Blogging
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Spotted Photos – Yellow
Sculpture at top of this post: Aspiring to Pumpkin’s Love, The Love in My Heart – Yayoi Kusama When iHanna announced that the April theme for her Spotted Photo Challenge would be ‘Yellow’, I thought, oh, I don’t think I have many yellow photos, this is going to be quick. Wrong. I have a ton. You’re going to get photos of Maya, Mulder, France, food, and flowers. Maybe a few other things too. Ready? Here’s Maya at her first birthday party, held in a local park, where we had friends, family, pizza, and cake. It was a beautiful day. Here she is in Juneau, Alaska! We’re visiting my mom, my…
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Spotted Photo Theme – Circles
OK, I’m squeaking in under the deadline here. iHanna has another Spotted Photo challenge, where the idea is that you go through your phone/iPad photos, and find pictures that match the theme she has given. You’re not out looking for that theme, not taking new photos, just curating the pictures you already have. I’m not a photographer by any means, so mine are not going to be gorgeous like some others, but here they are anyway. A lot of them are food. And I snuck in some memes, which is totally cheating and not cool at all. The Rose Window in Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, 2018. I really hope…
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Spotted Photos Challenge – Pairs
Almost a Wordless Wednesday, here is my submission for iHanna’s Spotted Photos Challenge. The idea is to look through the photos on your phone/iPad/computer and post the ones that match that month’s theme. The February theme is Pairs, so here is Mulder in a (smeary) pair of glasses. He was preparing for an important presentation on macroeconomics that day. He crushed it, obviously.
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Shadows and Light
iHanna has a blog photo challenge, where participants go through their photo libraries and find pictures that fit a certain theme. The idea is that you spot that theme in photos that you have already taken, not that you go out and take new photos that would work. I like the idea, so I’m playing along. January’s theme is Shadows. Here are my shadow pictures from my iPad photos. The picture above is an oak tree on one of our walks, and I am so often struck by the beauty of the shadows in amongst the branches. I take pictures, trying to capture it, but I don’t end up sharing…
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Cool Bloggers Cookie Swap
Suzanne is hosting a cookie swap this week, and I am here for it. I have 4 recipes for you. I will link to 2 recipes that I have shared before, and also share 2 ‘new’ ones. I say ‘new’, because when I search my blog, I have never written them up, though I have linked to them in the past. First the links to past cookie recipes: Now for the ‘new’ recipes. When I was growing up, my mom always made fudge for my grandpa, who had the biggest sweet tooth in the family (perhaps more than my Aunt Flo even, though that’s difficult to fathom). The recipe was…
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Soup Weather
Back in July, Tobia hosted the Cool Bloggers Summer Salad Challenge, in which she challenged herself (and us) to eat more salads. It was fun to see people sharing salad recipes on their blogs, and also fun to try some of them for myself. Now that we’re easing into soup weather, and it’s feeling like Fall in the northern hemisphere, I thought we could have a Cool Bloggers Autumn Soup Challenge, and share some favorite soup recipes. I think Winter Soup Challenge has a better ring to it somehow, but Winter is 2 months away. I don’t have any new soup recipes for you, but instead will share some of…
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The Neapolitan Novels
Is it pretentious that I chose the Italian covers for these novels? Maybe. Anyway, it’s time to talk about the Neapolitan Novels, by Elena Ferrante. Many of us read the first book in the series, My Brilliant Friend, for Engie’s Cool Bloggers Book Club in February. Some of us adored it, some tolerated it, some wished they had taken that time to deep clean their bathtub. I’m in the adored it category, so I went on and read the other three books in the series, The Story of a New Name, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay, and The Story of the Lost Child. I also listened to them…
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Miscellaneous Monday
This is going to be one of those random posts, just things I’m thinking about. (I mean, that is the name of my blog, right?) First I will dip my toes into politics a bit, and say that I am feeling MUCH more hopeful about the possibility of no Trump presidency than I was a couple of weeks ago. Ever since Biden’s horrible debate, I’ve been so stressed out. I think he’s been a very good President, and doesn’t get enough credit for his accomplishments. I honestly doubt that he could put in another 4 years, though, it’s a hell of a job. But we have a whole system set…
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Bastille Day Randomness
Happy Bastille Day everyone! Bastille Day holds a special place in my heart, as my first full day in Paris on my honeymoon 31 years ago was on Bastille Day. I fell in love with France that day, and have been fortunate enough to go back twice since then. When Engie asked me to help her celebrate her 20 years of blogging (WOW!), and told me my day would be July 14th, I decided to write about France (again). So I’m her guest today! I’m sorry, I know I’ve written about my 2022 trip a LOT, and my 2018 trip less but still a lot, so likely you will not…
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Summer Salad Challenge
I was going to write about politics today, about how genuinely afraid I am for our democracy since last week’s Supreme Court ruling. About how I fear that Biden’s age is going to be a real issue in the election this fall, and how I wish he had decided not to run for a second term, and yet I worry that if he drops out now, it will be too late and again, Trump wins and we are all well and truly screwed. About how I thought the insurrection on January 6th was the end of Trump’s political career, that there was no way folks would support him after that.…
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Miscellaneous Monday
First off, look at my beautiful Mother’s Day breakfast. We usually get danish for Mother’s Day, a tradition born when Maya was little and Ted worked early (before the sun came up) on Sundays, so this was something that he could put together before he left. She’s old enough to make me anything I might want now, and he works normal hours, but the tradition remains because I love danish, and the only time I eat them is Mother’s Day. Now look at this picture and tell me whether you think I have a skin cream addiction. I love skin cream, and I think I collect it now like I…
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Friday Five
What to write about this Friday morning? Let’s see what I can come up with for a quick Friday Five. That’s all I can come up with around here. What’s new in your neck of the woods? Update to insert 2 of today’s FB memories about the last years of our sweet girl Genevieve’s life. Genevieve was 11 at this point, and lived almost 2 more years. I miss having a dog, every day. I don’t miss this part of the equation, though.
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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…
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(Almost) Wordless Wednesday
Thank you Sarah at The Shu Box for the lovely surprise that arrived on Monday! #SecretSANtaSwap2023
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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…
