A few of my favorite things

One of the many nice gifts I received for Christmas was a "teapot" calendar, with matching post cards for each month's adorable "tea" photo. Didn't I have a great time sending out those cards! It was one of the last things I did before leaving the country. Some of you reading these words will have already received one. But, there is one faithful and supportive reader of this blog who did not get one because I do not have her physical address. She is Aimee of Vermont. Couldn't leave her out, so here is a picture of one of my own tea-sets in honor of Beloved Babbling.

Saw a landslide today

Rocks and dirt tumbling right down the cliff toward the road where I was driving. Had the camera with me too. Was not even tempted to stop and get a pic. The above photo was taken later at a safe place.

Sunny Again

That's more like it.


Look at these pretty ones taken by Mr. Sunny.

The snow is still hanging around

Usually it melts off in a day or two but this time it came during a cold snap so, we get to "enjoy" it a little longer. At least we didn't get new snowfall on top of the old-necessitating any more shoveling. Believe it or not the photo below is not intended to be black and white. It really was that grey out. Lots of fog. Overcast. Ble-ech.

In the eyes of the beholder

Driving home from work just before dusk recently, I briefly got a glimpse of the waning sunset reflecting in a drainage ditch while whizzing by. Didn't have the camera with me and there was no place to stop. No possible way to stop in the rush hour traffic anyway. Interesting to see something scenic in an unlikely place like that though. Would have been a nice challenge to try to get a decent picture of it.

It was just a drainage ditch. A pit where disgusting discard liquids drain into and get ditched off to some undoubtedly revolting place-probably a cesspool. Amazing how an ugly thing can be seen as lovely if viewed in a certain way. I had probably driven by it a hundred times and never even noticed it until this one time when there happened to be a visually redeeming quality about it. I liked it. Anyone would have if they happened to have the chance to view what I did. And, maybe they did. Hope so. The evening commute was more uplifted because of it.

That got me thinking about how beauty is in the eye of the beholder. OK, I admit anyone who finds it in a drainage ditch is probably really looking for it. Some might argue desparately even. Ha, but no, just happened to notice it.

(Don't be shocked, but, even Sunny can't always find it. For example, a couple decades ago while we were still living in New England, I bemoaned to my brother how much I despise snow and bitterly cold weather. In a word, that would be WINTER, in certain climates. To my surprise he responded, "I manage to find a lot of scenic beauty in it though." Now, I know that boy hates cold weather just as much as I do, so, I wondered, "Is he just trying to look on the bright side, or, does he really find something nice-looking about it?" For the rest of that winter I looked at the snow and tried my best to see the beauty. Absolutely no luck. All I could think about was how COLD it looked. Even now if we go up in the mountains where there is a lot of snow in winter it just looks very unattractive to me.)

So, I decided to go ahead and post some pictures that aren't very attractive. Because, even though sometimes a picture isn't worth a thousand words, these were taken during fine times. The beauty was in the eyes of the beholders-at the moment they were beholding it!


Young friends of ours, Joey and Jalissa, recently announcing their newly engaged status at church.

The picture did not come out very good. It was kind of dark in there and I could not get close enough for the flash without making a spectacle of myself. I bet it will look good enough to them though, since my poor little pics were the only ones taken of the event. It was a very happy time.


Mr. Sunny tries out his new surf-board in the lake.

He enjoyed surfing (with a rental) when we went beach camping so much that I urged him to get a board of his own. Plenty of room in the back of the truck to take it along whenever we get to the beach. We don't live near the ocean though, so, we took it up to the lake a few times to play around. The picture didn't come out very good but it was a good, good time. That was the last little bit of warm weather fun we had this past summer. Made some great memories.

Back from Las Vegas again

Returned Baby Aileen to her parents.
Here she is 'helping" wehsumgmo drive.

And here is an updated photo of her lovely sister.

While we had little Aileen here with us I took her to church a couple of times. One of the door greeters is a dear older stroke survivor. He has all his wits about him but can no longer get the words out of his mouth the way he intends for them to sound. Folks still line up to talk to him though because, between vocal inflection and facial expression he manages to make his best word, "Oh", pretty meaningful. Anyway, he saw me bring the baby in and signaled me with his eyes that he'd like to meet her. I brought her over and introduced them. "Neekim," he told her sincerely. "Goo-goo-gah-gah", she grinned back. And they understood each other perfectly.

Fall Fotos