Monday, September 30, 2013

Unconscious Mutterings: Week 557


This week's mutterings from LunaNina.com:

Spirits :: of the dead (Halloween's a-comin'!)
Admit :: own up, confess
Gift :: birthday, Christmas, talent, blessing
Barry :: Gordy, Manilow, Obama
Dredge :: drag, bring up, murder mystery
Pajamas :: flannel (yuck!)
Cheating :: Hank Williams


Information :: The Prisoner


Ivory :: Merchant and ....
Past :: is prologue

Want a little more muttering? Try these:
UM / Week 556
UM / Week 554
UM / Week 553
UM / Week 551

Blue Monday: Favorite Cup

Blue Monday is hosted weekly by Smiling Sally.
To see more offerings, or to participate yourself, please head on over to her blog.


First of all, please forgive the messy kitchen in the background -- although, this qualifies as pretty tidy in my world.  What we have here is my favorite cup, bought back in the mid-1970s (from either Crate & Barrel or Pottery Barn, as I recall). Lovely painting of a blue cat on white ceramic.  I'm sure you've seen them before.  Well, it's actually a mug.  And this is not the original favorite cup. It's a replacement. A few weeks back, I broke my favorite cup while making tea. Dropped it on the granite counter top and smashed it to smithereens (OK -- maybe not smithereens, but there was a major crack down the front and a lot of chipping).  That's one of the problems with these granite counters -- they look pretty, but they're cold and unforgiving.


Anyhoo -- I was devastated.  And angry.  And depressed.  So, the hubby (like the problem-solver he is) immediately got on the interweb and found the exact same mug, for sale on eBay.  As a collectible, of course.  It was in perfect condition (a bit better than my old one, actually), so he bought it and it arrived within a few days.  I dried my tears and had a cuppa.

But I'm holding onto the original, chipped mug, too.  Well, you know -- a thirty-something-year relationship with a favorite utensil dies hard.

Friday, September 27, 2013

SkyWatch Friday: After the Rain


We finally had some rain this month! Not enough to break the drought, but enough to wash some of the pollen out of the air -- which made me truly thankful. Grabbed this shot on one of the days we didn't get rain at our place, but there was moisture all around us and a nice rainbow when it was all over. Getting a bit of a double rainbow effect here.  And it looks like the end of the rainbow is in Austin, Texas!  A lot of people probably believe that already.

To see more sky photos, or to post your own sky shots,
please visit:

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Wordless Wednesday: In the Coffee Shop



For more Wordless Wednesday offerings,
please visit the website here.

Monday, September 23, 2013

Blue Monday: Gardening Blues

Blue Monday is hosted weekly by Smiling Sally.
To see more offerings, or to participate yourself, please head on over to her blog.

OK.  Monday again.  And a couple of gardening-related shots today.

First is a photo of one of the vines growing in our back garden.  It's very attractive, and very drought-resistant, which is important in this part of the world.  Having lived in city apartments most of our lives, M and I aren't veteran gardeners, and we were a little mystified when we saw this blooming in the spring -- it looked like grapevine, but the leaves didn't really look like the leaves we generally associated with grape plants.  And when the fruit appeared this summer and started turning a deep, dark blue (officially they're supposed to be black, but ours are more like a dark navy) it looked something like grapes, but just a little different.  M kept saying maybe we should just eat one and see if they tasted like grapes.  Fortunately, I never let him do that because I've since found out that the plant is something called Grape Ivy (or Sorrelvine, Ivy Treebine, or Possum Grape), and is definitely NOT edible. 


But the berries have been disappearing all summer long, so somebody around here obviously thinks they're tasty.

Even though my allergies have been keeping me inside lately, I'd still like to do some gardening out on our patio -- so I've been shopping around for containers.  And while browsing the offerings at our local hardware store, I noticed this display of blue plastic pots.  Didn't bring any of them home because I'm looking for something a little more subdued for our place.  But this color just really grabs the eye, doesn't it?


(Click on photos to enlarge.)

Sunday, September 22, 2013

Unconscious Mutterings: Week 556


This week's mutterings from LunaNina.com:

1. Laceration :: scar
2. Shower :: Janet Leigh / Alfred Hitchcock / Psycho (sorry, but I think about that scene almost EVERY time I take a shower)
3. Filed :: income tax / finger nails
4. Possibility :: probably not (guess I'm one of those glass-half-empty people)
5. Horror :: Seinfeld (it's complicated -- in one episode John O'Hurley as J. Peterman says "The horror!" which is a reference to or rip-off of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness.  Hmmmm.  Probably should have just gone with "Stephen King.")
6. Entry :: wound (been watching way too many true-crime shows)
7. Hospital :: place to stay away from
8. Switched :: on / off / at birth
9. Guilty :: pleasures / as charged / by association
10. Mistake :: too many

Want a little more muttering? Try these:
UM / Week 554
UM / Week 553
UM / Week 551

Thursday, September 12, 2013

Joy Needs Revisited

A few years back, this meme was going around the blogs (I got it from my cousin), and I tried it out.  My husband even had a go at it.  The idea is to do a Google search for your name + "needs" and write down the top ten results.  Well, it turned out to be really funny, so I thought I'd do an updated search. (Yeah, it's been one of those days.)  Here's what I came up with:

Joy needs…
... a miracle (Not really -- it’s just this haircut that makes it look that way.)

... to learn from history, and not be a chicken (Actually, Joy considers herself quite brave. Didn't she move back to Texas with hardly a whimper?)

... to mix a 30% alcohol solution with a 60% alcohol solution (Hell yeah! Bottoms up, ya'll.)

... a forever home (Sorry, Sweetie -- it’s too late to put me up for adoption.)

... help (Well, that’s obvious -- especially after all that alcohol mixing.)

... your help to eat again (No, that must be some other Joy. I NEVER need help eating.)

... Zoey, a specially trained diabetic alert dog (Uh. Well, I'd love to have a dog.  But so far, diabetes is one of the few problems I DON’T have. )

... to exit (But she just got here!)

... a fresh start with fresh owners (My husband just has to have rigged this.)

... her own show on a major network (Right on!!! Now that’s the first statement I can really AGREE with!)

Sunday, September 8, 2013

Unconscious Mutterings: Week 554


This week's word association game from LunaNina.com:

1. Sacred :: profane
2. Distill :: brew
3. Haunting :: spooky
4. Delete :: erase
5. People :: who need people are the luckiest people in the world (thank you, Barbra!)
6. Corrupt :: broken (also Mark Twain because of "The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg")
7. Hanger :: closet (where I can never find one)
8. Gotham :: Clark Kent (yeah, I know -- Batman's city, not Superman's, but that's what I thought of)
9. Igloo :: Eskimo, ice, snow, much too cold
10. Spanish :: wish I could speak it fluently

Monday, September 2, 2013

Blue Monday: Morning Blues

Blue Monday is hosted weekly by Smiling Sally.
To see more offerings, or to participate yourself, please head on over to her blog.

When I was a little girl I loved the morning glories in my grandmother's garden.  I always tried to get out as early as possible to see them right after the blooms opened up in the morning.  Ever since then I've wanted to plant morning glories in a garden of my own, but never got the chance until this year.  Earlier in the summer we planted some morning glories in our back garden, and they finally started blooming at the end of August.


With the drought here in central Texas, I suppose they might not be with us much longer, but right now they're doing fine.  I still love getting out there in the early morning hours to see the fresh blooms.  And although I sort of wish I'd chosen a little brighter color, I'm definitely loving this delicate shade of blue.

Sunday, September 1, 2013

Unconscious Mutterings: Week 553


Here's this week's word association game from LunaNina.com:

1. Teacher :: the hubby
2. Activity :: the hobby
3. Scared :: senseless
4. Suction :: pump
5. Impossible :: dream
6. Terrestrial :: extra-...
7. Humongous :: gi-normous
8. Cheekbones :: super model
9.  Dream :: impossible (like those cheekbones)
10. Fog :: pea souper