Project 365 – Week Forty-Four

I took more pictures myself this week. Sorry. Dr. M is by far the better photographer. Heh. And we even had a reasonable number of pictures each day until the end of the week.

Sunday, October 24^th
Here are the last of our tomatoes. Except for a full box of individually wrapped ones. We're told that this will make them ripen. We'll see.

Monday, October 25^th
Dr. M took this gorgeous shot.

Tuesday, October 26^th
The boy next door (the one who was running for the ice cream truck last week) has a very "fluid" decorating system. Every day he does something new to his yard. I took these pictures on Tuesday, but by Friday it looked different again. The skeleton was freaky because it was windy that day & the fingers of the hand "gripping" the tree kept flapping. Scary!

Wednesday, October 27^th
I went to a park not too far from where I work and took a couple of pictures. This is the Little Miami River, a tributary of the Ohio River.

Random leaf.

Thursday, October 28^th
I probably don't need to explain this picture. Fun fun fun! Not. But necessary – ladies over 40, have you had your mammogram this year?

Here is a spinner hanging where the Topsy Turvy tomato plant was. We call him Mr. Greenjeans.

Friday, October 29^th
Dr. M took a picture of a funky sky.

Guess who! The Tax Time Pig, that's who!

I ran an errand for someone at work. When I got back someone had taken my nice close parking space & I had to park at the very end of the parking lot. I had the WRONG shoes on for all that hiking. Fortunately I had some sneakers in my trunk.

Saturday, October 30^th
Tonight was Beggar's Night in our town (this is apparently a kinder gentler alternative to Halloween?). There is a church on the corner across the street that does Trunk or Treat, so we get a lot of visitors from that event. Dr. M loves dressing up & giving out candy. And boy do we give out candy!

After a while I felt like I was being a Grinch hiding inside so I threw on my costume & joined him in the yard (yes, I am wearing no makeup. Saturdays are makeup-free zones in my life). Please note the fancy bow on my Professor McGonagall hat. This is an example of repurposing. A friend of mine is an excellent & creative gift wrapper – this was the bow from my Christmas present last year!

The sky was pretty amazing. It was in the 50s, just slightly breezy, gorgeous sunset – good Halloween!

Go here to see the blogs of all the other Project 365 participants.

Avast! ‘tis the Poetry Bus!

Liz from Musings has given us a Halloweeny prompt this week. Actually she almost provided too many prompts for me. Then a particularly miserable Halloween bubbled up to the surface…

Halloween, circa 1974

The night I dressed

As a pirate

The patch fixed

Over one eye

Under my glasses

Sort of spoiled the effect

And rain completed

My abject discomfort.

Was any amount

Of chocolate and

Caramel

Worth this hell?

Go to Liz's blog to read the other responses to her prompts. They'll probably be spookier/happier/better than my effort!

Magpie Tales - A Different Grave

Here is the prompt for this week's Magpie Tale:



If you look closely (click on the picture to make it larger) you can see at the bottom what I think says Aged ?? Days. I might be totally wrong, but having gotten that in my head I couldn't get another poem out of my head. I wrote this last July after a trip to a cemetery - and, see, I have my own gravestone as a prompt. If you'd like to see the original post, click here. Anyway, since it won't be dislodged, here it is for your reading pleasure (pleasure's probably the wrong word, isn't it?).

Click on the picture if you aren't able to read the marker

Willie Died in the Morning

Willie died in the morning

Tiny loved not here

For long

I don't know when

I don't know why

But I know gone

Willie died in the morning

and his stone breaks

my heart

Don't Look Now - It's a Meme!

I have been tagged for a meme by Rita at Meemaw Moments. I might be typecasting here, but she’s not very Meemawish to me – with all her running & biking & teaching Spanish & such. She’s definitely got more going on than I do! She has given me the following 7 questions to answer...


1. Do you have a "bucket list"? Not an official one. I’m not very good at lists – I get all annoyed that someone (me!) is telling me what to do & I ignore it.

2. If so, what is at the top? If I had a list I think that travelling “out west” somewhere might be on top. Mount Rushmore, Grand Canyon, the Redwood forest…

3. What news story stood out from those you heard today? The story that grabbed me was the one in our local paper about how the Board of Elections was staying open later for early voting. I’m going tonight! I’m really thankful that our local republican committee sent a postcard listing all their candidates. I can take it with me & then vote for the other people. Heh.

4. What are you most thankful for this year? That Dr. M & I have jobs. That we’re (relatively) healthy.

5. What small thing always makes you happy? Using our back scratcher when I have an itch on my back. Ahhhh…

6. What is your favorite old movie? This is tough! But right now, with mid-term elections next week, I’m going with Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.

7. Was there a surprise in your day? I tackled a dreaded task & not only did I complete it, it ended up not being as hard as I thought it would be. I was taking a complicated spreadsheet of information and making a streamlined powerpoint presentation from the data. Blech. But I think it turned out just fine.


Now I am supposed to come up with seven different questions and tag seven people, which I always hate doing. And you are not obligated to participate - & if you want to just answer the questions & not pass it along that’s fine too. And if I don't tag you, you can grab the questions and play along, or answer them in the comments! [Note: I mostly copied this straight from Rita’s blog because she said what I thought!]

OK, here are my questions for you:

1. What do you consider your hometown to be?

2. What’s the hardest part of your average day?

3. The easiest? Why?

4. What beverage do you reach for to quench your thirst?

5. What is one not-so-secret goal you have for your life? I’ll let you keep your secret ones to yourself.

6. What physical pain do you fear most? For example, I’m trying to decide how bad my jaw pain needs to get before I risk a potential needle from my dentist. So, for me, throbbing is preferable to jabbing.

7. Where do you find solace?

I’m tagging the following folks:

Kim at Prayers for the Oft Traveled Road

Katy at What a Great Place to be a Cow

Anne at reverent irreverence

Carolina Linthead at Child of a Frosty Morning

Bekah at Reflections…on Living Creatively

Jayne at Journey Through Grace

Bella Rum at Cul-de-sac Chronicles

Brought Up Short

On Facebook today I laughed at some commentary about a picture of a local candidate who looked pretty scary in a TV debate. It was easy to do because I am her polar political opposite and would love to see her defeated at the polls because of her policies. But someone chimed in and commented that here we go again talking first about how a woman looks and then about her politics. Someone else made a crack about how John Boehner is pretty scary looking too. However, the comment made me uncomfortable. Isn't it lovely & delicious to see our adversary looking bad? Doesn't it seem fitting, & isn't it the most natural thing to ridicule her in that moment?

Wow – that thought totally brought me up short. And made me glad that I don't have thousands of people tracking my every good and bad hair day. And it made me wish that we never even got to see what our political candidates look like. Why should that matter at all when I go to the polls? For me it doesn't matter – I vote my conscience. But I'm sure there are people who, perhaps even subconsciously, vote for the pretty person. And it was one of the reasons I was so sad to find out that John Edwards wasn't who he appeared to be.

I was going to grab that picture from Facebook to add to my post. But the thread isn't there anymore. I guess the person who posted it was just as uncomfortable as I was, in the end. Thank goodness.

Weekly Wordzzle

This week's 10-word challenge was: cranes, bananas, red-headed woman, hunger, parachute, scratch, sanity, microphone, long distance, you've got mail


"You've got mail!" Lisa’s mother called out as soon as she walked in the door. Although she knew what it was, Lisa dreamed of a long distance lover writing to say he was going to parachute in to save her sanity. For a moment the sheer hunger to escape immobilized her. Lisa opened the envelope, which her mother had already used as a scratch pad – grocery list, apparently: bananas, apples, cereal… There was one sheet of paper inside.

Dear Ms. Jessamine,

Your submission was lovely. We especially liked the verse about the red-headed woman speaking into a microphone about sandhill cranes. However, we received over 900 entries. The judges had a difficult time choosing the winner from so many lovely poems. I regret to say that your entry was not selected…

Well, at least she got a letter this time. Lisa wondered if she would have won if the poem had been about a whooping crane instead.


Words for the mini: popular, pregnant, turtle, basket, present

Turtle Bay was the most popular restaurant in town. Alma was beside herself with glee as the waiter (his name was Lorenzo – Alma always made a point of asking) placed the bread basket on the table. This was going to be the best birthday present ever. At least she assumed it was a birthday present. Ted hadn’t mentioned her birthday yet. Maybe he’d give her a ring & wouldn’t that be the best birthday present ever! Alma wiggled anticipatorily in her seat.

Ted thought Alma seemed extra bouncy tonight. He wished she were more subdued – he always wished she were more subdued. He had no idea what had her so excited. Maybe it was something to do with work. In any case, it was going to make his job a little more difficult. Not that telling your girlfriend you were breaking up because you’d gotten the new love of your life pregnant was ever a walk in the park.

Lorenzo watched the couple at table 8. Reading the signs as he always did, he wondered if the woman would scream & dump the wine on the twit who was dumping her, or if she would dissolve in tears. Or maybe she’d be civilized about it. He was about to start the betting pool when he heard the first shriek & crash. Ah – his favorite response! She might need some consoling – the Lorenzo treatment – after the theatrics were over.



Go to Raven’s blog to read the other entries. And join in - it's a lot of fun, really!

The Poetry Bus goes to Meetin’

Argent is driving the bus this week. She has asked for a poem about a meeting. The ones at work are so deadly that I went back further to an entirely different type of meeting.

I suppose camp meeting means different things to different people. My church didn't have the tradition, but when my cousin KJ was a youth minister she took me to the one her church participated in. I was in college at the time and I was fascinated. Staying in little shacks for a week (which were coveted – if you were a family with a shack you were gold). Going to revival meetings. Hearing the bellowing that meant there was a good revival preacher – just in the background as you walk around and around the circle, cruising without cars. As far as I know, my mother never attended one, so the poem below is a work of fiction.

Camp Meeting

Cammeetin' is
an elaborate
courtship ritual.
Chasing and being
chaste under the
watchful village eye -
avoiding the glory tent
where my mother
is being washed
in the blood
of the lamb
one more time.

Pictures from here. Definitely check out the website if you're interested in learning more! And go visit Argent to read other what the other Bus commuters have to say.

Project 365 – Week Forty-Three

Once again most of the pictures were taken by Dr. M – he does such a good job. I'm always in too big a hurry to stop to take pictures. Oh, and WARNING WILL ROBINSON – there are a lot of pictures this week. It's just too gorgeous around here & I had a hard time picking!

If that sounds familiar it's because it's exactly what I said last week – except that this week I actually stopped to take a few pictures.

Sunday, October 17^th
Dr. M took a picture of this robin that sat very properly on the birdbath for a while.

And then he went to town – splish splash he was takin' a bath!

Later that afternoon we played bocce for a while. Our yard is a bit on the uneven & concrete-ish side, so instead of a game of skill it was a game of chance. The boy from next door decided that he wanted to try.

That is until the ice cream truck came by. It was funny – I was just trying to get a picture of the truck & here comes A barreling down the driveway to get his popsicle.

 Monday, October 18^th
These days it's dark when Dr. M gets to school, so he often catches the campus herd in action.

On his way home he took a picture of one of my favorite houses in Yellow Springs – fall is when it shines the most – fits right in with all the foliage.

Tuesday, October 19^th
I love this picture of a squirrel on Dr. M's campus! It's just doing what squirrels are supposed to do this time of year.

Dr. M also took some pictures of seasonal decorations – and some really lovely flowers.

These trees are on the street behind our house.

Wednesday, October 20^th
Look! I took some pictures! Here is the Tax Time Pig – no longer a red devil. I think he's a ninja pumpkin this week. If you look in the background you can see that they've dressed their goose up for Halloween too.

When I left for lunch a medical helicopter was taking off from the lawn in front of my building – they use it because it's so wide & flat (remind me to take a picture of the lawn sometime!). In my effort to capture the helicopter (it's just in the top of the tree at the bottom of the picture) I got this great sun shot. Now this is the type of accidental photo I like!

Dr. M took a ton of pictures of the fall foliage this week – it was so hard for me to pick just a few! To see a couple of others check out yesterday's post.

Thursday, October 21^st
Dr. M was finally able to get a good picture of the ducks at this dam – the traffic is usually too bad for him to be able to stop there.

Here are a couple of pictures just to remind everyone of where we live.

Seasonal decorations – love how the pumpkins look with the wagon.

Friday, October 22^nd
Dr. M was drawn to the moon on Friday – here it is on his way to school. Love the low lying fog & how the frost makes it look like there's snow on the ground.

On his way home he took a picture of the river he crosses.

And here is the evening moon, taken from our yard.

Saturday, October 23^rd
Dr. M got up at a ridiculous hour of the morning, as usual, and took yet another moon picture – I thought this one was really Halloweeny through the trees.

Here are our window decorations. We have two neighbors who take this holiday seriously, so we try to keep up appearances at our house in our own understated way. Yes, this is understated.

When I finally rousted myself out of bed I took a picture of our door decoration (I’m sitting on the floor, which is why he seems to be looming over me). We've just named him frankencrow because last year's hot sun caused him to start falling apart (the disadvantage of glue, I guess), so he's pinned together using various implements. Including my one year pin from my last job.

And here is Martha Goose in her October finery. Yes, that’s my fuzzy sock & croc shod foot in the corner.

Go here to see the blogs of all the other Project 365 participants.