from the porches

On our recent trip to Rough River State Park in Kentucky I took a photograph of an old abandoned house.  I intend to print this picture and around October have my students write a story about coming upon this old house.  What do you think?  Will it stimulate a nine-year old's imagination?

Then I will show them a pine forest.  I'll show you the original first.

After that I'll freak them out with the same photo edited in Photoshop Lightroom.  Do you see a person at the far end of the row walking away?

Just playing around on this Saturday afternoon.

pine forest

Here's a photo for you.  I've been wanting to photograph pine tree rows.  I am intrigued looking down those long rows as I wonder how far they go, what's at the end, what animal is lurking behind the trees or in the bushes.  I know there are bobcats and deer there.  Maybe even black bear.

I usually like the order of the pine tree rows.  Most of the time I need a semblance of order in nature to center me.  This isn't a great picture, so I'll keep trying to get just the right one.                   

The next photograph shows trees all helter-skelter. 

               

               

Here are the same trees taken by Truett.

               

Well, have you had enough pine tree rows for the weekend?

red alert

"Red Alert!  Red Alert!  Someone is driving down the driveway ."  Cody is the first to spot him.

               

                  "Bubba, get up!  Someone is coming down the driveway."

               

                  "Do I look concerned.  You check 'em out, Cody."

               

              "Ruff! Ruff!  If I could get past this dang electric fence, I'd nip his leg." 

            

                "Aw, it's just grandaddy loaded down with packages."

               

                             "So long, UPS driver.  Maybe next time."

               

whirlwind

The past several days have been a whirlwind.  Too many important things to do but we got them done.

1.  Taxes.

I'm all for the fair tax plan.  It makes sense to me.  Pay on what you spend and eliminate the dreaded April 15th date.  Nothing ruins April like taxes.  Nothing weighs more heavily on Americans, other than illness and death, than taxes.

2.  Busy weekend with the grandchildren.  I only regret I didn't give Maddie all the attention she is used to.  This was the first time Oliver spent the night with us.  Maddie says she doesn't want to come back.  Now I really feel guilty.

3.  Pre-registered for our Alaska Cruise in June.  Now all we have to do is decide on extra land excursions.

4.  Went for a doctor's appointment today.  I took off half a day at school.  Boy, was I surprised when the receptionist said,  "Your appointment is for tomorrow."  I evidentally entered the date wrong in my Palm Pilot.  Oh, well.  I'll just take another half day tomorrow.

5.  Forgot that a friend of ours from Alabama is visiting us tonight to spend the night.  MarK Lindsey has been a friend since the 70's when we lived in Savannah, Georgia.  We'll be eating BLT's for supper, I'm afraid.  I thawed nothing because Truett has a City Council meeting tonight and we just snack on those meeting nights.

             

Just don't make me drive through this city again.  That would be too much.  Do you recognize this state capitol building?

the box

Good morning everyone.  It is 9:00 AM and I've been up for hours.  HOURS!  You got it.  We still have Maddie and Oliver who are very early risers.  When Maddie woke up at 5:15  and whispered,  "Nana, it's time to get up,"  I whispered back,  "GO BACK TO BED!"  Can you whisper and end it with an exclamation point?  I did.

Breakfast consisted of eggs, bacon, biscuits and jelly and grits.  They are still stitting on the kitchen counter; however bits and pieces of granola bars are stuck to my floor and on the porches.  I'll clean up this afternoon.

I drug the box into the livingroom.  The big Brother copier-scanner-printer box.

               

                        Oliver discovers the box.

               

                      What do you think?  Does he like it?

               

                           Do you see Punky on the box?

               

                Two children on a box.  Is that a broom in the box window?

And where is Granddaddy in all of this?  Well, my stars, I believe he is in the TV room reading a book. 

Thanks for cooking breakfast, Granddaddy. 

busy saturday

I thought I had better post something now before my grandson, Oliver, wakes up.  It has indeed been a busy morning.  Truett and I drove to Gainesville early to pick up Maddie and Oliver.  We're keeping them overnight.

We've been busy.  Toys are scattered everywhere, snacks have been consumed.  Hot dogs and beenie weenies were mostly devoured at lunch and bubbles have been blow outdoors.  We've done all this AND watched the Florida Gator Spring Football Game on TV.  It is 3:00 PM and I really want to cook a decent meal for the kids, so I'm posting now.  Here are photos taken so far today.

                         

                                  Maddie in all her sweetness!

               

                                    Grumpy tired Maddie.

               

                         Oliver using a keyboard as a telephone, babbling away.

                       

                                Oliver right before he napped.

               

                 Oliver has no trouble entertaining himself.  Thank you, Oliver.

               

                And Maddie snacking on Banana Pudding, "a treat" she informed me, "it's not a snack."

Pardon me.  Truett is currently unloading our new laser-printer-copier-scanner.  Later the children will have a giant box to play in.

patrick

I feel like I've been pushing this old lawn mower around my 23 acres for hours.  After work today Truett and I decided to go to Gainesville to buy groceries as well as purchase a new copier-scanner-color laser printer.  The HP All-in-One I have downloads a new program every other day.  It's flat out aggravating.

So we ate supper at GTO's and then drove to Gainesville and it's 6:30 PM.  We decided to get the laser copier-scanner-color printer before grocering so Office Depot was our first stop.  That, also was annoying and frustrating.  I knew more than the sales person, some young punk who would rather have been unboxing sticky notes.  Finally, we got fed up at his lack of knowledge and left.  There goes one hour of my precious Friday evening.  Now it's 7:30 PM.

Next we go to Office Max across town.  There again, we spent 45 minutes of shopping time and 15 minutes trying to get our check scanned.  I understand why.  It's  just like the young man said,  "Who knows, you may have just written a big check to Home Depot and depleted your account." 

Depleted our account?  Give me a break.  My feet were killing me and I was developing a headache. I wanted to deplete all employees of Office Max and Office Depot. Finally, we did buy the thing--a much nicer copier-scanner-laser printer. I suppose the lesson we learned is "buy the best the first time."  It certainly would have saved us alot of time, trouble and sore feet.

Then on to Publix and finally home at 9:30 PM.  I'm too exhausted to think about the past three hours.

               

On a happier note.  I read my book Through My Eyes to my student's today.  Look carefully at this photograph from my book.

               

A beautiful fall leaf. But not to children.  The kids said,  "Mrs. George, that looks like Patrick."

"Patrick who?"  I asked.

'You know.  Patrick on Sponge Bob Squarepants."

Obviously, I did not publish my photographs for children.  What do they know anyway.  To me it looks like a beautiful fall leaf.

a blurbie

During my recent trip to Kentucky I was inspired to take photographs.  I couldn't stop.  My head was spinning because everything I saw was photographic material.  Then after I returned home I published a book using blurb.com.  The title is Through My Eyes.  Well, I received my copy today and sent invitations to a few family and friends to view.  I do not get any money for this.  Blurb.com gets the moola.

Here are a few of the photos that DID NOT make my book.

               

                       An old bottle in a shed

             

                     Worn down yellow lines in a parking lot

So what did I put in my book? 

Only the "Book Fairy" knows.

ecco

Why can't I find new shoes that feel comfortable the day after I buy them?  Could it be that parading around the showroom on carpet for maybe 30 seconds doesn't compare to three days of standing on my feet for 7 hours a day.  The balls of my feet ache and so do my heels.  I blamed it on the weather yesterday and today.  But I WILL NOT take these shoes back.  I just have to make a conscious effort to sit down more.  But wait, that's not being an effective teacher.

Really,  the shoes I bought are eccos.  They sure do look comfortable, don't they; and by the way I paid less than that price.  I'm no fool.  Anyway they were low, Velcro (which is the only way to go) and black which matches anything.  So I'm giving these shoes one more chance, a weekend, to make my feet feel better or ELSE.  Yeah, the beige pair will be returned!

Since I had no clue what I would post today I searched my photographs and found one that made me want to float away...float off my feet.  I would be the red balloon in the photograph.

second go round

I must admit the photos of the Indigo Bunting from yesterday's post were poorly edited by me.  I did a quick fix on photoshop, and the color of the ground was quite pink.  I was just so excited about seeing the bunting that I didn't care about the pink ground, but you see, I really do.  Truett took this photo of the Indigo Bunting today.

               

Even though this little fella looks blue and green, he is actually blue.  Green weeds are covering his side and head.  In fact, we have two Indigo Buntings at the bird feeder along with Freida and Freddie, our mourning doves.  Here they are.

                         

I have not see both of these doves for months, only one or the other.  They're obviously loving the seeds spilled at the base of the bird feeder.  While I'm at it, I thought I would show you Roger's new hiding spot.  I guess Roger is tired of Punky jumping on him so he hides in the laundry room now.

               

Let's take a closer look.  He thinks he's hiding from me too.

               

Is he sleeping with his eyes open?  Let's check.

                        

Ooh, gross.  That's weird looking.  Close your eyes, you silly cat.