Hope --- And a Resolution

The theme for this week's is simply hope. I have hope that the bathroom scales will continue to registar a lighter weight each time I step on them. And that has become my New Year's Resolution. I'm determined or resolved to be a slimmer, trimmer, more fit person at some point in 2009.

I got a jump start on the resolution just before Christmas. December 22 I woke up with a nasty stomach bug. At first I thought I didn't feel well because I had imbibed in a few drinks the evening before while celebrating Christmas with two of the boys and their families, but after a bit I knew it was so much more than a slight hangover.

I could stay awake only long enough to get to the bathroom and then right back to bed to sleep. I was that way for a good 36 hours.

After that I was much better. I was able to function in the world of Christmas and enjoy giving and receiving gifts and help Mother prepare food for the holiday feast. But, and this is a happy but, I wasn't interested in eating. All the wonderful sugary foods that usually call my name weren't --- and when I nibbled them they just didn't appeal

So a jump start on what I hope is a down ward trend. :)

Photo Hunt -- Favorite

This week's is *favorite*. Below is one of my favorite cookies to make and take. They are Christmas Mice. Always a favorite with everyone from 3 to 83.

This has been a very busy week and next week is shaping up to be just as busy. I was grousing a little about how to get it all done and even complaining a bit when it hit me. I'm an idiot for feeling anything but gratitude. I'm in great health, sure I have a few aches and pain, but nothing serious. Instead of being a sour puss and focusing on what an imposition it is to get everything done I should be rejoicing as I scurry from activity to activity that I'm able to scurry at all. There are so many who would love to be out doing and can't.

To you group of special people who find your life isn't busy but would love for it to be. Those of you who wish you could bake cookies and cakes again, and sing in a choir or play music in a group. To those who would like to have 3 parties scheduled to attend on the same day and to those who would like to have a visit from friends. I say I'm sorry I ever complained, and I wish for you happiness and promise I will change my attitude and be grateful that I am going, going, going, busy, busy, busy.

And during it all I will be happy and I will remember the reason I am busy it to rejoice in the birth of a baby king whose life was lived so I might be freed from the burden of sin.

Photo Hunt --- Breakfast

This week's theme is breakfast. Although I have taught children for years that this is the most important meal of the day I'm not a big fan of breakfast. I have, however, discovered that I do need a little something in the tummy to tide me over until my 11:30 lunch.
That little something is what you see pictured. I like the combination and think of it as my *Wheaties* -- the breakfast of dieters.

Day 29 Photo Hunt

The theme for this week's is metal. The cross below is at Groom, Texas. It stands close to Interstate Highway 40, which cut across the Texas panhandle and connects Amarillo with Oklahoma City and Albuquerque. The cross can be seen for miles and information about it can be found here. (The picture below was actually taken by my daughter, whose computer I am using for this post --- but I have several pictures similar to it in my collection.)

I have seen this cross many times since it was erectd in 1995, but have only stopped once. It is an amasing sight and worth the visit if you are ever on I40 heading east or west.

Day 22 Photo Hunt Reflection

Today's theme is reflections. Hard one for me. I have no cool pictures of mountains reflected in the lake below, or rainbows in a car mirror like here. None I found nothing looking back at me in a reflection like here.

I'm sure they are there; I just couldn't see them. But I did reflect on life a bit. Today is Hubby's 60th birthday. I've been with him for 30 of those years. As I reflect on those years together I thought about all the changes we have been through, both physically and emotionally. I'll just share two pictures. One from years ago and one more recent. Change is obvious in pictures like these.

You might want to stop and reflect on the past. The way things were, how they are now and how you've gotten to where you are today. Then stop and give thanks. I did.

This picture of Robert and me was taken in the 1980s at a Doggie Day Bar-B-Q.

And here are Robert and I in September on a cruise right before Ike.

Day 15 -- Photo Hunt Ruined

The theme for this week is ruined. This is our ruined well house at the place we had outside of Danevang. The details of the fire that destroyed this structure and all it contents follow the pictures.

The fire happened in May 2005. It was a dry spring that year. The grass under the fence was tall and brittle. We had cut down an old pecan tree and Robert wanted to burn the stump out.

On a still Saturday, he set the stump on fire, but then remembered he had told a friend he would come out and help him on his place. He popped into the house and told me he had lit the stump and to check on it occasionally. This was about 10:00. About 11:00 I thought I would attend a Pampered Chef party a friend was having. As I got to the car to leave I thought about that stump. I poked my head around the edge of the well house and saw one thin line of smoke lazily make it way up. I thought to myself, "That fire is going out. I'm late, I'm leaving."

About an hour into the party my cell phone rings. It is Robert's former boss. He wants to know where Robert and I are. Wondering why he needed him, I told Todd, Robert was helping a friends and I was at a party. At that point he tells me he has just driven by our place and two fire trucks were there and black smoke was boiling up.

Exit me from the party. I was about ten miles from the house and I made that ten miles in record time all the time calling Robert's cell phone and leaving him messages.

When I pulled up the fire department from El Campo was pulling out and the Danevang fire department was rolling up hoses in preparation to leave.

I couldn't believe my eyes. About all I could say was, "Oh, my goodness. Dear God."

I got to visit with the fire chief and a deputy sheriff. I kept thinking he was going to give me a ticket of some sort. Mostly for being so stupid as to leave a burning stump (even if there was only a little tiny thin puff of smoke). He didn't; part of me wishes he had.

A breeze had fanned the fire which blew into the grass where it followed the fence line to the well house that was insulated with Styrofoam. Now Styrofoam is a wonderful insulator, but it burns easily and it burns hot. Hot enough that all the lawn equipment inside the well house had their tires totally melted and burned up. We lost several thousand dollars worth of stuff --- lots of it junk, some of it good. Had to have a new well pump put in along with a new water filtration system. As bad as it was it could have been worse. The garage, storage barn and house were all spared from our mistake.

We felt/feel stupid that we did this. We have been teased by all of our children over it. We have been reminded endlessly about all the Smokey Bear safety rules concerning fire. Robert has been banned for life from playing with fire and I have no idea where any matches are.

Day 8 Photo Hunt -- Together

This week's theme is together. I snapped this picture of bashful flamingos at the Fort Worth Zoo in March of 2007. Tho they were all together, they didn't seem very interested in one another. Isn't that how we often are? In the crowd but not really interested in it.

Photo Hunt -- Blue & NaBloPoMo Day 1

The theme for this week's is blue. Blue eyes, blue walls, blue skies, or blue feelings. These are the thoughts that instanly came to mind with word association, but of what should I post a picture was the question. I decided I'd post three of the four. The blue eye of my daughter taken by my son-in-law when I ask him to watch my camera for a moment when I left the table at a resturant, the blue wall of my guest bedroom makes the room inviting, a blue sky one morning when the moon was still high in the sky. The fourth, that feeling had after the event is over -- be it when the kids have all gone home, or I'm flying/driving home after a vistit with my folks, or the let down after a successful the dance, the parade, the carnival -- that moment not caught on film before you are ready to charge on into life.

This is also the first day of NaBloPoMo. Have you joined? The goal is simply to post every day during the month of November. Something most of us do anyway. If you haven't already, join the fun today.

Photo Hunt -- Family and a Melancholy Moment

My choice for this week's theme is simply my kitchen cupboard --- dishes to serve twelve --- enough to feed a family.



This week's theme FAMILY ended up making me a bit melancholy.

Oh, not because I can't find pictures to fit the theme. I have hundreds of pictures of family. Years of times we were together to celebrate or to mourn.

There are family reunions from hubby side and from my side. There are pictures of us with our children and grandchildren in almost nice, almost neat rows with almost everyone smiling for the camera. There are pictures of people gathered around the table serving themselves huge helpings of food, or playing games, or watching games on TV. I have lots of pictures of family.

What has made me depressed is that I haven't seen any of this family since July, and three months is a long time to go with getting hugs from grandchildren or listening to the laughter of adult children as they relive their youth. It's hard for us all to get together and browsing through all those pictures has made me miss my family so much. That is why this weeks theme has sadden my spirit.

But I rallied and came up with some photo ideas that I could possibly take that would fit the theme, but not necessarily be of people. I thought about a family of animals, or a bunch of shoes at the front door, or several bikes of various sizes but alas, I don't have any of those things here at my home for two on a very quiet street with neighbors that are newly wed without children, single, or like me and beyond children at home. :sigh: That's when I glanced over and saw what I needed to have for my photo hunt picture. What I saw is what you just saw.

Photo Hunt -- Lazy

This week at the theme is LAZY. This took some thought. I finally decided -- what is lazier than to be laying in the sun -- not a care in the world while at home grass is needing mowed, flowerbeds are needing tended, and paper at work needs shuffled. Nothing! That is why my photo hunt picture this week is hubby -- chilling in a lounge chair on the deck of a cruise ship.

Photo Hunt --- Sad

The theme for this week is sad. The following picture to me invokes the feeling sad. Rain on the window and a gray sky. This picture was taken while we were in the UK this past summer. It was cool and gray and I was sad. I wanted wanted sunshine and warm.

Photo Hunt -- View

This week's theme is view. The view you see below was taken as passengers were leaving the ship, Ecstasy, in Cozumel for adventures of all kinds. The shot captures a dizzying look down the stair well as we wound round and down from the Riviera deck.

Photo Hunter -- Road

When looking through my pictures to find the perfect picture of a road, I came across these two picture I took while aboard the cruise ship, Ecstasy. The first was taken from the bow of the ship, the second from the stern.
From the bow there doesn't seem to be a road -- just endless choices much like we have in life. The captain of the ship decides the course we will sail to reach our destination. In life we must decide what *road* to take to reach our goals.

But from the stern of the ship it is easy to see the course that was sailed, the road the ship followed. A wake is left. In our life if we look back, we too, can clearly see where we have been. The path is marked by our treading on it and other can follow.

Photo Hunter -- Wild

What could be wilder than Girls Night Out at the at '70/'80 night on the Ecstasy?

The music was rocking hot and the ship was rolling in time to the beat

as we out ran a 'cane named Ike.

Photo Hunt: Strings

This weeks theme --- Strings




Not a very exciting picture, but definitely strings on the edge of a rug and to make the rug. I had a couple of cute ideas, but wasn't able to get them taken. You know how the best laid plans of mice and men often go. Our ship sails today at about four from Galveston. I'll be back on Thursday. See you then. :)

Photo Hunt: Beautiful

"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" is how the saying goes. After looking at lots of pictures I have loaded on my computer and moving several of them to my PhotoHunter file --- ones like a red rose, my daughter holding her new born daughter right after birth, breath taking views from Scotland ---I finally decided on a picture. This one. I captured this kiss between my mom and dad in July on her 80th birthday. What can be more beautiful than a kiss for your birthday from the one you love and have spent 61 years with?

Photo Hunt: Wrinkled

This old tree stands inside the walls of Ross Castle in the National Park of Killarney, Ireland. I love how weathered and gnarled it is. I think it fits the catagory of wrinkled very well.

Photo Hunt: Colorful

Colorful but tattered signal flags flutter in the wind atop the Battleship Texas on an otherwise gray day. I snapped this picture on one of several trips to the historic ship with family and friends when they have come to visit.

Photo Hunt #1: Dark

This is my first time to join PhotoHunt. In this first attempt to find pictures to fit the theme which this week is Dark in photos I of course went to night pictures first. This unfortunately slightly blurred picture is of the Scott Memorial (Sir William Scott) in Edinburgh, Scotland. I was fortunate to get to visit there this past June.

Then I thought of this wonderful silhouette of darkened Sequoya cacti taken just as the sun was setting that I took back in '05 while visiting in Tucson, AZ. An accidental photo that has become one of my favorites.

This fourth of July my daughters, son-in-law, and granddaughter look to a dark sky as fireworks are being shot off over the bay.
Or this picture that seems to say "What mysteries lie in the darkness of the cave just beyond the clear water and bright sun." This picture was taken at a private alcove close to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.