Mixed up Birdie

This little Bluebird of Happiness landed on my deck on a chilly rainy Supposedly-Autumn day.

Isn’t the arrival of bluebirds supposed to announce the arrival of Spring?

And just look at this confused little guy all puffed up to keep warm.

Is Autumn really on the way or what?

 

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Moonlight Musing

I have never been able to take a credible photo of the moon.  This little cell phone camera doesn’t have the capacity (or maybe I don’t know what I’m doing?).

But one silvery night when the fog lay in low Virginia hollows and there was a shimmer on surfaces left wet from a creeping mist, I had to try again.

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The End of Blog Fog

It occurred to me this morning that I need to just sit down and write.

Having a blank mind and an idle pen only magnifies an unexplained malaise.  Maybe it started with the BigFoot that continues to plague me, but this is hopefully the end of Blog Fog!

For today I can provide some exciting unexpected writing (and hopefully reading).

Because today I am celebrating a wise purchase.

Not being able to shop afoot I have been keenly watching the internet for life changing “things” to perk me up.  And there it was -THE GARDEN OF EDEN!

Actually it’s a quilt.  A microfiber quilt that promises to “add an extra layer of light weight warmth.”  And it does just that.

But this quilt is also a Garden of Eden to behold.  It is complete with butterflies and flowers, berries and greenery in an overwhelming array of images that take you out of yourself and into paradise and ecstacy.   (Please remove your minds from the gutter though.  This is ethereal stuff.)

Ever pragmatic, Bill says, “But it’s missing snakes and apples.”

Nevertheless, and even though this quilt is a bit too busy to suit my craving for clean clear modernistic, uncluttered lines, I love it.  It is definitely light but warm and cozy-soft, and I drift into sweet dreams where I am lithely running across heavenly fields, no longer dragging the big bad boot behind.

Watch out now my friends in cyberspace.  ‘Tis the end of Blog Fog here in Virginia and the beginning of ecstatic posts to wow you.

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Life’s Other Days

There are good days for getting out of bed and there are OTHER days.

Friday was An OTHER DAY.   Saturday was no better.  Today I planned to stay immobile.

It started with a new little lamp .

I plugged  it in but then couldn’t find the right bulb.

Then I spent 2 hours trying to get AM on an AM/FM radio

Walked from room to room, plugging and unplugging and waving around the FM antenna.  Went online in a search for accessory antennas.  No luck.  FM is great but the radio was purchased specifically to listen to Kim Komando (AM) for updates on technology.

O.K., then I opened a breakfront cabinet door and the handle fell off.

Went to reattach it but the bottom of the screwdriver fell off too.  Both are reattached but shaky.

Then a little lizard approached me in the living room.

I tried to steer him out the back door but he is now living somewhere in our kitchen.

I forgot to bring in the hummingbird feeder last night.

Thankfully the Three Bears did not return.

Water, Water Every Where

Don’t know why but I was driven to lift the toilet tank lid  in the guest room “loo” to see if all was well but something strange popped up.  I turned the water off (smart huh?) and called handy husband, Bill.

Bill reattached “the valve” and turned the water back on.  But surely because I was standing nearby, there came a gushing geyser of spouting water that flooded towels on the rack, the rugs, the floor, and Bill before we could get the water back off.

Called the plumber but there has been no reply.

Now today a nice neighbor asked me to call the telephone company for him to repair his dead home phones.

I followed through, but politely wished him luck.

He obviously has no idea about “Other Days.”

 

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Random Randoms at Week’s End

Photo courtesy of the Lone Tree Museum, Lone Tree, Iowa

 

“Wash on Monday, 

Iron on Tuesday,

Mend on Wednesday,

Churn on Thursday,

Clean on Friday,

Bake on Saturday,

Rest on Sunday.”

~ From Pioneer Journeys of the Ingalls Family, Pepin, Wisconsin,  Household Chores

It’s Friday again in Virginia!

I vowed to send off an events diary every week for your reading pleasure

and to share my own life in capsule form.

But I am failing to meet the challenge.

My life has been a panorama of dedication to routines and commitments.

Time to let go right and make some serious life changes?

I’m washing today and it’s FRIDAY!

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Magic and the Week that Was

Random Ramblings

Enhanced Rainbow Free Stock Photo – Public Domain Pictures  www.publicdomainpictures.net615

• Big Foot returned after several weeks of ordinary shoes and attempts to increase walking.  This time it feels like stepping on a nail.  So the Big Boot is back.  I never thought I would be glad to see it again, but it’s like an old friend now.  Another appointment scheduled with the foot man, but I now accept this on and off stuff will continue until there is a complete healing.

• We have had some “wild and wooly” Virginia weather this week.  My Mom always used to say that about wild and wooly things.  One night the wind was so strong it took shingles off my friend’s house and the power went off in the middle of the night.  At 6 AM I retrieved the number for the power company to report the outage and just as I picked up the phone, the lights came back.   Magic!

• Then things settled down  for a sunshiney beautiful day.  Lovely.  Except there was another outage.  Too bad the lights went off at dinner time so I couldn’t cook!  Ha! Sigh.  Friends came over for laughs and even though the power was restored between drinks, we all went out to dinner.  Magic!

• And then the wicked winds and blowing rains returned, along with patches of intense sunshine, and there were rainbows – double rainbows and one so big and bright I thought we were in the land of Oz!  Magic.

It has been a wild and wooly week for sure – mostly due to wild and wooly weather patterns.  I keep humming a song from the earlier days.   I hum silently of course since I can’t carry a tune and people run out of the room.  But I am humming the tune to April Showers, as sung by Bing Crosby and give thanks for the magic of a beautiful Spring.  Also hoping the next power outage is around dinner time!

Though April showers may come your way
They bring the flowers that bloom in May
So if it’s rainin’ have no regrets
Because it isn’t rainin’ rain, you know
It’s raining violets

And where you see clouds upon the hills

You soon will see crowds of daffodils
So keep on looking for a blue bird
And listening for his song
Whenever April showers come along

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There Was a Little Girl

A chalk drawing of a little girl

always hung in a living room space.

She’s all grown up now of course,

but it still holds an honored place.

The little girl was me before

 and hangs again on our living room wall,

a reminder of who I once was growing up

and who I am still, after all.

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Friday’s Random Rants

Uh Oh – it’s Friday!

SUPER WOMAN COLLAPSES

I started working with a mattock on a long narrow ex-flower bed now destined to be grass only.

A MATTOCK IS A VERY HEAVY TOOL.  I think huge men use that tool to build railroad tracks.

Anyway, the soil I was attacking was compacted into immovable iron.

And my goal was to fluff up the iron into rich loamy (is loamy a word?) stuff to welcome grass seed.

But after an hour of hefting, heaving, sweating, and finally broadcasting seeds and tamping them down, I staggered into the house and collapsed.

Bill stopped by my inelegantly posed body (complete with ice packs in pertinent places) and said, “Are you o.k.?”

Moan:  “Yes, but      having      chest       pains……….”

“Oh,” he said.  “I’m going to get a haircut.”

RAIN, RAIN –  PLEASE!

SittingLying still with ice packs helped and I started thinking about the poor grass seed dehydrating in all those parched clumps of soil.

Those seeds needed water and fortunately THE FORECAST WAS FOR RAIN.  There was already high humidity, overcast skies and even thunder in the distance.

“I will just sit here a little longer and let the rain do the work.”

And I promptly fell asleep.

No rain.

This is Day 4.   Tomorrow I will resort to the hose!  It is sure to rain after that.

MORE WORK?

I am the secretary of our landowner’s corporation.

All of a sudden there was a lot of busy work to be done re the sale of one of the properties.

Work?!   Me?  Wasn’t working with a mattock enough?

I would rather play on my blog!

 

A DEAR ENCOUNTER

On my way out, there was a deer.  I stopped.  He stopped.  We looked. Why is he staying glued to the spot?   I reached for the camera.

Turn on camera.

Wait until things don’t look too fuzzy.

Aim.

No.  Too far away.

Aim again.

O.k. – Shoot Click!

We were frozen.  He still stood perfectly still looking right into my eyes.

How long could this last?

“I’m sorry but I have an appointment,” I explained and slowly moved forward.  And finally the young buck returned to the forest.

Such are the wonders of living in Brigadoon.

GAP TOOTHED WOMAN

I had a tooth enlarged to fill in a gap that harbored leftover morsels of just about anything lodged there.

ENLARGED?

Well, maybe that is not the exact dental terminology.  But what else would you call the insertion of putty or enamel or whatever between two teeth to fill in a gaping void?  It doesn’t show by the way so I am still a ravishing beauty.

The process took an hour, required numbing, cost $200 and left the same gap eagerly awaiting future lodged in morsels.

I have a darling of a dentist though who says to come back.  He wants to try again.

LAUGH UNTIL YOU CRY OR OTHER THINGS

Pete Begins the Laughing Fest

And tonight I laughed so hard I cried (and other things).  It was dinner out with friends and one of those times when everything is hilarious.

We were all beyond having a stable quiet evening but were into leaning over, close to falling over, screaming with laughter.

Bill tried to pry open the coke bottle salt shaker and missed seeing all the little pouring holes on top.  That sent us into fits of giggles and guffaws.

Pete ordered brown beans and he got about eight beans in a soupy mixture.  Talk about laughing tears!  I could hardly breathe.

The sign on the door left off pants in the dress code (see previous post “Pants Not Necessary.”)

And what better way to end a week than in laughing to the point of total collapse?

 

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Camera Magic Yields Fake Fossils

Photo from http://www.drugstore.com

I do believe the best photography tips are the ones that tell us how to look more carefully around our everyday world.

Magic is the ultimate ingredient that negates the necessity to lug around the hated camera’s hieroglyphic instruction booklet.

And magic can elevate the photographer to something above novice status.

You can be an impressionistic  art photographer too – in one easy lesson!

To find photographic art in mundane places

peer around in your ordinary world.  

The messy kitchen or family room will do  

for there is Art (no, not a man!) lurking in every corner!

It’s all in how you look at him/it

or how you resort to camera magic to fool your one eye.

Yes, try closing one eye (Um –  I do that anyway)  

But the idea is to get a skewed perspective.

Skewed perspective = Magic = professional results!

I tried this yesterday.

Without leaving the chair I simply moved in close to take a picture of  the details in a paper napkin!  Wow! When enlarged (cropped) it resembled imprints in the sand!  With a bit of imagination and one eye I could even see some little swirly creatures too.

The happy result was that yesterday’s post was a mystery photo of fossil imprints in the sand!

And all the time it was  just an enlarged rendition of a Vanity Fair paper napkin (available at most local U.S. grocery stores).

Voila!

Photographer graduated to artist proficient in the skill of reflective deception.

BEFORE

AFTER

 

 

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Time Out for Wallowing

It’s Friday and so many of my blogging buddies are posting randoms.  I’m “not in the mood” though.

Actually, I am thinking it may be time for a Time Out from the blog that has been so pleasurable for so long.

Maybe it’s the winter blues.

Yes,  I do believe I am Wallowing in the Blues.  Great name for a song huh?

But, winter woes do not really excuse this current malaise.  There has been very little snow this season.

Yes, it’s cold.  So what?

Is it the light?

Why does my computer screen remain a daily confrontational blank?

I am already missing you cyberspace friends.

I’ll be back when the wallow is over.

 

 

 

 

 

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