Happy 7th Birthday Celebration, Choo Choo

Join the celebration!!! Our Choo Choo the Button Nose, Baby Choo, Boo Boo is having a birthday today.

Daddy will be bringing her home some Birthday Cuppy Cakes after work.

(No cards or presents please. Choo Choo asks that you donate to your favorite animal rescue group instead).

For Bruce

If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day, so I never have to live without you.
A.A.Milne (Winnie the Pooh)

I'm Too Busy To Blog

Just like back when I was twelve, I should be cleaning my room or at least starting to put up the Christmas decorations. I have a wreath on my front door and Happiest Christmas Tree on a table. That's it.....What have I been doing? Looking at other people's great photos on Flickr explore. I tell myself I'm not stealing their ideas but learning to stage and compose the images BUT you have to get out there and take the shots!!!!

Since we moved to the new house in February 2007, I feel like my whole life has fallen behind. Bruce keeps saying take it slow but I have a stack of newspapers to read and we only get delivery three days a week!!!! My magazines must go back three months and I have three books overdue at the library.

I know you say, "but what about the people with jobs, kids, and other stuff"; well I say, "sucks to be you". Besides I'm aging (very, very, slowly) and it takes me longer to learn and practice this photo imaging blogger stuff. That's why I wasn't out with the nuts on Black Friday. Practice, practice, practice besides no one sees my room anyway.

Happy Thanksgiving

I wish everyone a safe and blessed Thanksgiving. I hope that all who need be are fed with both good food and friendship.

With Love and Peace,
Kathy

Happy Birthday Mom

Today my Mom is 79 years young. This is the first birthday in 12 years she is spending home in New York. Usually by this time of the year she and my Dad would be in sunny Sarasota, Florida but this past spring they sold their place at Sun-N-Fun RV Resort. I'm sure she misses it very much and I know that her friends there miss her. Right now she's at home helping my Dad recover from knee replacement surgery and that's no easy task. They will we traveling down south later this spring and I look forward to having them here in Virginia.

I thank the good Lord she has my Dad, friends and family including my brother Dave, Mary Beth, and Matt to be there for her and for the maturity of my years to realize how much she means to me.

I love you Mom, I miss you, and I wish you the happiest of birthdays.

Why Monkeywrench You Say

I found out on my last birthday that it's the perfect time to start my second childhood. I can't remember the first. I also recently found eBay and Flickr. Now there's a combination that will make your credit card spontaneously combust. Here we find child-at-heart people buying and taking pictures of all kinds of great TOYS and sometimes their toys travel with them!!!!

Where do we find those toys? On eBay of course. Toys and dolls I have never seen before. Dolls that I used to have like Chatty Cathy and Barbie, most without haircuts and measles. New dolls and toys from other countries. So now I have my digital camera ready and my growing list of toys.

Here's were the monkeywrench comes in. First you have to have a screen name for all this on-line e-mailing, buying, posting, and blogging etc. etc. You can't use your real name because it's a scary world out there for your second childhood. So on my list of favorite toy animals we have bears, pigs, and monkeys, so far. We also happened to be traveling this past weekend from Richmond to Madison Heights and Concord and whizzing by us just off the road is Monkeywrench Dr. That's it!!!! I can sometimes, more than I would like to admit, throw a MONKEYWRENCH into things. And the rest they say is history.

Rainy Day From My Front Porch

This time it's more than a sprinkle. Not enough to help the drought yet I'm afraid. It's a parched earth here with mandatory water restrictions. No fall planting of trees or bulbs. Just time to gather leaves to make mulch for the spring raised flower beds. Next week we're mild again with a few days in the upper sixties. I love that and I'll tough it out with a few gloomy days as long as they bring rain. I hope forecasts are wrong for a dry winter but wouldn't it be nice to have just one big upstate New York snow?

Why I Started A Blog

I don't really know why. My husband says I have too much time on my hands. Time for a part-time job or volunteer work. I like the time that I've been able to find new interests and sites on the internet. Places like eBay, Flickr, MySpace, and of course blogs. I get most of my news from blogs like Huffington Post, Crooks and Liars, and Think Progress. I've traveled around the world with Flickr and other photo blogs.

Why do we post anonymously to blogs? I want to share common ground with others who have the same interests and causes. Most of us are around all kinds of people face to face everyday who don't know us. Some of us can only be at home for some reason. It's nice and easy to happen upon a blog by chance, like I do, from people all over the world and find someone who shares some of the same things you do.

I think it's time to slow the brain down from all those sound bites and read again. My motto will hopefully be "post often but short". Sort of like my e-mails to my son. Like I said too much time.