some great fireworks for Independence Day! It's very difficult to capture fireworks on a camera; I'm fairly new at taking pictures of fireworks (I've only have taken pictures of fireworks a couple of times). I've posted my top ten, very best pictures of yesterday's fireworks here.

This one was a firework of a star: I got the beginning of it, but it became more of a star as it "fanned out"

Hehe! Smiley!

I'm still learning how to take good pictures of fireworks, but I have found these things out as I was taking pictures:

1. Make sure your camera is very steady as you're taking pictures. I've seen that some articles suggest buying a tripod, but since I don't have one/don't have plans to get one, I simply took pictures with my good, old-fashion hands. Taking pictures without a tripod can make your pictures of the fireworks look "squiggly": I suggest resting your arm on something sturdy (I used the arm of a lawn chair) so your fireworks don't look as "squiggly."
2. If your camera has a "Fireworks" setting, use it! I've noticed what it does is that once you click the camera, there is a delay and then your picture shows up on the screen. My theory is that the delay is for getting the "exposure" from the light from the fireworks. It's also during this delay that it's very important to keep the camera steady.
3. While on the "Fireworks" setting, snap the picture before the fireworks explode. It's easier to do this when the fireworks have a stream of light to light up their path before they explode. Right before you think it's about to go off, snap the picture, keep your camera very steady, and wait for the picture to come up. 
4. Take LOTS of pictures. If you're anything like me and taking pictures, you may take 100 pictures and might end up with only 15 or 20 good ones. For this Independence Day, I took 108 pictures of fireworks, and in the end I found only 21 pictures that were good (I've posted the top 10 best here). The more pictures you take, the greater the chance you will get a lot of good pictures. 

Those are my tips for taking pictures of fireworks. Do you have any particular tips that you could recommend to anyone taking pictures of fireworks? Leave a comment!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Independence Day!

God Bless,
 

Flowers!

I know this isn't really historical costume/period drama/sewing based, but I'm just so tired of winter! There's been so much snow; don't get me wrong, I like snow when it's freshly fallen. But once everyone steps in it and drives in it, the snow just looks bad and you begin to miss spring really quickly. My family and I took a trip to the conservatory in order to get a break from all this snow. Here are some pictures to try to break cabin fever.

I took quite a few pictures of some Japanese Camellias (the first one is the tenth one down in the left row). They were such cute flowers.

And, of course, I had to take pictures of some hyacinth...

"And though the love of a hyacinth may be rather domestic, who can tell, the sentiment once raised, but you may in time come to love a rose?" - Northanger Abbey

Update: Check out Peering out my Window for more conservatory pictures!