From Flickr (and a little more)

Direct from Flickr, photo called "I lied":
Text that goes with it: The optimistic me is the real me. Last night, when I said that things suck I was focused on trees, not the forest. Caught this shot today. My daughter left her sparkly glitter shoes in the living room, where the sun struck them and spread the light everywhere. This is me. I believe in possibilities. I am probably stupidly optimistic, but, honestly, I don't care to change that about myself. Deal with it. :)

The rest of the story: I guess there's not really much more, except to say what I've said elsewhere on the interweb: I have the best friends in the world. You sustain me in broad strokes and small gifts. In big bear hugs and little smiles. In kind words and good advice.

Thank you. I hope that I can somehow repay the favor.

a picture worth a thousand words

And I really don't know what to say.

Road trips

Haven't had one of these shots in a while:We were on our way back from the Sugar Creek Arts Festival in Normal. I love this festival. They actually have artists who display oil paintings. Not just one or two, but booth after booth of paintings! I like the other stuff too, but when I'm looking for stuff to put on my walls, I want oil on canvas.

This picture was taken on Route 150. That's right, we took the old road home. I was planning on taking the highway, but it was blocked by police, so I turned around and headed for the two-laner. Found out this morning that the road was blocked because of a tanker truck that had rolled and caught on fire. My sympathy is with the family of the driver, who didn't make it out of the truck. Then I look at my two little angel/hellions, as pictured above, and I want to hold them even closer.

outdoors

Jasper asked me last week why I go hiking without him and Julia so much. Good question. Julia didn't used to like hiking (three steps into the woods and she would ask how long until we got to the car). She did great last time I took them to Kickapoo in Illinois, so this past Saturday we went to Turkey Run State Park in Indiana. It was wonderful. We hiked for somewhere between 2 1/2 - 3 hours. The kids did great. I was none too smart in that each of us had shorts on instead of long pants. We were fortunate, though. No rashes from the poison ivy or poison oak for any one of us.

I need to do this more often with the kids.

The promise of more

This blossom will unfold and reveal its beauty over the next 24 hours. There are a couple of things in my life right now that are like this blossom, but these things will take much longer to open up and reveal their beauty. I am patient and can wait. Some people come in to your life and stay forever. Others barely scratch the surface and then move on. Cheers to all that's in my life and to the promise of more to come.

Danger in my backyard

On Sunday morning I was out watering the backyard garden when a bird flew out of the bushes and was trying to attack my head. I had no clue what was going on, so I squirted him with the hose. I lost track of the baby robin and Jasper came out to help me (if help means playing with his light sabers near me while I water). Then I noticed the robin sitting on the hammock. Pooping on the hammock. And tweeting a whole lot. He stalked me onto the patio, nipping a little too close to my toes for my comfort. Jasper smartly distracted him and got him to come after him. What a great kid. My hero. Okay, maybe he didn't mean to get the robin to come after him, but he did. And he kept the freak bird busy long enough for me to sneak inside to grab my camera. That night I was out front watering my dying plants when a neighbor stopped by to tell me not to be worried, but that there's a robin that some neighbors had been raising since it had fallen out of its nest when it was a baby. She and her family had been feeding it worms and she had seen it eating bugs, so it's doing well. But the warning was so that I wouldn't try to take it to a vet or call animal control to say that there's a wacked bird in the neighborhood. With any luck the bird will stay in the neighborhood--but not attack people when they are least expecting it. :)

Blizzard

A colleague at work heard me mention getting a pet and told me that she was going to be putting her cat up for adoption. The cat and I met, he was sweet as the dickens, and now he's here with me. My daughter, who has known him for all of about 16 hours, told me this morning that she's not trying to be rude, but she loves him more than she loves me. Because he's so cute. An action shot: