A Daily Life

Driver’s license pictures are so funny.  For years, I looked like a halfwit on my license.  I dressed up, put on some make-up, made sure to smile, but it didn’t seem to matter. My favorite boy toy looks pathetically young – can you believe he got his first driver’s license the same year as this picture from […]

Our dogs have such very different personalities!  The beagle believes it is easier to ask forgiveness than permission.  He lives in the moment – which is great when I’ve yelled at him unfairly and not so great when I’m trying to teach him something. He loves his outside time and will spend hours at in the yard, whether […]

© 2011 dogear6 llc Whenever the question is asked what I do with the parsley that I grow, my answer is that I grow butterflies!  Every year since I’ve had my herb garden containers on the deck, I’ve had butterfly eggs grow into caterpillars which then went into the chrysalis.  Eventually it splits and a black swallowtail […]

What a week!  An earthquake on Tuesday and a hurricane on Saturday.  Everything is fine – we lost power for about 12 hours but had no damage from that or the wind & rain.  Here’s my post for today: The first freeze in the fall is often a welcome event.  I’m ready for the garden to […]

At what point did my daughter become a lady?  She certainly is polished and beautiful in her prom picture, but she was still living at home and there was a bit of forced artificiality about the whole event. But when she went away to college, she was on her own and making her own decisions.  […]

My favorite boy toy and I have moved 13 times in our marriage, including our first apartment when we got married, and lived in 8 different states. It’s hard to explain quite how that happened.  The first few moves were setting up our household, then a small fixer-upper, then a medium fixer-upper and finally a bigger […]

Tuesday had a few scary moments when the earthquake occurred in Virginia.  I was at work, about forty miles from the epicenter.  Based on the Richter scale, it was a moderate earthquake which is defined in Wikipedia as: Can cause major damage to poorly constructed buildings over small regions. At most slight damage to well-designed […]

I recently replaced my Honda Civic with another Honda Civic.  The dealer made us quite a deal and I not only got a car with less than 100 miles on the odometer, it also came with some nice extras.  One of them was the sunroof. I love it!  The weather has finally cooled somewhat and […]

Our miniature pinscher went to the vet today for his annual exam.  After ferociously trying to rip the vet’s assistant apart, he was forcibly muzzled (all 6.5 pounds of him!) so he could have a blood draw, butt poke (checking for worms), and shots. Worse yet, he got left behind to get his teeth cleaned.  And as […]

In addition to my mint dying after being invaded by ants, the squash bugs have shown up.  These are not the squash vine borers, which attack the vines at the base and rot them out.  The vine borers are why I no longer grow summer squash.  The winter sqush vines are resistant and don’t need chemicals […]

I’ve written before about how much I loved my Siamese cats and how I missed them as each one passed away.  With the dogs, I don’t plan on getting another cat.  Actually, after the dogs, I might just go without pets for a while altogether. But before the cat, came the kitten.  Here is Siamese #1, […]

Shortly before going to Atlanta, my spearmint was dying in the center of the pot.  I found it odd that the heat would affect it like that, as in past summers the heat never fazed it.  While I was gone, my favorite boy toy moved the herbs to stain the deck and discovered that the […]

Just like we never feed the dogs at the table, we also never let the cats up on the kitchen counter.  Of course, some cats think it’s their right to go wherever they want regardless of the house rules.  Maybe doing winky blinkies will make Mom forget the rules. Word for tomorrow – QUITS.  If you […]

Someone concluded that this was the best place to take his nap – in the sunspot.  If the floor wasn’t so hard (and far away), I’d be tempted to try it out with him! Word for tomorrow – COUNTER.  If you prefer to work ahead, see the list for the week under “A Word A […]

We took a bunch of pictures at my great-aunt’s funeral.  This one of my Dad with his brother and sister was one of the best.  My aunt is smiling so nicely at the camera.  I’m not sure when she realized that my Dad did not have his arm lovingly draped around her, but was engaged […]

I engaged Cheryl McCullough to take some portrait shots of me when I was in Atlanta recently.  I wanted something more contemporary to use on LinkedIn and for other photo needs. I’d met Cheryl at the Farmer’s Market when I visited my daughter in July and was impressed with her work.  She does only natural […]

My grandfather suffered from terrible allergies, especially in the spring.  This was in the days before air conditioning so it was difficult for him to get relief.  His answer was to buy a summer home in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, on Lake Superior near Copper Harbor.  The air came off the lake and was generally pollen […]

Here’s a picture that my favorite boy toy took of his girlfriend way back when she was in college.  All these years later, I still love looking at it. Word for tomorrow – COPPER.  If you prefer to work ahead, see the list for the week under “A Word A Day”.

I’m not sure when special events went from simple (and usually lovely) affairs to all out extravaganza’s.  When my daughter went to prom, it was with limousines, fancy dinners, fancy dresses (and tuxedos for the guys), special hair-do’s and it was all expensive.  I don’t know how some of these kids could afford it or if they […]

I will get to todays word in just a minute. I’m having a great time in Atlanta.  Not only am I seeing my daughter at night after work (for both of us), but yesterday I met her for lunch as well.  We went to a burger joint near her employer and since I picked her […]