Happy Halloween

Remember, go easy on the candy.

Bud's

Alley Art

Housework

(I've just finished washing all the house windows.)

Housework is work directly opposed to the possibility of human self-actualization.
-Ann Oakley

Housework is what a woman does that nobody notices unless she hasn't done it.
Evan Esar

The important thing about women today is, as they get older, they still keep house. It's one reason why they don't die, but men die when they retire. Women just polish the teacups.
- Margaret Mead

The obvious and fair solution to the housework problem is to let men do the housework for, say, the next six thousand years, to even things up. The trouble is that men, over the years, have developed an inflated notion of the importance of everything they do, so that before long they would turn housework into just as much of a charade as business is now. They would hire secretaries and buy computers and fly off to housework conferences in Bermuda, but they'd never clean anything.
-Dave Barry

On the other hand:

Never work just for money or for power. They won't save your soul or help you sleep at night.
-Marian Wright Edelman

I long to accomplish a great and noble tasks, but it is my chief duty to accomplish humble tasks as though they were great and noble. The world is moved along, not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes, but also by the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker.
-Helen Keller

The secret of joy in work is contained in one word - excellence. To know how to do something well is to enjoy it.
-Pearl S. Buck

We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.
-Winston Churchill

Boy, Get A Reputation....

I am considered a bit odd here where I live because I am more likely to walk or ride my bike whenever I am running errands round town rather than hop in my car. Today I met someone I hadn't seen in awhile at the grocery store. When she saw me she gave me a big smile and we had the following exchange of words:

Her: Good to see you! Are you still walking the streets?

Me: (pause) Why yes. Yes I am.

Home, Home On The Range

We got back from Fort Collins last night. We had been there since Saturday visiting my father-in-law and helping him out with some things that needed to be done. Since we got home at sunset we quickly unloaded the car and then loaded the dogs in the truck and took them up to the cemetery for their evening run. When we got out of the truck I could smell smoke and asked my husband if we could be smelling the fires from California. He laughed and pointing to the burnt field across the road said, "That's what you're smelling."

I could not believe I had forgotten all about the fire we had here. The fires in California makes our fire look like baby stuff. I had been in contact with my brother off and on yesterday and he told me that they were ready to evacuate if necessary since they were close to the Harris Fire but everything seems to be OK at the moment. One blog friend had to evacuate but was allowed home yesterday and returned to a still standing house. So happy for her and her family. I cannot imagine what the clean-up is going to be like when these fires are finally put out. My thoughts are still with the people in Southern California today.

Two Reasons Why I Love My Husband

Yesterday we walked into a mattress store called The Sleep Center. We were standing there looking at all the beds when a salesman walked up to us and asked, "May I help you."
My husband replied, "Yes, we're here to take our nap."

I love him because he can make me laugh.

This morning his day started early and since it was going to be a long and busy one he was very focused on getting out the door on time. He ended up leaving without telling me goodbye. Five minutes later he walked back in the door calling my name. When he saw me he walked up to me saying, "I forgot to say goodbye." Then he gave me a kiss and a big hug.

And I love him because he can do something like that.

Ignorance Is Bliss

It is amazing how something big can be happening and a person can walk around without any idea of just what is going on. At 1:30 yesterday afternoon the wind was blowing hard, again. That wind blew a tree over just northeast of town. That falling tree landed on a power line causing it to break. That sparking line set some grass on fire. By the time anyone noticed it the wind had blown the fire into something large enough to quickly burn the field of the farmer who lives next to where it started. Three fire crews from three other towns were called in and another three crews from another three towns put on stand-by. By the time the fire was brought under control seven hours later it had cut a swath eight miles long, and two miles wide at some points, across the prairie. It also jumped two highways and produced flames that shot up to 13 feet high.

Now, I heard nothing about this fire until 6:30 last night when it was pretty much all over. I also learned that if the wind had been blowing toward the southwest instead of the southeast this fire would have headed straight for town. And if the wind had shifted at any point during the fire it would have turned toward town. I talked to one of our volunteer firefighters and asked him how you fight a fire like that. He told me that they put graders and discers on either side of the fire creating fire lines that angled toward each other in an upside down v-shape forcing the fire to turn in on itself. He also said the last thing you want to do is try to fight the fire from the front. These fires move so fast you could be surround within seconds. Our guys and the other fire crews did a great job.

Today I went out and took a few photos of the burn areas. Although they don't really show you how large this fire was or how far and wide it traveled, I thought they would give you some idea of what the fire did.

One section of the fire reaches the highway. This fire tried to cross the highway at four points but only got across at one. Firefighters quickly put that burn out.

Showing how the winds swirled the flames around leaving unburned areas inside burned sections.

The fire started over at the upper right edge of this photo and then spread across to the left and the highway.

Mothers And Daughters

(My sister, my mother, and me- late 1970's-earlier 1980's)

I am fooling only myself when I say my mother exists now only in the photograph on my bulletin board or in the outline of my hand or in the armful of memories I still hold tight. She lives on in everything I do. Her presence influenced who I was, and her absence influences who I am. Our lives are shaped as much by those who leave us as they are by those who stay. Loss is our legacy. Insight is our gift. Memory is our guide.
-Hope Edelman, U.S. author.

The woman who bore me is no longer alive, but I seem to be her daughter in increasingly profound ways.
-Johnnetta Betsch Cole

Unlike the mother-son relationship, a daughter’s relationship with her mother is something akin to bungee diving. She can stake her claim in the outside world in what looks like total autonomy—in some cases, even “divorce” her mother in a fiery exit from the family—but there is an invisible emotional cord that snaps her back. For always there is the memory of mother, whose judgments are so completely absorbed into the daughter’s identity that she may wonder where Mom leaves off and she begins.
-Victoria Secunda, U.S. psychologist and author.

The myth of independence from the mother is abandoned in mid- life as women learn new routes around the mother—both the mother without and the mother within. A mid-life daughter may reengage with a mother or put new controls on care and set limits to love. But whatever she does, her child’s history is never finished.
-Terri Apter, British social psychologist and author.

A son is a son till he takes him a wife, a daughter is a daughter all of her life.
-Irish Saying

Heee's Baaack!

(As you can see here.)

And so am I. Spent my gone time sleeping, watching movies on TCM and re-reading all the Harry Potter books. Feeling lots better.