I’ve taken to taking my camera with me into the pool during dragonfly season. I love watching these beautiful creatures and sometimes leave ugly bare branches poking out from above my planters just to attract them.
Grafted Blooms
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Category Archives: Uncategorized
Succulents: Flower of the Day, Sept 5, 2020
These pots of succulents do well in the sunny location around the pool and serve as decorative holders for the solar lights
For Cee’s FOTD
12 Bloggerz Questionnaire, Sept, 2020
Here are A Guy Called Bloke’s Questions for the month, along with my answers. There’s a link to his blog at the end if you want to play along.
What really lights you up?
Interesting and unusual people.
When do you think we become old?
When our curiosity dries up.
What’s in your fridge right now?
Two shepherd’s pies that I made today. One to share with my neighbors and one to freeze, ingredients for my weird coleslaw which I’ll also share, a pint of vanilla ice cream, frozen blueberries, frozen bananas, extra smoothies from this morning’s batch, every color of sweet peppers known to man, green olives with pimentos, two frozen cheese pizzas, a cold bottle of gin and bottles of tonic, cold beers for the guys laying my new brick sidewalks, 3/4 of a can of catfood, a pitcher of water and every condiment known to man.
Never mind three wishes, give me one good fantasy which would be … ?
My friends decide to move down to Mexico after all and we build the fourplex house in my extra lot.. shaped like a huge X with a circle in the middle for a common area.. each leg a complete little house with bedroom, bath, small kitchen, garden, sitting room and studio. Big studio, kitchen, sitting area in the circle in the middle. An extension to my studio in the front corner of the lot, detached, for a housekeeper and driver/gardener to live in. As our health deteriorates, they can move into one of the wings.. Our own managed care facility.
How do you think your readers see you as the writer of your blog as a person away from your blog?
They see me as someone who doesn’t spend much time away from my blog. I take it with me to my hammock and my art studio. I’m sorta hooked.
How do you wish to be seen and interpreted as a person away from your blog by the readers of your blog?
As someone still engaged in life, but within a smaller domain.
Do our fears start with our DNA?
Some of the things that lead to some of our fears start with our DNA.
What is the truest quality of life in your opinion?
Imagination. It is what ties us to the universe.
What do you think the secret is to you letting yourself go?
Not taking yourself too seriously.
What stops you from being the truer version of you or are you already the truer version of you?
I think I am the truer version of myself. Hope that is true.
What are 7 things you have learned about blogging since you started your blog that would be beneficial to other bloggers right now?
It is possible to still use the old editor if you go to the administration page and find the POSTS upper left.. Click on “Add New.” and it will take you to the old editor.
That if you create your photos as a gallery, you can click on them to enlarge them.
That’s all my blogging smarts at least for the time being.
Should we care what other people think about us?
Yes, but we shouldn’t let it lead us into behavior that goes against our being our best selves. Courtesy and kindness are necessary–so far as they are possible. Taking other people’s needs into account if their needs and wishes are reasonable is necessary.
Image by Matt Walsh on Unsplash. Used with permission. For 12 Bloggerz Questionnaire for Sept, 2020
FOTD Sept 2, 2020
Color Your World
We were to publish photos that incorporated these three colors. Click on photos to enlarge.
Outer space, outrageous orange and pacific blue were the colors for the Color Your World Challenge
Well-dined
Well-Dined
Your settings are fantabulous–the china and the cutlery
a window to an earlier time of serving maids and butlery.
Your butter knives and bread plates, shrimp forks and the rest
might lead to intense nervousness as we’re put to the test
to know which fork we should use next. The difference between
the cake fork or the salad fork is not so easily seen.
You’re such an avid hunter through antique stores and bazaars,
searching for ornate candlesticks and antique canning jars,
that you must have been ecstatic when you found this antique set
of twelve place settings, all intact. How lucky could you get?
Eleven serving pieces, plus eleven for each setting—
to hint at all the courses that each diner would be getting.
Spoons for every purpose from ice tea to demitasse.
So many forks that Martha Stewart would be at a loss.
Cheese knives, cake knives, butter knives. Knives for steak and fish.
A different knife or spoon or fork for every single dish!
As we sit down, it’s quite befuddling perusing them,
let alone imagining that we will all be using them.
Our sideways glances indicate we’re all of the same mind.
No matter how confusing, we are bound to be well-dined!
These particular prompt words somehow led me to a memory of a brass-with-teakwood- handles set of cutlery that I bought in a bazaar in India. It was comprised of 144 pieces–eleven pieces in each of the twelve place settings and eleven serving pieces. I was so impressed with it in it’s lovely red felt-lined teakwood case that I bought two of them—one for me and one for my sister. They were, however, a pain to wash and keep shiny as you couldn’t put them in the dishwasher, and when I moved to Mexico, I sold mine. My sister’s had been consigned to her basement storage long before that, but I did once throw a dinner party where I invited eleven people and served a course for each implement. This meant: salad fork, shrimp fork, dinner fork, cake fork, demitasse spoon, ice tea spoon, soup spoon, teaspoon, steak knife, butter knife, regular knife.
Everything went fine until one friend showed up half an hour late from the bar, drunk and with three friends! Needless to say, I was not happy as my service didn’t stretch to fifteen. I had to set up another card table with my regular cutlery and they had to eat their shrimp cocktail and salad with the same fork. After that, my own set was consigned to basement storage as well, but at least it led to this poem.
Prompt words for today are fantabulous, hunter, ecstatic, intense and window. Photo by Dilyara Garifullina on Unsplash. Used with permission.
The Hunt
The Hunt
They primp and they posture and leave parts uncovered.
Few parts of their bodies are left undiscovered.
Pitching their assets, they rip off small parts
of their form-hugging Levis to capture the hearts
and the libido of young men in passing.
It’s part of their flirting and tongue-in-cheek sassing.
Euphoric and giggling or slightly aloof,
they are every boy’s fantasy, out on the hoof.
Equality isn’t their goal or their pleasure,
for the power they yield is more than full measure.
Their cups runneth over. With their charms, it’s a cinch.
If birds were their quarry, no more than a pinch
of salt would be needed to capture their tail.
Their fish have been caught and just writhe in their pail.
Young huntresses all, yet each young man they meet
no doubt finds them guileless–innocent and sweet.
They are slightly misguided—naive in their Dockers,
thinking that they are the ones who are stalkers.
We will not inform them that hunters they’re not.
They just follow the bait until they are caught!
Prompt words today are posture, covered, euphoric, equality and pitch. Illustration downloaded with permission from Unsplash.
Breach of Conduct
Breach of Conduct
There’s a glitch in my spelling—a flub in my speech.
I spelled the word breech when it should have been breach.
There’s a stupendous difference from word to word,
thus my conveyed meaning was rather absurd.
Forgive me for saying that your breech was ample.
and sending the notice out to get a sample
of whether the world at large shared my opinions,
and that is how my formidable minions
came to demonstrate actions unseemly and rude.
Their remarks about size were incredibly crude.
And so though I am sure that your actions were dumb,
I have no opinion re/ the size of your bum!
Prompt words today are glitch, speech, stupenous, demonstrate and sample. Photo by Obi Onyeador on Unsplash.
Unready for Steady
Unready for Steady
I’m being boyfriended to death, and it’s only been a week
of walking home from school together, strolling cheek-to cheek.
I never see my girlfriends. I have no time alone.
Every single moment, we are touching bone-to-bone.
I didn’t really think about the facts of going steady.
I guess I should have realized that I just wasn’t ready.
So because you are his best friend, I’m begging you to ready him
because after school today, I’m going to unsteady him!
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 