Photo 365 #167

January 21, 20154 Comments

climbermonkey Last night while I was cooking supper, I shot one of the pictures for yesterday’s post. Bubbles asked why I was taking a picture of toothpaste, so I told him about my photo-a-day-for-a-year project.

“Can you take my picture?” he asked.

I feel like I’ve covered this ground with him here already (Oh, that’s right – I have!), but oh well.

So I told him to do something, and I’d take his picture. He decided he wanted to scale the kitchen doorway. As that’s always entertaining, I told him I was waiting.

His first attempt (and mine) was a total failure. The next one was slightly better, but nearly ended with a smooshed Cricket. His third attempt went better (and Cricket – and Thumper, who refuses to be left out of the fun – got a lecture about not running under Bubbles when he was trying to climb the woodwork), but still sent him sliding back down to the floor. And since all those pictures turned out blurry (either in whole or in part), I’m declining to share, even though Bubbles and I got a pretty good laugh out of them.

At long last, though, he managed to climb to the top of the doorway. I got my picture, he got down, no one got hurt. Yay!

Photo 365 #166: The Dentist

January 20, 2015January 21, 20154 Comments

Too bad I prefer Aquafresh to Crest…

I had a dentist appointment this morning. I hate going to the dentist. He’s very friendly, all his staff are lovely, and I have pretty good teeth. Why, then, should I loathe these visits so much?

The cleanings drive me nuts.

Some people shiver at the sound of a dentist’s drill. I shiver (and cringe and tense up) at the sound of the hygienist scraping the plaque off my teeth. By the time she’s finished, my hands are tired and sore, my shoulders are wrecked, and I have a raging headache.

And that’s with my normal (read: preferred) hygienist.

The one I had today…

Photo 365 #165

January 19, 2015January 21, 20154 Comments

Since I’ve been moaning about the state of the snow round these parts, I figured a picture of it might be appropriate:

snow

Believe it or not, this is the pretty snow. The ugly snow is completely black and fills the ditches along my commute. Yuck.

How’s winter treating you?

Photo 365 #164

January 18, 2015January 17, 20158 Comments

Yesterday Seymour stopped in at the local second-hand shop to see what they had for sale. I couldn’t believe what he found:

At first glance, it looks like an ordinary puzzle. At first glance, I was unimpressed. But then he turned the box over:

This was an anniversary gift for my grandparents. I didn’t remember it, which is unremarkable since I was six in 1990, but there’s no mistaking my grandmother’s handwriting. What are the odds that Seymour would stop in the day they had this puzzle out for sale, and that he would find it?

Apparently the cashier was unimpressed by the amazingness of this coincidence. It appears that my grandparents donated the puzzle to the local library once they finished it, which I suppose explains how it eventually ended up at the second-hand shop. I wonder if it still has all one thousand pieces…

Have you ever experienced a coincidence like this? Tell me all about it in the comments! 🙂

Photo 365 #163

January 17, 20153 Comments

I’m feeling a bit nostalgic today. I’m copying some of Seymour’s CDs onto my computer for my later listening pleasure, and so many of the songs are ones I listened to growing up. He’s got albums by Reba McIntyre and Alan Jackson, Diamond Rio and Shenandoah, Alabama and Tanya Tucker, and a five-disc set of classic Disney tunes…

I’m having a ton of fun listening to them all as they copy; it’s like taking a walk down memory lane with a group of old friends:

I found these while I was going through my filing cabinet this afternoon. (Gotta do something while I wait for CDs to rip.) If you’re like me, you grew up before cell phones were ubiquitous and did your own fair share of note-passing. I’ve got tins of them left over from high school, and every now and then I dig them out and look through them again.

To discourage unintended viewing, we sometimes wrote them like this:

Believe it or not, I can still read this. The key is long since gone, but this was the code we used most often, so even after fifteen years, I can still tell you what it says. (Spoiler alert: It was about a boy.)

Were you a note-passer in school? Did you ever get caught?

Bonus picture!

January 16, 20155 Comments

Because apparently yesterday’s banana shot went up a month ago, have a bonus picture of some kitties:

kitties

My memory kinda sucks. Apologies. On the bright side, you get an pretty awesome cat picture, and who doesn’t love cat pictures? No one, that’s who. Everyone loves cats.

Everyone. 🙂

Photo 365 #162

January 16, 20156 Comments

Have I mentioned lately that I’m tired of winter? Cuz I totally am. We seem to be getting the short end of the winter stick this year – all the sub-freezing temps, but none of the pretty, pretty snow.

Now, of course, it feels like March outside because the temperatures have rebounded from somewhere in the -10°F range to the mid-30’s, and it’s glorious. But, as one of my awesome friends said yesterday, “I want it to be March in March.”

March it ain’t, at least not yet.

tractormama

But in honor of the warmer temperatures, I thought I’d share a picture from a warmer time of year. Here’s me driving a tractor for the first time last summer. We lost some trees in one of the many storms that plagued our area last year, and Seymour and I spent a good portion of this particular afternoon cleaning one of them up. Driving a tractor was an interesting experience – I’ve driven riding lawn mowers many times, but it’s been ages since I did it last, and this is quite a bit bigger. Still, it was a good day.

I can’t wait for more good days on the farm this summer. What are you looking forward to this year?

Photo 365 #161

January 15, 2015January 16, 20152 Comments

We have a banana fiend in our midst.

bananas

There’s nothing Mr. Thumper would like better than a heaping big bowl of bananas, and we have a whole bunch ripening on top of our fridge. When told they were for banana bread, he decided that would be an acceptable substitute.

But he wanted it right. now. You know, as we were walking out the door for the day.

*sigh* Threenagers. 🙂

Photo 365 #160

January 14, 20154 Comments

Kids are only kids once. Here are some of my favorite kid-related stories and things I will miss about them as they get older.

misst Miss Tadpole

Several years ago, we were down at Seymour’s parents’ house helping set up for a garage sale. Bubbles and Miss T. were in the house watching The Lion King while I fixed dinner and Seymour and his ma were out in the garage. As I was serving the kids, they asked me if I’d seen the movie before. I said, “Yep. This movie came out when I was a kid.”

Miss Tadpole: “Wow, that’s an old movie.”
Bubbles: “Yeah, really old.”
Miss Tadpole: “So…why is it in color?”
Me: “What?”
Miss Tadpole: “Well, I thought old movies were…

Photo 365 #159

January 13, 20156 Comments

IMG_20140228_143517 Winter, in all its monochrome glory, is now firmly entrenched in my backyard. Since my current view is something like the image to the left, I find myself longing for a bit of color.

What? There’s color in that there picture? Well of course there is! It’s just that it’s the color cast upon an ocean of snow by a setting sun, and it’s mostly blue. And white. And some sort of odd mixture of the two. It’s monochrome. And while it’s beautiful in its own way, it’s also boring.

I want color! Color that pops off the page, or better yet, color that pops out of the dreary winter landscape. I want color that makes my eyes sing and my heart soar, color that is so deep and rich and vibrant that it’s practically alive.

I’ve been trying to organize the scads of pictures that live on my computer and in so doing, I ran across these pretty, pretty pictures that I took last summer: