Photo Challenge: May Flowers

A vibrant and pretty little wild flower.

Wild little primrose.

Another little wild flower growing beside the road.

One of our South's lovely  Magnolia blossoms.

Pretty lilies.  I used a texture filter that I found in Paint Shop Pro Photo X2

These are my photos for the May Flowers Photo Challenge.  I hope you enjoyed them and will take the time to go to our Photo Challenge Blog to click the links so you can enjoy all the other challengers.

Photo Challenge : Repeating Patterns

I almost forgot this because I forgot it was Friday and I forgot that it was the 29th.  Now that I've come to my senses I realize that it's time for another Photo Challenge so I'd best get these up.  Please hop on over to our Challenge blog and click on the links of other wonderful challengers.

I sure hope I'm making sense.  I've been up since 3:30 this a.m. cause I wanted to see Will and Kate's wedding.

I love the pretty blue color of these treated soybean seeds.  Makes a nice repeating pattern too, doesn't it?

Repeating polka dots on a beach towel.  Two of my favorites, polka dots and bright colors.

 

This is a familiar repeating pattern around here.  Row after row of one crop or another.

The dots on the killdeer eggs make a distinctive repeating pattern.

This was another fun challenge. Can't wait to see all the other challenger's work.

Photo Challenge : Spring Easy

Time to shine again with our challenge photos.  I've been sneaking out here and there and taking a few when I could.  Be sure to click over to our challenge blog to see all the wonderful shots that everyone came up with.

Wisteria

 

 

 

 

Our friendly Purple Martins are back!

Yeah, I'm cute.

A pic from a past Spring.  I love this shot of the stinky little weed.

Yankton Press & Dakotan Opinion Editorials Raising Taxes On The Rich

Yankton Press & Dakotan Opinion Editorials Raising Taxes On The Rich

The Amazing Human Body

It takes your food seven seconds to get from your mouth to your stomach.

One human hair can support 6.6 #.

The average man's penis is two times the length of his thumb.

Human thighbones are stronger than concrete.

A woman's heart beats faster than a man's.

There are about one trillion bacteria on each of your feet.

Women blink twice as often as men.

The average person's skin weighs twice as much as the brain.

Your body uses 300 muscles to balance itself when you are standing still.

If saliva cannot dissolve something, you cannot taste it.

Women will be finished reading this by now.


Men are still busy checking their thumbs.

Photo Challenge: Before & After

It's time for a new Challenge!  Miz Donna chose Before & After as our challenge topic for this round and I took a time out the other day and worked a little "after" magic on some pictures. Normally I pre-schedule my challenge posts but the past two challenges this didn't work, so I'm posting this evening because early tomorrow will find us on our way to Greenwood, MS to Zach's tae kwon do tournament.

Please hop over to our Challenge blog to view all the other delightful entries!

China berries from the camera.

China berries edge enhanced.

Schubach barn from the camera.

Barn with tinfoil texture added.

I'm going to play some more with these textures and filters soon.  Can't wait to  see what everyone else does.

Photo Challenge : Red

It's time to be challenging with our cameras again ladies and gents.  I've been lazy busy so I only got a couple of recent shots but some others, not so recent, that I think are worthy of sharing.  Be sure to click on over to our challenge blog to see all of the delightful entrants for this Red challenge.

My sister, Paula, built this birdhouse for me.

A trinket one of the girls left laying around.  I used a texture filter from Paint Shop Pro on this shot.

This is one of my flashy red shoes,,,never worn.

A rose  bloom from last summer

Can't wait to go round and visit all the other challengers! Be seeing you there!

I Keep Forgetting!!

I did it again,  I let my blogaversary pass right on by with nary a thought again this, the 8th year!  I should remember it cause it shares a date with the Chick's birthday (aka Alexis), but I guess the excitement of a birth  wipes it from my mind.

Anyway, I thought I'd look back on my first year of blogging by posting a few of the entries from back then.

 How Women Really Think

Skinny people tick me off! Especially when they say things like,
'You know, sometimes I forget to eat. You have to be a special
kind of stupid to forget to eat.

A friend of mine confused her Valium with her birth control pills.
She had 14 kids, but she doesn't care.

The trouble with some women is that they get all excited about
nothing (and then they marry him).

I read this article that said the typical symptoms of stress are
eating too much, smoking too much, impulse buying and driving too
fast. Are they kidding? That's my idea of a perfect day.

I know what Victoria's Secret is. The secret is that nobody older
than 20 can fit into their stuff.

Here is a Great reason to Smile:
Every 7 minutes of every day,
someone in an aerobics class pulls a hamstring.

My mind not only wanders, it sometimes leaves completely.

The best way to forget all your troubles is to wear tight shoes.

Sometimes I think I understand everything, then I regain
consciousness.

Amazing! You hang something in your closet for a while...
and it shrinks two or three sizes!

If you love something, set it free.
If it comes back, it will always be yours.
If it doesn't come back, it was never yours to begin with.
But, if it just sits in your living room, messes up your stuff,
eats your food, uses your telephone, takes your money,
and doesn't appear to realize that you had set it free...
You either married it or gave birth to it.

Look at how little Zach and Jordan were back then!

New Read, New TV Show

I'm not much good with change, I'm really not. Change sometimes lets me down, makes me nervous, disappoints me; all or any of these reasons are what makes me wary of change.  So, I reckon my inability to accept very much change probably, quite often,  keeps me from trying new things.  But, sometimes, on rare occasions, I throw caution to the winds and discover a sweet surprise or two from something new.  This past week, and this evening, I've done just that.  So let me tell you about it.

First, I moved from my usual path of horror/murder/suspense novels to discover a really well written, first work of fiction, by Sherri Wood Emmons.  Prayers and Lies is a novel that manages from the first page to make you feel as welcome as any visitor to the South is made to feel; welcome and well fed (belly and soul). An awesome book about love of family, family secrets, and innocence lost.

My second surprise was my first viewing of Harry's Law.  This is a new program that started airing last month I believe.  I've always loved Kathy Bates, who plays a lawyer in the show, but I'm not so crazy about lawyer shows.  For lack of anything else on TV this evening we watched back to back episodes of Harry's Law    and I was hooked once she takes out her gun and shoots a rat in her office without a change of expression or anything.  This gal could be my friend!  I think it will be coming on around 9 on Monday evenings and I'll be watching for it.

Southern Exposure

Dang it's been cold,  I even have icicles dangling down from my roof and it's not often that we see such as that in my little spot in the Mississippi River delta.  Don't get me wrong, real Winter happens occasionally here.  I remember having a really big snow, 12 inches or more, back when I was a kid and every other year or so we'll get a couple of inches.  A couple of years ago we had a 7 inch snow to welcome Spring. But this year it's been cold since November and we've had two substantial snows and a couple of dustings. This morning when James left to go down to the farm for a few he said the temps were -6!! And since this is Arkansas weather, where it can snow in the morning and be warm enough for shorts in the afternoon,  wouldn't you know, the temps are supposed to be up near 70 by Monday!

Night at Nanaw's

"Daddy is a good boy!  He's gonna let us have this puppy and we'll name her Maple."

"Nanaw, you get to choose.  Do you wanna play I Spy With My Little Eye,  Inky, Pinky, Ponky, or Mickey Mouse Peed on a House?"   What? LOL.

I need a nap now. :-)

UT Oh :-)

Never irritate a woman who can operate  a backhoe...

 

 

Thus endeth the lesson.

 

Women are Angels...And when someone breaks our wings...We simply continue to fly....on a broomstick...We are flexible like that...

Photo Challenge: Frozen

 I had this scheduled to post after midnight and for some reason, blogger moved it over to a draft?? Hell's bells, I don't know what happened?  Here I am though, finally!


Miz Donna says the holidays are over so it's time to do our photo challenges again so hop right on over to the Photo Challenge blog and click the link thingies to take a look at all the wonderful photos.  The theme for this challenge is Frozen.

A close look into my Sonic cup of diet Dr. Pepper with a load of ice.

I call this shot and the next one,  Frozen in Time

Frozen in Time 2

There ya go,  those are my challenge photos.  Don't forget to go take a look at the other challengers.

Old Age Prayer

This lady is a hoot!!

In the News

Ninety students who attend Frayser High School in Memphis are currently pregnant or have already had a baby this year.The number indicates, that 11% of the student body has entered into parenthood. 

I did a little math of my own and came up with a more astounding figure; Suppose that of the 978 pupils attending grades 8 through 12 at Frayser High School, half of those are female (489).  Now those 90 female students who have given birth recently or are currently pregnant puts the percentage of female parenthood on up to almost 20%!

The Memphis City School District folks are a'wondering what can be done about this problem. They're looking for grants, for funds, for what amounts to TAX  money, to correct this problem. I don't know about you all, but I can think of a few corrective measures that don't have a damned thing to do with throwing good money away:

First, someone tell me what in the hell being a student at Frayser High School in Memphis, TN has to do with being pregnant?  Did they get pregnant while attending school?

Make the students/teens/parents accountable.  Back when Hector was a pup, and me too for that matter, if you decided to have unprotected sex before marriage and became pregnant, you, the father-to-be and your families somehow came together and came up with a plan.  The plan did not include not knowing who the father was, or applying for medicaid to pay for the doctor and hospital bills, or receiving money, WIC, or Food Stamps from the government to raise a child. 

Educate your kids about sex and contraceptives and don't wait until they're grown to do it.  You should also not expect the schools to do it for you.  More than half of the U.S. states allow that minors do not have to have parental permission to ask for and receive FREE birth control.  (Hey Frayser students, TN is one of them!) The states that don't allow it, have legislative bodies who are about as dumb as a box of rocks in my opinion.  Parents and teens should put out at least as much effort at obtaining AND practicing birth control as they do waiting in line to fill out all the paper work to have the government pay to have and raise a child.

Am I biased?  Maybe being a little mouthy and over the line about a tender subject?  Well get over it, this is my blog and that's my opinion on the subject. And by the way, I pay to watch my TV (you hear me Direct TV and WMC channel 3?),  and I'm getting pretty damned tired of the news reporters using my viewing time to tell me of all the new ways being found to waste hard working folk's tax money. How bout report on ways to save some.

Ok, I'm done.

Winter Prayer

Lord help me to make it through these Winter months.  I'm having fantasies that include Spousal death by remote. Help me to keep my hands away from his throat as he sits snoring on his throne with remote in hand.

Amen.

Black and White

I've taken quite a few pictures of this field during different times of the year because I'm fascinated by the few little trees that sit there in the middle.  I like the view best when the crops are harvested because it makes them look so lonely and desolate out there all alone.  Once upon a time there were many, many more thickets and small woods here in the delta, but the greed of the lumber industry and the farmers has cleared them all away.  It's so sad.

 You can click to make any of these photos a little larger if you'd like.

I remember the old barn at Grandma and Grandpa's house; it was a lot like this one. I can recall  the dank, dusty, darkness of it when you first entered in out of the sunshine.  The groaning and creaking sounds it made when the wind was blowing outside.  I remember climbing up into the loft although we were forbidden for fear we'd fall though in some places. And who can forget the acidic smell of the lime sprinkled potatoes stored in the old corn cribs during the Winter.  Grandpa kept so many great treasures on his work bench.

Cause I said I would...

I took this picture of my new bird feeder through the big window in the dining room.  It's also where I take many of the hummer pictures during the summer months.

The old barn over on the highway. Winter is the best time to take shots of this old place because when the crops and leaves start to grow again, it'll be mostly hidden.  I love finding old barns, buildings, and houses to shoot with my camera and I love to wonder what they would say if the old boards and walls could talk.

Only 77 more days till Spring!

Christmas Is OVAH!!

Turning geriatric cartwheels here.

James got a new bird feeder for Christmas.  I got one too but I think his is the best one. :-)
I'll take a picture of mine later.

My favorite presents are the "Gopher", an extend-able back scratcher, a silky, warm scarf, and the custom wine glass you can see in my header.

I spent a good bit of the holidays with a heat pad against my lower back,,,

Except for the time that Jami's dog, Hercules, decided that she needed it more than me.
Silly hound.

From Top left, great niece Reese, granddaughter Alexis, gd Krysten, gn Mikah(?), gd Abby, Front gd MeriKate, gd Jillian, gn Shelbie, gd Jaylen.  We don't seem to make ugly babies here in eastern Arkansas.  :-)

Our two oldest babies, Granddaughter, Jordan, and Zach.

Back to a normal routine tomorrow.  I hope everyone survived the Holidays intact!

I LIKE this cake

I think I've posted this before but I believe that you can never have too much of a good thing. Right?


Tequila Christmas Cake

1 cup sugar
1 tsp. baking powder
1 cup water
1 tsp. salt
1 cup brown sugar
Lemon juice
4 large eggs
Nuts
1 bottle tequila
2 cups dried fruit

Sample the tequila to check quality.

Take a large bowl; check the tequila again to be sure it is of the highest quality.

Repeat.

Turn on the electric mixer. Beat one cup of butter in a large fluffy bowl.

Add 1 teaspoon of sugar. Beat again.

At this point, it is best to make sure the tequila is still OK. Try another cup just in case.

Turn off the mixerer thingy.

Break 2 eegs and add to the bowl and chuck iin the cup of dried fruit.

Pick the fruit up off the floor.

Mix on the turner.

If the fried druit getas stuck in the beaterers, just pry it loose with a drewscriver.

Sample the tequila to test for tonsisticity.

Next, sift 2 cups of salt, or something.

Check the tequila. Now shift the lemon juice and strain your nuts.

Add one table. Add a spoon of sugar, or somefink. Whatever you can find.

Greash the oven.

Turn the cake tin 360 degrees and try not to fald over.

Don't forget to beat off the turner.

Finally, throw the bowl through the window.

Finish the tequila and wipe the counter with the cat.

Cherry Christmas!