Better late than never

Awards, I've had a few...

Mimi, Queen of Memes, kindly presented me with several awards during her recent Blog Appreciation Week, for which I have not publicly thanked her.
This is one of them, and when you read the lovely things she said about me you'll understand my guilt for not having posted it sooner.
I daresay the dank dungeon may soon be my new digs.

Help!!!
Here is what the Queen doth said:
Patti at Late Bloomer Boomer - Prolific professional perfect Princess who has the biggest most genuine smile I've ever seen. She's one of the few bloggers I've met in person. I was totally in awe of her laughing heart and SWEET spirit. A lovelier person I dare say I've met. Did I say what an incredible published writer she is???


Thank you, Mimi, for your kind words. I am truly moved by what you wrote. Is it OK if we don't go clothes shopping if I ever get to come visit?

Thanking you in advance,

Patti

This 'n that, 'cause I'm having trouble doing a meme (sorry, Mimi)

I got this quiz from Mary, The Teach,
and I liked the results.

What Font Are You? You Are Palatino

You consider yourself to be creative and artistic. And you'd like everyone else to know it! You take design and aesthetics seriously. You like everything in your life to be unique and beautiful - but never gaudy!

And from the e-mail bag:

These classified ads actually ran in newspapers.

FREE YORKSHIRE TERRIER.
8-years old. Hateful little bastard. Bites!
FREE PUPPIES:
1/2 Cocker Spaniel, 1/2 sneaky neighbor's dog.
FREE PUPPIES:
Mother, AKC German Shepherd.
Father, Super Dog...able to leap tall fences in a single bound.
FOUND DIRTY WHITE DOG:
Looks like a rat. Been out a while.
Better be a big reward.
COWS, CALVES: NEVER BRED.
Also 1 gay bull for sale.
NORDIC TRACK
$300 Hardly used, call Chubby.
GEORGIA PEACHES
California grown - 89 cents/lb.
JOINING NUDIST COLONY!
Must sell washer and dryer $300.
WEDDING DRESS FOR SALE:
Worn once by mistake. Call Stephanie

Move-in day pix before camera batteries went dead

Need hangers?

Cameron apparently doesn't. ;-)

Wires, cables, action! Computer's all set up.

Ralph and Allegra's boyfriend, Rob, give moral support to Cam.

~ ~ ~

It is so-o-o-o-o-o hard having both of our kids at school.

This empty nester stuff really is for the birds.

Ruby Tuesday

As of Saturday both of our children are at the University of Hartford.
Allegra, Kid One, is a junior now and Cameron, Kid Two, is a freshman (tear, sniff, sniff, waaa!).
I have to say that place is a gold mine for Ruby Tuesday possibilities!!
The school colors are red and white. It's a veritable treasure trove of red stuff. My camera batteries died (errgghh) but I got a few shots, and here are some of the highlights.
This is the new Freshman Success Center. I hope Cameron takes advantage of it, it's directly across from his dorm. The school mascot is Howie Hawk. He is a wild and crazy bird.
The golf cart roof is decorated with a cutout of Howie's likeness. These two students who were helping on freshman move-in day were so friendly and nice. They're Red Caps, which means they had auditioned last spring and were trained over several days to be of assistance.
Our daughter worked as a Howie's Helper for the second year. She really enjoyed it last year and signed up again. We're wondering how much stuff she had to schlep...we'll hear about it eventually.

The Red Caps stand at the driveway to the campus, waving, jumping up and down with welcome signs and making people smile. They help in the parking lots, give directions, smile, greet you, smile some more and are definitely the more "theatrical" of the helpers.

Even the name decoration on the door fits in with the red theme. Cameron's name is on a red domino! How did they know?
The resident assistants covered over the door numbers with backwards numbers. I don't know why. A joke I guess. Or a secret code that I'll never know.
Allegra and the Boyfriend were waiting for their Howie's Helpers shift to start Saturday, so they were able to help us move Cameron's stuff, and answer some questions that he had.
Aren't they cute? And his shirt is red. Yay!

To join the Ruby Tuesday fun, visit Mary, The Teach.

Creative photograph #12

Voici my entry for Roger's weekly contest.

This blurred photo was taken through a window on a Bateau Mouche as the vessel slowly floated down the Seine on a cold February evening in 2004.

You can see a bit of the boat's red and white striped awning in the corner.

To get involved in this fun contest, visit Roger.

Nest empties out - for now

It's just me, Ralph and the Brothers Furr =^..^= =^..^= for awhile.

Waaaaah!


Yay! (for our Kid One and Kid Two now at college)


Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! (for us)


Yay! (the children are happy)

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! (I'm teary)


Mixed emotions.


The Brothers Furr are certainly confuzzled.
They go in the kids' rooms, nap on the bed, nose around, not understanding what is up.

"Where have two of our staff members gone?" they seem to be wondering. They'll be back, we try to tell them.

Oh me, oh my! I really won?

My gratitude goes out today to blog friend Roger at Idaho Photo and all of the judges in his Creative Photography contest: Leslie, Chica, Dale, Elaine, and Dianne, for awarding me first prize in Week #11 of Roger's popular competition.

Woo hoo! I was taken aback when I read Roger's comment on my blog this morning congratulating me. Thanks, merci, gracias, grazie!

Seeing that I am a bit sad :-( because our daughter returned to college yesterday and our son is going off to his freshman year of college tomorrow, this honor has surely brightened my day.
I shall proudly display this award on my sidebar.

And now an impromptu one-minute photo shoot from Wednesday morning's catnap:

(Are you taking our picture again Mommy?)

(Oh well, guess we'll just go back to sleep.)

Memories in B & W

My cousin Dennis, the boy on the left, recently sent me some very old family photos and this is one of the cutest.
That's moi on the right in the sexy suit standing in my fancy backyard pool with three of my cousins.
What I found fascinating is where this photo faded - right in the corner where my late father is seen smiling as he is walking up the back steps.
To me it's like he is looking down at us from Heaven. I wish I had more photos of him. We didn't take that many pictures when I was young, I guess.
I still think of things to ask him, things that only he would know about, even though he died in 1976.
I always felt like he had all the answers to all my questions. That's what daddies are for, right?

Just ducky '>

What a life, just quacking away. I took these photos while doing a story about a 22-foot wooden power boat a California couple launched last Thursday for a "cruise" from Connecticut to Florida. They may even venture as far as Galveston.
I posted that story here.

Have a Quacky Wednesday all!

Sailing, sailing (not me, but some brave folks are!)

Last Thursday afternoon Ralph accompanied me on a fun story that was published Friday. It's about a husband and wife from California who are off on an adventure in a power boat he built a few years ago. They left from Shelton, Ct., headed to Florida.
The story was published Friday and I thought I would link "Coast couple launches sea adventure" here, since I am fresh out of blog ideas right now. The photo below, taken by my co-worker, Melanie, accompanied the story. She's a great photographer.

I've been getting two children ready to go off to college and my mother ready to move into her new condo, all in the same week.
I'm not doing all that much, but I have made myself "available" to them. I took the week off so maybe I can help somebody with something.

Melanie Stengel/Register
Derby Alderman Anthony Szweczyk helps launch the Loon, a boat owned by Colleen and Jeff Stobbe of California. Colleen is on the bow.

Ruby Tuesday

Need I say more?

Taken in Shelton, Ct.
Please forgive if someone has already posted similar photos for Ruby Tuesday. The activity has gotten so popular that I can't keep up!

To join the photo-sharing fun, visit Mary, The Teach.

Creative photo #11 ~ Bus stop memories

In honor of kids everywhere heading back to school, I give you my two on the first day of school in August, 1995.
Allegra, who was heading off to second grade, is being the helpful big sister to Cameron, who was starting kindergarten.

This is my entry in Roger's Creative Photography contest. Thanks as always, Roger, for hosting. ;-)

I'm in good company

Mary, The Teach, gave me a second award this week. I'm honored to be among the other 20 awardees!
It's the "You Give Me Happy Feet" award.

I love it!

Mary writes: "When I think of you my feet begin to tappin' and I pirouette across the floor in total delight that I will be talking/commenting to you in a little while. And of course my feet aren't the on only parts of my body that are happy because of you.
My head is boppin', my mouth is smilin,' my hands are clappin' - all because of you."

Thanks, Mary, and your blog gives me happy tootsies as well. ;-)

Meanwhile, it has been Blog Appreciation Week over at Bloggingham and Mimi, our Royal Highness, Queen of Memes, doth presented me with so many awards I don't know where to begin. I think my royal self doth need a royal afternoon nap before tackling a post about them. Thanking you in advance, My Queen, I remain,

Princess Patti (Potty Mouth Extraordinaire)

Water, water - Part 2

This morning Linus wanted in on the water fun. Two can play this game, right?
Or maybe he just wanted his picture taken by the kitchen sink, I'm not sure.

Water, water

Rigby, the smaller of the two felines we live with, loves water. Truly. He sees us heading toward the bathroom, and he makes a beeline for it. He jumps on the cabinet next to the sink, and waits for someone to turn on the faucet.
Then he is in H2O heaven. He stares at the stream of water. He seems to be wondering where it's going. He stares at the drain. Sometimes he climbs into the sink and tries to get a sip.

This morning I was running the water in the kitchen to make coffee. He jumped up and started sipping it. As you can see, he was having a grand old time for himself.

Refreshing.
Silly kitty.

You say tomato, I say...

Dang. Not all of our tomato plants are yielding edible fruit. Some have holes in them.
But I decided to look at the problem as a potential photo for a blog post. Doesn't the little guy in the middle look like he's looking right at you?I thought so.

Now I don't know what is going on, but some of the photos I've been working with have automatically been going into oil painting mode. Like this one ^ . What's up with that?

Kick Ass Blogger (woops, did I just swear?)

Mary, The Teach, presented me with an award. It's for kick ass bloggers!
I know she's one, but I never thought of myself as one.
Mary said, "MammaDawg of MammaDawg is the originator of this awesome award. Here's what she has to say about this award:

Do you know any bloggers that kick ass?

Maybe they've got incredible, original content. Or they're overflowing with creativity. Is it someone that helps you become a better blogger? Or a bloggy friend you know you can count on? Or maybe it's someone who simply inspires you to be a better person... or someone else who sends you to the floor, laughing your ass off.

Whatever the reason may be, I'm sure you know at least a couple of bloggers that kick ass. Well... why not tell 'em so?

The Rules:

• Choose 5 bloggers that you feel are "Kick Ass Bloggers"
• Let 'em know in your post or via email, twitter or blog comments that they've received an award
• Share the love and link back to both the person who awarded you and back to www.mammadawg.com
• Hop on back to the Kick Ass Blogger Club HQ to sign Mr. Linky then pass it on!

Now I award the Kick-Ass Blogger award to:

1. Linda, of Are We There Yet? (Her Duchess-ness, I call her)
2. Mimi, of Mimi Writes (she's the Queen, you understand)
3. Michael C, of The Wonderful World of Nothing Worthwhile (he doesn't post awards, but I love him anyway)

I'm cheating and only choosing three friends today.

Didn't have a post idea; enjoy this comic as I go visit blog friends

marriedtothesea.com

Ruby Tuesday

It's a RED car!
I used this photo for Ruby Tuesday because the car belongs to Kid One's boyfriend, AND because it's red, AND because our feline neighbor, Libby, figures prominently in it.

Notice my garden flag? Regular readers know that it tends to get in a lot of pictures that I take. A leitmotif, as it were.

Happy Ruby Tuesday to all! I urge you to throw caution to the wind and visit Mary, The Teach, and participate in this photo-sharing fun.

2 old 2 text

I think that's the problem. Or else I'm 2 impatient.

Yesterday I attempted to text our daughter to pass the time on our hour-long drive to a family get-together. Well, it took me about 20 minutes to send her a seven-word message.

Talk about trial and error!

Is it me, or do other middle-aged people have trouble with this texting stuff?

Creative photography #10

This lovely pink flower is on a weedy-looking (to me anyway) tree next to the garage at the house my mother is renting.
I like pink, so I photographed it a few weeks back.

Today I fooled around a bit with the oil painting effect.

And I tried sepia tone, and made the contrast more contrast-y (that's a photography term). But now it looks like B&W. Don't know why.

Here I decided to shoot the works and invert the colors.

And then I tried GLOW.

Thanks go once again to Roger at Idaho Photo for hosting the contest. Join the fun!

Political incorrectness

In the spirit of the Olympics being held in Beijing, and it being a Friday afternoon in the summer and all, I share some stuff from the e-mail bag:

Left is English, right column is Chinese translation. Read them out loud:


That's not right! Sum Ting Wong

Are you harboring a fugitive? Hu Yu Hai Ding

See me ASAP Kum Hia Nao

Small Horse Tai Ni Po Ni

Did you go to the beach? Wai Yu So Tan

I bumped into a coffee table! Ai Bang Mai Ni

I think you need a face lift! Chin Tu Fat

It's very dark in here! Wai So Dim

I thought you were on a diet! Wai Yu Mun Ching

This is a tow away zone! No Pah King

Our meeting is scheduled for next week! Wai Yu Kum Nao

Staying out of sight Lei Ying Lo

He's cleaning his automobile Wa Shing Ka

Your body odor is offensive Yu Stin Ki Pu

Great Su Pa

And some culinary suggestions for the adventurous (I might try the corn, but that's it). I'm glad I'm not at the Olympics.