…dedication.

Sometimes it takes a concerted effort to do something exactly right to truly screw it up.

Most of you know that Carolyn lost her mom this summer. At the time, she came up with this wonderful notion of adding a snow-viewing lantern to our pond in memory, not just of her mom, but of all our parents and the others who have gone before us.  We knew just the kind we wanted; unfortunately, once we started pricing them out, the cost became prohibitive to us. We truly thought we were going to have to compromise with a lesser lantern. Then, out of the blue, we get a phone call from OSG, who is off in Canada at World Con, NOT to order the lesser lantern we’d settled on.

It seems that, unbeknownst to us, a wonderful bunch of folks who have asked to remain anonymous had taken up a collection to get us something for the pond, and when Carolyn mentioned the lantern on her blog, they immediately knew where to designate the funds. They were … incredibly generous. Thanks to them, we were able to order exactly the lantern we wanted.

Now, comes the total screwup. I’m in charge of the pictures, right? Well, I thought the folks who did this should get first look, so, I asked OSG to go ahead and send pix to them.

Then, thinking it was so special and had been Carolyn’s idea as ’twere, that it should receive special treatment to the largest viewing audience. She gets way more hits than I do, so I gave her the pictures to post on her site, along with her formal thank you.

So…patting myself on the back that I’d really done everything right…I let it go, only to wake up the other day and realize, in no small horror, I had no idea if anything had ever been done.

I began asking questions, and, (a) yes, OSG had done her bit, and (b) Carolyn didn’t know how to post pictures and didn’t realize I’d passed the bloggish torch on this one project out of all of them we’ve done. Verbal communication between writers is never the best….sigh.

So…here we have the long overdue slide show with many thanks. I’m still trying to get a good picture of it at night with the candle in it. I have to take a time pic, and have misplaced my little remote plunger thingy and tripod for my camera. When I find it, we’ll give you the full effect, but I’ve included here the ones I took holding it by hand, which aren’t too bad.

By the looks of them on this screen, I could have gone to a shorter exposure and they would have been clearer. I didn’t use flash, but it looks like I did. It didn’t show that bright on the camera review.

How could I screw up on something this cool/generous/wonderful? Unfortunately, a bit too easily. I’m obsessive, remember? The next project came up, and I just…I hate to say it…forgot.

So with many thanks, not just to those who contributed funds, but to all of you who support and encourage us, day in and and day out…the lantern: