Change Is Hard

…but change is certain.

Tag Archives: fun stuff


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Just one more smile

It’s raining today, a steady rain, soaking into our dry, dusty soil. That’s a good thing and made me smile this morning because I’ve been pulling weeds for days (that’s how I know our soil is dusty) and husband has been hauling mulch around the yard for days too. Rain makes me smile because I don’t have to feel guilty not going out and doing more.

So I’m mostly sitting inside watching traffic go by and working on a set of four or five little paintings that will be headed to Norway.

But before I start those I did this one.

Isn’t it adorable?

I was weeding yesterday and pulled up an acorn that had sprouted a little oak tree. I thought it was so beautiful, so intricate yet so simple, that I brought it inside and put it in a glass of water so I could study it again. This morning I drew it and then colored it in — I smile every time I look at it.

And then I looked up from smiling at the little oak tree and saw this:

I think it’s the female orchard oriole, though I haven’t seen her before. She was very focused on what’s left of the oranges. Notice her proprietary foot on the fruit.

I took several pictures of her, at at one point the camera was collecting itself after a series of shots and when the shutter opened up again she was gone and in her place was this one:

This is the female baltimore oriole. She too was very focused on the fruit even though I put jelly in the feeder earlier in the day. Notice she’s standing on what’s left of an orange quarter.

And I made a note to self: Females eating in the pouring rain obviously know what’s better for them. They both focused on the bits of fresh fruit and ignored the sugar. Can’t say the same of the males who have spent all day eating jelly. Just saying.

OK. That’s four smiles for today. So far.

These make me smile too.


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Still mailing those smiles

It seems like I just wrote about the little water color paintings I’ve been doing and sending off each day. But when I look back I see it’s been a month, and in a month there’s been about 30 more little paintings.

Do you want to see some of them? I’ll be honest, I like looking at them, and sometimes it’s hard to mail them away.

But I hear back from most people that receive them, and so far the notes and paintings seem to be doing the job they were sent to do. They are making people smile.

Not every painting has been a success. There have been several failures, though sometimes I look at one of those and think maybe I can salvage it.

I think that especially on Sunday nights when I don’t have anything to mail on Monday. So far I haven’t missed a day and I don’t want to break my streak.

I’ve started doing something specific for people’s birthdays. I’ve even sent a few sympathy cards made from one of my paintings.

I have a few more ideas, but the momentum is slowing down. I planned on continuing this until life gets back to normal, but the reality is that normal is an unknown thing now and may always be.

In fact we may lose our entire summer to this stay at home order here in Michigan. Certainly there will be restrictions for the foreseeable future.

So maybe I’ll continue painting these. If you haven’t received one, please don’t be sad. It’s probably because I don’t have a mailing address for you. You’re welcome to send me an address and I’ll see what I can come up with!


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Can’t help but smile

May is my favorite month here in Michigan. The grass greens up, the spring flowers bloom, the trees begin to leaf out in that pretty spring lime green, the weather isn’t hot, or dry, or cold, and it doesn’t (usually) snow.

You may need to open this on a bigger screen to see the love birds in the redbud tree.

There’s so much potential. The gardens are still in the planning stages, stuff hasn’t died or rotten on the vine yet. The deer haven’t eaten all the greens, the ground hog hasn’t eaten the green beans and there are big, juicy tomatoes on the vines in our anticipatory imaginations.

And my summer birds come back to the feeder.

This week the orioles came in for the summer. I put my feeder up after reading that others in my area had seen them. Four hours later the first male baltimore oriole tentatively checked it out.

Is that grape jelly down there?

I was thrilled and couldn’t stop smiling.

Hope you got my good side, lady!

They are such beautiful birds, it’s hard to miss those colors as they fly through the yard. And it’s hard to miss their anxious call too, that loud crackling sound they make when they’re unhappy about something. I always know when they’re in the trees above me as I’m filling the feeders.

This year I have another visitor to the oriole feeder too. I’ve never seen an orchard oriole before, in fact I never heard of them until a couple years ago when a friend in New York state mentioned having them.

Orchard orioles are a darker, rusty orange.

He is very skittish and I’ve only been able to grab pictures once – I was already standing still in the house taking pictures when he arrived. If he’s at the feeder and I move to pick up my camera he flies off. So, for now I’m sitting still when they arrive and just enjoying them.

I was out in the yard yesterday afternoon and saw the baltimore oriole, the orchard oriole and a goldfinch sharing the feeder. I think they were taunting me because I didn’t have my camera. It sure was beautiful to watch though.

But this morning, the early morning sky was lighting up just the tips of the trees and I was outside trying to capture the magic…

The sun lit, just for a moment, the very tips of the trees across the street.


…when up over my head, high up in the birch tree I heard that now familiar call.

Hey lady! Go back inside, you’re making me nervous and I want my breakfast!

Good morning Mr. Oriole! Welcome to my yard and the grape jelly in your newly filled feeder! Have a good day!

Geeze, I thought she’d NEVER go inside! I was starving up there in that tree!

I know he will. Little stinker.

What’s that over there?


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Breakfast – the most important meal of the day

After a few days of nothing but clouds and rain it was a relief to see the sun rising this morning. Apparently the birds in my backyard were happy too, as the feeder was as busy as Grand Central Station during the morning commute.

Not a great picture, but it makes the point that there was much coming and going this morning!

Everybody was flying in to grab a seed, though most of them were chased out by the next wave of incoming.

He would have stayed longer but at least he got some ‘to-go.’

The little birds, the chickadee, titmouse and nuthatch were mostly rousted out by bigger birds.

Scored one seed, will be back for more when it’s quieter.

Meanwhile, on the deck, someone else is getting a drink.

Always something good to drink here.

And another was just watching all the goings-on.

It’s way too busy for me on that feeder!

I was standing in the breakfast room, trying to get shots around all the distractions, lots of feeders, the dog in her pen, the railings were all things the camera wanted to focus on rather than the birds themselves.

But, regardless of my shortcomings, the birds kept on giving me fun images, even if most of them were never going to be stored on my memory card.

Incoming!

The comings and going were constant.

Next!

Just when one bird got comfortable and was enjoying breakfast another, usually larger and often noisier, swooped in and took over.

The biggest of all was this guy.

A large male grackle arrives late to the meal but manages to get a seat at the table.

He made quite a show, puffing up when he saw anyone else attempt to move in on him…

Don’t even try it!

…and giving the evil eye if the puffing up didn’t work.

The ‘look’ usually worked.

Still, a foolish little goldfinch wasn’t paying attention.

La, la, la…happy little goldfinch coming in for brunch.

He made a couple of circles, surveying the situation.

Maybe if I circle behind him I can squeeze in.

He wasn’t about to give up.

Maybe from this angle…

But in the end the poor guy had to concede that he was no match for the huge and boisterous crackle. After all, there are other feeders out there.

Never mind. I wasn’t that hungry anyway.

So in the end, for that moment anyway, the bully grackle won.

And I’ll eat my fill before I leave too.

But the little birds are very patient and once the big guys left, they happily settled down to the leftovers.

Looks like it’s all clear. Let’s eat!


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What’s there to smile about?

I think we’re in week 5 of our stay-at-home executive order. Maybe it’s week 6. All the days run together into an endless week highlighted by a trip to the grocery store dolled up in mask and gloves. The order was set to expire at the end of April, but Friday the governor extended it until May 15th. I think that will make it 8 weeks total.

Isn’t this a beautiful barn?

But as she extended it she also loosened it a bit, allowing golf and boating, and letting people go to their up north cabins. Still no nonessential retail stores, though curbside delivery is OK, no sit down restaurants, no movie theaters, no dog groomers, no hair salons. But we can move around more as long as we continue to practice safe distancing.

This one is beautiful too, and there were a bunch of horses in the pasture next to it, but it was on a busy road and I took this through the windshield, no time to compose something better.

So I felt legit driving around in the country, by myself, looking for my favorite things – barns. Getting out and looking for interesting things to photograph isn’t exactly essential to most people. But it’s starting to feel that way to me.

All business on the front, derelict in the back.

I didn’t go far, just barely north and west, far enough to get out of town and into flat farmland, but not so far that I felt like I was taking advantage of any leniency in our guidelines. And not so far that I’d have to fill up at a gas station.

This one was cute.

The sky wasn’t very interesting, there was a storm headed our way and I had hoped for more, but at least it wasn’t raining. And since it was our first day of “freedom” the roads were busier than I’d hoped.

Old wagon compliments old barn.

It’s hard to get pictures of barns if there’s traffic. Finding a great barn that also has parking is nearly impossible. If I’m on empty dirt country roads I can just stop in the middle of the road and grab a shot. Not so easy to do on a paved busy road.

Almost interchangeable with the last one.

Still I got several interesting barns to add to my collection. And yea, I caught you smiling while you looked at these. Barns are almost guaranteed to produce smiles, unless you’re the one that has to muck out the stalls.

So I’ve been told.

I turned around to get this one, loved the patina on it.


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Games

Listen to me, mama!

I’m working on a little watercolor cat postcard for someone and doing delicate work around the eyes when Katie barks. At me. She’s lucky my hand didn’t slip, but I knew enough to put the art away for awhile.

She’s feeling ignored.

She doesn’t want to go out back to her pen, a place she enjoys these days before things get to hot out there in the coming weeks. She wants to go out, but not to go out, if you know what I mean. I attempt, a second time, to take her out to her pen and she detours to the folding chairs on the other end of the deck.

There she settles in her favorite location to watch the road. She looks over her shoulder at me, still attached to her leash, and says I can either stand there like a dummy, or sit in the chair and enjoy the evening. With her.

So I sit.

She watches the road. I watch the birds in the trees above as they make their decisions about dinner. They are coming in for their evening meal and Katie and I, though we are sitting very still, are objects to consider.

A single gold finch begins to sing…three notes, the last on an upward question; “You still here? You still here? He’s not sure what to do about us, so he keeps asking.

The group of three chickadees aren’t worried about us at all. They work themselves down to the lowest hanging branches, just above us, cock their heads, consider us unimportant, and shoot off to the feeder, each grabbing one choice seed and skidding back up into the branches where they tap open their seeds, the sound multiplied by three.

I think I hear a nuthatch, they sort of whine when they want something, but I can’t see it. Then a downy woodpecker swoops down to the feeder, and I realize I might have mistaken it for the nuthatch.

A titmouse flutters above my head, not sure if it should go get something to eat, or pull some hair for a nest. I must have moved; suddenly it flies straight up and over to the feeder.

More goldfinches join the lonely one, each singing, none brave enough to eat with us sitting there. Soon there is an entire choir, but apparently they find no strength in numbers.

I nod off a little, no worries, Katie is keeping watch while simultaneously breaking twigs into smaller twigs. She’s a multi-talented little girl.

Suddenly there is scrambling and chirping and two chipmunks race up the railing and across the deck and down the other side. Since she is so focused on her twigs Katie misses all the action. I nod off again.

Hearing something scrambling in the leaves below I glance down, expecting to see Chip or Dale. But no. It a towhee! I’ve lived here more than twenty-five years and I’ve only seen this bird twice before! It scratches around in the the dry leaves for a moment or two, and then flies away.

Katie doesn’t understand why I am so excited, or why she gets a treat when we go inside. I owe her that towhee sighting, and all the other bird (and chipmunk) games we got to watch. Because if she hadn’t said “enough mama,” I’d have missed it all.

Katie is full of good ideas, if only I’d stop and listen. She’s napping now, probably dreaming up something else fun for us to do.

As I’m sure she’s told you, she has to do everything around here.

zzzzzzzz…


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Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: Outside ways to move up or down

I had planned, today, to head out with my camera into some rural area and see what there was to see. But it’s raining and the sky is dead grey.

I am not inspired.

Wandering through my emails I found this week’s black and white photo challenge from Cee. Outside ways to move up or down.

Hmmmm…I think about looking for parking garages with outside ramps, freeway ramps, the stairs at a local park. I look at the grey drippy light outside.

I am still not inspired.

Heading up to visit the National Police Memorial one evening.

And then I remember being in DC a couple months ago and all those moving stairs to and from the metro. Definitely a way to move up and down, and pretty stunning in black and white.

If you have better weather head on out and see what you can find for Cee’s challenge. You can link to her post (see my link above) and we’ll all enjoy seeing what you saw.

Another cool stairway..but it’s inside so it doesn’t count.


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Maybe it’s the sun

Yesterday I was dejected as I watched the snow fall. Everything seemed overwhelming and sad and hopeless. I didn’t brush the dog. I didn’t work on a painting. I didn’t cook much of anything.

The pictures I took of snow falling only made me feel worse.

But this early morning, sitting on the sofa in the dark (because Katie wanted me up and I always do what Katie wants) I watched a couple of videos of a water color artist doing loose, flowing flowers and whimsical birds. She was already making me feel better when I noticed it was growing light outside.

And the light was golden.

And there was light.

And the sky was blue and filled with puffy navy and white clouds and the birch trees glowed. And Katie and I went out to take a picture and revel in the fresh air.

I need a grooming appointment, mother! But I’m still happy to be home with you!

And we didn’t mind that there was ice on the deck and tiny bits of snow in the grass. We were happy to be out there, content to be safe at home, and oh so grateful for the sun.

Content to sit in a patch of sunshine.

We hope you have a contented day too.

Happy smells blowing in the wind.


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A note a day continues

A few days, or was it weeks ago, it’s so hard to keep track these days, I posted about mailing a letter to someone each day of this crisis. It was something to keep me busy and I hoped it would spread a few smiles around at the same time.

Well…it morphed into doing these little postcard-sized water colors and writing a note on the back of them. And that turned into such a fun thing that I look forward almost every day to sitting with my paints and snippets of paper. You never know what will emerge.

These have all been mailed to their new forever homes.

Now, in the interest of full disclosure, these are not original images. I googled ‘simple water colors’ and found most of them. Then I use the images as inspiration. I have to say that what I end up with isn’t entirely like what I see on my laptop.

But I like them anyway!

They are all like my children, and each morning I pick one and mail it off to someone, hoping it will find a good home. Some are harder than others to let go, but the idea that I can go find more to paint is motivation to send them on their way.

This is the latest batch. I am stretching more, doing a lot of different things.

I think I’m getting more smiles out of this project than the people who receive them. After all, I get to see them all assembled together and I think they have more impact that way.

So I’m sharing them with you, because I can’t mail one to each of you, and this way you’ll get to see them all anyway!

I hope they made you smile!

Gotta watch out for those cats, they’re everywhere!