Do you see the bug?
A Fall Prairie Hike
Happy Tribus Day!
Happy Tribus Day!
A day to celebrate cookies, tea and blogging!
What? You’ve never heard of it?
That’s OK. I’m sure it’s only because, thanks to CoachDaddy and Rarasaur, it came into existence earlier this week. And what a fantastic concept, because, well, cookies, tea and blogging! It’ll be international by this time next year!
(Of course if cookies, tea and blogging aren’t your thing, Tribus Day can work with that too. Just pick your three favorite things and start the celebration. That’s the beauty of Tribus day!)
I am happy to let cookies reside at the top of my list. They are my favorite thing, specifically chocolate chip cookies. I like other cookies, I might love some other cookies. But chocolate chip cookies never disappoint and that is a beautiful thing in a dessert.
Cookies are extra fantastic because I like to bake. I’m not going to claim to be some expert baker but I’m a master craving fulfill-er. You come to my house looking for cookies, give me 20 minutes and I’ll have a hot one for you. Though you should plan to bring a Diet Coke just in case. You see I have this thing about baking (and driving, and waking up from a nap, and 3 o’clock in the afternoon and sitting at the computer and late at night with bourbon…) it’s just better with a Diet Coke at hand.
While cookies can be made on short order, the tea is always available.
Mornings inevitably lead to a quick zap in the microwave in order to get the caffeine into my body as soon as possible. Other times of day I’m willing to wait for water to boil and the tea to steep properly for a superior cup. But in all that waiting you’ve got to do something, and nothing goes with tea quite like books.
Then once the tea is made you need to let it cool a bit so you can just finish the chapter, and then once it’s done there is such a nice rocking chair under the window, good light, and a spot nearby to set a cup of tea… Ahhhh!
As for blogging, well let me check some stats here… Looks like I’ve been blogging for 65 consecutive months and published 1,136 posts. This blogging business seems to have some appeal for me!
And the best part is that a majority of those posts have pictures. Pictures that I’ve taken. In the last few years my camera has gone from being somewhere about the house, to immediately accessible at all times. I have discovered that anything, even a trip to the park, can be made more enjoyable with a camera in hand. And then, joy of all joys, I get to put them on my blog and share them! What’s not to love!?!
I just tried to take a picture of the camera sitting next to the laptop – not my smartest move.
All three together?
Looks like a beautiful day!
Of course a day with my camera in hand and plenty of Diet Coke and books would be pretty awesome too.
But then I’d miss my cookies, blogging and tea!
Happy Tribus Day!
How will you celebrate?
Weekly Photo Challenge: Grid
The electric fence tape is nothing but a grid of wires.
The Bloodless Assassin by Celine Jeanjean
“It was always a pleasure to kill…”
…begins the book as it launches into a long and ominous description of an assassin, The Viper, and the nefarious activity he is on his way to perform. And then he thinks to himself, “Is it really too much to ask that the common dockworker experience a faint malaise in my presence? Obviously.” and I smiled because, suddenly, the Viper looked like someone I was really going to enjoy!
It turns out that The Viper is a lovable, sarcastic, pompous jerk of a man. “How can that be?” I asked myself. Those don’t go together and then (in the words of my three year old)…
Oh. My. Gossshhhh.
He’s Eeyore.
Not the sad, dopey, Disney donkey but the true A.A. Milne pompous ass right down to his sarcastic wit. Yes, it’s Eeyore as an assassin and he’s paired with a blackmailing, slip of a street girl. It might sound ridiculous but you need to trust me, the dialog between the two is not something you’re going to want to miss.
Would I recommend it? Yes. I ended the book laughing even as I was dismayed it was over.
This honest review was given in return for a free copy of the book from its author.
Dog Sitting
I’m dog sitting.
Can we keep her?!?
Most of you probably dog sit one dog at a time, perhaps two.
“We’re here!”
I’ve got three extras. With Digby in the mix I suspect we are talking at least 200 extra pounds of dog.
Fortunately, I love dogs!
And, for the most part, adding three dogs to our house with it’s fenced in yard, extra land to run on and dog proof basement for muddy dogs to dry their feet in, is no big deal.
I tried to get a picture of all five running…
It’s true that there is no longer any room for humans on the couches, that it would be unwise to drop any food related item you’d like back (Yes, I’m talking forks, napkins and donuts here) and letting dogs in and out of the house could be considered my new full time job, but in general, we’ve got a good dog house.
The issue with adding dogs to the household is the excitement factor.
Two dogs get excited in the house and you roll your eyes and kick them out the backdoor to play. Five dogs get excited and you wonder why the National Weather Service didn’t announce the tornado that has just so obviously hit the place as you wade to the door, feet getting trampled and try to make sense of it all.
For a not so hypothetical example, let’s say one dog looks through the window on the door and sees the neighbors’ cat calmly sitting on the sidewalk. The one dog does nothing more than what amounts to a giant doggy intake of breath before you are on top of the situation, closing the door and squashing the dog’s enthusiasm. But it’s too late, the house full of dog has already exploded with excitement. (The cat, of course, just sits there watching and listening because cats are a bit jerky like that.)
This is all very dramatic and annoying.
But when told they are being silly by the human in charge, (that’d be me) it doesn’t take long for everyone (and yes, by everyone I mean the dogs) to settle back into their spots and chill out again.
However what I discovered is that it is really, truly terrible if you excite a pack of dogs in the middle of the night.
At three AM I woke screaming from a nightmare and the dogs responded in kind.
Immediately, loudly and frantically.
I was the only adult in the house and I was a completely confused, adrenaline filled, scared witless for no apparent reason adult. Which is normal for waking up from a scream inducing nightmare, but not the best mindset for quieting a pack of dogs in the middle of the night.
It took me three laps around the house to even realize what end was up and why all the ruckus was happening. And then I just went back to bed – because it was three AM. But a pack of excited dogs doesn’t just, “go back to bed.” So for the next hour the dogs took turns standing guard over the house. I know this because for the next hour the dogs took turns “woofing” that soft menacing “woof” that precedes a pack of dogs going on high alert. And the house would once more erupt into a mess of barking, pacing dogs.
It was not a restful night.
On the plus side, I feel fairly secure saying that you might not want to mess with me -I’ve got the dogs on my side, and there’s a lot of them!
Anniversary Baby Chicks
Well Honey,
You gave me this card for our anniversary…
…and I just have to say –
Nice Try.
For starters we’ve been married 12 years and we have I have brought home hundreds of baby chicks. So far, not a single pyro among them.
I’m willing to risk the evil chick for a special anniversary gift because…
…and most importantly….
…I think you are missing the big picture here.
Just imagine – a ROOSTER that could start fires with it’s mind.
Buh Bye Raccoons!
Maybe if we are lucky we’ll run across one sometime in our next 12 years!
Love,
Me
This Moment – Sunbeams and a Green Hat
A Friday ritual.
A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week.
A simple, special, extraordinary moment.
A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.
Talking with Jane
With her sisters away at school during the day Jane and I have spent a lot of time chatting together.
And by chatting I mean she talks all day and I try to keep up.
Here are a few snippits of our conversations over the last week.
As I picked up a requested item off the floor for her:
Me: “No problem girl.”
Jane: “Call me hair salon girl.”
Me: “Alright. No problem hair salon girl.”
A random question she sought me out to ask.
Jane: “Mom? Will you get bigger and bigger until you break this whole house?”
Me: “Will I get that big? No. I’m not getting any bigger.”
Jane: “Will I get bigger and bigger until I break this whole house?”
Me: “No, you won’t get that big either.”
Jane: “Will Dad?”
Me: “No, nobody will get that big.”
Jane: “Oh.”
And then she disappeared back the way she came. I also feel compelled to tell you that I’ve not gotten bigger in any way, shape or form recently.
Jane: “Mom I’m havin’ feelin’s.”
Me: “What kind of feelin’s”
Jane: “Elsa feelin’s”
Me: “What are those?”
Jane: “The kind that make you feel bad.”
I tried to find out what was up but she just swirled away in her Elsa dress. I feel fairly confident she was havin’ feelin’s of a pretend nature .
This was a long drawn out and dramatic story with a surprise ending.
“Mom. I was really getting frustrated… with my feelings with dad…. because when I was gettin’ smaller and smaller… I wasn’t fitting into my lady bug pajamas.”
The end.
And finally near the end of a very long story that I, admittedly, was paying no attention whatsoever to:
Jane: “…we married and kissed- but don’t freak out!”
Once Upon an Alphabet by Oliver Jeffers
I liked this book.
I liked this book because it’s got good words. Words like, enigma, ingenious and Whiraffe.
I liked this book because it’s clever. Once you get around “U” some of the seemingly unrelated short stories, aren’t.
I liked this book because it’s humor is a little dark. It’s terrible that the girl who lived in half a house on a cliff over the sea woke up on the wrong side of bed and fell in, but I laughed anyway.
But mostly I liked this book because sometimes the adults should get to read aloud an alphabet book they enjoy, even if the kids* don’t think it’s as humorous as they do.
Would I recommend it? Yes. Unless you only like to read your children books that are full of rainbows, unicorns, sunshine, small words and happy endings – if that’s the case you should definitely read it because you are missing out on a whole world of fantastic children’s literature!
*Jane (3) and Clara (5) didn’t get the humor but Ivy (8) did!
Weekly Photo Challenge: Monochromatic
Weekly Photo Challenge: Monochromatic
…for amber waves of grain…
Behind the Willows 
