These were taken early in the morning on January 20, 2009. It was definitely a much colder, snowier winter last year:

For more wonderful images of water and the great outdoors, visit Watery Wednesday and Outdoor Wednesday.

Have a wonderful Wednesday, whether you’re outdoors or staying warm inside!

…including my brain. :) I’m finally done all my Christmas shopping and safely and warmly inside for the night. I wouldn’t have been out at all today except…

I did a really dumb thing yesterday.

I was supposed to finish up all my shopping yesterday, and I had one last store to go to. I hopped in the car and headed out to a store I rarely shop at, but had some gift certificates for. I got about halfway there and realized that I forgot the gift certificates… they were still sitting on my desk. So what did I do?

Instead of heading home to get them and then back to the store, I stopped at the lake to take pictures instead. :)

The lake looked so pretty with its first coat of ice…

Even the cattails are frozen…

And since the Thursday Challenge theme today is “light” I couldn’t resist this shot of the sunlight on the lake…

And just because I didn’t want to finish the day without doing something a little Christmassy, here are a couple of the decorations along our street:

So my trip wasn’t a total waste of time yesterday. I just didn’t get any shopping done! :)

Have a very Merry Christmas!

Just a few more treasures from my walk on Sunday…

For more wonderful ruby treasures, visit Ruby Tuesday.

Have a wonderful day!