A Blessed Mess

A Lovely Day In A Lovely Setting Spent With Lovely People

Tim and I spent today in the beautiful rolling hills outside of Shelbyville with a family who both delight and inspire us.  We don't get to see them much and the time we spend together is always delightful.  We never fail to leave smarter than we were when we arrived.  You can't be around these folks and not learn stuff.

Former educators, all of them;  smart and creative, patient and realistically encouraging.  We got to relax and catch up with friends, to share ideas, enjoy cats, hummingbirds and the world's most amazing Great Pyrenees who I have loved for a long time!  

We laugh a lot and smile a lot.  Spending time out there always seems to be the best medicine for whatever ails you.  Between the five of us, Tim is probably the only one who is still a strong and healthy so what "ails us" could be just about anything!

I finally get all of my camera gear into one bag and can have everything I could need at the ready whenever I want it.  This was  the first time I take my gear out for a spin in its new digs.  Do I need to mention that the new digs are heavy as heck?  Suffice it to say, they  never made it out of the car!  

I did take a few (maybe 4) and only did that because the elusive Socks the cat ran by when I was close to the car!  It's okay though because our friends' home and view are so beautiful that no photo I could take could do it true justice anyway.  I did, however, stalk Socks the jungle cat and got the bigfoot sighting style Socks photo!

I also learned today that if I take Bonine, I can write in a moving car without getting car sick or tired.  I have been having trouble with a particular essay assignment (My Story in less than a bazillion pages) so it was also nice to have all that travel time to work on it too.

Tim's Pimm's - The Taste of the Summer of Oh-Nine

It all started with date night at The Patterson House.  I'd always seen and/or heard about a Pimm's Cup.  I figured it was British in origin and thus was likely to taste yucky, knew it involved a liqueur adding more to the likelihood of yucky and I thought it sounded pretentious.  But then, Tim and I finally made it to a bar that prides itself on mixing classic cocktails and house-invented libations with ALL fresh, house-made ingredients (including the likes of rosewater) and more than just a little bit of drama.

A few nights before we went, I'd perused the above linked set of photos, seen the one of the Pimm's Cup #1 and the listed ingredients.  Seriously, I think it was the cucumber that hooked me.  Not that I particularly love cucumbers but the notion of that flavor in a cocktail was too intriguing for me to wait very long to try.  Well, I tried not one, but two and think they might very well be the greatest cocktail I have ever had the pleasure to drink (and I've had drinks all over the world in my day).  Tim and I will certainly have more date nights at Patterson House

In the meantime - we declare Pimm's as the taste of summer oh-nine!  We've been experimenting with a host of different ingredients and Pimm's lately.  Think strawberries, ginger, lemonade, limeade, fresh home-grown cucumbers and mint and on and on and on.

I do NOT recommend the Pimm's straight up though.  It tasted worse than Robitussin.  Smelling it, however, brings up the scent of celery and/or celery salt.  Go figure and go drink some - it's yummy.

Procrastinating But Pretty In Pink

Really, 

maybe later, 

I will stop 

procrastinating.  

Maybe.

Harley is Stylin'

This cat will never cease to make me happy!

Continue with the link below to see one more style he's started to sport.

iPhone and iLove Squarespace!

After years of resisting an iPhone because of my fierce loyalty to Verizon (we're talking 14 years or so) and fierce dislike of AT&T (the biz phone years caused that), I am finally getting an iPhone.  And it's free because I won it from Squarespace in a contest on twitter.  

As soon as I entered that contest, I knew I was going to win one.  Irony works that way!  Well, after much thought and consideration and itching to have that phone I've always wanted, I'm going to get the iPhone, I'm going to leave Verizon (any hints from anyone on how best to do that are appreciated!), I'm going to get a pocket protector and I hope that I don't go bankrupt from buying apps.

Can you see my excitement through these words?  I am grinning like a child on Christmas morning!

Now, about Squarespace.  I'm not just saying any of this because they sent me an iPhone (well a card to trade in for an iPhone at the Apple store).  I'm saying this because not only are the folks that work there very nice (we've tweeted back and forth) but because I am seriously considering using them as this blog goes through its mid-life transition.  (There seem to be a lot of those mid-life transitions going on lately so I figured why not include the blog!).  

Check out this review of  Squarespace and some of the sites that use it.  I think it is seriously GOOD STUFF by good people.  What more could I want for an amazing blog?

Rudy On The Porch

Rudy On The Porch, originally uploaded by rudybeardog.

This is my security system when I sit on the front porch to do some work or whatever. Well, he is one part of our security system at least!

A nice cop pulled over the other day when I was taking photos in front of the house just to say hi. And to tell me that a dog's the best protection one can have. Oh, and to ask what I do for a living.

I told him Rudy rocked. I told him I am a budding writer. It turns out he'd bet his partner that's what I did (when they do patrol and see me, I'm usually on the front porch either typing or writing). He was curious about the camera though since he's seen me around with that too. I told him writing and fine art photography are two of my passions and that if I have writer's block, I'll take pictures to inspire me or the other way around.

Apparently, this nice policeman wants to be a writer too. If I were him, I'd trade the body armor for a keyboard or notebook in a New York minute.

Go Rudy!

Quotes of the Week

Quotes of the Week, originally uploaded by rudybeardog.

I love William Wordsworth, I love words, I love writing, I love poetry and I love quotations.

Enjoy.

What do you think about having a weekly feature of quotes of the week?

Another Auspicious Date: July 5, 2009

Had my father not passed away in 1995, today would have been my parents' 50^th wedding anniversary. Of course, I so wish our family and friends had spent the day (or the weekend) celebrating such a wonderful occasion. I'm not sure what the weather in Boca Raton is in July though! My mother, not the "Boca type," was a tiny bit relieved that Dad died before he got around to moving them to Florida but I know that she'd rather be living in Florida with him now than here without him. I miss him and I miss them together too. That's life though, isn't it?

I can still vividly remember the 50^th anniversary weekend celebration for my mother's parents (I think I was 7). Distant relatives I had not seen before and have not seen since descended upon Nashville from all over the place. The weekend was joyous. It was part family reunion and an occasion to eat, drink, laugh and celebrate a wonderful couple reaching a wonderful milestone. My young mind remembers most strongly the feeling of love and family that permeated the weekend.

The Family in January 2007, at my Uncle Murray's 80th Birthday Party.

Click the link below and to the left to continue reading this post - the parts about the hitchhiking hippie cousin and the red-leisure suit cousin are worth it.  

Love In 140 Characters

On July 4, 2006, I'd known my husband for a couple of days. Watching fireworks that night, I realized someday I was going to marry that man.

From My Dad

From My Dad.jpg, originally uploaded by rudybeardog.

My father-in-law planted me a pot of petunias just because! How sweet is that?