Transporter room, this is the captain speaking…

June 4, 20149 Comments

In case you missed it Monday, I’m participating in the Writing 101 challenge this month. Thanks to Thumper, who insists he’s big enough to dispense with daily naps (he’s two, so he’s not), I went from having an afternoon to catch up on some blog-related affairs to having about an hour to catch up on everything, and this is one of the things that was left undone when I finally collapsed into bed last night. Day two’s prompt asked where I would like to go if I could be transported anywhere, and I added the extra twist of anytime because I’m not sure that Europe would count for this (but in case it does, I want to start in the west and work my way east, exploring everything on the continent). So!

If I could be transported anywhere (and anytime), I’d stay right where I am, but 150 years in the past, when our farm was first homesteaded. Back in the 1860’s, Iowa was still covered in prairie grass and, compared to today, more sparsely settled. We’re talking Little House on the Prairie-type stuff here, and I LOVED that show…

Photo Friday again already?

May 30, 2014August 22, 20141 Comment

So…how did that happen? Wasn’t it just Monday yesterday? Not that I’m complaining, mind you, it’s just that I’m now left wondering what in the world happened to the month of May. It was just May Day last week, right?

Right? No? Okay, fine.

Well, today’s theme is movement. If you follow me on Instagram, you’ll know I’ve been spending quite a bit of time out in my yard taking pictures of all the pretty things sprouting up from the ground. We’ve had quite a lot of wind lately, too, so getting those great shots has been something of a challenge.

Yesterday, though, I headed out across the driveway and got down in the dirt to get a shot of the pretty green shoots coming up in the neighboring field. I’ve been wanting to do this for a week or so, but I just haven’t made the time for it. Until yesterday, that is, while the boys were occupied with the cat.

It’s the little things. 🙂

Of all the shots I took yesterday morning, this one is probably my favorite, and features tiny little corn stalks waving in the wind.

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Don’t forget to stop by Charnele’s blog – she’s got an amazing photo to share with you all today. 🙂 Happy Friday, everybody! Have a fantastic weekend!

Things I love about life on the farm

May 24, 2014July 2, 20146 Comments

farmboy I was initially a bit apprehensive about moving back to the country. I loved visiting my grandparents’ farm when I was a kid, but when I lived in the country with my first husband, it just wasn’t what I expected. I was happy to move back to town, where I lived but a few blocks from the major entertainments (library, theater, bowling alley). I liked walking places and stopping to chat with people along the way.

But as time wore on, I did less and less of that. So when Seymour pitched a move to the country after five years being miserable in town, I grudgingly decided to give it another shot. He assured me many times over that this time would be different, and boy, has it!

While most of the negatives of late have been due to Mother Nature (thanks a lot for all the water you dumped in my basement), there have been some notable positives as well:

• The peace and quiet.
Let’s face it, life in the country is just more peaceful. There are no neighbors out mowing their lawn at some ungodly hour of the morning or having parties in their driveways that last late into the night. There are no kids tromping through the yard on their way home from school. There are no yappy little neighbor dogs who start barking every time I open the fridge in my own kitchen.

At least, I hope there aren’t.

Photo Friday Blues

May 23, 2014August 22, 201414 Comments

That’s right, today’s theme is blue:

IMG_20131205_112005

Me: What shade of blue?
Seymour: You know, blue.
Me: Yes, but what shade – sky blue? Baby blue? Cerulean? Aquamarine?
Seymour: Just blue! Crayola blue!
(drive to Lowe’s)
Seymour: Yes, I’m looking for some blue paint.
Paint guy: Okay, what shade? We have 887 different varieties of blue.

Sorry, every time I hear the word blue, I recall the time we painted Bubbles’ bedroom. It just never gets old. 😀

But this picture is not of his room. This is my steamy bathroom window one morning this past winter. I just love this picture; it’s got so many shades of color, and the texture in it is just fantastic. It reminds me a bit of all the ice in Frozen (great movie, by the way, and despite the fact that I’ve seen it a zillion times since Easter, I still haven’t tired of it yet).

Anyway, happy Friday! Does anyone have any big plans for the long weekend? Tell me all about them in the comments so I can live vicariously through you – we’re staying home this weekend. And don’t forget to stop by Charnele’s blog and see what she’s got up for this week’s extra-blue Photo Friday!

Art

May 17, 2014May 16, 201412 Comments

I rarely go anywhere without a camera these days, whether it’s my phone or my lovely Nikon D3200. I’ve had a passion for photography ever since I was thirteen, when my grandparents gave me my very first camera for Christmas. My grandpa always had his camera with him; so did my mom, and my aunt, and their cousin and her mother…Well, you get the idea. Shutterbug-ism runs in my family. I may not be able to draw to save my soul, but I’m not too shabby with a camera, if I do say so myself.

To-wit:

Photo Friday: Change is in the air!

May 16, 2014August 22, 20143 Comments

Today’s Photo Friday theme is change. What with moving and attempting to downsize, I’ve got plenty of change happening in my life at the moment, but I chose to ignore all of that today and instead focus on the changes happening around me. In the space of a month, the life-giving rain has taken us from scenes of death and decay to the blossoms of youth, and it’s a change I relish every year.

From death and decay…

…the life-giving rain has bestowed up on us…

…the blossoms of youth.

Don’t forget to stop by Charnele Henry’s blog and check out her wonderful photo post! Have a great weekend, everybody!

Photo Friday returns!

May 9, 2014August 22, 201413 Comments

Today, I am exhausted. With a capital E. We’ve finished moving and have begun the Great Unpacking, and I’m not sure which I like less. So while we find our belongings (and maybe even our minds), here are some pictures of what the last couple of weeks have been like. Moving with family is always interesting, and probably a lot less stressful than moving with strangers because you can be yourself, whether it’s good, bad, or ugly.

If you can’t be yourself around family, who can you be yourself around?

So: Family. Moving. Pictures.

Home is where your story begins.

Our game room looks so lonely…

And I wish I could bring our pantry door – designed by Seymour! – with us.

Oh, Bubbles. 🙂

Thumper wants to pet the kitty, too!

Moving is hard work.

Did I mention that I have a partner for my Photo Friday posts? Because I seem to remember mentioning something about it. 🙂 Anyway, thanks to the Blogging 201 course I took last month, I met the lovely Charnele Henry and we decided to collaborate on Photo Fridays. We chose the theme of family, which fit in nicely with my move. You can find her post here, and be sure to check out some of her other posts, too! There’s a lot to see.

Happy Friday, everybody, and if you’re traveling for Mother’s Day this weekend, safe journey! I’ll see you all back here on Monday. 🙂

And in the end…

May 1, 20148 Comments

Okay, so this isn’t really the end. How could it be? I’ve only just begun, after all. 🙂

But, this is the end of the posts for a while. We’re starting the hard-core moving tomorrow, we’ll be at it all weekend, and I don’t see any computer time in the schedule anywhere till Monday. And I’ll probably be around rather less than I have been lately because the only internet service available where we’re moving is either through our satellite company (prohibitively expensive) or through our cell phone provider (also prohibitively expensive, but somewhat cheaper).

So in the meantime, I’ll be cutting back to posting three times a week. The internet thing is supposed to change come fall, and I hope everything will go according to plan. I want to revive my Photo Friday feature, and I’m going to have some help this time around, so be sure to stop back next week and check it out. And I’ve been sharing some fun stuff over on Facebook this week, so there’s that. But in the meantime, here’s a pretty picture of the view from my new office:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Kay Kauffman (@kaysiewrites)

Have a great weekend, everybody! See you all back here on Monday! 🙂

Thoughts for the day

March 25, 20144 Comments

No, it’s not blood. Someone had fun with the ketchup while Mommy’s back was turned.

I’ve been doing a lot of reading lately, mostly in a research vein as opposed to reading for fun (although I do enjoy my research). Here are a few things I stumbled across today that really spoke to me:

Real, life-long security comes not from the barrel of a gun or from being able to spy on your fellow citizens like a Stasi informant; it comes with less harsh extremes of wealth and poverty and increased access to health care and education. -David Byrne

Take a bunch of wolverines. Throw them into a roaring F5 tornado. That’s a toddler. It’ll tear through your home, shrieking and whirling about, scooping things up and depositing them elsewhere. It’ll lose things. It’ll destroy other things. It’ll change direction in the hair’s breadth of a moment — “I’m doing this no now I’m doing this other thing wait what’s that over there.” -Chuck Wendig

Then last year, after my illness, turning 40 and most recently the death of a good friend, I realised that life is just too damn short NOT to be doing what I love. The planets kind of aligned, one of those epiphany moments. -Sophie Tallis (emphasis mine)

All three articles are worth checking out in full (I truly related to Chuck Wendig’s post – I have two toddlers of my own, after all, and have felt the pain of a Duplo block embedded in my foot that he so hilariously references). Happy Tuesday, y’all!