Photo Friday: Party time!

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Gotta love a party, man.  In my family, September is full of parties: my grandpa’s birthday is today (he’d be 79 – miss you, Grandpa!), Bubbles’ birthday is a week from today (he’ll be 11 – how the heck did that happen?!), my cousin’s birthday is the following weekend, my anniversary is the week after that (five years sure have flown by!), and then the month ends on my mother-in-law’s birthday.  That’s a whole lot of activity to pack into 30 short days.

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And yet, today’s picture has nothing to do with any of those things.  Today’s picture is all about a party with great friends, thanks to a post I was tagged in on Facebook a couple hours ago.  These three ladies have been my best friends for…well, forever, and I can’t imagine not having them to talk to and laugh with, even if we no longer talk to or laugh with each other as often as we used to do.  Growing up has a way of making that happen, it seems.  And yet, on those rare occasions when we do get together, it’s as if nothing has changed.

Gotta love it.

I hope you all have a happy Friday and a fantastic weekend!  Don’t forget to see what Charnele’s got posted for this week’s prompt!

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Photo 365 #28

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Among other things, our holiday weekend involved a trip to Spook Cave:

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It was a lot of fun, except for the part where you had to bend over till your nose met your knees for half the ride.  Still, we had a good tour guide and a lot of fun.

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And the winners are…

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The Summer Reads Blog Tour is finally at an end.  Can you believe it?  I know I can’t!  It seems like just yesterday I was sharing the first round of great books.  What happened to summer?

At any rate, the winners of the Rafflecopter contest have been chosen, and if you scroll down, you can see who won which prizes and how to claim them!  So long, summer, and hello, booky goodness!

And the winners are…
a1a52-summer2breads2bbanner …behind the cut!

Photo 365 #26

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Yes, it’s another picture from our weekend trip up north. It’s one of the trails at Effigy Mounds National Monument.

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This could make a pretty book cover. Hope you’re all having a happy Tuesday!

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Photo 365 #25

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This is a portion of the Great Bear Mound at Effigy Mounds National Monument. Though the mounds have settled over the centuries, this one was still too big to fit in the frame.

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I love the way the shadows play out in this picture. I didn’t really notice them when I took it – I was more concerned with getting a picture of the mound at the time – but the more I look at it (and the one I took after this), the more I like it. It’s like looking at the clouds on a summer afternoon and trying to put a name to the shapes they form.

I see a stag in these shadows. What do you see?

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Photo 365 #22: The beginning and the end

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Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.  -Seneca

This post has been percolating for a good week now.  Last Wednesday, I attended my great-aunt Janice‘s funeral with a heavy heart.  She passed away the morning of August 17, after years of battling an assortment of health problems.

Wednesday, August 20, was her 66th wedding anniversary.

Her husband, my grandma’s brother, Calvin, is still living, and I couldn’t help thinking that burying your wife was a hell of a way to spend your anniversary.  And despite Aunt Janice’s stated wish that we celebrate her life instead of mourning her death, there was a fair bit of mourning going on.  She was a wonderful lady, after all, and we miss her greatly.

It was a lovely funeral – their whole family turned up to see her off to eternity, which is saying something because they had four children still living in addition to 18 grandchildren and 32 great-grandchildren.  It’s been so long since I’ve seen some of those cousins that I couldn’t put names to faces – name tags would have been a huge help. 🙂  It was great fun visiting with them all again, but I wish the circumstances for the reunion could have been different.

Martha StahlThe strangeness of life’s ebbs and flows haunted me…

Photo Friday: Lasts

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I had so many fun ideas for a photo post about lasts.  See, I’ve got this post that’s been incubating for a week now, and it would be a perfect lasts post, but then I thought of this picture:

Oh, Gretchen, how we miss you!

Oh, Gretchen, how we miss you!

This was my last official day of high school.  Graduation day.  Both bitter and sweet, I find it hard to believe that it’s been twelve years since this picture was taken.  I’d love to say we all stayed in touch, but we didn’t.  Well, three of us did, and I couldn’t be more pleased about that.

Here’s hoping I get to see you lovely ladies soon!

Don’t forget to stop by Charnele’s blog and check out her post.  Have a great Friday, and an awesome Labor Day weekend!

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Photo 365 #21

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Can you believe I’ve been at this for three whole weeks already?  Neither can I.

Anyway, I was struggling to come up with a good idea for today’s photo post.  But after I put the boys down for their nap, I went out to check the mail.  Hidden among the various bills and other junk mail was this:

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Last (school) year, Bubbles’ class did a project where they wrote a letter to their favorite authors.  At first, Bubbles wanted to write to me (cuz he’s a sweet boy), but his teacher told him that he had to choose another author, so he chose JK Rowling (big Harry Potter fans, we are).  I’d actually kind of forgotten about it till today.

I suspect that when he gets home, he’ll be a mite disappointed.  I mean, how cool would it have been to get a letter back from JK Rowling?  Still, even this returned letter will be a nice keepsake.  Someday he can look back at it and have a glimpse of the boy he used to be, a carefree, happy boy who loved football and reading.

And who knows?  Perhaps someday I’ll get to go to a conference or convention of some awesome sort and I’ll bump into her and not make a fool of myself when recounting this story, and maybe he’ll get his return letter then.

What?  It could happen. 🙂

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