Racing through the Month of May

I've been crazy-busy over the past ten or twelve days, but I think I've enjoyed every single minute of it. It's great to be able to say that, right?

In the interest of getting caught up, I'll post a brief recap today, then flesh out any blog-worthy topics over the next few days. Here goes:

We Interrupt Our Regularly Scheduled Programming:
I've missed two Sepia Saturday posts in a row. I would have managed to squeeze out the time to write those posts if I'd had any old photos that might conceivably have fit the prompts, but I came up empty.

While I was looking for suitable photos, though, I did manage to "sepia-ize" and otherwise doctor up a picture of my brother-in-law, who had a birthday earlier this month.

A belated Happy Birthday, David!  

Mother's Day

On the 13th we enjoyed our traditional Mother's Day crawfish boil at my daughter Kelli's home. This year the younger generation of males in the family took over the cooking under the watchful tutelage of my son-in-law, Troy. Mmm-mmm, good!

A Special Visitor
My stepsister, Donna, arrived for a couple of days that we crammed full of good stories, hearty laughter, good food, and tourist attractions. More than anything, I wanted her to experience the magic of Houmas House Plantation and Gardens, and we did that for the better part of a day:

We also visited the Cajun Village, not once, but three times in short spurts:

Genealogy Research (Bordering on Obsession)
A friend asked for my help in tracing relatives of a woman born in Poland in 1885 whose passport he recently found. He thinks they might like to have it. Turns out she came to this country as a schoolteacher, mostly in private girls' schools. I've learned quite a bit about her, including the fact that she apparently died without ever having married or given birth to children. I'm still looking for brothers or sisters who might have given her nieces or nephews, but I'm afraid the trail has grown cold.

I also did a little research on my stepsister's family on her mother's side. (My mother married Donna's father, so we already knew about his side of her family). Genealogy research is always fun for me, and I continued exploring Donna's family history after she left to go back home. Let me tell you that, after discovering that one of her multiple-times-great-grandfathers and his brother had both been killed by Indians--in separate incidents in different years--I was hooked. For most of this last week I've been glued to this computer from morning to night, digging up the stories of that family. What a fun journey it's been!

Here's a picture of one of Donna's great-great-grandfathers (not one of the scalped ones). She hasn't seen this yet, but it's included in the package I mailed to her today:

Clinton H. Ferguson

The Return of an Old Friend

A wonderful friend with whom I'd lost touch for nearly 15 years contacted me this week. What a pleasure it was to hear from him! He's had some hard times since we last talked, but he's in a really good place now. I hope to see him soon, and I'd love to meet the amazing lady who is his new bride.

The Double-Dogs Dare Me

Gimpy has been with us for nearly six weeks now, and things are going great! I look forward to writing an update about the special relationship he enjoys with his brother, Levi. To borrow an often disparaged phrase from Debbie Boone, they really do "light up my life." 

Levi (left) and Gimpy

Thanks!

If you're reading this, thanks for sticking around in spite of my infrequent posting. I'll try to make it up to you.

What I'm Reading: The Siege by Stephen White

I've enjoyed a number of Stephen White's books over the years, and this one was another terrific read. Kudos to the author for coming up with a believable plot that was different from anything else I've ever read.

For a description and reviews of this book,

click on the image above.

Purging Paperwork

I am a saver of documents. Maybe it's because of the former legal secretary in me who rears her head every time I hold a piece of paper in my hand and whispers, "Don't throw that out. You might need it some day."

I save cards and letters because rereading them always makes me smile. I save old envelopes and scraps of paper on which I've written someone's address or phone number or  noted a few words of the lyrics to a song I liked and want to hear again. I know it isn't necessary to save a utility receipt once the new bill, showing a payment, has arrived via mail or email, yet I still had some receipts from as far back as 2009.

There are important documents in my files, of course, ones that need to be kept. In fact, I was looking for one of those over the weekend and became annoyed with myself because I couldn't find it where I knew it should be. That one misplaced document (I did find it later) started a purge-and-shred project that has consumed several hours each day this week.

The reason this job is taking so long is that I'm consolidating all those scraps of information into computerized lists before shredding or filing them, and sometimes that  leads me down rabbit trails. I still haven't finished, but my mountain of paperwork is now a stashable molehill, and I've reached a good, temporary stopping point.

Now I need to put up my hands and step away from the shredder for a few days. I'm having company next week, and there are other chores to be tackled around here, areas to be cleaned that are more visible than the inside of my file drawers. I will get back to this project, though, and finish it.

In the meantime, what are some of your best tips for taming the paperwork monster?

What I'm Reading

Magic Hour by Kristin Hannah

*****

Night Road by Kristin Hannah

*****

If Wishes Were Horses by Robert Barclay

*****

Saving CeeCee Honeycutt by Beth Hoffman

Each of these books is a little treasure. I'm only halfway through the bottom one, but as of right now I can't begin to tell you which of these four I liked best. I will say with some certainty that I'll read everything else I can find by these authors.

For a description and reviews of any of these books,

click on its image above.

Sepia Saturday: Traveling on the Night Train

There's something about the sound of a train whistle in the night that has tugged at my heart for as long as I can remember. Lying in bed, almost asleep, I hear that distant whistle and I am transported onto that train. In my imagination I am elegantly dressed and clinking champagne glasses with other passengers in a luxurious dining car. Another time, I'm curled up in an upper berth, listening to the snoring of the nearest passenger and the rumbling of the wheels on the track below us. Or, I am a young girl, dressed in tattered overalls, my hair tucked under a straw hat, holding the hand of my beard-stubbled father, huddling together in the corner of a freight car, keeping our distance from the other tired hobos as we pass through the midwestern night.

These imaginary journeys have been with me since childhood, each one different from the last one, but every one comforting in its own way.

This week's Sepia Saturday prompt is a picture of a miniature railway. I don't have any old photos of trains, sepia or otherwise, but I do have a newer  one, taken only this past November at a local museum:

The photo isn't old, but the train is. As it turns out, the only train in my photo collection is also a miniature. That's serendipity, I think.

So tell me: what kind of magic does a train whistle work on you?

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This week's Saturday Song Selection is a long-time favorite song about trains. I'm pretty sure it's one you know.

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The song is "The City of New Orleans" by Arlo Guthrie.

Thanks to fender1955 for posting this video on YouTube.

Click here for the lyrics.

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To see how others have interpreted this week's theme,

click on the image below and follow the links. Allllll abooooard!

The Weatherman and King Midas

The weatherman had predicted we'd get some rain yesterday, so I went for my (supposed-to-be-daily) walk early and ended it when the man who mows my yard showed up. Between the expectation of rain and my allergy to fresh-cut grass, I was pretty sure I'd spend the whole day indoors for one reason or another.

The rain started mid-morning and didn't let up. I kept waiting for a slack period so Levi and Gimpy could go outside, but there was no slack period. By one o'clock in the afternoon they were practically crossing their legs, so I let them go outside despite the steady rain.

That turned out to have been a good decision. From the time the rain started until it stopped just before sundown, it did nothing but increase in volume. I've lived in this house for fifteen years and don't think I've ever seen more water in the yard. Here's how it looked in the late afternoon:

This is the backyard, viewed from the backdoor.
(Be sure to click on the images to enlarge them.)

This is the view from the carport, looking across the driveway.

The back of my car was about two feet into the carport, so you know

how hard it must have been raining to get that much water on the car.

Television programming was interrupted over and over by flash-flood warnings and film footage of cars stalled in high water on major area roads, and I was glad there was no place I needed to go in that kind of weather. As the day grew later, the storm grew in intensity, with lots of lightning, lots of thunder, and intense happiness on my part that Levi and Gimpy are not plagued by the kind of storm phobia that always terrified Kadi and Butch. (Gimpy did spend part of the storm under my desk, but he was napping, not cowering.)

After hours and hours, the rain stopped abruptly. It didn't slow first, just turned off as suddenly as if a big hand in the sky had reached out and shut off a faucet. And then, about a minute later, an amazingly beautiful light came through my front windows and, like King Midas, turned everything it touched into gold. I stepped outside to see the source of that light, then ran back in the house to get my camera. 

That deluge of rain we had? It was definitely worth it.

What I'm Reading

The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh:

When I came across this "scents-itive" love story at the library, I remembered that two people on my blog list, both with reading tastes similar to mine, have recommended it recently. I checked it out and wasn't disappointed:

*****

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith:

At our recent Easter gathering, our family's handsome, young detective told me enough about this book to pique my interest. It's a combination of history and fantasy that's great fun to read--if you don't mind a little gore.

*****

The House on Tradd Street by Karen White:

In recent months I've read a string of books set in Charleston, and this is another one of those. I brought this one home from the library late this afternoon and have only read one chapter. So far, so good.

 For a description and reviews of any of these books,

click on its image above.

Things that Dogs Think Are Good Ideas

Levi's new trick:
Outside earlier this week, on each of four separate occasions, I chatted with a different neighbor over a different section of my back fence. Levi and Gimpy were outside with me. On each of those occasions, Levi repeatedly pushed his tennis ball under the fence, and each neighbor dutifully threw it back for him--several times apiece.

Gimpy's new trick:
Outside earlier this week, on one occasion, I chatted with a group of neighbors in the front yard, face to face. Levi and Gimpy were left inside the house. On that occasion, Gimpy must have thought, "Screw the stupid tennis ball; now's my chance to chew the corner off the coffee table."

In Gimpy's defense, this was my fault. I've caught him more than once mouthing the corners of that table, and though I've stopped him each time before he did any damage, his interest in chewing is the main reason he still gets locked in the crate when I leave the house. This time, maybe because I wasn't really going anywhere except a few feet out the front door, it didn't even cross my mind to lock him up.

In his further defense, he was very sorry. As soon as I stepped back inside the house and screamed, "Omigod, what have you done??!!??" his face scrunched up, his posture slumped, and the tip of his tail (the rest of which of which was tucked tightly against his backside) beat a frantic, nervous rhythm. He was clearly repentant as I talked to him in my shaming voice, calling him a bad boy and telling him how disappointed I was.

Levi watched with what appeared to be mild curiosity, as if he has dissociated himself from any of the similar lectures he got up until six or eight months ago, when he apparently decided it was time to grow up and stop eating my house.

Gimpy's apology was so charming that I couldn't stay mad at him, but I'm still annoyed at  myself for giving him the opportunity to make that kind of mistake. Shame on both of us.

What I'm Reading: House Rules

Just finished this one and enjoyed it very much. It's about an 18-year-old boy with Asperger's syndrome and what happens when he becomes entangled in the legal system.

For a description and reviews of this book,

click on the image above.

Just for the record, I'm not trying to sell you something when I link book images to amazon.com. Although I've bought many, many books there in the past, these days most of my reading material comes from the public library. Nevertheless, amazon.com is still my favorite, go-to place to find professional and customer reviews on almost any book title that catches my attention. In the case of House Rules, some of the reviews were written by people who actually have Asperger's Syndrome, and I found it especially interesting to read their thoughts about this book.

Sepia Saturday: All Around Packy's Garden

The Sepia Saturday site has changed its prompt from a word to a photo, leaving us with a broader range of theme interpretation. This week's photo features a group of girls working in a flower garden, and I am choosing to focus on the "garden" aspect of it rather than the "flowers."

This is the Missouri home of my grandparents, Lewis (Packy) and Lola (Mammaw):

It was in this home that my little sister and I grew up. Behind the house, the backyard was divided right down the center by a grapevine-bordered path. The lawn in the eastern half of the backyard was mowed short. That was where our swing set stood, where the grownups' lawn swing sat, and where freshly laundered wash dried on the clothesline every Monday that it didn't rain.

Here's a photo of my sister and me (that's me on the left) in that half of the backyard:

The house at the center left of the photo belonged to our neighbor, Mrs. Woods, who was a college professor. At center right you can see the back of our garage, to which is attached an unpainted wooden bicycle shed that Packy (who worked at a furniture store) built from a piano crate.

Now, in the next photo, please look behind me (standing on the ladder of the swing set) and through the wire fence holding up the grapevine. There is Packy's garden:

He worked in that garden every evening of the growing season, and Mammaw put the fresh food he grew on our table all summer long. What we didn't eat fresh, she canned to feed us through the winter.

I have one more picture that shows the (western) garden half of the backyard, this one taken from the back steps of the house and looking out toward the alley that ran the length of the block behind all the homes:

This photo brings several things to my mind:

1) If you click on the photo to enlarge it, you might be barely able to see the spray of the water sprinkler at my feet. I still remember how cool that spray felt on a hot summer afternoon. 

2) At the end of the path behind us is a wooden structure that surrounded our trash-burning barrel. It was inside that container that our Uncle Joe was once asked to burn all the post-Christmas gift-wrapping trash and instead burned the boxes containing all of our tree ornaments.

3) The little cottage just across the narrow alley sat in the backyard of a larger house and was occupied by Mrs. Belisle, whose daughter, Bluize, in fact had brown ones. I wonder if my sister remembers Bluize's son, nicknamed "Dukie," who was our playmate for a few years.

More than vegetables grew in Packy's garden. Memories did. And little girls.

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For this week's Saturday Song Selection, I had  planned to post a video of a favorite old hymn entitled "In the Garden," and if you love that one as much as I do, you can find the Elvis Presley version of it here. Those plans changed, however, when I came across a similarly titled song that I'd never heard before. It's a really good song, and the sepia images that the videographer chose to accompany it are beyond beautiful.

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The song is "In the Garden" by Van Morrison.

Enormous thanks to MrKathsic for posting this video (along with a link to the lyrics in the info section below it) on YouTube.

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To see how others have interpreted this week's theme,

click on the image below and follow the links.

The eyes have it

My two boys look so much alike, even though Levi's hair is trimmed shorter now, that it isn't easy at first glance to tell them apart.

Levi (left) and Gimpy

I guess that's to be expected since they are brothers, born in the same litter. I've never seen their parents, but before I brought Levi home, I did see photos my niece had posted of Trooper and Phoebe, their father and mother.

Now that Gimpy has joined our family, I'm studying both dogs closely, paying attention to their physical similarities and differences as well as their behavioral ones. After their easily observable difference in size, the next thing I noticed is that their eyes are different, both in shape and in color. Gimpy's are a warm, soft brown, and Levi's are lighter, an amber or caramel color. Curiosity about the eye differences sent me back online to study their parents' photos on my niece's website and facebook page. That's where my eye questions were answered. Voila:

Levi with their mother, Phoebe

Gimpy with their father, Trooper

Genetics is interesting, don't you think?

Sepia Saturday: A Flight of Imagination

This week's Sepia Saturday prompt is FLIGHT. As it happens, I posted my best "flight" photos earlier this year, before I ever heard of Sepia Saturday. They featured my father and his soldier buddies enjoying a photo-op with a downed WWII aircraft. Luckily, a cousin recently sent me some more pictures that were obviously taken on that same day.

My father, Paul, is the good-looking guy on the left in both photos.

If you want to see the other pictures of these young soldiers on their rare day of fun in wartime France, click here.

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Let's move into the 21st century for this week's Saturday Song Selection and listen to another flight of imagination, this one about a "Holiday in Spain." I love this song.

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The song is "Holiday in Spain" by Counting Crows.

Thanks to suzanne262 for posting this video and the lyrics on YouTube.

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Click on the image below and follow the list of links

to see how other bloggers interpreted the "flight" theme.

"He ain't just a playmate, he's my brother"

After much anticipation, I'm pleased to announce that Levi's long-awaited companion arrived from Texas this morning. Introducing (drumroll, please) GIMPY!

Gimpy (foreground) and Levi (rear)

As the title states, Gimpy is Levi's brother. As in full brother. As in littermate. They were together for the first five months of their lives. The picture below, taken by my niece days before I got Levi, shows the two of them back then:

I can't tell which dog is which.

My niece, who raised this litter, kept Gimpy for her own family. He was born with nerve damage in his right front leg, and they became especially attached to him as he bravely hobbled around doing everything all the other puppies did. They're still attached to him, but they gave him up for his benefit--and for mine and Levi's.

I knew back in December that I wanted to get another dog. Butch was very old, and I wanted to bring another dog into the pack so Levi wouldn't be left alone when Butch's days were done. Those plans fell through when Butch became very ill, and Levi, at the same time, developed a bad limp. I had all I could handle then, and I knew darned well that Butch did, too.

And so we waited. We waited until Levi's limp was healed and after that until nothing else could be done to prolong Butch's life. And then we waited some more. The niece who owned  Barkley, Levi's half-brother that I had planned to get, had second thoughts about giving him up, but my other niece, who owned Gimpy, said she might be willing to let me have him. They had five dogs, and she felt that Gimpy might be happier in a place where he could be an inside dog. I was thrilled at that idea.

Still we waited. I had a medical scare and didn't want to take on the care of another pet until cardiology tests proved nothing serious was going on. After that, we waited for my niece to break the news to her young son that Gimpy might be better off where he could live indoors, and then we waited for that brave little boy to reach the same conclusion.

Then it became a question of logistics. Between birthdays, Easter celebrations, and other obligations on each side of the Texas/Louisiana state line, we couldn't find a time to get together in the same place to put Gimpy into my hands. And then last week, suddenly, the niece who owns Barkley announced that she and her family were coming through here on their way to New Orleans, and they volunteered to bring Gimpy with them. I couldn't believe it was finally going to happen.

Gimpy was frightened when they dropped him off here this morning. He tried to climb back into the car as they were leaving, and, once we had him in the house, he looked around for a way to get back outside to the people he knew. He was extremely nervous for about three minutes. At about the four-minute mark, we took him out the backdoor where Levi waited in the yard. They busied themselves sniffing each other and getting reacquainted for about another minute.

Gimpy (left) and Levi, moving in for the sniff.

About five minutes into Gimpy's first day here, my daughter Kim threw a tennis ball, and in that instant a beautiful friendship was rekindled. Game on.

 Levi had the ball in this picture, but Gimpy reached it first

just as often as Levi did.

Gimpy is about three-fourths the size of Levi. Despite his gimpy leg, he can run like the wind. He and Levi have played a lot of ball today. They've also played chase through the house, taking turns being "it." And when I sat down at the computer to write this post, they both lay down, a few feet apart. They've been napping together ever since.

I think these two brothers will prove to be a match made in Heaven. I'm so happy--and so grateful to everyone who helped to get the two of them back together.

Easter 2012

I've had a good nap since my last post and am now ready to show you some photos from our Easter Sunday afternoon at my younger daughter's house. Since my adult children and grandchildren may or may not want me to post images of them in their bathing suits, I'll skip right to the great-grandchildren.

Here's Owen:

Scratching "carpentry" off his to-do list.

Happy in the pool.

Learning to kick.

And here's Olivia:

Focusing on something she wants--the visiting dog, I believe.

Dancing in her pretty pink swimsuit.

Here you can see what Livvy was seeing.

In addition to cute babies, we also had cute animals there. I didn't get pictures of the bluebirds or the hummingbirds, but I did get these:

The new baby chicks (my "grandchickens") . . .

. . . and Chi-Chi, the visiting dog, who was so small

that she had little "chicken legs" of her own.

The weather was wonderful. It was a day full of cool blues and greens . . .

. . . and warm love and sunshine.

And another week has flown by...

It came to my attention many years ago that the older we get, the faster time passes. But this week? Seems like the days have gone by at the speed of light. If time goes any faster than this, I'm gonna have to grab onto something solid and hold on tightly.

So, this week I've read some, cleaned house some, shopped a couple of times, walked some (though not every day like I'm supposed to), played ball with Levi for hours on end, and slept more than I should have. It's allergy season. Allergies make me dizzy, and antihistamines to control the dizziness make me drowsy. I'll choose sleeping over spinning every time.

The only day of the past week that stands out in my mind is Easter Sunday. In fact, I began writing this with the intention of showing you a few photos from that beautiful day. And maybe I'll do that this afternoon. Right now, though, I feel another nap coming on.  

What I'm Reading: Catching Fire and Mockingjay

The Hunger Games left me ravenously hungry for the other two books in the series, and I have happily devoured those this week. Such an imagination Suzanne Collins has!

For a description and reviews of either

of these books, click on its image above.