Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge this week is: feet and/or legs – I’ve added paws!
My niece shows off the clogs she got for her birthday in April.
Chinese Foo Dog paw crushing her “baby” underfoot (in front of House of Szechwan Restaurant in Des Plaines, IL) . This has some symbolism. Foo dogs are typically placed at the entrance to buildings as sort of a guardian. I don’t know why they sometimes crush their baby underfoot!
One of Hazel’s paws
Dale in his bright blue athletic shoes
Pencil drawing I did of my feet
Carving of the foot of an Egyptian pharaoh (Kom Ombo, Egypt)
Today’s topic is ………….. Conversation Starters How much did the polar bear weigh? How much weight does a polar bear weigh
If a polar bear waits to be weighed?
As much weight as a polar bear weighs
If a polar bear waits to be weighed. What was the last funniest film you saw on the big screen? Crazy Rich Asians – hilarious! What do you think of tattoos – do you have any? I have none. Several of my family members do, however. I think it is distracting when the person has a lot of tattoos – like all up and down their arms and legs. For someone in my generation, it takes effort to get used to. But it seems to be something Generation X and beyond have really embraced. My stepdaughter & son-in-law both have a lot of tattoos, while my son has none and wouldn’t think of getting any. It is just a matter of personal preference. If you are wasting time, what is your best way to achieve this with 100% success? Doing unnecessary things on the computer (such as answering questions!) or playing games on my phone. I achieve success if I’m really good at a game – sometimes I have a streak of good luck on Words With Friends 2, for example. I’m on level 1693 on Wordscape and have over 1900 points! And blogging or reading blogs is just fun. If every time you walked into a crowded room a piece of personal intro music played, what would yours be? [Provide a link please] Here Comes the Sun by the Beatles, because I love sunshine and am happy when winter is over!! Also, because I think the Beatles were the best band of all time.
Who is your favourite celebrity? [Why?] Right now, I’d have to say Stephen Colbert. His Trump imitations are so funny, and his comments about our current politics so clever. I need a good laugh at the end of the day, especially after watching a series of news shows telling us the latest sleaze happening in Washington D.C.! Are you an organised person or live by the chaotic theory? Definitely the latter. But I have given the appearance of being organized and fooled people. For example, when I was teaching, I would start each school year with a well-organized desk and classroom and I would have a nice new binder that I would carry around with tabbed sections such as “meeting notes” or “professional development”, etc. What are 6 annoying habits other people have? 1. Being unable to smell themselves when they are in public, such as when they smell strongly of cigarette smoke or cat pee.
2. Hypocrisy
3. A propensity to react to any question by lying. For some people, lying is their default setting – it’s easier for them to lie than tell the truth.
4. Copying everything you do, such as asking, when they are sitting next to you in a restaurant, what you are ordering, and then they order the same thing. Perhaps this is a form of flattery but I find it really irritating.
5. Name dropping to impress people.
6. Using the f- word twice or more in every sentence, making derogatory or bigoted remarks about other people (even if there is no one present that fits their stereotype – they think others will tolerate it), or being overly judgmental.
7. Interpreting what you say, when you are giving a reason for why something happened or why someone acts a certain way, as an approval of that something. They think you should just disapprove of something and not even take the time to analyze the why of it. Or when you are trying to analyze your own behavior and they think you are justifying it. I like to know the reason for things, especially my mistakes, so I don’t repeat them. What time do you normally retire for the night to sleep? Around midnight. I get in bed earlier than that, but always spend time reading before turning out the light. When was the last time you pulled an all nighter? Oh geez, I think I was in college. I don’t think I could do that now if I wanted to! Although it’s interesting that no matter how little sleep I get on an airplane or in a hotel room, I still have energy to keep going the next day. When you go out, what is the one thing you simply cannot leave home without? My keys, water bottle, and phone – in that order. Physical books or Ebooks which is your personal favourite to read and own? I will read either and find there are advantages to each. When traveling, for example, it’s better to have books loaded on your Kindle so you aren’t carrying too much weight. However, when I’m at home, I do prefer physical books. During a number two trip to the toilet, how long are you in there for? OK, this is gross. It depends on what I’ve eaten or if I’ve had enough water to drink. Also, if there’s something good to read next to the toilet. What was the most interesting news story you have seen this week? Rep. Justin Amash, an ultra-conservative Republican congressman, had a town hall meeting with his constituents this week, in which he declared support for beginning impeachment proceedings against Trump. Unlike most members of Congress, he actually read the entire Mueller report and found many instances of obstruction of justice by Trump. While his constituents gave him a standing ovation for his position, other Republican congressmen have treated him with contempt. Why was it interesting? This is a man who I would disagree with on virtually every issue, yet I respect him because he is a man of integrity. It strikes me as interesting because I didn’t think there were any Republicans with integrity left. Perhaps he will embolden others…but I doubt it. Where was the worst place you have ever been stuck for longer than an hour? In traffic, especially when it’s a really hot or really cold day. If you were going to change your name, what would your new name be? I think I would go back to my maiden name of “Lovejoy.” My first name is OK, but I wish I had been called “Kate” instead of “Katy.” It’s too late to change that now, though. My name is not my favorite – I might rather be a Julia, or Alexandra, or Natalia. But I’m not. What is the silliest fear you have? My husband says my silliest fear is: insects that I find crawling on or around me, even if they are harmless. I say: lighting matches. I will only light those really big, long matches. What is your guiltiest pleasure? Chocolate, chocolate, and more chocolate! And ice cream – I LOVE it, especially when I can put all sorts of fun things on top, like m&m’s, sprinkles, cookie pieces, etc.
I am once again entering Jim Adams’ Song Lyric Sunday, a challenge to post a song that fits the prompt. Here is the prompt and the rules of the challenge:
Cool/Groovy/Hip/Nifty/Radical/Swell which is our prompt for this week. I am almost certain that this category will work, so everyone can find a song that fits the prompt. Select your song, write your post and please be patient, and wait for me to approve your pingbacks, or you can just place your link in the comments section. Here are the “rules”: Post the lyrics to the song of your choice, whether it fits the theme or not. Please try to include the songwriter(s) – it’s a good idea to give credit where credit is due. Make sure you also credit the singer/band and if you desire you can provide a link to where you found the lyrics. Link to the YouTube video, or pull it into your post so others can listen to the song. Ping back to this post will eventually work, as long as you are being patient, but you can also place your link in the comments if you don’t like to wait. Read at least one other person’s blog, so we can all share new and fantastic music and create amazing new blogging friends in the process. Feel free to suggest future prompts. Have fun and enjoy the music.
I chose the word groovy – immediately Simon and Garfunkel’s “Feeling Groovy 59th St. Bridge Song” came to mind! This is definitely a song of my generation. However, the YouTube video that had the lyrics is a different band, Harper’s Bizarre (although their cover is remarkably like the original).
It turns out Paul Simon doesn’t like this song. Here is a very different rendition with a political bent to it – Paul Simon & Stephen Colbert.
Jim, using “Wild Thing” by the Troggs was awesome! Oh, the memories…..!
I have had many opportunities lately to feel nostalgic, mainly because we are preparing to move to a senior community in six months, so we have to drastically downsize. This means going through boxes in the basement that haven’t been touched in decades!
I have found old photos of myself and my family from the 1970s – 1990s, drawings I did in 1972 and artwork my son did in elementary school, as well as old journals (as far back as 6th grade!), comics I made and stories I wrote.
Most valuable to me at this current time is a journal that I started in 2007 which I found in a drawer of my desk. Just 12 years ago, I had only written in the first 10 pages or so. So now I am carrying it around to encourage me to write and draw instead of playing games on my cellphone! Right now it’s an all-out war between my phone and my journal! The problem with a journal is that it is larger than a cellphone and writing by hand is getting more difficult lately – my hand cramps up and nice, legible handwriting after a page or two becomes erratic and less legible! However, a journal doesn’t need to be charged after using!
My next post happens to also be about something nostalgic: the music of my generation! Here’s a link: Song Lyric Sunday: Feelin’ Groovy.
Here are some of the things I found in the basement that made me nostalgic.
My son’s childhood
Jayme – 18 months old – at a beach in MilwaukeeJayme, about age 3 with his cousin Julia, age 5. These two were the best of friends for many years.My husband, Dale, showing Jayme how to put air in his bike tires. The most striking thing for me in this photo is how black Dale’s hair was then!Jayme wrote me this letter from summer camp. He was about 10.
My family used to gather around the piano every Christmas and sing carols. This might have been the last time we were all together (1967). My mother probably took the photo because she isn’t in it. I am standing (2nd from left), while two of my sisters were at the piano.
In high school I had a boyfriend who taught me how to develop photos in a darkroom. These are three photos I took and developed back then. The top two were taken at my school, Verde Valley School; underneath is the front of the house of a family that I stayed with in Oaxaca, Mexico, during my senior year.
Here I am with two of my sisters at my high school graduation! They had graduated from the same school years earlier. (I’m in the middle.)
When I was in elementary school – and even before that! – I loved to draw more than anything else. My mother used some of my drawings on the family’s Christmas cards a couple of times. This one made the local newspaper! I was 7 at the time.
In 1973, I went to Mexico with a college boyfriend (my future 1st husband) and we traveled all over the country. This photo was taken at Uxmal, Yucatán. I am climbing down a very steep Mayan pyramid, holding onto a chain as I descended. It was scary!
After my mother became a widow, she made arrangements to move to a retirement community. She moved there after her dog died. In this photo copied from a scrapbook, taken in 2003, I am posing with her after a concert my church choir performed at the retirement home. My mother lived there many years, first in independent living, then she moved to assisted living, and finally to memory care, where she passed away in 2014.
The topic for Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge this week is small subjects.
These small subjects were all located within a couple blocks of my house. I like to take pictures of things that strike me when I am out walking. I walk to exercise but also to discover. These are some of the discoveries I’ve made in the last month.
child’s chair against a large tree trunk
shooting star flower
birdhouse
angel on a window sill
more angels (along the driveway of the same house)
I spotted this beautiful tabby furball when we stopped at the Mount of Precipice (or Leaping Mountain) which overlooks Nazareth, Mt. Tabor and the Yizrael Valley on the morning of Jan. 11.
View from Mount of Precipice
I know I’m late for this one, but I just didn’t have time to do it before now, and then I saw “Bipolar Barb”‘s answers and got inspired. This is one of my favorite topics, so please forgive me!!!
Welcome to Question Fun The Twice Weekly Game! An easy game, and more so if you love questions! Each game has a topic, and then there are 23 questions relating to the topic – they can be visual, musical, personal, professional, topical, serious, thought provoking, fun, weird and even wacky – the questions will cover all fields and there is no structure to follow, so it could orderly one day and completely random the next time you play! Today’s topic is ………….. Adventuring, Exploration and Travel/ling
What are five [in your eyes only] top quality Adventure films? Instellar – In a future where humans are struggling to survive, astronauts venture into space through a wormhole to search for a new home for humankind. Contact – a young woman takes a spaceship to a planet in another galaxy, not knowing what she will find or if she will even get there. The Martian – The ultimate adventure that could plausibly take place in the next 100 years! An astronaut is left for dead on Mars by his crew members, who return to Earth. He must learn to survive Mars’ hazards until he can communicate with Earth and be rescued. This was a good movie, but the book was better! Armegeddon – NASA discovers that an asteroid is going to hit Earth and sends a crew to land on the asteroid and divert it. OK, this film is not “top quality” but it is actually a real possibility – it is against all odds that Earth has not been impacted by a devastating asteroid since the time of the dinosaurs. The Lost City of Z – the only one of my five that takes place on Earth and is really true! It’s the story of a writer who traces the route of past explorers into the Amazon jungle to find a “lost city” known as “Z”, a possibly mythical place but whose legend has endured to this day. To get there, he faces many hazards and possibly death, since none of the explorers of the past returned from their expeditions.
In all of these films, characters face the unknown and the probability of not returning home alive. [Please provide links and say why you think they are] What would be your ideal Adventure [not holiday – Adventure]?
to be an archaeologist or help a team of archaeologists excavating ancient Egyptian ruins (I mean for real, not like Raiders of the Lost Ark!) If you were planning your Adventure of a Lifetime which is the best season for you to go?Winter, early spring or late fall in a warm climate or southern hemisphere because I hate the cold. What kind of activities do you enjoy doing and what would you never do?
I like to explore new places, then write about it, reading, photography and being in nature. I would never go hang gliding, mountain or rock climbing, skydiving or ziplining. (I did go ziplining once, in Costa Rica – never again!) If you could live anywhere in the world for a year out of the answers below, where would you choose?The forest. What are three great adventure quotes? These are the answers “Bipolar Barb” gave, but they are great and I couldn’t come up with anything better.
“The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.” — Eleanor Roosevelt;
“Keep reading. It’s one of the most marvelous adventures that anyone can have.” — Lloyd Alexander
“Until you step into the unknown, you don’t know what you’re made of.”
― Roy T. Bennett America is named after?
Amerigo Vespucci Who reached North America first out of the following peoples? Spanish, British, Vikings, Portuguese
Vikings – archaeologists have found evidence of Viking habitation in Canada from back in the 12th century or earlier. They were master sailors and conquerors. What was Christopher Columbus’s aim of his second voyage to the New world? Probably to rape & pillage and steal all the gold. Really, I don’t know, but that is what he and his men did. They wanted to find “El Dorado” – a city made of gold. What happened to the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan? It is buried under Mexico City. What was the most exciting Adventure you have ever been on? Four days hiking/backpacking in the Grand Canyon Where in the world have you had the most fun exploring as an adult? I guess I have to say Scotland, because it is one place that we set our own agenda – we weren’t on a tour. It was in 1999, and my mother was with us. She had ancestors in Scotland and we explored some of the places that were part of their history.
I downloaded this image from Bing, but this was a place in Scotland that we just happened to see when we were driving, so we stopped and explored! Well worth the visit!
When in Rome, one does as the Romans do; however, when on a sandy beach, one does ……….. ? Build a sand castle. Whilst out and about exploring on an adventure, what is the scariest thing that has happened to you?I was almost kidnapped at O’Hare airport when I was 16, and also, in Mexico City, I got into an unmarked car whose driver claimed it was a taxi. If it hadn’t been for the alertness of the friend I was with, God knows what would have happened. Of the following choices which would you prefer to explore?
Well, a forgotten city is sort of like a ghost town, which can be fun to explore. Ghost towns usually have great photo opps! A sunken city – I would love it if it is no longer “sunken.” (Tenochtitlan is buried under Mexico City; many Egyptian ruins were buried under sand, but no longer. Do these count?) A lost city – if it’s lost, how can I explore it? An uninhabited island – that would be fun to explore also, as long as “uninhabited” includes dangerous animals! Why did you pick your option above, what appealed?
Sunken cities are archaeological goldmines, and I love learning and speculating about life in the distant past. Would you rather swim with sharks or dolphins? Are you really expecting anyone to answer “sharks”? Dolphins, of course. What’s the worst piece of travel advice you have ever received? It never really gets cold in Israel. WRONG!! What is on the top of your bucket list? Going on another safari, perhaps in South Africa; visiting China; a cruise of the Greek Islands. In 2 1/2 weeks we are going to Europe, and while I am in France, I will visit Mont St. Michel, which I can then cross off my bucket list! Best musical track you can think of for each of the following: exploration, adventuring or travelling? [Please provide links] City of New Orleans by Arlo Guthrie (traveling) Africa by Toto (adventuring – safari!!) This Land Is Your Land performed by Pete Seeger (exploring – there is so much variety in this country!) How many countries [or States/Counties] have you visited – please list. I’ve been to 42 U.S. states, I think: New York, New Jersey, California, Arizona, Texas, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan, Georgia, Nevada, Colorado, Idaho (very limited), Utah, Washington, Oregon (very limited), Montana, Wyoming, New Mexico, Nebraska, Kansas, South Dakota, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Tennessee, Kentucky, Alaska, Hawaii, Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina (limited), South Carolina, Florida, Massachusetts, Vermont, Minnesota, Maine (only Acadia NP), District of Columbia, Maryland, Michigan, West Virginia. (I need to take two trips: Northeast and deep South!) I only counted states that I actually visited, and not states that I’ve driven through while on a road trip. My rule is I at least have to get out of the car and see something. Oh, I have also been to Puerto Rico which is part of the United States, but it isn’t a state (yet). Countries: Canada, Mexico, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Cuba, Costa Rica, Colombia (only Cartagena), Brazil, Peru, Denmark, Germany, Estonia, Russia (St. Petersburg), Finland, Sweden, France, United Kingdom, Switzerland, Austria, Spain, Italy, Netherlands, Egypt, Tanzania, Israel. In other words, NOT NEARLY ENOUGH! There’s a lot of world left to see!!! Three items you simply could not travel without? Phone, notebook & pen, water bottle
