Sunday Serenity

There are only two ways to live your life.
One is as though nothing is a miracle.
The other is as though everything is a miracle.

~ Albert Einstein

Photo of the
~Wolf Moon~

1/29/10

9:26 pm

~~~

xoabb

expect anything!

Uh Oh...

Tho Stella-dog's Pink Baby Bear has been around and unscathed for three plus years, Sir Sock-a-Lot (above) has met an untimely demise in less than four months (this is baaaad!) at the mouth of ~you know who~.

~~~

xoabb

(should I be scared for Pink Baby Bear's safety???)

Toy Story

(Above photo has absolutely nothing to do with today's post)

A favorite nephew, Connor-man -

Exhausted after a hard day's play at the beach

(photo taken by his mom, summer '09)

Must relate a story a teacher friend emailed me earlier this week. At the school where he teaches there are several classrooms for each grade, and as a rule, all twin units are put in different classrooms if at all possible. The curriculum is the same across all the classes, but having twins in different classrooms lets each shine (or not) without the pressures of sibling rivalry or influence.
Case in point: The 2nd graders keep a written journal of what goes on in their lives. On Mondays they record what occurred over the past weekend. While he was at lunch, he started to tell the other 2nd grade teachers what one of his students had written. He said this little girl wrote about a trip she had taken to the toy store with her dad and twin brother. It caught his eye because she wrote about how she was so sad that her dad hadn't bought her the "little" toy that had caught her eye. He wondered why dad had been so hard on her. With that, another 2nd grade teacher looked up and nearly spit out her lunch. Turns out the twin brother was in her class and she'd just read his journal entry of the same family trip. It was supremely different from his sister's:
"Mom was out of town and dad, sister and I went to the toy store. I was in the shopping cart and my sister really wanted this toy. Dad said no. Sister got really mad and started screaming and running all over the store. It was bad. She was screaming really loudly. And dad was mad and yelling too. And I was in the shopping cart that she was pushing that dad was chasing. He couldn't catch us. So I started yelling too because I was scared. It was bad."

You just can't make this stuff up!

There's always three sides to every story:

My side.

Your side.

And somewhere in the middle, the true side.

~~~

xoabb

expect anything!

Now That's What I'm Talkin' About!!!

Told you I was gonna win at bridge tonight! Of course it was all because of my superior playing skills...it had nothing to do with good cards...or good luck...or good advice... ;-)

~~~

xoabb

expected fun!

Stella-Dog! How COULD You???

I have no clue in the world where this hideous stuffed buzzard came from, but Stella is in love to the point that she's forsaken her adorable pink bear, Baby (read about Baby here)! I'm simply appalled! And just imagine how Baby must feel! A three-year relationship. Out the window! Never thought I'd have a cheatin' dog!

~~~

xoabb

expect anything!

Sunday Serenity

Much sad has happened,
But goodness abounds - just look!
Hard to see: It's there!

~~~

xoabb

expect anything!

Come Share a Bench

With me...

~~~

xoabb

expect anything!

Sky Watch Friday!

Do Join us!

My Friend...O Dear...She's 50 Today!

A best friend...50!

Running a marathon, in

Honor of her mom.

Miss LaLa is running in her mom's honor

Want to donate in her mom's honor?

Here's the link:

http://pages.teamintraining.org/ct/cmc10/lwardt

~~~

xoabb

expect good things!

Here We Go!

Every night my turkeys launch themselves to bed into the limbs of the tall trees. How this is warm and comfortable I cannot possibly imagine. Well, at the very least, I guess they're safe from the coyotes. And the wolves, if Miss LaLa is to be believed...hmmm...

~~~

xoabb

expect anything!

Sunday Serenity

I haz dat.

Down pat.

~~~

xoabb

expect anything!

SWF - Up!

Have you ever been in the right time but in the wrong place?? That's what happened to me just a few weeks ago and so many other times, but who could possibly be keeping track of that?. I'm driving west on the Post Road when through the buildings I see this most magnificent sunset. What would've I given to have been on top of a hill - or on the beach! Alas I had to settle for the Stop & Shop parking lot.

The column of sunset glow that was shooting upward was so very much more spectacular and magnificent by human eye than what I captured...but even this gives you a taste of its beauty.

~~~

xoabb

Remember Haiti!

Sky Watch Friday

Do join us!

A Hop, Skip, and a Jump!

Little Miss Magic & buddy jumping from rock to rock.
11/26/09

And an update:

First the good news: I FOUND MY CAMERA!! YIPPEE!! It was hiding in plain sight on a self behind our bar. I searched that bar more than six times once...but I never looked up, just down on the counters well, that's stretching the truth just a bit.

Now on to other stuff: I have some sort of bronchitis-like thingy going on and am doing a most excellent job of feeling sorry for myself. Had to miss work yesterday and will miss tomorrow as well. I'm planning on being good-to-go by Wednesday. Positive thinking, that's what I'm doing! And last Saturday when I was in the middle of making what turned out to be one of the most delicious soups any of us has ever had (Cousin Jule's Auntie Mary's recipe - could she ever cook!), I managed to slice off the a really good chunk of the pad of my left thumb. (No, it didn't go into the soup!) Jules did a fine job of patching me up and finishing our soup. Gotta tell you, I was impressed as this is a girl that faints at the sight of blood. Of which there was a fair amount. All over the cabbage. Which was promptly thrown away. Yup, the thumb hurts in a throbbing kind of way, and I have to wear a goofy bandage till next week, but I've decided if you have to have a finger out of commission, the left thumb (or the thumb of the hand you don't write with) is the best one! I've realized that I never ever use my left thumb when typing keyboarding! Unlike my friend Kate who when she temporarily lost the use of her right index finger, could barely type at all!

So that's it in a nutshell. Between no camera, traveling Wednesday through Saturday, getting wheezy, my thumb, etc., etc., etc., life for TSannie and TSannie herself have been pretty damn boring of late.

For all you beef-lovers out there (sorry Daryl;-) I'll leave you with that wonderful recipe:

Winter Warmer Beef Soup

1 3 lb. or so beef roast, cut into cubes
butter - as much or as little as you want to use
2 large potatoes, cut into cubes
2 large onions, chopped
2 cups each - cabbage, celery and carrots, chopped
1 46 oz. can V-8 or tomato juice
salt & black pepper & red pepper to taste

1 28 oz. can diced tomatoes (Ann's addition)
1 - 2 cups frozen petite peas (Jules' addition)

Brown beef (in an iron skillet) in butter, adding more butter if necessary. When beef is nice and browned, remove from skillet and place in a Dutch oven. Add the cubed potatoes (and more butter if necessary) and toss to coat with the drippings in the skillet. Cook for about 5 - 10 minutes, then add to beef. Next add the onions to the skillet and saute until nice and browned. Now add everything except the peas to the Dutch oven. Bring to a boil, then turn down to a simmer and simmer for 4 hours or place all in a crock pot for 10 hours on low. Just before you serve throw in the peas and allow to defrost in the hot soup. Taste and correct seasonings. Serve with a good crusty bread.
As Aunt Mary wrote, this is a very thick soup. You could add more water, V-8/tomato juice or beef stock if you'd like. We didn't.
Our Winter Warmer Soup was just fabulous - and every single drop of it was gone by Monday lunchtime. Shoot! I wanted some more for dinner last night!

~~~

xoabb
expect anything!

Sunday Serenity...

Really??

Lost my camera...
Misplaced in my home? (I hope!)
Me thinks life is crap!

xoabb
expect treasure (camera) hunts!

Peace

In sweet memory

Of a dear friend's mother today

And a most cherished uncle Friday

~~~

xoabb

may you both rest in the serenity of your lives being very well lived!

Stella-Dog the Great Protector...

On her way to protect our bird feeders.
From the birds.
I don't think she gets it.
At all.

But she does a very good job scaring those birds.
Much to my irritation.
(sigh)

~~~

xoabb
here birdie birdie!

A Palindromic Kind of Day!

Kathy, who blogs at ~Skippie's Vegetable Garden~ (do take a moment to scroll down to her 12/31/09 post - beautiful photos of everything she's harvested from her gardens this year) pointed out that today's date ~01/02/2010~ is a palindrome (whose definition is: a word, line, verse, number, sentence, etc., reading the same backward as forward). They're fairly rare - the last one was on 10/02/2001 and the one before that all the way back in the 13th century, 08/31/1380! You can go here or here for articles on palindrome dates.

Here's Kathy's list:

No Garden, One Dragon

Potato idiot atop

Step on no pets.

Vegetable was I ere I saw Elba, Tegev.

Yo basil is a boy.

No lemon, no melon.

May a moody baby doom a yam?

Lisa Bonet ate no basil.

Flo, gin is a sin. I golf.

Dee saw a seed.

And below is my list I got here:

Don't nod
Dogma: I am God
Never odd or even
Too bad – I hid a boot
Rats live on no evil star
No trace; not one carton
Was it Eliot's toilet I saw?
Murder for a jar of red rum
May a moody baby doom a yam?
Go hang a salami; I'm a lasagna hog!
Satan, oscillate my metallic sonatas!
A Toyota! Race fast... safe car: a Toyota
Straw? No, too stupid a fad; I put soot on warts
Are we not drawn onward, we few, drawn onward to new era?
Doc Note: I dissent. A fast never prevents a fatness. I diet on cod
No, it never propagates if I set a gap or prevention
Anne, I vote more cars race Rome to Vienna
Sums are not set as a test on Erasmus
Kay, a red nude, peeped under a yak
Some men interpret nine memos
Campus Motto: Bottoms up, Mac
Go deliver a dare, vile dog!
Madam, in Eden I'm Adam
Oozy rat in a sanitary zoo
Ah, Satan sees Natasha
Lisa Bonet ate no basil
Do geese see God?
God saw I was dogSenile felines
Dennis sinned
~~~
I tried and tried to author one, but alas, it was hopeless! :-(If my name was Anna instead of Ann, I'd be all set! :-)
xoabbHappy Palindrome Day!

I Am The Walrus

On this first day of the new year, may I remind everyone that

sometimes those that think they are a walrus...

are not...

~~~
xoabb
coo coo cachoo!*

*Just looked up the correct spelling for, as I spelled it above, ~coo coo cachoo~
It's actually ~goo goo g' joob~
Go figure!