A Daily Life

These two pictures are sequential from when the kitten was. . . well, still a kitten.  Do you see how intense he is?  What is out of range of these two pictures (it’s in later pictures from this series) is one of the older cats was cautiously checking out why this paper kept moving, only […]

One of the most alpha males in history is honored in Kansas City, Missouri at the Country Club Plaza – Sir Winston Churchill, along with his wife, Lady Clementine.  Their love is immortalized here, which is rather unusual considering his many more publicized accomplishments as a statesman and politician.    It surprised me to see this in Kansas City – […]

I planted the salvia last weekend and by today, it was starting to bloom.  And a bee showed up to extract pollen.  Just one, although it was enough to entertain the dog for quite a while, the same as last year.  I don’t want to have bee hives in my yard due to the close proximity of […]

Never let the dogs in the garden.  Never, never, never.  They will walk through it, sleep in it, dig in it, and run through it like they’re running a slalom.  It’s hard keeping them out when the yard is small, the dogs are wild, and there’s no fence around the garden.  So after I planted […]

I spent all day Sunday working on the garden.  First I had to clear out the trumpet vines that came up through the bottom.  I spread on several types of compost, some top soil, a little fertilizer, and mixed it all together.  Finally there was nothing left in the garden but the dirt.  At that point, […]

One thing you’ll often see is me with water.  I don’t drink coffee, although as I’ve gotten older I do drink iced tea in the morning to help me wake up.  My favorite boy toy started drinking coffee when he was 16.  I didn’t need a wake-up glass of tea until I was 50.  He was […]

 I took nearly a dozen pictures in this series, all of the back of the head of this little booger.  He was so intent on ignoring me, he never turned around once to see what I was up to.  Cats are so good at ignoring us.  They acknowledge us when they want, even if they need […]

 This oak willow tree is just starting to fill in, one of the last of our trees to fully leaf out.  When it does, it will pretty much hide the neighbor behind us.  Unfortunately, it’s very close to the tall pine trees to the right, which is a rival for sunlight.  You cannot see it […]

My great-grandmother was named Grace.  She was the oldest of nine children, born in 1884.  She was of Irish-German descent, her mother having defied her Irish family to marry a German Anabaptist.  Her mother was disowned because of that action and for the rest of her life, only had contact with a single sister.  Grace’s youngest […]

My favorite boy toy and I went to Williamsburg recently.  It was sunny, but not hot until late in the afternoon, and the crowds were minimal since school is not out yet.  It was fun to be able to see everything pretty easily, to walk around and take pictures, and just visit with each other […]

I grew up with a sister.  One only, who likes to remind me that she is YOUNGER than I am.  But after I was married for five years, my father married a wonderful woman who was only a few years older than myself and had a second family.  I don’t visit as often as I should, […]

I found this little guy on the deck rail.  Unfortunately, I had just seconds to swing the camera up and snap his picture.  I can risk an imperfect photo; optionally, I could have missed the shot and skipped doing it since I couldn’t do it good enough. I took it anyhow.  It’s not great, but […]

We’ve been trying unsuccessfully to get the dogs to lose weight.  We’ve restricted their food availability, decreased it and substituted pumpkin instead, and increased their exercise.  Unfortunately, this means they are often hungry.  There has been some lying going on when I get home from work as to whether their Daddy did or did not […]

The mandate to procreate is so strong and the natural world revolves around it.  And the babies are sooooo cute, like these that are being raised in the pond next to Cracker Barrel. Word for tomorrow – LYING.  If you prefer to work ahead, see the list for the week under “A Word A Day”.  To see […]

What would be a billion in my life?  Certainly the financial statements that I work with as part of my job.  Many of those numbers have a billion in the name.  But I strongly suspect that my laptop has over a billion in pixels with all the photos that I have stored on it.  Yes, […]

I seem to use the backspace key a lot when I’m typing.  The older I get, the more I need it too.  I’m not sure if I’ve gotten that much clumsier or am just rushing too much and typing faster than I’m spelling.  Sometimes I wish I had a backspace key to use on my life […]

I added a new tab on how I find ideas for my stories.  Everyone participating seems to be doing just fine on this, but I wanted to share how I get my muse going when it gets stuck on some of these words.  I’d love you to leave me some comments there on how you […]

I recently celebrated my birthday.  I went out for lunch by myself to the Cheesecake Factory and in the course of talking to one of the servers, let slip that it was my special day.  I assured everyone that I did NOT want anyone singing Happy Birthday to me.  My waiter – a great guy named […]

Thanks to everyone for their recent comments and new subscriptions!  I’m running a little behind in responding, but I do appreciate them all. One of Gretchen Rubin’s favorite sayings is that the days are long, but the years are short.  At various times over the years I’ve kept a nature journal.  There were several reasons – to […]

During my daily walks this winter, I often searched the stark naked tree branches for interesting patterns to photograph.  The lack of leaves revealed this little beauty one day.  I loved that I got a pretty sky, shallow depth of field, and sharp resolution to make the nest pop out. Word for tomorrow – ORDER.  If […]