I’ve been aware of the time going by

They say in the end it’s the wink of an eye

And when the morning light comes streaming in

You’ll get up and do it again.

Amen.

I heard that old Jackson Browne song on the way to work this morning and it’s been running through my head all day long. It’s pretty, and I used to love Jackson Browne.

I had nothing today as far as photos to share with you. So to amuse myself this evening, I posted a single photo I took during each month of 2012. After the first three, I realized I had a bird thing going on, so I kept the photos strictly to birds. I should make my own calendar. Ha.

 

JANUARY 2012

Female cardinal

 

 

FEBRUARY 2012

Black-capped chickadee

 

 

MARCH 2012

Tufted titmouse

 

 

APRIL 2012

Downy woodpecker

 

 

MAY 2012

Eastern bluebird, male

 

 

JUNE 2012

Northern mockingbird

 

 

JULY 2012

Juvenile house finch

 

 

AUGUST 2012

Ruby-throated hummingbird, female

 

 

SEPTEMBER 2012

Black-capped chickadee

 

 

OCTOBER 2012

Hairy woodpecker

 

 

NOVEMBER 2012

Male cardinal

 

 

 

DECEMBER 2012

Sharp-shinned hawk

 

:   :   :

 

 

Hope you liked.

 

There’s some snow a-coming.

 

Neither here nor there

This is completely random, but due to the lack of anything interesting going on, I’m just going to ramble on. I do hope you don’t mind.

I am sitting under a throw and have not one, but two sweaters on. And a scarf. And I’m happy.

George has a small bump on his nose and we don’t know what it is yet. My husband noticed it today and is hoping it’s just a small bruise. He says the dog was playing pretty rough yesterday with the stick.

I got my hair cut and colored last night. I wish it could always stay this silky and soft.

 

I took this photo of a geranium bloom the other day.

 

And the sunshine coming through the lace curtains in the dining room.

 

Same feather, but taken last year.

I collect feathers.

 

My husband saw me sitting outside over the weekend, so he helped me by enticing the birds with a little extra sunflower seed sprinkled around.

 

And they began arriving right away.

:   :   :

Thank you for the movie suggestions in the post a couple down from here. I’m planning on watching some of the ones you mentioned. Over the weekend, I watched A Bronx Tale and loved it. I cannot believe I’ve never seen it before in all these years. Classic. I have Secondhand Lions in my queue, another really good movie that I’ve seen before. And I believe I’ll rewatch Buck tonight. It’s a documentary about Buck Brannaman who was the inspiration for the movie, The Horse Whisperer. My husband worked with horses all of his adult life, and got along better with them than he did most people and I swear, he was a bit of a horse whisperer himself.

I’d also like to recommend Ondine on Netflix stream. It’s different but I think you might enjoy. Check it out for the synopsis and see if it’s something that could be up your alley ~

Have a great week, all.

Very good

Thank you so much for answering my movie question. As many of you know, the comment section is always interesting here and part of my reason for asking in the first place was to get new ideas for viewing – not just for myself, but for all of you. So thank you for your honesty.

First, as far as Beasts of the Southern Wild went, it was definitely interesting. Set in a fantastical place called The Bathtub in the Louisiana Bayou, just beyond the reach of the governments levee protection area, it is the story of a fiercely independent little girl named Hushpuppy and her relationship with her alcoholic father, Wink. After the squalid settlement where she lives is washed out by a hurricane, Hushpuppy imagines that wild beasts who resemble giant boars have melted and broken free from the polar icecaps and are coming for her.

I didn’t love the movie. But I didn’t dislike it at all. It was definitely a raw look at Hushpuppy’s reality, the prettiest place on earth, as she called it, and her struggle for survival in her cast-off universe. She misses her mother and sometimes calls for her with a piercing scream that’s enough to break your heart. The entire movie belongs to this child, though, and she is truly amazing.

Secondly, it was a beautiful three-day weekend for me. And Saturday and Sunday were incredibly lovely as far as weather and relaxing were concerned. Temps dropped dramatically today and it’s actually snowing out there right now which I hadn’t realized until I let the dog in and he was wet.

 

Here are a few photos I took of him the other night when he was dry ~

 

It’s time to put away the holiday toys. He’ll be excited to see them out next year, I guarantee you that.

 

Do you do that with your dog? George has a number of toys, some that are still from his puppy days and I’m always switching them up. He gets really excited when I take something out that he hasn’t seen in months.

 

He is such a beautiful dog, our George is.

And the best thing is that he’s also a good dog.

 

Yes, you are, George.

 

A very good boy.

 

 

As I write this, and just within the past half hour, everything has been covered with a nice coat of white. It sticks to every branch and is actually quite beautiful. It’s not supposed to amount to much more than this so I’m pretty certain we’ll have school tomorrow. If you’re new here – I work at a school. When it’s closed due to the weather, I have the day off. I love when that happens.

In other news, made this for dinner tonight and was pleasantly surprised at how much my husband loved it. He even went back for seconds.

Lasagna with roasted vegetables

Hope your week is a good one. And if my dog could talk, he’d say hello. I’m sure of it.

Mosaic Monday: Sunshine and birds

I haven’t played along with blogging friend, Mary at Little Red House, for well over a year on her Monday Mosaic theme. Come to think of it, it’s probably been more than a year since I’ve done this. I found that I didn’t have the time to visit all of the links, which is why I gave up Sky Watch and all the other weekly themes that are around the blogosphere.

Well, I think I’ll try it today and see where it takes me.

For the past couple of weeks, we’ve had nothing but dreary days full of either fog or rain or a mixture of both. The fog is often beautiful in and of itself, but it wasn’t until Saturday morning that I found myself smiling simply because – miracle of miracles – the sun was shining.

Today’s weather was even warmer than yesterday and I spent an hour or so this afternoon just sitting in the yard, snapping photos of the visitors to our feeders.

Supposed to get really cold here soon. Today was a gift.

 

I hope your week is a wonderful one.

 

To see more mosaics from around the world, visit my friend, Mary,

at Mosaic Monday.

Sunshine, freedom, and a little flower

I’m going to start by saying that never in my life have I put holiday decorations away as late as January 19. After New Year’s, there’s nothing that gets old faster than Christmas as far as I’m concerned. It’s just how I’ve always felt about it and so all of my adult life since I began decorating for the biggest holiday of the year, I would always have it all put away by the weekend after New Year’s.

I’m sorry to keep going on about it but glad to say that it’s all finally done.

My husband had already taken down the two small trees, putting the ornaments into a new cardboard storage box with drawers that I bought on sale last year.

 

And early this morning, I walked around the house, gathering all the detritus of the holiday and depositing it on the dining room table, my staging area for packing. Surprisingly, I had it all done within two hours, my husband helping by taking all of the crates to storage.

In retrospect, I guess I really could have squeezed two hours from one of the previous weekends but with everything going on, it was all just too much.

 

I did some cleaning before putting everything back in its usual place. Then I brought in some of the geraniums that have been wintering in the mudroom, cleaning them up and giving them a good dousing with water before placing them in the west windows where they’re sure to get a lot of sun.

I finished my book, The House at Riverton by Kate Morton. It was a decent read and kept me interested. Next up are The Thirteenth Tale, and The Book Thief, both of which I really look forward to. I read outside in the sunshine this afternoon in a protected spot. Sunshine can do a world of good in the middle of winter, can’t it?

"Just living is not enough," said the butterfly, "one must have sunshine, freedom and a little flower."  ~Hans Christian Andersen

 

 

This afternoon, the light coming in the west windows was beautiful. So I picked up the camera. Here at the kitchen window, I have the remnants of the poinsettia plants on one side of the deep windowsill and geraniums on the other.

 

And then I turned the camera to the window, focused on what was up close to my lens and caught the sun going down.

I love the blur and the colors.

Tonight I’m going to watch a movie that I received in the mail from Netflix yesterday. It’s up for an Oscar and a co-worker recommended it. It’s Beasts of the Southern Wild. I’ll keep you posted.

And now for a question, a single one this time.

What was the last movie you watched? Doesn’t matter if it was on tv, through the mail, at the movie theater . . . wherever.

See you in the comments.

A day without sunshine

Today was a dreary one that became colder as the day wore on. Raw best describes today’s weather, plus we haven’t seen the sun for over a week. I began my new book last night and am getting into The House at Riverton. So far, so good. Another Kate Morton book that I really enjoyed is The Forgotten Garden.

Season 12 of American Idol started tonight (or as my husband calls it, The Singing Survivor Show). I’ve always liked the audition shows although I’m not too sure about the judges this year. I miss Simon and I actually really liked Jennifer Lopez and Steven Tyler. I was not a fan of Ellen as a judge, although I think she’s great in everything else she’s done. This year sees Randy Jackson returning, along with newcomers Keith Urban, Mariah Carey and Nicki Minaj. I keep the show on in the background as I read.

 

I snapped this last night before I went to bed. George looked so comfortable as he lay sprawled on his couch (yes, I said his couch) sound asleep.

A favorite photo of mine that includes him and a stray cat he was in love with is below.

 

I lost the original photo of this when my hard drive crashed in 2011 but I was able to download this from an old post on my blog. The cat visited daily, jumping over the fence to see his doggie friend. George was just a pup back then and the cat was the only other animal he was close with.

Tonight for dinner, I made a shepherd’s pie using a recipe from a blogging friend who lives in the Yorkshire Dales. A real English recipe, too. Thank you so much, Pat. It was delicious.

So how are things in your neck of the woods? I’m going to get back to my book ~

“A day without sunshine is like, you know, night.” ~Steve Martin

Better

Today was a better day. Your comments on my previous post both surprised and comforted me. I think my mood when I wrote that post was a combination of too many emotions – and it’s always more lonely in the middle of the night when you’re unable to fall back to sleep.

But that was then and this is now. And I feel so much better, thank you.

I just finished a book that I’m sending on to my sister. I was really engrossed in The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom, telling my sisters that they just had to read this book. Yet as I read past the half-way point, my love for it began to fade. It got great reviews and came highly recommended but my love of historical fiction wasn’t enough to warrant my high praise. I just couldn’t handle the constant pain of loss, the drug abuse, and the evil that comes from ignorance and prejudice in this novel that was set in the late 1700’s on a tobacco plantation in Virginia. I’ll see what my sister, Judy, thinks because she still wants to read it.

Next up on my reading list is The House at Riverton by Kate Morton. I have higher hopes for this one, especially because I’m a huge fan of Downton Abbey.

 

The weather has been strangely mild lately and I’ve begun to lose hope for a good snowfall. I want it to be winter, please. Oh, not a full-blown winter that takes your breath away with its cold, but just a regular season. I took the photo above last year on this very date. I can see snow on the ground and I know it was a lot colder then than it is today.

 

Tonight I made an easy meal using chicken I had leftover from the tetrazzini I made on Sunday and ingredients I had in the house. I sautéed onions in Land-O-Lakes butter (the new one with olive oil & sea salt), then added some carrots I’d pre-cooked in the microwave, and some frozen peas. I continued to cook until the peas were heated through, then I sliced the chicken breasts into bite-sized pieces and cooked them on med-high heat in some of the same butter. I served it on jasmine rice that I’d boiled with chicken broth and it was really quite good. And someone else liked it a lot too, which is always nice to hear.

I’ll be taking it for lunch tomorrow.

:   :   :

 

So how was your day today?

And oh, this picture made me laugh out loud at work. Just wanted to share ~

I never think of counting sheep

I’m writing this in the wee small hours of the morning while the whole wide world is fast asleep. I’d actually been lying in bed for the past hour or so while that song went through my head, over and over and getting up was the only way to get it to stop. It’s not often that I wake up like this and can’t get back to sleep, and my heart goes out to those who suffer from this on a regular basis.

Things always seem worse in the middle of the night.

The funeral for my husband’s brother was held on Saturday afternoon. It was actually quite beautiful and very well-attended and I left there with a lighter heart. It was good to be with family afterward – and I think Rich would have loved the Ravens game that we watched in his den after dinner. I would have loved to stay but my husband and I left to get back to the dog (and to get my husband away from the crowd).

Sunday dawned with a heavy mist that has yet to lift. I decided to take a walk with the dog around the property, bringing the camera with me.





If you look closely, you can almost see the house just to the left of center in the image above.

He always waits for me.

I had plans for today that included grocery shopping and then taking down all the rest of the holiday decorations but I just couldn’t get my act in gear. I finally had to force myself to go out and get the shopping done.

This is one chore that was always done by my husband and is one that I truly dislike. I can’t recall exactly when he stopped doing it on a regular basis but I believe it was after the last brain surgery in 2011. I took over the job after that and never do it on a regular basis. I often stop on the way home from a long day at work, or am always forgetting something on the list, or getting the wrong item. But it’s the lugging it all into the house that really gets to me and by the time I get it all in there, I still have to put it all away. And then I get angry with myself over complaining in my mind when I should feel glad that we have food to eat and a place to live.

Oh my gosh - I hate this woe is me shit.






Because the day felt sort of somber, I decided to make comfort food for dinner for my husband and I and give up on the putting away of the holiday stuff. I decided on a chicken tetrazzini recipe that I found online by Giada De Laurentiis. It was actually quite delicious but the preparations left my kitchen a disaster area, as my bechamel sauce boiled over on my antiquated stovetop on the only burner that works. It was quite the mess and I got angry with myself for being such a sloppy cook. While putting away the ingredients and cleaning up, I realized I’d completely forgotten to add one – but it was only the parsley. It could have been something much more important, and I say that with no disrespect to the pretty green herb.

Cooking is not something that comes naturally to me.

Eating, on the other hand, does. Unfortunately.

* snort *






I can’t seem to shake this sense of foreboding that I have. So I’m just going to tell myself that it’s three in the morning is what it is, and a lot of people have feelings like this in the middle of the night for heaven’s sake.






My husband told me that he wished it were him that was gone and not his brother. I don’t know what to say about that. But I do know that the world just doesn’t seem right today.

And the chicken tetrazzini didn’t make anything better.

But it did taste really good.

:   :   :

Here’s to a better tomorrow, then ~ for all of us.

Something stolen, something gained

It’s been nearly a week since I’ve posted and I’m sorry but I just haven’t felt like it. I’ve missed you though and I’m stopping in tonight to say hello.

Hello ~

It’s after 9 and I’m watching Modern Family which never fails to make me laugh. I’ve had a bit of a rough week and have been running around, getting things done and dealing with issues that come up in the regular course of life. Plus, the past several nights, I’ve been working on the picture boards that people will see at my husband’s brother’s funeral which will be held on Saturday. I hope I’ve done a decent job and that my sister-in-law likes them.

On a lighter note, I’ll tell you a tale of my new favorite beverage glasses. It’s really not all that exciting, but I’m telling it anyway.

 

On Christmas day, after dinner, it’s been my husband’s family tradition to play the Dirty Santa Game. This is a gift game that requires you to bring a wrapped gift that cost a set dollar amount (ours is $25). Each player draws a number from a hat, and the game begins. Number one goes first and opens a gift. Then number two has the option of choosing another gift or stealing the gift opened by number one. If number one has a gift stolen, they get to choose another. This goes on (with a few other rules) until all the gifts are opened. There is usually always someone who gets the gift they really wanted, and there’s often someone who’s left wondering why they play this damn game every year.

But we play because it’s fun! That’s why.

This year, on my turn, I opened the glass set that you see above. And as soon as I saw it, I begged my relatives not to steal this set of glasses because I really really liked them. They came from Fishs Eddy in NYC and were actually brought by my son, Matt. All through the game, my relatives abided by my wish and it wasn’t until the person with the final number stepped up to take his turn.

It was my brother-in-law, Bob, and he liked the glasses too. And he ignored my pleas and stole them away from me. I did end up taking home a very nice set of bath towels.

But I couldn’t get those pretty bird glasses off my mind.

 

Plus, it didn’t help that I was texting with my son later that night. He was staying at his Uncle Bob & Aunt Helen’s house and wrote me that his uncle had already taken the glasses out of the box, and washed them and was actually using them. In fact, my son was drinking from one at that very moment.

Gah! My glasses!

 

So, if Bob & Helen now had my glasses, are you wondering why they’re in my cabinet? Well, it’s because my son reminded me that he’d gotten them at Fishs Eddy in the city. And wasn’t I going to the city the very next day? And . . . according to their website . . . they were on sale.

So when I got to the city, and while we were waiting for our friend Janice to arrive on the train, Daryl and I took the subway down to the shop and spent some time browsing the cool stuff they have there. I loved it! And I believe they have a lot on sale right now, too. Even these cute little numbers . . .

 

Fishs Eddy sale

I think I’ll go pour something cold to drink in one of my new Oldham + Harper painted bird glasses. Until next time, my friends ~

This care worn world

I’m sorry that I’ve been such a slacker lately in the blogging department. But you know, life is meant to be lived and not just spent blogging about it all the time. Not that I’m putting down any of us who do this – although I sometimes wonder if my friends and family think I’m a little touched in the head for writing regularly on a website for anyone to see.

So you should understand that when I don’t write, I've either got nothing that I think is worth saying or that something is happening in my life that I’d prefer not to share.





I have had something in life that I have preferred not to share.

Today, my husband’s younger brother passed away. All I can say is that it hurts. It hurts so many people. He was only 52. He was loved by so many and left a wife, two children, a brother and his family, a sister and hers, and his parents who I can’t even fathom how much are hurting. One thing that has happened through all of this is a newfound respect I have for his wife.

Oh, I’ve always respected and liked her but I will say out loud right now that we had never actually been what you would call super close. Like hang out outside the family kind of close that I am with some of my other sisters-in-law. Does that make sense? But the love and admiration I have for her right now and the pain I feel for her is actually surprising me.

And it’s a nice surprise.

Except for the pain part of it.





I’m sorry if I sound so . . . oh, I don’t know. Morose. It’s just that I've spent the past several hours pouring through my old photographs looking for photos of Rich and finding them but also coming across pieces of my own life that are making me feel very nostalgic.

I can’t believe how young we all were ~

I had meant to look through the photos earlier, just in case you know. But I was honestly and truly convinced that he would not die. And there was nothing I was going to do (like begin looking through photos for a funeral video) that would jinx his getting well.

So I didn't even think about it.





One thing I know is that I will remember this entire day forever.

:   :   :

I’m also watching  Sleepless in Seattle and enjoying the last couple of days of my little Christmas trees before I take them down. Of course, this is all adding to the feeling of nostalgia.

Things will never be the same without Rich here on this earth.





I have the nuthatch photos in here because Rich, like his brother, liked the birds. When I would visit him at the hospital in Philadelphia, I would tell him what birds were at our feeders. He had been there since the end of October.

There is no night without a dawning
No winter without a spring
And beyond the dark horizon
Our hearts will once more sing...
For those who leave us for a while
Have only gone away
Out of a restless, care worn world
Into a brighter day.
~ Helen Steiner Rice

Respectfully submitted,