Author Archives: lifelessons

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About lifelessons

My blog, which started out to be about overcoming grief, quickly grew into a blog about celebrating life. I post daily: poems, photographs, essays or stories. I've lived in countries all around the globe but have finally come to rest in Mexico, where I've lived since 2001. My books may be found on Amazon in Kindle and print format, my art in local Ajijic galleries. Hope to see you at my blog.

Vicissitudes

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Vicissitudes

Vicissitudes of fortune occur to everyone.
At the very best of times, they snuff out all your fun.
You find the perfect dress and shoes then find that you are cursed
with a hellacious haircut that presents you at your worst.

Neither fame nor fortune is a perpetual state.
The only constant for each one is that they will abate.
You hop up on the carousel and grab the golden ring,
but can’t hold on forever to any precious thing.

Luck ebbs and flows like tidal waves, advancing and departing—
an ending just as sure in life as every action’s starting.
So get used to life’s vagaries, for you may be sure
that they are the only things certain to endure.

Prompt words today are hellacious, neither, vicissitude, grab, haircut and hop.

Best Friends: Midweek Monochrome Challenge

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For the Midweek Monochrome Challenge.

Kalanchoe: FOTD Dec 15, 2022

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After Zoe ate or dug up all my Kalanchoe, I vowed not to get any more but I couldn’t resist these, and they are in the front yard which is the domain of the cats. No dogs allowed, usually, unless Paciano leaves the gate open. Now, why the photo of Kukla when she was tiny? Oddly enough, when I checked my media file to make sure I hadn’t used this photo of the kalanchoe yet, I found that her photo had the exact same number! How this happens I don’t know, but since the cats leave the kalanchoe alone, I decided she could stay.

 

For Cee’s FOTD

Lemonade Stand!!!!

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A Lemonade Stand!!!!

Teetotalers do not mind
refreshments of the softer kind.
A lemon sliced, plump and terete
once squeezed, they feel, cannot be beat.
A lemonade is sure to please,
their thirst to quench and thus appease.

On the other hand, some folks
consider drinks like this as jokes.
They prefer their lemons sliced this way
along with mint served in a spray
that serves as garnish or a kicker
for a drink that’s laced with liquor.

Liquids served with temperance
will rarely warrant a defense.
In short order, they will rate
demands at once for a rebate!!!
If you serve lemonade, please thin it
with hefty slugs of gin within it!!!!

 

Prompt words today are terete, rebate, lemonade, appease, spray and mind.

Reinvention

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Down at your own shadow
Those pump-action metal toy ponies?
Dressing up?
1953
1956
1957
1960, Murdo, South Dakota
1961
1962
Your first love?
1967,Setting out from NYC, World Campus Afloat
1973
1974 Addis Ababa
1981
1986
1987
1988
1990
1992
1993
2001-2022
2002-2022
2003
Todo Vida
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009-2022
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
Todo Vida
2017
Four tiny new kittens
2018
2019
1986-2021
1967-2022
2001-2022
2001-2022
2001-2022
2022
2001-2022
2001-2022
2022
Class of 1965, Murdo, S.D. class reunion.
2022
2022
2022
2022
Todo Vida!!!

((Click on Photos to Enlarge)

 

Reinvention

Am I on a teeter-totter or an even plane?
Interestingly kooky or a bit insane?
I try to reinvent myself to fight off signs of dolor.
Does this mean I’m adventurous or that I am bipolar?

I stretch myself upon a rack, fresh insights to inspire.
Initiate new interests, hoping they’ll light a fire.
But there is no assurance that this new me will last
any longer than the other me’s that I have cast.

Prompt words are reinvent, rack, initiate, assure, plane.

I know I went a bit crazy with the photos. I had just a few and then kept filling in gaps.

Christmas Bling

4 Replies
Christmas at my house
Saints Day for our Lady of Guadalupe.

 

For the Weekly Prompts Challenge: Bling

Poinsettias, Dec. 14, 2022 FOTD

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For Cee’s FOTD

More Hummingbird Moth Larvae Photos

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For some reason, WP will not let me add these links to my previous post about hummingbird moth larvae (also known as hornworms) so here are some links to earlier posts that show even more phases of this fascinating caterpillar:

Hummingbird Moth Caterpillar: One Word Photo Challenge: Insect

https://judydykstrabrown.com/2017/08/20/hummingbird-moth-caterpillar-one-word-photo-challenge-insect/

Change, Change, Change

Hornworms: Creepy Crawlers for Sure!!

Seasonal Hunting Party

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What is Pasiano looking for??? Click on photos to read the story.

What is Paciano hunting for in the Virginia Creeper?
Hard to find in the dense foliage.
But here is evidence of what he is hunting: its droppings littering the terrace and the table beneath the vine
In two stages. Here are two that he removed from the vine, but where is the one that got away?
Mystery solved. All in all, he removed about a dozen of them, which I safely relocated in the spare lot. How could we kill anything that turns into something that looks like a hummingbird? Unfortunately, I’ve never gotten a photo of one.
Here is an image of hummingbird moth by Graehem Mountenay. I’ve never been able to capture one and have seen only one in 22 years. They must be present, though, judging by the dozens of their caterpillars that we remove from my Virginia creeper each year.

Mismatched

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Mismatched

By what draconian measures might you cure your spouse of snoring?
No amount of pushing, shoving, poking, shouting, roaring
will rouse him from his sleep, and it does no good to smudge him.
No pungent fumes from spruce or sage can do a thing to budge him.
As maddening as a girl might find a husband who is boring,
there is no match more irritating than  one prone to snoring.

Prompt words today are it, spouse, draconian, spruce, push and pungent.