Photo 365 #29

September 5, 2014September 5, 20144 Comments

I spent a good half hour or so tonight walking up and down my road trying to get a good enough signal on my phone to upload a picture (more on why tomorrow, with any luck). Our internet is down and I was too impatient to just wait till tomorrow.

Naturally, then, my phone failed to cooperate. I finally got four (out of five) bars and it still wasn’t good enough.

I know – totally a first-world problem.

But, lucky me, my little walk wasn’t a total loss. It’s been raining off and on all day, so there’ve been plenty of clouds, and they make the most brilliant sunsets. I managed to get this picture on the way back home, as thunder rumbled to the south and the breeze filled my ears with the song of crickets and the scent of growing things filled my nose:

It was a calming walk. I should do more of that.

I should also wear proper shoes next time I venture out on my own. Slippers just aren’t meant for gravel travel.

Photo 365 #28

September 4, 20144 Comments

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

spookcave

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.

Photo 365 #27

September 3, 2014September 3, 20148 Comments

We get some of the prettiest sunsets. This one’s from last night:

I could look at this picture all night long. 🙂

Photo 365 #26

September 2, 20146 Comments

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

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

Photo 365 #25

September 1, 2014Leave a comment

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.

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?

Photo 365 #24

August 31, 2014January 12, 20152 Comments

We took the kids to see Effigy Mounds today. This was the view from Fire Point:

It was a beautiful day on the Mississippi River.

Photo 365 #22: The beginning and the end

August 29, 2014September 1, 20142 Comments

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 Stahl The strangeness of life’s ebbs and flows haunted me…

Photo 365 #21

August 28, 20144 Comments

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:

hpfan

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. 🙂

Photo 365 #20

August 27, 2014January 12, 20159 Comments

Today’s photo post is accompanied by a little piece I wrote a couple of weeks ago about the humid heat of an Iowa summer combined with the indescribable heat of a hot flash. It’s more an experiment in painting with words than anything else, and I hope I’ve achieved what I set out to do (which is to attempt to convey the misery of having a hot flash in high summer). Comment away and let me know how I’ve done!

Impressive, no?

I stepped out of my perfectly climate-controlled office…

Photo 365 #19

August 26, 201410 Comments

It’s been a long day, thanks to another stupid headache and two grumpy boys, so I present you with a picture of Shadow, because everyone knows that looking at cat pictures makes you feel happy.

Shadow is a very silly, upside-down sort of kitty. He’s also very soft and would make an excellent lap cat, if only Seymour weren’t so allergic. Oh, well – at least now we can have cats, as opposed to before when we lived in town.