So here it is now, after Christmas once more! The cards are fluttering in from across the country, as meanwhile, the 2010 ones are fluttering down off the curtain where I clip them to enjoy, with the birthday cards, throughout the year. The electronic messages are zinging me from around the world. And most amazing, I'm still here to enjoy it all! Older now than my father was when he died, now I can wonder if I'll take after my mother's side. Or wonder if I would want to!

So, what are the highlights?

• What about recovering the fairly-full use of my right ankle and foot after falling twice on the same day in early October of last year? That took about eleven months, and I'm definitely grateful for the range of abilities it has regained.

• Maybe continuing to lead monthly photo safaris, maintaining a rate of over 900 hits a week on my photo website, having my first photo show, and having a November image chosen as a regional organization's Christmas card?

• Or healing another badly-banged-up knee--never mind the 6 weeks of crazy itching
--I'm just happy to be able to kneel again!

• Or FINALLY, in mid-spring, starting a transcription of the internal dictionary my computer-based Scrabble game uses, which also provides definitions for some, but not all, of the words my ancient Wordzap game claims exist. I can even use some of them handily…zarfs and zaxes, qats and suqs and qaids and qanats are all floating within reach when I need them!

• Or traveling to Germany to sing with two other choirs there, one of which made a lovely, colorful calendar photo from our concert picture, and finding 42 different kinds of birds in the cities where we stayed, plus a freeway-speed glimpse of two flying storks, the one
bird I had said I wanted to see.

• Or visiting a friend from some decades ago en route to the family land in California and finding THREE pairs of right-size pants at the thrift store in his town, plus a different road to use in getting from east to west.

• I can't overlook picking up two or three friends and enjoying the hot pools (and maybe a Thai meal!) a half-hour south of us every few weeks during the non-warm months. It's not so nice during the summer, but our climate gives us three other seasons when it is perfectly delightful.

• Or touring Craters of the Moon on a fine summer day to help test a friend couple's new car. Or a mid-week healthy spring day off with the same friends, visiting the astounding waterfalls of southern Idaho's spring runoff and rambling on the backcountry trails at another popular park.

• Or picking up the phone and finding at the other end a high school boyfriend, and still
being able to talk for hours. But there's also a sadness there: he won't use computers,
and so won't go see my photos!

• Sadness is the price we pay for being able to enjoy, I suppose. We mourned the loss of friends from more than one section of Camerata Singers, our community choir that can number over 125, as well as the director's newborn daughter. And recently, we filled a church in remembrance of a favorite member of the photography club. It has been COLD here in Pocatello since the first weekend of November, when it snowed several inches the night before that month's First Saturday Photo Safari, making for a magical camera outing with one long-time friend and one brand-new one. Like the sadness, the snow and biting cold are a gift that enlarges our capacity to enjoy the warm times…which, with the sunlight, are on their way back now!

And that, dear friends, is all I've been inspired to say. Maybe the four-page fount is drying down at last!

The rest is just about the photos....The photo collection for 2011 came mostly from First Saturday Photo Safari outings that I led for the Portneuf Valley Photographic Society.

The first First Saturday Photo Safari of 2011 (held on the second Saturday because the first had been New Year's Day, it had just snowed, and the party I had been invited to was that day instead of NY eve) began with the excitement of two NEW people joining two regulars. Not being able to decide what direction to take, we followed our noses, which led us east. Wayne, Roger, and Ruth each gave Julie directions at different junctures, which led us first to Franklin Junior High School, where Wayne had seen a couple of moose earlier in the week (we didn't, but we thought it was an excellent place to go again, other times), and then over the hill to Rapid Creek Road and Inkom, and back to Pocatello via Old Highway 91 and a sumptuous lunch at the Sand Trap.

The second adventure had Wayne, Roger, Tracey, John and Ruth running north and then east into Wolverine Canyon, away from Blackfoot, Idaho. Wildlife-watching was the order of the day, as we flushed upland game birds, ogled a deer herd grazing among circle-irrigation equipment, and deciphered tracks in the snow. Lunch at the Homestead Restaurant in Blackfoot capped off a cold, windy afternoon.

In March, the chosen direction was south, and then we opted for a northward jog into Blackrock Canyon, which absorbed Roger, Tracey, and Ruth for the morning. Roger left, and the ladies lunched at Chili's and moved on to McCammon via the west side of Marsh Valley, picking up Indian Creek at Inkom.

April's outing had two new folks again, and took Rickie, Traci, and Ruth ultimately to Lava, via the Pocatello landfill, Indian Creek, Inkom, and McCammon, with many stops and other side-trips along the way. Riokie, head of the porcelain painters' group, was looking for animals, this month's theme, so we let that be the focus of this trip. Lunch was at Johnny's in Lava.

May was filled with so many obligatory activities that I don't remember if we even had an official outing, but Marijana and I did go back to Indian Canyon, and Roger, Peggy, and I ventured to Caldron Linn, Twin Falls Park, and Shoshone Falls for a mid-week health day.

June must have had people working hard to keep up with the weeds overgrowing their yards; nobody came to either outing that I scheduled. I didn't bring a camera with me on a choir tour to Germany in mid-June, buying postcards instead.

In July, the first weekend included a holiday, so there were complaints heard, but on the appointed 1st Saturday, Judy and Lorne joined Ruth in scurrying over the countryside at the north end of Pocatello and then up the Green Canyon for wildflowers, with a fine Jeri's Jumbo brunch between. Then on the second Saturday, Wayne and Ruth made up new rules and worked with evening light at the north end again, at the city's fine southside rose garden, and at the start of the AMI Trail.

Nobody came in August or September, even though both trips were specially re-scheduled to the Second Saturday. The July/August photos here came from Ruth's annual trip west, which included a respite at Wallowa Lake State Park, where I hadn't been in 30 years. The return leg of that journey gave me a day in Lamoille Canyon and an hour near Angel Lake, both in northern Nevada.
My September contributions were from the Native Plant Society's annual fall color outing and another delightful stay near Maple Grove Hot Springs.

The first Saturday in October was given to Scott Kelby's World Wide Photo Walk http://worldwidephotowalk.com/walk/pocatello-id-united-states/ >; a healthy group from our club took part, wandering Idaho State University's lower campus area for some fine shots.

November's Safari was the morning following a generous, windless dusting of snow; Kathy, Roger, and Ruth worked with a log fence, fast-moving clouds, snow-laden shrubs with bright berries peeking out, and distant mountain ranges. The honeysuckle berries from my back yard were chosen for a holiday greeting card by the Sagebrush Steppe Regional Land Trust.

And December's outing didn't happen either, the temperature hovering around zero degrees F (my semi-Brazilian girlfriend in Arizona admonishes me to remember that SHE thinks in Celsius now, so I must make the distinction!).