Gutter Love.
Number 2. In the new series I will be featuring every time my girl takes a picture of the rain gutters doing their job. The first one I posted was from Kentucky, (click here to see) and even though the shot looked familiar, I didn’t realize that she had already taken a picture of our gutter pouring water here at home. And then when I looked, we actually have three separate shots, thus inspiring this most current “new feature.” A thing I like to roll out every other day and then never speak of or address again. I’m even giving it its own category. Of course. Enjoy while it lasts. Later.
74 Degrees. Posting From The IPad.
Sitting outside enjoying the warm. Although the temp is starting to go back down again. Still high sixties, so I can stay here for awhile yet. I thought I would try and use my son’s technology to post faster and more efficiently. And outside! This keyboard is weird and keeps hitching on me. I got the title ok and I was even able to take that pic above and put it in here, but I seem to be having trouble with color, bolding, italicising, and even punctuation and spelling. Auto correct and my lack of understanding on how to highlight a word and change its appearance is really slowing me down. Good thing I can spell real good and grammertize correctly or this would be a mess. I think I need to stick with the laptop for now. I already lost this post once accidentally tapping the wrong button and using touch screen to try and zoom or whatever. Luckily the tech support for this site is smarter than me and auto saved my original draft. So here it is. Again. You wouldn’t have wanted to miss this stellar post I am sure. Besides all my good pictures are on the computer. The IPad is nice, but it’s awkward to hold and too big for my hands to take alot of pictures. I’m trying to capture a picture of the very red cardinal that is chirping loudly in the tree in front of me but I can’t seem to spot him. And I can’t keep maneuvering this big flat thing around the backyard. I look like an idiot and my butt crack keeps hanging out when I bend over, but I can’t pull my pants up because I’m afraid I’m going to drop this toy and break it if I don’t use two hands. The problems of the new world, I tell ya. OK I am done now. My fingers are actually kind of cold and my kids are going to be home soon and I want to have a drink so I can pack in more good time fun on my extra bonus free day off before they get home if you know what I mean and I think you do I am talking to everyone with kids that never seem to leave the house for longer than a school day but since you have to work anyway it doesn’t really matter wink wink end of long run on sentence. Prob TMI but maybe most people drifted off there in the middle of that thought like I did. I did give this sad, plain, unadorned post its own category. I creatively named it, “IPad Posts.” Like it even matters, separating them from the others. You can easily spot them because they look like boring crap. I don’t know what I am doing on this thing. I will learn. And I will return. Ooooooh. Drama. Later.
66 Degrees. And Flashback.
I don’t want to be repetitive and post another picture of my daffodils, so… So spring. So cliche. So here is a winter snow pic that my daughter took. I was just scrolling through all the shots she took at the height of our winter and this one is good. I hate to wait until it snows again. So enjoy the memory and the good fortune we share, to live in an area that changes seasons so dramatically and abruptly. FYI, the L/C belongs to me. (Low census.) Hopefully they don’t call and ruin my day off now. Gotta go and lose these kids for the afternoon. The BF is breathing down my neck to get out of the this house. Now. Later!
View From The Front Door
It’s creeping up out there! 61 degrees and rising! Sunny. Sunday. I may be off of work. Can’t call until after 12:30 to be sure. It’s always nice to have 2 days in row. But we take what we can get. Soak up it up people. Spring in our big city only lasts one day at a time. And usually in hours. Winter/Summer. Transition phase in progress! Later.
New(ish) Feature! Posts In Pictures! Because, Seriously, Sometimes These Things Go On Too Long.
Sorry Sisters. This exactly displays the horror we feel on many occasions. This one was for our brother, who’s having his first baby, after emphatically denying that he would EVER have any children, for most of his life. We took this after the baby shower (haha–baby shower–family and friends, all women, focused solely on him, (and his wife of course. Which reminds me of marriage, another thing he said NO to for most of his life also, if we are keeping track. Which I am.) giving him tiny baby items that he could not care less about or even identify a mere two weeks ago, and will now become the center of his entire universe, when this new little human being will be awake and crying at 2 AM. We took this at his house, while goofing around on his new IPhone, yet another object of the 21st century that he also stated he would NEVER own. We jest because we love.
It’s also the kick-off picture, for what I am hoping will be a new kind of posting, that allows me to post faster and more efficiently, with less words. You know, let the picture “talk”, and me just kind of “caption” the event happening. Although I see I am not getting off to a great start here. That “horror” look is for how long my posts can go on for. And, as a bonus representation, it works for the horror I personally feel, because I never, NEVER, ever, EVER, post a picture of myself. And with good reason if you check the title of this blog site and this stunning picture proof of my “almost good looks”. I am the one on the bottom left as you are looking at the pic. In my defense, I photograph horribly. No lie. People say they take bad pictures, but I truly do. Even goofy, silly pictures. I am not photogenic at all. I look much better in person. And that is a hard truth I accept as fact now, and avoid the camera like it’s on fire or will give me a disease. Or get me pregnant. HA. My sisters look good either way. Luckys.
Once again, I must go, quickly. My stove timer is beeping, telling me I need to get showered and ready for work. (I set a timer for myself for more efficiency and that doesn’t work either.) I am still racing the clock, all the time. More posts to come if I can actually make this picture thing work. I have the pics. I just have to utilize the time. Enjoy your Saturday. I’m out for the next 8-10. (Hours. That is. That reference is to the hours I will be gone. Ugh. Stop typing!) Later!
I Call It: Sitting On Patio With Coffee, Before Work, First Of The Year. Subtitle: Spring In Repose.
It’s Monday. It’s 67 degrees. It’s very windy. (Like, very windy. So much so, that I layed the basketball hoop-thing down because it was creaking and swaying quite loudly while I was sipping my coffee.) Also, one of my tree trunk branches seem to be rubbing in the high wind and making that “limb-falling” sound I have grown to know and dread every time I hear it outside of a Forest Preserve or designated woody area allocated to our world for walking and enjoying nature in its most natural of habitats, the places where all the trees can gather and hang together and lean and fall on each other, or the leafy ground, as they wish. NOT my backyard. Please! Can I get one fresh, new spring day without any tree droppings? Can I get an Amen? Hallelujah people. I am willing all the “high-air” objects to stay there today. Amen.
That’s a picture of the sky facing forward from my chair. Obviously you can’t see the fast clouds moving, but they are. And those are my daffodils. Right on time. In case I never said it before, except that I say it EVERY year, daffodils are my favorite flower. The most faithful of flowers. Hope and trust and loyalty. If a person could be a flower, I guess I would be a daffodil. We share the same qualities if you go by the “meanings of things”. Plus, they are so pretty. Or just shy of pretty…huh? Huh? See what I did there? And they sometimes smell good. Just like me. Yes, I said sometimes.
I have to go. Shower and work. The BF gets to be off because he got a flat tire. Lucky! But if you are reading this (when you really should be outside, though…come on people, it is gorgeous! Go out, then come back in and finish this) and you want to comment or send me your favorite flower with a meaning or just a quick word, I would love to hear it! Something to look at later tonight when I get home. And if you are really fancy and high-tech, you can send a pic. That would be cool! Alright, have a good one out there today. Stay on the ground and don’t let this wind carry you away! Later!
Day Quote
Kind of a cheat today. I wrote this down and really have no other reason to use it. And why can’t TV people be just as relevant as literature people? That’s right. They can! I live my life surrounded by randomness and false hope. But I will take inspiration where ever it comes from. P.S. It is beautiful out today. Almost 60 degrees again. These are my deepest thoughts: I truly have started to like my job, and I am getting wayyyy better at it, and I know we need money, but, if low census must be given…please let it be me. Although by typing this out loud I just jinxed myself. Better hit the showers. Enjoy the day! And the quote. That was, after all the point here. (Again, if you read back to my beginnings, you’ll see that I just typed the quote with little to no comment. Ha. Those were the days.) Later.
Ooops. Almost forgot to give photo credit to my daughter. That is one of her pics from Kentucky. She has many more that I mean to include here. She’s really got an eye for this. Creativity running in the family. Later later.
Words are the first step on the road to deeds.
—Liz Lemon
Happy Birthday!!!!!!!!! To YOU!!!!!!!!! I LOVE YOU!!!!!!
Hopefully all those exclamation points will help distract from the fact that I am the most horrendous GF in the WHOLE world! This should have been posted yesterday. On your actual birthday! And I am soooo sorry! I was afraid to back date it though because then it might not get sent out to all the e-mails and whatnot. April 2. You are 40 now, tried and true. I was not there because of work. Then I was late, what a jerk! I sent you texts but that’s never enough. And facebook posts are full of fluff. If I get low census we’ll have some fun and then maybe I will move back up to number 1! That’s really all I can rhyme out here in a few short minutes before I shower and leave. It’s not the worst string of words…
Anyway. I love you. Happy happy birthday. This year was big but I didn’t plan. I am bad and take full responsibility for your personal birthday happiness. For everything. Winkity wink. I will try to make up on all counts of birthday wish shortcomings and poor organization skills and maneuvers. I hope it was still good though. My friend at work said that her first husband went totally cray cray when he turned 40. Like, a complete mental 180. Flipped out. So much so that they actually thought he might have had a brain tumor. Ended the marriage. I’m not jinxing, I’m just saying: You let me know. We can fix whatever you want to change. Or at least we can try. Before the dramatics and mid-life crisis. But I’m going to go on record and say that, based on my experience, and the fact that I take care of A-LOT of 90 year-old-plus people, (men and women), the mid-life crisis really shouldn’t factor in until about 45 these days. Just some food for thought on a Wednesday afternoon. Think. Discuss. Comment if you must. (I have to say, I am really not trying to rhyme everything but it just seems to be happening quite naturally today. So weird.)
Last sentences, just for the BF: Happy Birthday!! I love you! You are the best man, all around, I have ever known, for me and the kiddies. XO. I will call you in a few! Later!
Happy March 32nd!
Just kidding. There is no snow. What a jokester I am. I actually took current, up-to-date, real-time pictures of the backyard and that table, to show you what the outside really looks like right at this moment. 5 pm Central time. Midwest America. It’s not warm today. (We only get the stuttering sixties at this point in the year.) It’s back in the 40’s again and it feels cold. But it’s sunny. Warning! The pictures below are uncut and unedited (for time) and are not very pretty. The yard is a sticks and stumps mess like a graveyard for bark parts or the lost world of tree limbs and branches. And all that sunshine blazing down is just lighting up the debris like a Christmas tree. Look here! Crap attack! You will NEVER be free of the Park Forest Tree! That may be a little dramatic, but you really have to live here to know why that is so scary. And true. Read back a bit on this site or just click over on the right there to “Tree Trouble” and you can see what I am talking about. I dare say I may have had an above average amount of bad luck in the breaking/cracking/ falling down department of tree instant removal and upheaval. They like to fall in my backyard. And they like to fall slowly. One piece at a time. Every few months or so. We started out with 3 very large 50 year old trees with many many branches limbs sticks and leaves. Now we have 2 tall “trunks”, at best, that still give me a run for the money when the wind blows too hard. They barely have proper branches on them anymore. Maybe a few limbs, that are very high up and thin, but that still sway on a windy day like drunk gymnasts trying to land on the roof of the house if they could only get the right arc. It’s ridiculous and my own private natural ghost story. The Tale of The Malevolent Maple Tree! The Evil Box Elder! The Horror of the Hackberry! The Horror of the Hackberry is right. That’s the tree ID that is presently lounging around all over the backyard in various shapes and sizes, providing a fine winter home for all kinds of bunnies and squirrels and skunks and probably opossums and racoons. I think those last two actually live up in the tree, but I can’t be sure and I do not have time to check. I see I have gone on and on like I always do and this was supposed to be quick and fast and funny. April Fool joke and all that.
Anyway my original point was to mention that I had been looking back at some of my earlier postings (4 years in March!) and I was pretty funny if I do say so myself. Go ahead and read some vintage posts if you have some time. You will not be disappointed. I also noticed that I had written about the BF’s birthday at that time and even posted about wrapping his present in the Jewel Foods sales paper. Which is what I did again this year! I thought I was so clever. Turns out I am clever. And I have been for at least 4 years, maybe more! Ha. I took a new present pic:
It’s like a birthday/posting/cheap present wrapping flashback. Now, the BF is on his way and we are going to dinner and celebrating the big 4-0 one day early. Presents and cake when we get back. Yes. I made a cake. He doesn’t even know! It’s his fav I think, at least of the cakes that I make. It’s the “Better Than Sex” cake that I also mentioned many years ago. That cake was only presented in a written description posting. This year I have pictures of the process and the results. That cake weighed 10 pounds I think. I will weigh this one before we cut it and let you know. Ok. Better go.
Thank you to all my new friends and followers! I appreciate the time it takes to find or stumble on something new, give it a few minutes to sink in and then actually do the work to “like” and “follow”. I mostly “like” back and “follow” when I get here. Which as you have seen from these last 2 days is like, once every 2 months. So sad. And I like hearing my own voice and seeing my own words. I think that is also pretty obvious if you have spent even one minute of time reading just one of my posts. They get “wordy”.
Ok. Really now. Here’s the real-time pics of today. Enjoy the evening and I’ll be back. I see some long spring days ahead of me, typing deep into the dark warm nights. Later.
just shy of pretty 