Reunions…

Reunions are always a tricky thing. I have never been to a school reunion (I live thousands of miles from my hometown), but I would think it would be fun, if not really awkward. Family reunions (of which I have been to MANY) are the most wonderful/awful/wonderful occasions…wouldn’t trade them for anything, but kinda glad they only happen once every three or four years so we all have time to recover.

My reunion last weekend was with a group of girl friends in the town in which I lived before I moved here to heaven…the occasion was the first production presented by my home community theater group since I moved away…a night of ten ten-minute comedies among friends…lots of drinks, catching up with cast and audience members and much laughter.

And then, there are the girls…five of us enjoyed a sleepover (although there was very little sleep involved)…there was vodka involved, there were old and new stories told and there was peace.

I didn’t get to enjoy the amazing bagel/lox/tomato slices/homemade homefries breakfast, as my mini-hangover made the thought of putting food into my mouth cause my stomach to throw up the stop sign…but I enjoyed the easiness among us at that table.

Not even 24 hours after we all came together again, we went our separate ways. But nothing can take away from the feeling of being loved and appreciated by friends. I love my friends…I love the fact that time can pass and still they know…

2011 in blog posts…

Don’t know if this type of thing interests you or not, but here are the 2011 statistics that WordPress very kindly put together for me, with respect to my blog, StarStruk by Life. I plan to keep on writing and sharing and hope that I meet new folks along the way…here’s to 2012!

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 4,800 times in 2011. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 4 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

A word about feet…

I’ve mentioned a number of times that I am a second generation Southern Californian; there were four of us kids, not a lot of money…playing outside didn’t cost anything…growing up on the edge of the desert meant bare, naked feet most of the year ’round. After college graduation (University of California, Riverside – Go Highlanders!), and caught up in the whirlwind of young love and the spirit of adventure, my now-husband and I drove the old VW bus from California to Maine…we ended up in downtown Boston (across the street from Fenway Park) and I began my education into that brrrrr’y season called winter.

Winter is cold, sometimes VERY cold. Normal people wear socks and boots and slippers except in the shower during the winter months. I have tried, I really have.  I own four pair of boots (rain, snow, dressy tall and dressy short) and now, 37+ years later, I usually wear said boots when going out. However, even I have my limits.  My feet are happiest naked. When indoors, bare feet are my norm.  Summers, bare feet are my norm unless I’m going somewhere…then, whatever goes on my feet needs to slip on and off easily. But winter is another matter.

All this is to say that I am trying to change my ways.  My feet still feel suffocated in socks, especially when the socked feet are booted. But it just isn’t practical (or comfortable or common sensical???) to still be walking the dog in the wee hours or clicking my early morning photos whilst my naked feet slip on ice or sink into snow. It was 9 degrees outside this morning when I took the photos below…and I slipped my non-stockinged feet into my woolly boots before I stepped through the sliding glass door onto the deck…now who says it is too late to teach this old dog new tricks?

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Laundry Monday…

Call me crazy, but I secretly like to do laundry (shhhh…don’t tell…).  I like the enforced orderliness of it…sorting everything into whites (to be bleached), lightweight and light colors, heavy and dark colors, towels, sheets and comforter (unless it is winter, when the comforter doesn’t fit in my washing machine and has to be taken to a {HORRORS} laundromat), each in its own neat pile on the floor.  Then the cycle begins…washer, which produces a nice, clean smell; then the dryer, which produces a warm, fragrant aroma of its own…the whole living room fills with it…then there are the warm, dry clothes that need to be hugged against my body to smooth away the wrinkles and then folded…putting the piles of clean laundry away is each to his or her own…mine get put right away; his get piled on the window seat until he gets around to putting them away.

Do you know which drawer is which when it comes to your husband’s (wife’s, significant other’s, roommate’s, whatever) folded clothes?  Which drawer for socks, for undies, whether he/she uses separate drawers for white tees and colored tees, how he/she likes things folded?  I don’t know about the drawers, but I do know about the folding…folding is important for some…

“Looking out my back door”…

A windy, choppy, gray day…

We have been blessed with a lot of gorgeous weather since we moved here.  But I have to admit I cherish those stormy days that come my way.  The wind and choppy seas of the last few days have been hard to capture with my trusty camera sidekick…the light is very gray and makes everything look as if it were taken in black-and-white, with some pastels subsequently watercolored in…

Rainy pond

Ocean facing

The Rooster and the cow

A day that is shades of gray…

Catching up…

We have had company on and off for the last few weeks and I have been terribly neglectful of my blog.  However, that doesn’t mean I wasn’t thinking of my blog.

My daughter and her WonderHus went away to Europe for a couple of weeks.  Katy left behind 10 daily blog posts about how to improve blog appearance and content.  I read them religiously and actually did a few days’ worth of blog beautification.  Check out my About Me page!

One of my assignments was to define my niche and revel in it.  The problem is that I don’t really have a niche.  I’m redefining myself and I am wallowing in possibilities.  I can no longer say that I am a Legal Assistant, that I am a working mother, that I’m active in community theater…all the things that consumed my days and nights until March 2011 are gone.  Now I am a puppy wrangler, stay-at-home wife, homemaker, a lover of Mama Nature and avidly amateur photographer of same, a news hound, a TV addict (MSNBC mornings and early afternoon, unless there is a live trial being broadcast somewhere; food television and police and detective series and fluffier stuff later in the day)…and that’s only part of the list!  So, I’m still working on that one.

Here’s some of what you missed in my absence…

Sun breaks through

Gnarly tree

Shivering sea

Windswept tide

Floating duck

It is a chickadee fest!

Last week, hus rehung the black sunflower seed feeder in front of our bedroom window (which is also where the dresser on which the cats eat is located).  The hummingbirds that flocked around the variegated fuchsia all summer are gone and the cats needed new entertainment.

And entertainment there is!  The chickadees are FLOCKING to the feeder.  If I can manage a photo before I hit publish, I will.  But they are quick little buggers and the window has a salty haze on it, so shooting them is not easy.

Variegated fuchsia, a/k/a hummingbird heaven, closed for the season

Momentarily unoccupied, but HUGELY popular black sunflower seed feeder

Well, that wasn’t pleasant…all my photos are dark because it is cloudy, overcast, raining and gloomy out there…and they are blurry because of the salt-sprayed windows…and, of course, the chickadees disappeared as soon as I got the camera out…sigh…that’s okay…it is just that kind of day…

Oh, wait, I procrastinated long enough…the chickadees came back!  The photos are still dark and blurry and the birds stubbornly refused to pose, but…

Dark, then light, then dark…

The perils of puppy…

We had our first panic this week with Boo, the sometimes too adventurous puppy…

As I’ve mentioned, we live right on the coast…our “front” yard is a little bit of each of rosa rugosa, raspberries, some rampant shrub with bright orange berries and weeds, then cliff down to rocky “beach” then ocean.  This brushy area right at the top of the cliff is home for chipmunks that spend quite a bit of time on our deck amusing our pets.  Boo is the only one of our three animals who gets to go outside.  I was out on the deck one early evening with Boo when I saw him head for the brushy area.  I watched him…and watched him…and watched him…

Start of the misadventure...

And then…

Where's Boo?

 Yep…over the edge, down the cliff, onto the rocks below.  Needless to say, my heart stopped.  I hollered for him, started down to the edge to see where he was.  I heard a yelp and kept calling.  Suddenly, I heard his dog collar jingling and up he came, using the path he is supposed to use to get to the ocean, limping slightly.  I hugged him gently, felt his body carefully and found nothing terribly wrong.  Then he caught sight of a chipmunk, tore himself from my arms and charged full steam after the little creature…needless to say, he was fine, no ill effects whatsoever.  I do know that he learned something, as I saw him go to the edge again this morning, only to look over, turn around and come trotting back up the slope.  Whew!  Dogs can be as scary for a mom as kids!