Blogging

  • Miscellaneous Monday

    Today’s post is just a bit of randomness. Before we dive in, the picture above is from Tug Dogs, an amazing dog training company a couple of hours from here. I first heard about them from BARK, the Keeshond rescue that connected us with both of our darling dogs, Mulder (2015-2023) and Genevieve (1998-2012). One thing they do at Tug Dogs is to take in dogs that have behavior issues, diagnose the issues, and help the dogs to feel safe and secure, so they can help them to understand how to live happily in a confusing human run world. I follow them on Facebook, and the funny picture above was…

  • Dinners Last Week

    I’m sure you missed my ‘Dinners Last Week’ posts during NaBloPoMo, so here I am back at it. Maybe I can give you an idea for something to cook, because THAT is the hard part for me. Figuring out what to cook. And like the meme, above, sometimes I have ideas earlier in the week, or even earlier in the day, and then when it’s time to cook, I think, “Couldn’t we just eat cheese and crackers? What about eggs?” I generally stick with my plan, because I have the ingredients. I like cooking, it’s just that by 5:00 when I get off of work, I’ve lost my verve. I…

  • Meme Monday

    My A-Z theme is over, and we still have a couple of days left of NaBloPoMo. What to do? Well, Elisabeth asked a bunch of questions on her Blog a couple of weeks ago, and I saved them for just such a situation. I remember when ‘meme’ meant all of these questions, back in the old days of blogging. So here we go. The meme above is a repeat, and is just to make you laugh.

  • V is for VIP

    Imagine my surprise recently when checking out at the grocery store, when the checker got a message in the computer that I was a VIP and they needed to bring me a gift! What? Me? A VIP? The woman behind me was hilarious and bowed down to me in an ‘I’m not worthy’ way. Of course, the whole VIP thing locked up the computer and we had to wait for someone to go fetch my gift and unlock the computer, so I’m glad that the people behind me were amused and patient. My gift, as you can see above, was cheese related. It included a lovely cheese board, some cheese…

  • U is for Updates

    This whole NaBloPoMo thing has been great, and my idea of using the alphabet prompts has kept me very organized. I pre-loaded a lot of the posts, so I could spend more time coming to your blogs and reading. This has not always worked, since life does get in the way sometimes, so I’m a little behind in the commenting and reading department, but just like all of us, I’m doing my best. For today though, I thought I would catch you up on what I’ve been up to. I took a very quick trip to Portland a couple of weeks ago to say goodbye to my step-mom’s partner, Tom.…

  • NaBloPoMo 2023

    November is fast approaching, and I am looking forward to participating in NaBloPoMo again this year. I have taken part many times since I started blogging in 2005, though certainly not every year. In the earlier days of blogging, it was a big deal, with hundreds of participants. One year I won an iPad Mini through BlogHer during NaBloPoMo, which was certainly a wonderful surprise. Because there were so many participants, the challenge was to post every day in November, and perhaps try to visit some new blogs, see if you found new friends this way. Over time it faded away, and I would sometimes do a personal challenge anyway.…

  • Commenting Again

    Picture above is of me on the train from Fairbanks to Denali as a kid. Clearly I do not want to be interrupted, I look annoyed. I had a very annoying day blogging yesterday. My issue with being able to comment on blogger blogs is now occurring on my daughter’s HP laptop, which was working pretty well for awhile there. SO FRUSTRATING. I read your posts, I had things to say, and yet I could not say them. I just got a message that says I cannot log in to Google. Some of your blogs have an option to comment anonymously, but when I tried that, I got an error.…

  • Testing a New Theme

    OK, I seem to have finally found a WP theme that shows the names of my lovely commenters AND has a sidebar. I really like the sidebar widgets, because I don’t use any sort of reader. I should probably do something about that, but I’m not sure how to go about it. Now I’m seeing if I can get the picture to show at the top of my post on my main page, without the reader having to select it. Well, that worked…but now I’m seeing the picture twice, which is NOT the case when I’m editing it. Grrr. Computers are fun! Oh, now it’s working. Lots to learn, clearly!

  • Housekeeping

    There’s something wrong with my blog. See my comments there? Your names and links to your blogs are no longer appearing. My theme is no longer supported, so I need to poke around and find one that I like. I’ve tried a couple now, and even some of the new ones have this same issue, though others do not. So I apologize if you get notifications that things have changed (I don’t know whether that happens, or if you would only get a notification of a new post…) While I’m at it, perhaps I will update the photo that pops up when I comment. That one is from my 40th…

  • Friday Thoughts

    I saw this sad little vase of flowers on my sad lonely walk the other morning, and it felt right to me. I feel flat and sad without Mulder. It’s been two weeks now since he died. I know that we did the right thing, but gosh, it still hurts. It is, however, getting a little less painful, a little easier. I no longer expect to see him when I come downstairs. I no longer think he will come put his chin on my knee and beg for dinner every day at 4:30, knowing that dinnertime isn’t for another 1/2 hour, but hoping against hope that I have forgotten how…

  • Changing the Subject (Mostly)

    This is Ted looking cute at a local restaurant in our town. We went downtown last weekend and had a snack and some wine, then went to a bookstore. Some of my favorite things: Ted, food, wine, books. Excellent way to spend a Saturday afternoon on a beautiful day. This is one of the dishes we had. I did not take a picture, this is from the restaurant Facebook page. It’s asparagus, labneh, blood orange, arugula, and a ‘perfect egg’. The picture has spring greens, but ours was just arugula, which is fine by me, because I love arugula. When the menu said ‘perfect egg’, I assumed that was going…

  • Miscellaneous Monday

    I don’t know what to write about today, so I’m going to just throw a bunch of stuff at you. Here goes. Regarding the meme above, this is how I felt when we were in France last year. The names of the towns we stayed in were pronounced completely differently than they looked to my American eyes. Mougins is pronounced ‘MOO-jan‘ with a soft j, short a, and a soft n. Click the link to hear. Vincennes is a little closer to how it looks, VA-sen, with a short A. One of the stops on our train ride between Paris and Vincennes is Nation, pronounced NA-si-on, with all short vowels.…