Snapshots

Thanks to everyone that asked how life has been treating me this month. I'm happy to report that although a few issues remain -- and actually always will -- I'm doing fine. Just ducky, in fact.

I'll update y'all by the easiest method I know: pictures.

Marcasaurus, my amazing grandchild, continues to develop skills at lightning speed. Here he demonstrates his toe-chewing expertise. Wouldn't it be great to be as limber as this??

He also has shown an acute interest in climbing. Anything. And everything. So in the interest of providing a safe climbing toy, we bought this way cool baby play structure. IT HAS A PERISCOPE.

I've been on a quest for fall type decor for our new house. Unable to find exactly what I've been imagining for a front door wreath, I Frankenstein-ed together several items found at various stores and plunked it on the door. I love it. I hope it holds up so that I can use it again next year.

While in a crafty mode, I decided to keep it going by creating a minimalist twig shelter for my Saint Francis. I think he'd approve since he preferred to live outdoors. No warm cozy house for the saint in real life; and this certainly is not. I talked John into dusting off his boy scout skills and lashing together the twigs for me.

Oh, hey. This was exciting. We've been piling and piling stuff on the burn pit all summer, but because of the burn ban that's been imposed in our county, we haven't been able to get rid of all those blackberry vines and weed trees and dead branches. But the ban has been lifted so John and I pulled up some lawn chairs, dragged a garden hose out there in case of emergency, and lit the thing. I was expecting this big POOF of flame, but ah well....all we got was a slow and steady burn. Which, I guess is the best way to do it. We don't need a forest fire.

I did have one really traumatic episode, though. Brace yourself. It's brutal. AND IT HAPPENED MORE THAN ONCE.

So. All of these white plastic tubes are in my top vanity drawer; and I use all of them every day, just in very different places. If you catch my drift.

Only one is toothpaste.

Yeah. So in the morning, when I'm all dopey and still half asleep and I blindly thrust my hand into that drawer, I have a one in four chance that I'll grab the toothpaste; and without examining further, blob the contents onto my toothbrush and stick the whole thing into my mouth.

I just want to say here that Kenalog steroid skin cream tastes awful. As does athlete's foot lotion, and Metrogel topical rosacea gel.

You can take my word for it since I now have first hand knowledge. I think I'm going to take a marker and scribble something on the back of all these tube clones.

I wish I could share a picture of my newest friends here. I haven't been able to snap one yet, but hopefully soon. We have a pair of ravens that live in one of our trees. I've named them Ramon and Ramona. They're fascinating! Ramon has a deep croak, and I can tell the difference between his and Ramona's voice -- hers is slightly higher and she doesn't seem to be able to make as many different sounds. Ramon can croak and caw, but he also makes these really bizarre noises too. One sounds just like water dripping into a bucket. Another is some kind of electronic noise. I've been reading about how intelligent ravens are. I hope they figure out how much I like them. I keep trying to imitate their croak. I'll bet they just crack up when they hear my pathetic sounds.

Wonder what a raven laughing sounds like.

I decided to decorate my mantle with ravens for this Halloween. In honor of Ramon and Ramona.

Anyway, that's how things are going here. How are you?