I have had two desktops this past week. This shot of our now abandoned Two-Bit Town was up for a while. Do you see the real-life size sheriff and bank robber on the Jesse James Hide-Out sign?
I have an opportunity to get a few of these characters that have never been out in the elements and the colors are vibrant and beautiful, but I just have a hard time parting with the amount of money it would take to buy them for something that is purely whimsical and decorative.
I also had this misty morning shot up on my desktop for a while too. I took this shot on our way east…
Oh, did I tell you? We’re in Pennsylvania now. Which is why there was no letter last week; we were on the road.
Last time I wrote about my wild feather bouquet. I have to tell you that while writing that piece I heard my daughter Kat in my head. “Mom! You shouldn’t pick up that kind of stuff! It could have bugs or carry diseases!” I’m not so sure she would have told me that before she went to vet-tech school or not, but she has told me that a couple of times since then. It hasn’t stopped me though, I’m just more careful.
My beautiful redheaded niece Bambi commented on my letter, “Keep those feathers outside (though I would really say to never touch a feather), birds have lice & you DO NOT want bird lice!” she wrote.
I read that and it tickled me and I smiled.
“Why would that tickle you?” you wonder.
Because she cared enough to admonish me, much the same as Kat would have done.
There was a span of a couple of days there where I was feeling especially sad and missing Kat very much. To cope with this I reached out to someone whom I knew shared in my sorrow of her passing and always seems to know how to make me feel better and the was that very special and beautiful sister of mine Phyllis. “I'm really missing her pretty bad today... L ” I wrote.
“I’m sorry. I love you and am sending you warm thoughts and hugs,” she wrote back.
But the feelings persisted. I turned to food. I opened my fridge and there in the door was a jar of peanut butter. “My mom loved peanut butter,” Jessica told me. “She would eat it by the spoonful!”
Well Kat isn’t the only one in my family that eats peanut butter by the spoonful, my mother does too! I was a little shocked the first time I saw Momma dig a big old tablespoon of peanut butter out of the jar, sprinkle it with sugar, and eat it while sipping her hot coffee. “Mmm, good dessert,” she said with a smile on her beautiful face.
“Why the sugar?” you ask.
I know right! I asked the same thing! “It makes it less sticky,” I was told.
Well, if it’s good enough for those two beauties, it’s good enough for me. I got a spoon, dipped it down in the peanut butter jar and got me a nice size teaspoonful of peanut butter. I skipped the sugar part because I didn’t want the extra calories but the coffee part was totally doable. My peanut butter popsicle washed down with hot coffee was good, but I don’t foresee it being a regular part of my diet.
I keep getting offers from different companies for free Shutterfly books. I love Shutterfly books! In the middle of September I redeemed an offer and made a book called Playing In The Puddle With Daddy
It was full of wonderful photos I took of Andrew playing in the puddle on an early July day and I gave the book to his mom and dad.
Then I received another free Shutterfly book offer and it would expire the last day of September. What was I going to do with another book? “Momma, I’ve got another free book coming, what should I do?” I asked her.
“You’ve got so many beautiful photos, just pick a theme,” Momma suggested.
I started going through my photos and a large part of what I have been photographing lately has been wildflowers and bugs.
I’ll call it Wild Things, I thought. Then my very next thought was, What am I going to do with it? A book of my photographs would be kind of wasted on me, you know what I mean? Momma already had a book of my photos, as well as a couple of others that I made for her…how many does she actually need or even want? Patti came next to my mind. My older and much adored sister. I know she’s proud of me and my talents, maybe she would like to have a book of my photos to show off once in a while?
A whole lot of things go through my head at this point. “What if she doesn’t want one but is afraid of hurting your feelings?” Me says to Myself.
“I’ll give her an out,” Myself responded and I fired off an email to her. “I was wondering if you would be interested in having a book of my photos? If you say no, that is way okay. I know you are a minimalist and don't like a lot of clutter so my feelings won't be hurt.”
In truth, my feelings would probably be hurt a little, but I would get over it. Here’s the thing. I know it’s rude to refuse a gift. A lot of people are brought up to accept whatever is given to them, then throw it away if they don’t want it. Honestly, that would not only hurt my feelings more, that would piss me off too. If you don’t want it, that’s fine! Someone else may think it’s a real treasure and value it. I would rather it went to someone who really wanted it, then to have you throw it in the trash. And I know this happens.
“Of course I would like one of your picture books,” Patti answered.
Then my next question for her was, “Is wildflowers and bugs okay or would you rather have other things?”
“Mix it up.”
I wished I had allowed myself more time because Momma is right. I have tons of beautiful photos, it’s just a matter of going through them all. I know if I had had more time I could have done a better job with her book. But my next conundrum was what to call it. Wild Things worked when it was just wildflowers and bugs…I know! I’ll call it This And That.
“Comme Ci Comme Ca would be cute,” Me says to Myself and Myself knew that Me thought comme ci comme ca meant a little of this and a little of that in French. But to be on the safe side Myself Googled it and found out it meant so-so.
“My photos are not so-so!”
“Well what is This And That in French then?” Me asks.
“Google says it’s Ceci et Cela. She isn’t going to know what that means!” Myself laments.
“She took Latin in school…what is This And That in Latin?”
“Et Hoc Quod.”
Ewww.
“How about Italian?”
“Questo e Quello.”
“Oh for heaven’s sake, Peggy!” Momma (in my head) butts in. “Just call it This And That!”
She’s so smart! And she’s so right!
I spent all of my free time that last week in September working on This And That and the rest of that week was spent getting ready for this trip, which left no time to write. And on top of all that I have another free book! I am probably going to let that offer expire.
Getting ready for our trip meant a trip to Target for Halloween candy. This is the sixteenth year that Luby’s has hosted a kids Halloween Party and Luby’s buys most of the candy. Our friend Margaret will buy some too. So off to Target Mike and I went and we loaded a shopping cart chock full of bags and bags of candy. At the checkout some guy turns to us and says, “I’m coming to your place for Halloween!”
That segued into us telling this man about the party and all the games and activities for the kids and inviting them (he and his wife) to come down and help. “We always need volunteers,” I told him.
About this time Target opens more checkout lanes and we went to another lane. Mike and I were checking out and this guys comes walking up to us and hands us a twenty dollar bill. “To help with the candy,” he says.
Oh my gosh! How kind that was for that man to do that! I wished I had gotten his name so I could give him better recognition than what I have done here.
I have a very bad habit of eating Cheetos Crunchy on road trips. I seldom eat Cheetos any other time, but I seem to be helpless to break this habit. Even when I’m determined that I’m not going to do it, I break down and buy Cheetos at the first gas station.
Sigh.
Before I even thought about getting a bag for our trip east, Mike came home from Menard’s with a party size bag of Cheetos Crunchy and a huge jar of whole cashews, his kryptonite. I stowed the snacks out of sight where they stayed until Saturday, but let me tell you! We were no more settle on the highway then I reached down beside my seat, where (in preparation of the trip) I had carefully placed the Cheetos bag, pulled it into my lap and opened it up.
Oh that was easy, I thought as I opened the bag. Usually I have to struggle to pull it apart. I should have known right then and there that something was wrong. I looked down in the bag and they were all small pieces. Now mind you, we don’t throw them out just because they are small pieces, the bigger ones are better because you don’t have to work so hard to get a mouthful, you know what I mean?
“It’s all small ones!” I exclaimed.
“You probably opened the bottom of the bag,” Mike said.
“Why do you say that?”
“Because all the small ones go to the bottom.”
I didn’t say anything but I thought, Why would I do that? That would be stupid, and I start munching away. A few minutes pass as his comment is reverberating around in my head before it occurs to me to check.
I know! You would have thought of it sooner, but I didn’t think for a second that I had opened the bottom of the bag. I was fully prepared to gloat as I proved him wrong.
Yeah.
Okay, so that didn’t pan out. But let me tell you something that I did do that seemed to help with my Cheetos addiction. I have been eating a lot of air popped popcorn these last few months. No oil, butter or salt, just air popped popcorn. And I know what you are thinking.
“How can you eat it that way?”
Well, it does take time to develop a taste for it, I have to say, but one thing that helps with that is the knowledge that there are few calories in popcorn if you eat it that way. And if you have a desire to munch, it fills the bill. So, to help cut my Cheeto consumption I mixed them with some air popped popcorn. Two parts popcorn, one part Cheeto. Not only did this method stretch the Cheetos so one bag lasted the whole trip but it made the popcorn pretty tasty too!
Our trip east was uneventful. I photographed some stickers that adorned vehicles. Salt Life? What is that all about? I Googled it and Salt Life is a business selling beach wear and stickers and refers to someone who loves the ocean.
We’ve all seen the little stick figures on the back of vans that denote the family makeup. Well here is a zombie family.
I recently read an article that warned us about giving out too much information to predators with these kinds of stickers. Saying where our kids go to school and what sports they play.
Then on a semi trailer I see a red and black mask. No idea about this one unless it was just something someone liked and that’s where he put it.
I’ve been watching semi’s. I saw a photo of a Taylor truck passing a Swift truck and of course that makes the name of the singer Taylor Swift.
Tugboat Dot was the best I could come up with. But in my defense, Mike doesn’t follow semis for very long.
“What’s Tugboat Dot?” you ask.
How about a cousin to Steamboat Annie?
Then I got Dot Crete when the Dot truck passed a Crete truck.
“What’s Dot Crete?” you ask.
How about a cousin to Con Crete?
I’m just making all that up but you can bet I’m going to keep my eyes open from now on.
I found another Mater! The one I photographed before was in Kansas, this one is in Ohio.
“What’s a Mater?” you ask.
I know, right! When I posted the first Mater picture I took, Patti said it was Mater and I had to ask the very same question. Turns out Mater is a character in the animated movie Cars and Patti knew that.
One of the first things that had to be done when we pulled into our mountain home, even before we could park and plug in, was to mow the hayfield of a yard. Mike opened the mill and tried to start the mower to no avail. The battery was dead. That made our first order of priority a trip to town to buy a new battery. Forty-four dollars later Mike is in business and lots of critters were left homeless.
I’ll tell you what! So many grasshoppers and garden spiders and praying mantis’s! I saved a few from the mower blades, but I couldn’t save them all.
I know, I’m silly.
Mike washed the splattered bugs and road grime from the RV while I started cleaning the apartment in the mill. Two days later we moved from the RV into the apartment and we are settling in nicely. It’s nice to have a little more room to spread out.
Hey! Check out these egg sacks.
At least that’s what I think they are. The web holding them to the garage door kind of gives me the idea that they are from a spider although I’ve never seen egg sacks this large before. They are the size of walnuts! Mike was going to knock them off but I would let him. What do you think?
Guys, I have lots more stories to tell you but today is Tuesday, so rather than rush through the rest of my stories, let’s just call this one done.
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