Author: Wanda

I am a Catholic widow, mother, grandmother, friend and according to my kids just a little bit crazy. My faith is paramount in my life. Spending time with my family, especially my four grandchildren is one of my most treasured blessings. I love Redskins football, Phillies baseball, NASCAR, quilting, genealogy, and am a bibliophile and struggling blogger.

Share Your World

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Share Your World 16th January 2023

Here are this week’s questions:

What is the most comfortable vehicle you have ever ridden in or driven? The most comfortable car I have ever driven or ridden in was my 1965 Cadillac DeVille Convertible. It was a beautiful maroon color with a white leather interior and a white top. It was one smooth ride!

What is the most uncomfortable vehicle you have ever ridden in or driven? The most uncomfortable vehicle I ever rode in was my dad’s 1949 red pickup truck. It just bounced you all over the place! One time I was riding in it with my dad and he hit a bump which caused me to fly up to the roof of the cap and hit my head! That was 64 years ago and seat belts hadn’t been invented yet.

Have you ever ridden a horse (or a donkey at the seaside)? I have ridden a horse, but not at the seaside. I can’t say it was a good experience for me. My Uncle Francis took us horseback riding in a park where I proceeded to fall off of the horse and never got back on one again. That was about 64 years ago too and it was the biggest horse I had ever seen. 🙂

If you could have one of these as a pet, which would it be and why?
Black panther, cheetah, leopard, lynx I love the big cats! I would not say no to any of these. But I would probably choose the Black Panther. I think they are just beautiful!

The Perfect Shot

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Photo from WordPress Free Media Library from Pexels.

Today’s post is a collection of several prompts today. They are from:

Daily Prompt – JusJoJan the 16th, 2023-optimism

FOWC with Fandango — Meddlesome

Fandango’s Flash Fiction Challenge #202

The Word of the Day is Altitude

Your Daily Word Prompt – #Milieu- January 16, 2023

Carol grew up in an artist milieu without concern for an orderly environment. That’s not to say her place was always a mess, but she sometimes didn’t concern herself with the meddlesome chores of housework. After all, there was never enough time for all the photos she was drawn to take.

She would often jump out of bed in the wee hours of the morning to plan her daily photo shoot. She was always full of optimism then. Sitting at her little table while sipping her coffee, she would decide which side of town to stroll and maybe even settle on a theme for the day. Oh, how she loved to capture her subjects on film.

Sometimes she would venture out of town and drive to the mountains where the altitude opened up to the serenity of nature. Trees were one of her favorite subjects. They told a story for her. How wrinkled the bark looked let her know if the tree had lived a hard life being beaten by the weather or an easy one sheltered from it. If there was a caring into the bark showing all that the spot was a favorite place of two lovers. The colors and brilliance of the leaves told the story of its seasons. Oh, how she loved to capture these elements on film.

Full of optimism for catching that perfect shot, she couldn’t wait to start her day. Finishing her coffee, she hurriedly dressed, glanced over at her unmade bed, and the messy room, grabbed her camera, and she was gone off to pursue the magic her camera provided.

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?

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I am reading North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell the kindle edition. It is my Group Read on Goodreads. I love using the site but have been absent from it for a few years. I have decided to get back into it this year. I love to read and Goodreads keeps me on track. I have another site where I post my reviews. I haven’t posted anything on it for a very long time. I plan to use it this year as I have challenged myself to read 52 books this year. 🙂

RDP Sunday: SHILLY-SHALLY

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RDP Sunday January 15, 2023: SHILLY-SHALLY

Image from New York Times article Published July 29, 2021

I just love words like this. They make irresponsible behavior sound not so bad. This word/expression reminds me of when my kids were growing up. Every night after dinner one of them had to clear the table after we ate. The other one had to wash the dishes.

Now the thing is I had a dishwasher so all they had to do was scrape the loose food particles into the trash, rinse the dishes and put them in the dishwasher and turn it on. Much easier then when I was a kid who had no dishwasher. I had to stand at the sink and wash and dry them and put them away. Not that I am complaining. I do believe that when you are living in a family the home to some extent is everyone’s responsibility. If you don’t require your children to participate in the daily care of the home they grow up without any idea of having a home entails.

Anyway, I digress. As time went on and they each got jobs outside of our home and had less time to do the after dinner chores I began to see that the number my silverware pieces was declining. One day I noticed that the kids were shillyshallying in the kitchen and I saw them just dumping the contents of the used dishes into the trash can silverware and all. Needless to say I wasn’t happy.

Now they are grown and have kids of their own. They are going through the same things and I love it. My oldest is famous for saying to her kids “Look what you are doing, you are tuning me into Grami!” That’s me I am Grami.

I am a firm believer that the reward for not killing your kids is your grandchildren. Eventually you get to stand by and see that your children finally get it.

Thanks for this prompt today. It stirred memories and I had a good chuckle thinking about the “good ole days”.

2023 Weekend Coffee Share #102

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I’m glad you have stopped by. Sit down and I’ll grab us a cup of coffee.

I just don’t know where the time goes. Wasn’t it just Thanksgiving? I feel like I spend my life rushing though time. I think it’s because I am working in retail. In August we had back to school…before that promotion was over we were into the Halloween stuff. Then before we even finished with that it we were getting Christmas stuff in along with Thanksgiving product on the shelves. Christmas wasn’t over when the Valentine push started and today at work I caught a glimpse of the Wearing of the Green! And I might mention, we had a shipment of Mardi Gras decorations that was stocked last week! It’s just plain crazy

I would think I would be getting used to it since I have been working at the store for three years now, but I’m not. You know what is funny to me? I am sounding more and more like my parents. I always thought that you didn’t turn into your parents until you were old. I mean I am a mere 71 years young. So, how is this happening to me? Well enough of my complaining.

I am happy to be blogging again. I really missed it. I had my daughter here with me for a while and it kept me from my little hobbies. I am on my own again so look out blogosphere I will be blogging my little heart out. At least I hope to be doing so.

In my absence I adopted a puppy. Her name is Dixie. She’s a chihuahua min pin mix. She will be celebrating her first birthday on the 24th of this month. I love her to death, but I have to wonder whatever possessed me to get a puppy! What a lot of work! My Gracie who will be 9 in September was two when I adopted her. She was calm, sweet, trained, and quiet. Dixie on the other hand needed to be house trained, needs to calm down and likes to chew, but she is too sweeet. What great fun right? Below is a pic of my two girls. Dixie on the top and Gracie on the bottom. About 20 pounds of dog that take up almost the entire bed! 🙂 They do keep me on my toes and give me such joy.

Dixie & Gracie

The weather here has been crazy. Lasts week it was 70 and the trees started to bud. Which, by the way caused my allergies to rear their angry heads. Today we are back to the low 40’s and it’s cold! Not cold like back in Pennsylvania, but after being in the south for over 20 years my body feels cold.

Not much else is new this week. I am going to have a mini vacation next week. I have four days off in a row and am looking forward to doing a little house cleaning, photography, and maybe some sewing. Just a stay at home and enjoy time for me.

I’ll leave you with this: “There are many things in life that will catch your eye, but only a few will catch your heart. Pursue those.” – Michael Nolan”

RDP Friday Limit

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Ragtag Daily Prompt

I love animals. While raising my kids back in Pennsylvania, we had hamsters, guinea pigs, dogs, cats, turtles, tortoises, hermit crabs and probably some I just can’t remember. Well that was many years ago. Today I live in North Carolina and my kids are all grown

Now I live in North Carolina along the cost. I was staying with a good friend of mine who lives on a golf course. I looked out her window into her back yard/golf course and low and behold there was a visitor sunning himself. Now, as I said I love animals, but there is a limit to how close I want this guy to get to me.

I took this photo in Holden Beach, North Carolina in 2017, This little guy measured 15 feet. My friend was afraid he would starve because the pond he had adopted as his home was too small with no fish in it. With that, we heard a terrible crunch and as he enjoyed a huge turtle snack. From his size I would guess he was feasting on the deer that roamed through the neighborhood.

Room

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Today’s Word Of The Day word is Room.

Image from The Containers Store

I love to organize things. More specifically my home. So I get a little crazy with buying plastic containers to sort all of my junk into. As soon as the store comes out with a new line of baskets, plastic containers, or any other type of storage solutions I go nuts. As you can imagine this has created another storage issue which is I don’t have the room for all of it.

My solution to my problem has created yet another problem. Who knew?

I

A Blogging Survey If You Please

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An image made up of question marks
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Maggie from Cave Walls is taking a survey about our blogging habits.

questions below.

1. How many times per week do you post? Do you post multiple times a day? If so, how many? I have gone through long spells of not blogging for various reasons. I have recently recommitted myself to my blog. I am trying to post at least every day when time permits. After being retired I am again working full time which does limit my online time.

2. How many blogs do you follow? I guess it’s somewhere between 50 and 100. I can’t really say as I am having a terrible time locating where to find this info.

3. Do you read all the blogs you follow every day? If not, how often do you read other blogs? I don’t read all of my followed blogs every day, I do read them at least once a week, that is, when I am actively blogging.

4. Do you seek out new blogs to follow?  If so, how do you find them? I follow new blogs from links on the blogs I read.

5. Do you comment on the blogs you read? If not, why? Do you respond to all the comments left on your blog? I don’t always comment on the blogs I read because there are times I have nothing to contribute. I always acknowledge the comments left on my posts even it it is just to like it.

6. Do you ever close comments on a blog you post? If so, why? No I have never closed comments.

7. Do you ever unfollow someone? If so, why? I think I have unfollowed one blog that I can remember. If I remember right, the blog’s content changed direction into an area I was no longer interested in.

8. What content inspires you to follow a blogger? Everything from history, to humor, to learning about the blogger to photography to crafting to quilting to reading to politics to religion…my list goes on and on.

9. What content turns you off from following someone? I do not like “adult content”, smut, vulgarity, satanic, or racist content.

10. How important is it to you that you add a photo to every post? I like to add photos in my posts, but often I don’t have the time to search for the one I want so I go without one.

I will leave it at this.