Change Is Hard

…but change is certain.

Tag Archives: fun stuff


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Katie’s park

Katie here.  Have you missed me?  Let me tell you, I’ve been through the wringer!  Between my Dad being gone, and me being sick, it’s been really stressful here!  And did I tell you that our winter was terrible?!  I think my Mom showed you the picture of me in the snow with only my eyes and ears showing.

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(Don’t worry, I was really standing in my path and my person was over in the driveway, they didn’t really bury me!)

Well I’m happy to tell you that most of that darn snow has melted, my Dad is home, I feel great, and this past weekend my Mama took me to my park!  It’s been forever since I’ve had a real adventure.  I don’t count that unfortunate trip to the pet food store a couple of weeks ago when I accidentally wet all over the floor.  Mama doesn’t like to talk about that.  It was her fault anyway, so best not bring it up, OK?

Sunday I got to go to my park for the first time since last fall!  It was wonderful!  I did make my Mama carry me around this one big puddle, but other than that I had fun sniffing and checking out all the pee-mail that had been left for me.

 

Big cold puddle!

Big cold puddle!

It was wet and muddy, my feet got cold and I got a lot of stuff stuck to my furs, but it was still wonderful!  We walked way back to this little deck at the very edge of the park.

 

Mama likes this deck!

Mama likes this deck!

Mama spent a long time watching the ducks and geese out on the little lake until I reminded her that we were supposed to be walking around my park!

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On the way back to the car I got sort of tired.  After all this was my first long walk of the season.  But Mama had treats and we worked a little bit and that got me all excited again.  I was happy to get back in the car though and when we got home Mama and I took a nice long afternoon nap.

I love weekends!  I hope the snow is gone for good, because I think my Mama will take me back to the park next weekend if the weather is good!  I can not wait!

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Of summer

Let’s talk of things summer now.  Let’s skip right past the waylaid spring and move right into the hot muggy days of summer, when the frogs sing at night and the lightening bugs glow, when the grass is damp beneath bare feet and the windows  stay open all day.  Yes, let’s talk of summer.   Of yellow gold finches and monarch butterflies and roses blooming and summer evenings that stretch into forever.

They are turning yellow!

They are turning yellow!

One of my favorite things about summer is ice cream.  What?  You thought I was going to continue on about warm dark nights and low hanging stars?  Heck no.  This is about ice cream!

I’ve always said there is no bad ice cream.  There is cheap ice cream and expensive ice cream, low fat, low sugar and the really good stuff made out on the farm where the cows live just yards away.  But there’s no such thing as bad ice cream.

Last May I met an older gentleman in Washington DC who thought along the same lines as me when it came to ice cream.  We were seated across from each other during the first meal of the conference, getting to know each other, sharing our stories.  The meal came to an end and the waiter asked if anyone was having dessert.  Normally I decline, but the gentleman across the table asked if they had any ice cream.  As the waiter listed the meager options the elderly man said “There’s no such thing as bad ice cream, I’ll have the chocolate.”  My head snapped up and I responded, “That’s what I always say!”   We high-fived each other across the table and I ordered ice cream too.

I thought I’d always feel that way about ice cream.  Until this week.  This week I happened upon this at the grocery store, sitting innocently in the freezer next to other icy treats.

Looks yummy.

Looks yummy.

 

150 calories for the whole pint.  “Huh” I thought.  “There’s no such thing as bad ice cream, and 150 calories for the whole thing?”  Into the cart it went.  At home I doled out a measly  couple of tablespoons because I was too excited to read the directions that said let it stand out for ten minutes before serving and it was rock hard.   Chocolate peanut butter.  No such thing as bad ice cream, yep, this was going to be good.

It tasted faintly of something.  Perhaps chocolate, certainly not peanut butter.    There was a memory of chocolate if you concentrated real hard, but in reality it tasted more like weak, cold dishwater.  Distinctly soapy.  I tried again the next night, another couple of table spoons, but I ended up tossing it and this post is my public service announcement.  Hard as it is to believe, there can be bad ice cream.  This is it.

Don’t waste your money.

Summer was meant to be enjoyed.  Head out to the dairy farm for your ice cream.  You won’t regret it.

We make good ice cream.

We make good ice cream here.

 

 

 


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Was going to

Was going to blog about any number of things today.  Had them all lined up.  But I have to tell you a couple of things not related to any of that.

Even though my yard looks like this today, which doesn’t seem all that spring-like…

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1.  I SAW a pair of sandhill cranes flying over Katie’s park when I was driving to Ann Arbor to go to the symphony yesterday evening!  Their flight is so distinctive.  I got to watch them for quite awhile, and I smiled every second of it.

2.  This morning there was a red winged blackbird on my feeder, more proof they are really here.  Now this sort of makes me smile, and sort of makes me not smile.  They are such pigs.  They eat so much food they can eat me out of house and birdseed over a weekend.  But I know they’re hungry, just like all the rest of the birds, so for now I’m opting to smile.  Because they are truly signs that spring is not only on it’s way, it’s already here.

3.  I was just giving Katie a little shoulder massage while looking out the window and I saw a bird in my little redbud tree.  Then it flew to the ground and back up again.  I ran for the camera, but by the time I got back it had moved to the top of a small spruce hidden behind some bare branches of a shrub.  But you can tell it’s a bluebird!!   There were actually two males be bopping around the yard.  I couldn’t get a good photo of either of them, the light was bad, so you’ll have to settle for this one.

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I’m so happy I could sing….and I was…singing along with a clip of Jimmy Fallon’s show, but that’s another blog.

Happy happy dance.

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Weekly photo challenge: Inside

WordPress has challenged us with finding a photo that represents inside.  I think we’ve had that challenge before.  I remember seeing flowers inside my kitchen window last fall.  So all the ‘inside’ ideas I thought of this weekend involving windows I chucked.  And of course some of you have seen a photo just like this when I posted about my sister’s visit here last summer.  But I don’t have access to my archives at the moment, so Katie and I went out to the driveway and recreated her version of inside…outside.

Love my tunnel! Got a treat?

Love my tunnel! Got a treat?

Of course this involved me setting her up in a ‘wait’ and then casually walking down to the other end, lying on the cold hard asphalt and yelling ‘COME!”  A couple of times.  And this was the best we could get.  It makes me smile, so that works.

She’s a very good girl.

Here and here and here and here you can find a few of my favorite versions of ‘inside’ from the WordPress blog.  Or go there yourself and see even more!


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Musician?

Music maker

Music maker

After our community band’s back to back concerts last weekend we’ve had a week off.  And as usual when I’m not up against a time constraint, not pushed to my limits, not facing epic failure, I didn’t practice my instrument at all.  Not once.  All week.  I did take it out and clean it a bit.  And I thought about practicing, surely that counts.   So I had a somewhat pleasant jolt earlier in the week when our director sent an email out to everyone thanking us for two great performances, telling us how much she enjoyed Saturday morning when we played at the Community Band Festival, how she was honored to work with such a fine group of musicians.

Musician?  Me?

I have never thought of my self as a musician.  A musician practices daily, does exercises that aren’t any fun, limbers up fingers, breathes from the diaphragm, tightens the embouchure, can hear whether notes are flat or sharp and can fix it.  None of that describes me now or at any time in my past.

Still.

She made me smile when I read her email because it had been fun, that early morning concert – the applause that seemed to last forever, the good feeling we had watching her take another bow, the celebratory singing on the way home.  It was all fun, and I wouldn’t get to do that, experience that from my place in middle age, without a Community Band.  I’m lucky we have one near my town, lucky that our director is exacting and can choose a good program, lucky to play with other folks who are so talented.   Just plain lucky.

I was watching PBS a bit this afternoon.  They were doing a show called “My Music” with groups of middle aged and older once upon a time famous (and some still famous) folks singing music from the 50’s and 60’s.  I didn’t have any problem thinking of them as musicians, and as I watched the grey haired, slightly rotund musicians throw themselves lovingly into their performance I realized I was watching more of the lucky ones, the ones that get to keep doing the thing they love.

So here’s to all the musicians out there.  The famous ones and the not so famous, the has beens and the never really made its.  And to all of us who never quite considered ourselves to be musicians at all.  We might just be the most lucky because we do it for nothing more than the sheer joy of making something so beautiful it lasts forever in our hearts.

She sent an email to thank us for being fine musicians.  I think we need to say thank you back to her…for pushing us to be musicians at all.

Horn

Horn


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Weekly Photo Challenge: Threes

This week the WordPress photo challenge is “threes” as in three photos that tell a story…or a photo with three of something in it…or three angles of the same object…or, and this is what I did, three photos starting from the broad topic and moving to the detail.   There are endless possibilities for great shots that include something of threes.  Design uses the rule of three all the time and you probably use it unconsciously when you’re out taking photos, or designing that kitchen or painting that next masterpiece or just redecorating the living room.

I thought about showing you more of the immediate world around me.  But that would involve snow and I know you’re all tired of snow.  I certainly am.  I wanted something brighter, happier, colorful.  Where to go to find that?  I was thinking about this conundrum during my morning commute which passes, by happenstance, the local nursery.  As in summertime hopes, heat, flowers.  Flowers.  I wonder what’s inside this time of year?

Want to see?  Well, here you go!

A bit of joyful pink to brighten your day!  At the nursery I could pretend, for a few short minutes, at the end of a long harsh winter that spring was just around the corner.  I’m sure it is…

…isn’t it?

Here and here and here are some of my favorite ‘threes’ from others who posted their own creativity for this photo challenge.

Another three

Another three