FAVORITE THINGS, VOL. 2

1. Waking up early in the morning refreshed.
2. Getting my hair washed at a salon.
3. Listening to Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings.
4. Cuddles from Beignet.
5. Picking up seashells (ranks high on my favorites list).
6. School supplies. The very thought of them makes me drool uncontrollably...!
7. My grandson Sam.
8. Pictures of Sam.
9. Videos of Sam.
10. Talking to Sam on the phone.

As you can see in this particular post, Sam is nearly half of all of my favorite things. I love his smile and his laugh and sense of humor.

TEN OF MY FAVORITE THINGS

1. Raindrops twinkling on bare branches.
2. Layered dusky mountain ranges.
3. My two red tabby cats now four at Halloween and still kittens.
4. My sweetheart parrot Beignet who continues to astound me with her wisdom.
5. My husband who loves me so dearly and has taken care of me when I was sick with flu.
6. Wind in the trees and the perfume that it creates.
7. Crunchy tart apples in fall.
8. Tofutti sour cream and cream cheese. Life savers for the dairy intolerant.
9. Fat crunchy grapes that burst in your mouth. Beignet likes these too.
10.Ticking clocks. They remind me that time passes and that I am using the ticks.

One more my sister and I share...fresh black smooth asphalt.

ONE THING MONDAY

This week it is one thing and only one thing. Refreshment after vacation. I am renewed! That is all I want to say!

FOUR THINGS FRIDAY

It has been a busy week, so Tuesday has gone and here is Friday. Beignet is sitting on her little portable perch beside me and she wants to write something:

rrrrrrrrrrs reza. That is Beignet's message to everybody. She stood on the keys.

1. I so love that Beignet continues to grow in her abilities. She now whistles a specific number of times and I reply the same number of times. Then she says, "Good Girl!" She has become a teacher and I'm the student:D.

2. The sun is still shining here in Washington and I feel grateful for each ray of sunshine. Soon the rain will be here and we will experience all the colors of the grey spectrum which I personally find quite interesting. Good thing, because here we get rain forest type of rain all the time.

3. I'm grateful for the friends that are in my life and for their support to me and for the times I can lend support to them. If the whole world functioned on this simple system we would have peace.

4. Okay, I was going to wane philosophical on this one, so I'll put it into a more personal mode: I love my husband so much and I love that he loves me back. I love our life together and the way we are able to work side by side. I love the little things of love that happen when we work side by side, the tiny little things that make marriage a good thing like the wink of an eye or a giggle at the right moment or a simple glance. Connection to each other with regularity is what makes it work. I think every couple should prepare their dinner together. The dynamics of work together for a common goal provides a significant means to great camaraderie in a marriage. For this I have profound thankfulness.

LATE 10 THINGS TUESDAY

Okay folks, we were at Detroit Lake State Park last week and had a blast. We took 8 month old Sam swimming in his first COLD water. He loved it (and was wearing an appropriate life jacket). He is going to be a fish just like his Mom. This was the first time in 14 years (how time flies) that we went camping.

I missed my 10 Things Tuesday column, so here goes for last Tuesday:

1. Wow, it looks like it's going to be warm today

2. I want to go swimming right away.

3. Boy, I'm hungry.

4. Need a nap.

5. Aargh, sun on tent, napper too hot.

6. Why did we swim this morning? We should go now.

7. Mmm. Spaghetti is on the menu.

8. Mmmmmmm. Bob makes great spaghetti.

9. My assigned job - drying dishes.

10. Toasted marshmallows, then brush teeth and off to bed. A fine day at the lake.

The next day we swam in the afternoon and it was fabulous. Snorkeling is one of my favorite things even though I have to override that very strong human law that says, "Do not breathe when the face is in the water - no matter what!!!!!". It is always amusing to me how strong that law is, even though the brain knows that the snorkel will bring the air to the mouth. It always takes me a few breaths to get it regulated. The first few are jerky, untrusting and downright scary.

Sam and I had this fabulous little game of peek-a-boo going one night as I babysat. I loved it. That is his picture at the top. His mother tells me this morning that he has begun standing up on his knees. He wanted to be in the play pen during the week because then he got to stand up. I think he is going to be walking before we know it. He is a real acrobat.

TEN THINGS TUESDAY

My niece who is, by the way, 35 weeks pregnant has posted on her blog a great idea, name any ten things on Tuesday. After all in our city Tuesday is Junk Mail Day, so what am I going to do with my spare time except think of ten things.

1. I am abundantly thankful for good health care for me and my husband.
2. I need to rescue one of those roosters that nobody wants and have it for dinner. This, of course would mean that I would have to kill and prepare it for cooking. It would keep me in contact with why I would really rather be a vegetarian.
3. Having a grandson is the fourth greatest thing that ever happened to me. The others were getting married, having Aimee, getting a son (in-law), and then holding Sam the night of his birth while his parents slept. We whispered secrets all night.
4. God bless this place where I live. I'm awestruck every time I go outdoors or walk on the hardwood floors.
5. Five days of intestinal virus is W A Y too much.
6. When traffic is too heavy, just get off the road and have dinner:)
7. Finding swim fins in August is poor planning.
8. AAA has a great travel store. I've been buying purses there for years.
9. Having somebody to cuddle up next to at night is pretty nice.
10.Third hip injection is over with and it seems to be working. We'll know in three months when the MRI is repeated.

So, that wasn't so hard once I got going. But, there is a #11
11. It's okay for the deer to eat the columbines. We saw the Mom last week and she was really thin. They were here before I was. It's not really our land. The bank can complain if they think the deer will comply.

HOT WEATHER

The weather in the Northwest has been particularly hot in the past two weeks. This week it has cooled down, but here is a shot of what that hot weather does to animals. This little gal had been on another chair in a similar position. Our two cats were watching her and then I joined in to see what was so interesting. The squirrel hopped down and then up to this chair and assumed the "Darn, it's so hot today!" position.
The moon was full last week and we saw it as we came home from our Chinese class. I couldn't resist a quick shot.

Here is the sunset from the building that our Chinese class is at. This was a week prior when the hot weather made the elevator riding up to the place where I shot this a miserable toast of a ride. The elevator faced the sun and it was near 100 degrees out, so we guessed that the elevator was at least 130 degrees. Now I can slightly sympathize with our guys in Iraq.

I continually find the rising and setting sun and moon to be something of a fascination. My attention is held fully in the images I see. Beauty is all around us and I count these little glimpses of life to be small miracles in the bigger miracle of the universe.