Strolltober?

I’m sliding in at the last moment to participate in Robin’s Walktober. Life’s busy pace really hasn’t slowed down but I am not complaining! But that is my reason for only having a “mini-stroll” to share with you rather than a nice meandering walk like I would prefer. In the middle of a busy but wonderful day yesterday, I took a few moments to enjoy some warm autumn sunshine and have a little stroll. These are iPhone photos that I’m using once again. (I can hear the Canon Rebel grumbling in the corner).

In the middle of many errands and preparations for a wonderful dinner with great friends at my house last night, I decided to stroll by our local pond and enjoy a breather of fresh air and sunshine.

It was about 65 degrees yesterday and I took a few moments to appreciate that as I ambled the tiny beach.

There is a pretty path that goes a little further into the trees surrounding the pond, but I knew I didn’t have the time to spare to walk it on this particular day. This is the entrance to it.

Instead I enjoyed the leaves and the light floating on the water…

…and breathing deeply and remembering that life is good.

Thank you Robin for once again hosting Walktober.

It was a great month!

Four days of October have already passed as I sit to write this post, but I just couldn’t let September go by without creating a little memoir of it here on the blog. It was a beautiful, busy and wonderful month. Let me show you some of the great things I got to experience.

I’ll start by saying that the weather was, for the most part, outstanding. August left me desiring more sunshine and warmth, and I feel like September brought all the beauty and heat it could muster. It was my first month of teaching full time and I absolutely loved it – and still am loving it. I often brought papers home to sit outside on my deck and correct and enjoy the sun at the same time.

September is Big E time here in western Massachusetts. The Big E is a huge 6-state fair, and people come from all over to attend the 17 day event – 1,498,605 of them this year. I enjoyed some favorite things on my visit there this year:

Fried food (this is a basket of tempura veggies)

A really big frozen margarita in a plastic mug with a handle for enjoying while strolling the fair

Oreo cows! Squeeeeeeee!

I discovered that belted galloways (their “real” name…phffft!…not nearly as interesting as “oreo cow”) also come in other colors.

My sister, Sarah and I made a trip to the Cape to visit mom in September as well. We had one day of lovely weather. Warm enough to sit outside and enjoy a warm beverage at the Hot Chocolate Sparrow in Orleans…

(my sister’s pic of her hot apple cider with caramel)

…and watch the wind surfers at Smuggler’s beach (also Jennifer’s pic)

The weekend after we visited the Cape, Jennifer and I visited our dear friend Renae. Renae took us to lunch at a fabulous winery in New Hampshire called La Belle Winery. It was a gorgeous day and we sat outside.

We enjoyed this wonderful cheese slate as an appetizer. That’s my yummy sangria in the background of the picture!

And then, at the very end of the month, something that I have been waiting for for a very long time finally happened!

My new tile kitchen floor was installed! The ugly, permanantly dirty nearly 20-year-old linoleum is finally gone!

A beautiful month – and so much to be thankful for and appreciative of. Life is good.

Summer Toes

Kathy over at Lake Superior Spirit did a blog post today about following your feet. I followed my feet over here to my computer to write a blog post this evening without really knowing what I wanted to write about. Then I saw that little comment icon lit up in the corner of my WordPress screen. I clicked and found Kathy had replied to my comment. Here is our little exchange:
Karma says:
August 29, 2014 at 6:09 pm
My feet directed me to get a pedicure today. I’m glad I acknowledged them! They often itch and whine and complain that I don’t take them to enough interesting places. I try to console them with a new pair of sandals. 😉
Reply
Kathy says:
August 29, 2014 at 7:02 pm
How interesting, Karma! My mom and I were just talking about pedicures this past week. Neither of us have ever had one. Your feet must be VERY happy with you. You will have to tell them that next time they whine or complain. (Although after your summer vacation perhaps they will be complacent for a while…)
Reply
Karma says:
August 29, 2014 at 7:19 pm
It’s a nice treat for feet – you should let yours indulge themselves some time! 🙂

Then I started thinking back over the summer. As I said, my feet do have a tendency to whine that they don’t get taken too many places, but then I as I scrolled through my Flickr photos, I realized perhaps Kathy was right – they did have a nice summer vacation.

They enjoyed lounging in my favorite chair:

Taking in the morning sunshine:

Exploring the backyard:

Visiting the beach during our camping trip:

Having a dip in the ocean in Maine:

Touching a jellyfish:

and then today, as we begin Labor Day weekend, the weekend that feels like the end of summer (though technically there are still 3 more summer weekends) these tootsies were treated to a professional pedicure:

They got that new pair of sandals this week too.

They really shouldn’t complain so much.

Just because…

I took this picture yesterday and forgot to include it in yesterday’s blog post, but I really like it, so here it is.

Hey Bud!

I mentioned in this post how bummed I was that I had barely any lilacs this spring. While that is still true, it appears as though my bearded irises are planning to make up for the lilac lack!

I’ve got lots of iris buds. I counted over 50 when I took these pictures!

I’m thrilled with the abundance of buds. They should be opening any day now. This blog will likely be flooded with their photos in the near future.

The peonies are budding too – and the ants have definitely found their way to that sweet scent.

I guess you can’t call them buds, but the vegetable garden is under way as well. Despite a minor injury to my ankle that I suffered at Zumba class Saturday morning, with some help and some bribery of the teenagers in my life it is all planted. I got my girls’ and daughter’s boyfriend to do the clearing away of last year’s garden debris. Then I was able to comfortably scoot around and do the actual planting.

This year I’ve planted 2 types of tomatoes, yellow bell peppers, jalepenos, cayennes, zucchini, cucumbers, broccoli and eggplant. I’ve never had a heck of a lot of luck with eggplant or bell peppers, but I decided to give them another try. Some little critter has already nibbled the leaves of the of one of the eggplant seedlings, so we’ll see what happens there.

I did plant all those annual flowers I showed you in my last post too. Those were mostly for containers, so that was easy, pleasant work.

I’ve been contemplating some kind of photo challenge too. As I told you at the beginning of the year (or technically at the end of last year) I’ve been trying to focus on the simple joys this year. There have been some rather trying events for both me and someone very close to me over the last couple weeks that, while I cannot discuss them here, have affected me deeply. They have left me feeling bereft of joy at times and attempting to seek it out wherever possible. I’d like to have a joy-themed photo hunt for June. It wouldn’t be a Karma kind of hunt if I just left it at that, though, would it? You awesome bloggers so often inspire me. Would you do me the favor of leaving some joyful comments or ideas or links? I think I could come up with just the thing with a little help from my friends!

Slowly but Surely…

…spring is arriving.
Some evidence:

We had a thunderstorm yesterday. I didn’t think to take any pictures during the storm, but here are remains on the grill. The grill has happily been getting much use lately, another sign of the season.

I mowed the lawn for the first time this year yesterday as well (before the storm, thankfully!) and the trees are finally starting to leaf out.

I made hummingbird food and hung the feeder. I’m not 100% positive, but I think I saw a hummingbird speed by my window a couple days ago, so it seemed like time to get it out there.

Some of the very few lilacs I seem to have this year are opening up. Remember in this post I lamented not seeing lilac buds yet? I was mistaken. There are very few buds out there to be seen. I think this harsh winter unfortunately did a number on lilacs around here. Lilac trees line the side of my driveway and I have several more trees around my house and there are precious few buds and many dead looking branches. My neighbor’s shrubs seem to be suffering the same fate. Anyone else in the northern climes noticing anything like this?

Hubby got me a new birdbath for my little perennial garden. My old one broke in the winter – my own fault for forgetting to put it away. I love this shiny new one though. It will hold more water and add a nice touch of color to the yard.

To all the mothers out there, including mine, I hope you are having a wonderful Mothers Day. I’m planning to spend mine having a little brunch with my family (I enjoyed the Easter one so much I decided to have a similar one today), which I am going to start working on soon, then I’m hoping to soak up a bit of sun and Vitamin D, (forecast here is for sunny skies and 75 degrees) and perhaps do a bit of shopping with my home-from-college girl. Even though I’ll cook most of the brunch food myself, my daughters have promised to clean up! That’s a good Mothers Day treat.

Finding Joy in the Simple Things

I haven’t forgotten my goal of trying to find joy as often as possible. I have a couple things to share with you from last weekend, as well as some joy that I am looking forward to this weekend.

My friends and I did Hike #2 of our MidState Trail hike last Sunday. That morning, as I bustled about getting ready for the hike, I paused a moment at the sight out the window in my front yard:

The robin is out of focus, but I just loved the look of the early morning sun on the dew-kissed lilac branches (which will hopefully be laden with flowers and deliciously fragrant only a few short weeks from now).

At the end of our hike, my friends and I and the dogs did another group portrait.

Daphne is absent from this one due to doing a long walk with Sarah the day before. Sarah is in the Canine Club at our high school and Sarah and Daphne participated in a 5 mile walk around town in support of “Bark for Life” which researches canine cancers. Daphne decided she was done with the walk with a little less than a mile to go back to the starting point and sat down, refusing to go any further. Hubby had to go rescue Sarah and our obstinate fur-baby and take them home! I decided a second 5 mile hike the next day was probably not the best move for my aging golden.

Tonight is a night I’ve looked forward to since Christmas time. As a Christmas gift, my father gave Meghan, Sarah and me tickets to see the Moscow Ballet perform “Sleeping Beauty” at the Hanover Theater in Worcester. In just a short while, Sarah and I will head out to Worcester to pick up Meghan and go out to dinner, followed by the ballet – sure to be a lovely evening.

I hope you have a lovely weekend in store! Tell me about your plans in the comments if you’d like to share!

Some Answers for Cee

I had a look at Cee’s Share Your World questions for this week and when I saw the first question, I just knew I had to participate! Feels a bit like, oh I don’t know, Karma maybe? 😉

In what do you find the simplest of joys?
Great question Cee – and what I am striving to find as often as possible. I shared a couple simple joys in this post. Here are a few more:

Butterflies on my butterfly bush in the summer

My toes in the sand, any season of the year but winter

A tomato grown in my garden

Snow on a funny collie face

Jello or Pudding? And what is your favorite flavor?
I’d have to go with pudding, and the darkest chocolate flavor.

Is there a language you would like to learn?
I’ve had a long-standing love affair with the French language, as I chronicled once in this blog post. I took it all through school and for a year in college. I can still read some of it, but my skills are definitely slipping. I’d love to be able to understand it as I once did.

Do you prefer juice or fruit?
Fruit for sure and just about any kind! This is a difficult time of the year for finding decent fruit here in New England. A couple weeks ago I got some strawberries from Florida that were pretty good and that was a little thrill!

While searching for fruit photos to add to this post, I realized I’ve done a lot of posts about fruit. Add that to my simple joys, Cee, and thanks again for the questions!

Missing Her Already

Meghan went back to college today. It was great having her home for Christmas break. The three and a half weeks she was here flew by. Much of the time she was home was spent out and about with the boyfriend and such, but I was happy for the time she was here and our home felt complete again.

A la Robin of Breezes at Dawn and my New Year’s post, I may share some of the joys I find in the every day from time to time. Here are two from my visit to the grocery store today.

At the entrance to the store:

I was tempted to take one home, but I didn’t want to push the little water-filled glass all over the store with me, then I forgot about them when it was time to pay and leave.

In the parking lot:

Usually I feel a little sad when I see a dog in a car, but today the temperatures were mild and this fuzzy guy just looked so cuddly. He or she wasn’t barking at the passers-by, just taking in the scenery while waiting for its owner to finish shopping. I know better than to do so to a strange dog but it was difficult to resist giving this big teddy bear a hug.

New Snow, New Things

It is snow day number two of the 2013-14 school year. We were supposed to head back to school from the holiday break yesterday, January 2nd, but the timing of slow-paced winter storm Hercules conspired to extend our break by two days. Normally I prefer to go to school and get out earlier in June, but for these couple days I like staying home. It just feels like an uninterrupted vacation. Since the hubbub of Christmas has passed, I’m enjoying the lazy morning routine of breakfast and coffee at the computer. I’m exercising without worrying about what time I have to get a meal on the table. When she’s actually home, I’m enjoying Meghan’s company (her break from school lasts another week). For day 3 of the new year, that’s a good amount of enjoying so far.

The winter storm that caused these extra days off really has not been that bad. I’m guessing there is somewhere in the ball park of 6 inches out there.

It is frigidly cold so the snow is very light and fluffy.

The leaves of the rhododendron-azalea have been curled tight.

As much as Teddy would love for me to come outside and play, it is a bit too cold for me to want to venture out.

I’ve been puttering inside, with some new things to puzzle out.

As some of you know, we purchased a new lap top to replace our slowly dying 5-year-old one a few days ago. I love the quick responsiveness of this new machine, but I’m also having to learn the ways of Windows 8. It hasn’t been too bad so far, but some things have surprised me. Some things are not as intuitive or automatic as I would have expected them to be. After owning a Kindle Fire for the last year and as a new iPhone 5 user, I feel like everything should be so easy to navigate!

Another new thing in that photo is Adobe Lightroom 5 – new photo editing software I was given for Christmas. I know absolutely nothing about Lightroom. If anyone knows some good resources you would like to point me in the direction of, please do so. I’m thinking I may purchase Scott Kelby’s book about it – he has been an excellent resource in the past.

I’m still trying to decide about a new theme for this blog as well. Would you share your opinions with me about how it looks to you? I’m not as crazy about this theme on my new 17″ screen, and I’ve had it for a while now anyway. Maybe it is time for another change! If you are so inclined, tell me in the comments what size computer screen or mobile device you usually do your blog reading on, and whether there is a lot of visible empty space on this blog.

Changes and joy – they continue!