Photo Friday – “Thanksgiving”

If you are reading this post, you will know that I was unable to access my computer to update it and have scheduled an automatic posting of this. 

I headed to Aspen yesterday morning with my cousin, Julie, and her kids to spend the holiday with another of our cousins, Jean, and her family.  I took my computer in hopes of gaining internet access, but haven’t.  I will update this with a true PF post upon my return.

As of this writing, there is snow in the forecast, so the roads might be messy and our plans might have changed due to that at any point going or coming home!

Thanks to my friends Vickie and Carmen for taking prodigious care of my kitties in my absence!

Check back!

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Happy Birthday, Julie!

Today is my cousin Julie’s birthday.  A few days ago we decided, should the weather permit, that we’d drive up to the summit of Pikes Peak.  Until recently I didn’t even know that there was a road up to the summit, but there is!  It’s called the Pikes Peak Highway.  Parts of it are a little hairy, but we made it to the top without incident.  This was my second time up to the summit.  Last time it was winter and we took the cog railroad up.  Very cool!  Next time up, I hike!

Click HERE to read about my last trip up to the summit and see a wicked cute picture of my nephew!  And HERE to see another picture of my niece, Alaska, from the same trip.

Here Julie and I are.  Taking the requisite touristy picture in front of the summit sign.

From “down there”, those little red rocks in the middle of the right side of this photo are massive monoliths at the Garden of the Gods!  On a clear day, you CAN see forever!

Weird looking railroad tracks, huh?  These are for the cog railway that goes from Manitou Springs to the summit.

And of course, a foot picture.  We are facing west.  More of the Rockies off in the distance, and two lakes!

We had planned on stopping at one of the rest areas/picnic areas/scenic overlooks to have a picnic lunch, but time was not our friend and so we ate in the car while driving back down the mountain in the lowest gear my car had to offer.  It’s such a steep drive that there’s even a mandatory brake check on the way down, and if your brakes are hot, you are off the road until they cool off!  Never seen that before!  AND on the way back down we actually got snowed on!  It was a perfectly clear, bright, and beautiful day, and out of nowhere, snow!  That’s why they warn you that the weather is unpredictable up there.  Unpredictable, indeed!

Happy Birthday, Julie!  For sure we’ll do this one again!  On foot next time!

And under the category of “ask, they can only say no” goes this one!  I told the ranger at the tollroad that Julie was only 12 and that it was her birthday, and could we get her in for the child’s fare…

And he did it!  Ask.  They can only say no! 

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Photo Friday – “Stained Glass Windows”

Today’s Photo Friday challenge is “Old Cars”.  Of course I got my weeks all mixed up and did “Stained Glass Windows”!  Haha!  So, you get stained glass windows today, and old cars next week!

The “back story”…

Not this past weekend, but the one before that, my cousin Julie and I made our best attempt yet to go white water rafting.  Though the weather was grim (to be understated) at home, we hoped that perhaps it was better where we planned on joining other would be rafters in Buena Vista. 

The weather only deteriorated as we progressed along the highway.  At one point we were surrounded by thunderstorms and startled by the voracity of the thunder and lightening.  Oh, and there was the hail and sleet which pounded my poor car as well!  And, despite it being mid-August, it was COLD!!  I was wondering how my friend Vickie was doing in the Ascent – a foot race up to the top of Pikes Peak.  I’d heard that they were expecting SNOW and equally foul weather.

We got to “Noah’s Ark”, the company with which we’d made reservations to do the rafting.  I stepped out of the car and was already chilled.  The thought of getting into a boat and being soaked to the skin by cold mountain river water didn’t much appeal to me.  We talked with this person, and that person.  We were offered, for free, wet suits, waterproof jackets, etc., by the company.  The fate of the trip for me was sealed by the young man who was to be our guide.  “I’m not going to lie…it’s gonna be bad.”  The end.  I didn’t want to be miserable, I wanted to enjoy myself.  I wanted to raft on a hot summer day and enjoy a riverside picnic lunch.  Though “go white water rafting” has been on my “List of 50″ since its inception, I didn’t want to do it this way just so that I could say I did it and cross it off the list.  I wanted to have a good time!

So we decided to take a way home on roads that neither of us had yet traversed.  Our first stop was for breakfast in Salida.  Cute town.  We drove around some and came across a concentration of churches, many with stained glass windows.  It was a fun little exploration, but none of my pictures of those windows turned out.  I’m hoping some of Julie’s did and that she’ll put hers up today!

Near the end of our journey, we happened upon the Holy Cross Abbey in Canon City. 

This is the window in the chapel there:

 

Please visit the other participants entries and leave a comment letting them know what you think!  I’ll add links as they are available when I get home from work.  Yeah, I’m working again today!

Tall Chick Tales

Mrs Nascar

CuriousC

Author

Melanie

Julie

Cordie

And a big fat welcome to EIAIN of My ProZac Cocoon whose first entry is a GREAT one!

I will activate the other links as submissions are posted!

Coming up, on Photo Friday:

5th September: Author’s choice – Stained Glass Windows (or doors or panels – from cathedrals, churches or any other type of building)

12th September: Author’s choice – Step Inside (Pics of inside your own home: they can be of favourite corners, or things, or windows, or unusual features or just unusual angles of somehing in your own home)

Oh!  My friend Vickie?  Well, she was about 3/4 of the way up to the top of Pikes Peak, and was turned around by race coordinators as it had become completely unsafe for the racers to continue!  Sorry ’bout that Vickie!

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“Black and White” – Photo Friday

PHOTO FRIDAY

(click above for more information)

Today’s Photo Friday entry is entitled: Black and White © Jan Marshall   

I love black and white photography.  (I already have a post titled “I Love Black and White” in fact!)  In the days when I used to draw, my favorite media were charcoal, pencils, and india ink.  I love black and white in general.  Often my color photographs will exhibit black and white qualities.

“Black and White” can be interpreted SOOOOO many ways in this setting.  I was thinking of doing something super-creative and unexpected.  Nahhhhhh. 

On one my cousin Julie’s and my many little road trips, we happened upon these fantastic weeds in a park.  I was so disappointed that I couldn’t get my macro setting working on my old digital.  None of the pictures came out clearly…at least the part I wanted to be clear didn’t come out clearly.  The shape of the weeds was so wonderful, that I thought I might be able to make something interesting out of them by digitally manipulating them…

 

This image has a monochromatic grayscale feel to it to start with, so I converted it to grayscale:

 

 Didn’t care for the result.  Too blah.  Still doesn’t change the lack of focus and now it had lost the warmth of the golden hues.  I wondered what it would look like if I converted it to a true black and white picture:

Loved it!  Reminded me of a Jackson Pollack painting, with a twist…or is that with a curly-q?

Be sure to check out the other participants’ work!

 A Curious State of Affairs

A big welcome to CuriousC of the blog Idea Jump!

Just For Fun

Sky Windows

I’ll be adding links to any other entries as they are posted.  We’re growing! 

Consider joining us next week for the great topic “Amazing Architecture”!

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Scotch Shortbread…Shortnin’ Bread

My cousin Julie was asking for “my” recipe for shortbread.  I make a killer shortbread.  Except the recipe is not mine, it’s my friend, Joanne’s.  I don’t know where she got it, but here it is, so that the rest of you can make killer Scotch Shortbread, too.

Instead of using sprinkles on top, I like to lightly coat the top with plain old white sugar.  And cut it BEFORE it cools.  That’s important!

As I was writing this post, I couldn’t get that song “Shortnin’ Bread” that Ethel Mertz sings in one of my favorite “I Love Lucy” episodes, “Ethel’s Hometown”.  Ethel stabs Fred, Lucy, and Ricky in the back, and puts on a “solo show” without her three sidekicks.  Or at least that’s what she thought!  I LOVE Fred and his tree!  I found Ethel’s solo show on YouTube, so you can share in the laughter!

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That black lace bra is Pam’s not Maya’s!

Bear with me.  This is one of those stories that requires a little background information!  My blog reported an interesting sounding referring site to me this morning.  So I clicked on it to find out how that link even came to exist.  What I found was that I showed up on the blogroll of a blog called “the little Bee“.  It looks very interesting, but I can’t read anything but the titles because it’s in arabic or farsii, I’m not sure which.  In addition to my blog, on this blogroll, there were two others.  One called “Journey of Life” is the personal blog of a Vietnamese full time mom/grad student/research assistant who lives in Viet Nam, and the other is called “Integral Options Cafe” and is the blog of a writer/personal trainer from Tuscon, Arizona.  His blog “offers a place to discuss all things related to a Buddhist, integral worldview’.  And then there’s my blog.  Isn’t that a fascinating blogroll?  I think so.

Anyhow, I glanced at a few of the titles in each blog and read a few entries.  One of the “Journey of Life” entries was titled ‘Maya Angelou’s “What Every Woman Should Have”‘.  I’m not generally a fan of Maya’s.  Don’t ask me why.  I know that ALL women love Maya’s poetry.  But poetry touches the heart in a very special way, and hers doesn’t generally do that to me.  Her style is sometimes clipped, sometimes rambling.  I get lost in her poems, but in not in the good way.  However, I read this poem, and I liked it.  Not so much for style, but for content.  When putting content created by other people into my own blog, I like to try to find something original to link to so that I can give appropriate credit.  So I googled this poem.  While most of the results I found credited Maya for the poem, and in fact credited it as being Maya’s best poem EVER, what I found was that Maya didn’t write it at all.  This is where my journey led me…to Jan Marshall’s blog and her entry “That black lace bra is mine not Maya’s“.  (Yes, yes I did.  I copied her title).

This “poem” was written by Pamela Redmond Satron.  But it wasn’t a poem, it was originally a list.  It was first published in Glamour (magazine) in 1997.  Click HERE for the original list with a 2005 update.  I absolutely love that it was originally published as a list, not a poem.  It was a content piece to start with and not poetry at all!  (The content being what I liked about it in the first place).  Since I have provided a link to the original, I will also post what it was turned into and the credit given to Maya Angelou…

A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE …
Enough money within her control to move out and rent a place of her own,
even if she never wants to or needs to…

A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE …
Something perfect to wear if the employer, or date of her dreams wants to see her in an hour…

A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE ..
A youth she’s content to leave behind….

A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE …
A past juicy enough that she’s looking forward to retelling it in her old age….

A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE …..
A set of screwdrivers, a cordless drill, and a black lace bra…

A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE …
One friend who always makes her
laugh… and one who lets her cry…

A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE ….
A good piece of furniture not previously owned by anyone else in her
family…

A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE …
Eight matching plates, wine glasses with stems, and a recipe for a meal,that will make her guests feel honored…

A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE …
A feeling of control over her destiny…

EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW…
How to fall in love without losing herself..

EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW…
how to quit a job, break up with a lover,
and confront a friend without ruining the friendship…

EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW…
When to try harder… and WHEN TO WALK AWAY…

EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW…
That she can’t change the length of her calves,the width of her hips, or the nature of her parents..

EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW…
that her childhood may not have been perfect..but it’s over…

EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW…
What she would and wouldn’t do for love or more…

EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW…
How to live alone… even if she doesn’t like it…

EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW..
whom she can trust, whom she can’t,
and why she shouldn’t take it personally…

EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW…
Where to go…be it to her best friend’s kitchen table…or a charming inn in the woods…when her soul needs soothing…

So, this entry has served a few purposes for me.  One:  to share how I spent part of my morning.  Two:  to impart some good words of wisdom to the women of the world.  And Three:  to show how important it is to check your sources AND to be a skeptic.  The chances are good that somewhere along the line what you are hearing was fundamentally changed in some way!

Happy Monday.

Now, go.  Get that cordless drill.

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Update 11/17/11  Link to the blog cited as The Little Bee no longer works.  Can’t find the blog anywhere.

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Superman Wears Al Gore Pajamas

In response to my last post “Glass Houses“, a reader commented that “Superman Wears Al Gore Pajamas”.  I’d like to see this be Al Gore’s 2008 presidential campaign slogan!  What???  You say Al Gore is not running for president?  Are you kidding me?  He’s been running for president for the past eight years.  I’m just a-awaitin’ for the time to come when he throws his hat in the proverbial ring. 

Oh, and I’ve done an extensive search to try to corroborate this assertion that Superman wears Al Gore pajamas.  I couldn’t find one single item that had teeth to support it.  Sorry.  It appears that there’s no truth to the statement that “Superman Wears Al Gore Pajamas”.  I did find other sycophantical types out in the blogosphere writing the same thing, though.  And I must admit that I do love the imagery  …  while Superman sleeps, Al Gore is out saving the universe. 

Barf. 

No one should EVER love a politican that much.

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The Longest Day

Today is the summer solstice.  Although I write this before I leave for Florida, I am pretty sure I’m still there while WordPress.com nicely posts this entry for me on the pre-determined date I arranged.

Boot Camp is winding down for me and my team.  Early Boot Camp (the one I’m in) has been joined by Super Boot Camp (more than twice as many more people added to our numbers!).  I believe we’ll be starting Missions Conference right about now.  it will last all weekend.  Missions Conference is really cool.  Gobs of different colleges, mission organizations, and other ministries send reps down to Boot Camp to meet with the kids (and the leaders, too).  Everyone gets choices of which organizations they want to go and meet with.  And there are generally awesome speakers during the morning meetings and nighttime rallies.  The Early Boot Camp teams have survived two weeks of training and are able to exhale and relax a little.  Sure, we’re looking pretty grubby and smelling a little bit, well, earthy, if you will.  But the shell-shocked looks that are still on the new arrivals faces have all but disappeared from our own.  Pack-out and commissioning are right around the corner!  Can I hear an AMEN, and a WOOOOO HOOOOOO??!!!! 

Boot Camp days are long.  And they are hard.  Often they are soggy.  And always they are swarming with skeeters.  (Bob Bland, the founder and main guy of Teen Missions, has a saying….”There are two kinds of mosquitos at Boot Camp.  There are the ones that are small enough to fly right through the screens on your tent…and there are the ones that are big enough to unzip your tent and go right in!”)

Two weeks ago none of us knew each other.  By now my team will have forged a bond as we’ve all made it through this horrible and wonderful thing that is Boot Camp.  We have team cheers, we have inside jokes, there are new nicknames, and we are a family.  Our blisters have healed and we’re used to the smell of sulfur and bug spray and sweat.  We’ve learned dramas and how to do puppet shows.  We know how to dig correctly, how to hammer efficiently, and how to mix concrete and to lay cinder blocks.  We can identify everyone else’s Bible and flashlight.  We can assemble with a single call to order and can move from location to location in a tight formation.  And we know how to kill bugs in our tents after lights out without screaming and giggling.  We have run the obstacle course for the last time.  And we are all getting verrrry excited about being commissioned and loading up on a bus and heading for the airport.  Just a few more days, and we’ll be off!

Watch www.teenmissions.org.  The team updates will be starting soon!  And the days will be getting shorter!  I’m sure I’m looking forward to having THIS longest day behind me.

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(posted in absentia)

Happy Birthday Mom! (and Kate!)

“ A man of genius makes no mistakes. His errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery.”

James Joyce in Ulysses

 

I guess I don’t know any geniuses  …  Let’s try a quote that I love, and agree with then:

 

“Think you’re escaping and run into yourself. Longest way round is the shortest way home.”

 

So then, Happy Birthday to you two, and a happy Bloomsday to everyone!

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(posted in absentia)

 

SoBe It!

While on lunch break the other day at work, I enjoyed one of my favorite drinks.  That would be a SoBe Cranberry Grapefruit drink.  Yummay!  I happened to notice writing on the inside of the cap.  I read it.  And I thought “Wow.  Now THAT’S the cruelest fortune I’ve EVER been the recipient of!  Often true, but still, come on!  Cruel!”

Then I noticed the “fine print”:  ONLY VALID IN THE USA.  Okay, so the choices I make OUTSIDE of the USA might NOT make me a loser????  Hmmmm.

I turned over the cap to see what the deal was.  It was a game piece.  Turns out I was a loser in this particular SoBe game.

But it still kinda stung.

I think I prefer Dove’s chocolate theology.

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Micro(ad) Trip

This past Sunday my cousin and I went on a very short road trip.  The day was GORGEOUS, and we wanted to be in it.  She had her two sons with her, so we decided to do some geocaching up in Woodland Park.  Since I do this without a GPS, I am reliant on maps (street maps and satellite maps) and whatever clues I can glean from the cache information provided on geocaching.com.  The satellite maps couldn’t be zoomed in and were useless for all the caches I was looking at.  So I decided we’d try anyway with just a street map (there’s a teardrop pointer which puts you in the general vicinity) and the cache info.  We found the first one we looked for.  A micro cache which was about 1″ x 1 1/2″ by 1/4″ thick.  It was very clever.  But that was the only one we found.  The next two were a complete bust so we decided to come back to Woodland Park when I get a GPS! 

What makes up for a mostly failed afternoon of geocaching???  Ice cream, of course.  So we went back down the mountain and headed for a specialty ice cream store in Colorado Springs called “Michelle’s“.  We got our treats and headed across the street to a nice little park called Acacia Park.  Acacia Park is the place where the mentally ill, homeless, and out of control teenage populations like to hang out.  Even so, it’s still a nice little park And young families, and other people eating ice cream like to go there as well even though it’s still pretty chilly.  There is a pretty little fountain made of ceramic mosaic there.  It’s called the Uncle Wilbur, but I don’t know why.  I decided to take some pictures.  I was sitting on a low wall about 30 feet from the fountain and took these with super close up zoom.

Imbedded into the low wall which surrounded this fountain (and upon which I sat) were these gorgeous ceramic tiles.  I only took close-ups.  The tiles were a little less than a foot square.  I think I’ll probably go back and take more pictures one of these days.  I need to get a full tile shot.

While we were enjoying our ice cream, there was a young man who kept walking around the fountain.  He caught my attention for a number of reasons.  The most intriguing one was the presence of what appeared to be an ankle bracelet that someone under house arrest might wear.  The other was the heels that had been cut out of the dress shoes he was wearing.  As a deeply avocational people watcher, I know what I think his story might be, but what would YOU think if you saw this man?

And, of course, on our way back to the car, we had to take one last foot picture, one of my usual variety! 

So, that was our day!   

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Why Love?

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless–it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.”

C.S. Lewis

(I hear the most amazing things in church.  Click the link to listen and listen to the entire March 25, 2007 sermon on “Discovering Your Drumbeat – Conduits of Care, Pastor Matt Heard, Woodman Valley Chapel.  It’s number 8 in the series, but can stand alone.)

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Ingenuity

“That’s what poverty teaches you.”

Abner said that to me when I asked him how he learned to do all the things he knew how to do.  Like make me kerosene lamps out of ketchup bottles aluminum foil and medical gauze when my “real” lanterns broke after just a few days of use.  Abner grew up in the Philippines and didn’t have much.  Not much in the way of possessions anyway, but much in the way of determination and ingenuity.

I got to spend a few hours with Abner when I was in California last week.  You can see how much he misses Africa just by looking in his eyes.  I longed to be able to sit with him under the African night and all its stars, and to sit in the freezing cold by the hot coals glowing in the brazer, and to laugh about our day’s adventures and plan for the adventures of the next day.  We seem out of place together in America where things like our jobs and our cars and the messes of our romantic and other relationships muddy the waters.  I’ve never worked with somebody so seamlessly as I did with Abner.  I never felt safer than I did in the two months we lead our team together.  We never, not once, found ourselves in conflict with each other.  It was just another one of those miracles.  Boy.  Do I miss that. 

Mama Lou and Daddy Abner, March 2007

But I wax nostalgic.  The subject was ingenuity, so back to THAT!

See what poverty is teaching Africans.  Necessity IS the mother of invention!

Visit AfriGadget.

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Richard’s Energy Plan

I’m still laughing at it.  A number of nights ago, while sitting on the couch at my brother’s house yakking with some of my siblings and mother, the subject of the cost of gas came up. 

My nephew Richard was doing homework on his laptop, but was listening in on the conversation (he is a GREAT multitasker).  He put his two cents’ in:

“I’d get a hybrid car just for the gas mileage.  I don’t care about the environment.  If they made a car that got 500 miles to the gallon running on manatees, I’d get it.”

He’s 15.  Manatees COULD BE considered a renewable energy source!  In fact, if they were made commercially viable, their future would probably be secure!    Perhaps he’s on to something.   

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It’s Roadtrip Time Again!

Today turned out to be a great day to hit the road, which is just what my cousin, Julie, and I did.  She’s a great roadtrip partner.  She likes to be out and do, well, whatever!

We only had today this time, and she had to be home by 5:00, so we decided to make our trip a fairly close one.  We headed out this morning to go to Canon City.  We thought we’d do a little geocaching, and whatever else struck our fancy.  On the way to Canon City, we came upon the turnoff for the city of Florence.  The last time I went through the area I passed the turnoff.  This time, I wanted to see if we could find the SuperMax prison.  We did.  This is as close as we could get.  And as you can see, we couldn’t see much.  But I’ve never been that close to such a concentration of evil.  And all around me, out where it’s free, was clear blue sky and majestic mountains. 

Just a short way down the road and we were in Canon City.   I had printed up a handful of geocaches to look for while we were there.  We found four out of the four we decided to look for.  Here’s Julie.  This cache was called “Grab the Brass Ring”.

 

The last cache we decided to find took us to a bend in the road, and that road led to the Royal Gorge and the world’s highest suspension bridge.  We decided to go up there, too.

 

Had to do a feets picture!

On the way home we stopped at a crummy place called the “Country Kitchen” for a late lunch/early dinner.  Awesome food.  All in all, a very good day, and a very good road trip.  Stay tuned!  We’re already planning our next one.

Click the following links to see more pictures of the last time I was in Canon City and at the Royal Gorge:

Locomotive Ride, Open Bed Train Car, Suspension Bridge Cables, and Penitentiary.

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Lab Rat

 

Do you think “Lab Rat” is something that looks good on a resume?  (sorry about the lack of an accent on that last e, I don’t know how to do that here). 

My cousin Julie has, for a number of years, been paid to be in medical studies.  The work is generally easy, and sometimes the pay is actually pretty good.  In order to pick up some spending money, I have decided to sign up to be a lab rat, too.  My first study is next week.  I have no idea what it will entail accept that I will only have to make two short office visits (I don’t even know where the “office” is!).  I’m actually hoping that once I get involved from a subject standpoint and get to know people, that maybe they can use me as a clinician somehow!   

I’ll let you know how it goes….

Mamma Mia!

The first time I saw “Mamma Mia!” was in Chicago.  That was years ago.  Mamma Mia! was still a new phenomenon back then.  And it was GREAT.  I had always wanted to take Connie to see it, but it never worked out.  My sister Diane gave me four tickets for my birthday to see it here in Colorado Springs.  I know Colorado Springs is a little bit podunk as far as towns go, but we do get some culture here!  The four tickets went to me, Diane, my cousin Julie, and my friend Joanne.

 

We went to a wonderful Irish Pub call Jack Quinn’s for dinner beforehand.  Had black and tans (Guinness and Smithwick’s) and fish and chips.  Slainte! 

You can’t help but feel good listening to all that ABBA music.  You just can’t.

And when we got to the parking structure, there was quite a traffic jam.  My car was well-positioned to go down the upramp backwards, which we did, and we were out of the parking lot lickety split.

What a fun night!

Thanks Diane for the wonderful gift!  Let’s do “Jesus Christ, Superstar” next, shall we?

A Tropical Flower

Some months ago I visited the Butterfly Pavilion with my cousin Julie.  (Read another post and see more pictures here.)  There were many beautiful flowers there, in addition to all the spectacular butterflies.  I ran this picture through a simple watercolor effect feature on in a photo editing program.  I like the final effect.  As I write this there is a steady snow falling gently outside.  I love the snow.  But the zero temp outside made me think of sharing something that has nothing to do with freezing temperatures and quiet white precipitation. 

Julie was just telling me that it’s time for us to take another road trip.  But I think we might need to wait until the weather clears….

Happy New Year!

“Look not mournfully into the past. It comes not back again. Wisely improve the present. It is thine. Go forth to meet the shadowy future, without fear, and with a manly heart.”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Fences

I have lots to say, but all of my many posts are still in draft form. I simply haven’t gotten anything done and blog-ready for days. So I’m just going to share a picture with you today. This was taken on a road trip this past January. I’m never sure if a fence is there to keep “them” in or me out.

(FencepostBarbedWire, originally uploaded by Blah Blah Blog)

But I AM sure that I’m ready for a road trip. Tomorrow morning I head out to Basalt (near Aspen) with my cousin Julie and her kids to spend Thanksgiving with another cousin of ours, Jean. I haven’t seen Jean in ages and am very much looking forward to this very non-traditional (for me) Thanksgiving.