Taking it EEEE-Z

Our alphabetical gratitude month continues today with the letter E, which means I'm ecstatic to share some of my blessings.

A = Autumn, Austins, Assumption
B = Ballots, Books, Book Club, Bible
C = Casey, Clay, Carter, Church, Creativity, Camera
D = Dad, Daughters, Deck Chair, Dar, Design

Eggs: What makes these eggs so good? First, they are paired with the most excellent pork links we've ever had, courtesy of the half pig we bought. Secondly, because hubby prepared them and made breakfast for us this morning! The song Easy like Sunday morning should be Easy like Saturday morning from now on!

Election: Finally today, four days post-Election Day 2020, we have a winner declared – or at least 99% projected. Former Vice President Joe Biden and Senator Kamala Harris will take office in January. Wow. A pretty historic win considering Harris will be the first woman, Black woman and Asian American to serve as vice president. It's long overdue, but it's empowering, nonetheless! No matter who you voted for, let's all focus on positive changes and moving forward!

Energy: Like the energized E above, I have been energized with the beautiful weather. All week in the 60s and yesterday and today tipping 70+ degrees and sunny. Love, love, love it! 

So I used that energy to exercise this afternoon, taking a gorgeous walk around Lake Wazeecha and enjoying Mother Earth. We are so blessed to have this lake and walking path nearby!

Empty Nest: As much as I miss our baby, I am grateful for an empty nest because that means he's furthering his education – in fact, graduating from college next month. Of course, with employment not secured just yet, we can only say we are projecting to keep the nest empty. We just can't officially declare that yet. 

In the meantime, we going to visit him tomorrow. So I'm pretty elated!!

#gratitudemonth #gratitudealphabet

Des GratituDe

Our alphabetical gratitude month continues today with the letter D, which means I share some of the D-lightful blessings in my life.

A = Autumn, Austins, Assumption
B = Ballots, Books, Book Club, Bible
C = Casey, Clay, Carter, Church, Creativity, Camera

Dear Ol' Dad: Of course Dad comes to mind – as he often does. It's tough losing your dad when you feel you should have another dozen years with him. But thankfully LeRoy left a big part of himself in me. I don't blame him – I thank him – that I'm stubborn (only because I'm right most of the time), I have an answer for everything, I'm a hard worker, I insist on being funny, and I love to dance (another polka, please!).

Daughters: Naturally, Dad would say he's grateful for his 7 daughters. I'm grateful my "adopted daughters" who let this mom of boys get her "daughter fix" once in awhile at dance recitals, softball and volleyball games, concerts, and even mission trips. Thanks, girls! You know who you are! 

Deck Chair: The summer-like weather this week makes me wonder why I sent Mr. Deck Chair to hibernation already. I'm sure he'll thank me next week when it's a real Wisconsin autumn again. But I still have to give a shout of appreciation for his unwavering support – no matter how much fluff I've added – and willingness to let me move him around inch by inch until I've got the right angle to Mr. Sun. We make a good pair. 

Dar: And special appreciation goes to neighbor Dar, who has witnessed me bonding with Mr. Deck Chair more times than I can count and doesn't judge me. Just drives her scooter up the driveway and shares her latest happy song. Thanks, dear!

Design: Finally, I'm grateful that I can use my creativity for not only photography and scrapbooking but graphic design work, too. And not the magazine and newspaper pages like I used to. But t-shirts, lots of t-shirts, posters, logos, flyers, etc. And once in awhile I can combine my photography with the design.

People wonder why I'm always so busy. It's because I like to do way too many things! At least I'm not boring or bored, right Dad?

#gratitudemonth #gratitude alphabet

C Your Blessings

Our alphabetical gratitude month continues today with the letter C, which means I share some of the blessings I C in my life

A = Autumn, Austins, Assumption
B = Ballots, Books, Book Club, Bible

3 C's: It's fitting the letter C up above is lit up – illustrating how our 3 boys – Casey, Clayton, and Carter – light up our life! I feel like it was just yesterday they we're playing Offense-Defense in the yard and somebody always ended up crying. Now they're all in their 20s with very special young ladies in their lives. They'll always be our three little boys to us: Knothead, Knucklehead, and Chucklehead.

Church: I'm so thankful for my church family. I have gotten to make so many lifelong friends between my involvement with Sunday School years ago, various committees, choir, and now Church Council. It's been such a strange year not setting foot in the building due to the virus we shall not name, but my faith and our congregation's faith has never been stronger. So blessed!

Creativity: I am super grateful my mom passed on so many creativity genes to us kids – whether it's writing, crafty projects, or clever plays on words. I've also had plenty of enablers, I mean awesome friends, along the way who have inspired me and taught me a thing or two – from ceramics in the 1990s (Thanks, Cindy) to crochet in 2020 (Thanks, Jules) and lots of short-term and long-term hobbies along the way.

Camera: Of course! Grateful that I have an eye for an angle. That I have time to shoot pictures of sports so parents can just enjoy the game. That I have decent luck while kayaking to catch (at least on camera) an eagle or some other gift from Mother Nature. I'm not great but I love the challenge of continuously learning and improving. And in the year of social distancing, it's a fun hobby I can still enjoy from 6 feet away. Maybe when I get to Z I'll acknowledge the blessing of a Zoom Lens!

Take CARE!

#gratitudemonth #gratitudealphabet

The Adventures of Harriet the Duck

If you've never had your ducks in a row, as the saying goes, you'll appreciate this story. We had some excitement in our neighborhood when it seemed a bald eagle had descended on Election Day. How patriotic, right?

Upon closer inspection though, it was actually a duck. Not a goose on the loose. But a duck.

One neighbor and I got pretty close to it yesterday afternoon and he said it was a domestic duck. As in someone's pet? Yep.  So I snapped a photo (of course) and showed it the farm lady around the bend. Without hesitation she said, "That's a Muscovy duck! But she's not ours." 

She? I don't know how you can tell the difference and I probably don't want to know. So I shared the picture on Facebook in case any neighbors knew her or her owners. No luck.

I kind of forgot about her because I didn't see her on my noon walk today. But sure enough, this afternoon she was sitting in our front yard. After she had flown (witnesses say) from our back yard to the dog yard next door, then over to our non-dog yard. (Even though I learned later she lives with dogs.)

She let me get close enough take pictures of her and her beautiful feathers. This time I posted the picture on the "nosy site" on Facebook – as in the Wood County scanner followers page. Didn't even know if it was the right forum but I've seen people share "lost dog" photos on there so why not a "lost duck"?

It worked! In about half an hour's time, more than 60 people had shared it out and the owners saw it and contacted me.

Turns out a fox surprised Harriet (best duck name ever) and her duck sister on Monday. Sadly, the fox got the other girl, but Harriet escaped through the woods and headed west. She bypassed Little Red Ridinghood's Grandmother's house and skirted around Hansel and Gretl's candy cottage to get to our yard on the other side of the woods. But she made it. And made the rounds waddling around our subdivision for almost 3 days.

Thankfully she perched on the next-door neighbor's deck after the sun when down so when the owners got here, they could find her and get her. They were ecstatic. She was happy to see them, too, and get her treats! Yes, just like any other pet. 

Her owners had happy tears. They said it was sad to lose the other duck and think they lost Harriet, too. So relieved! And they said Harriet's man at home was extremely distraught. Good thing Harriet was heading back. I've since learned Muscovy ducks don't mate for life so who knows who long he would have waited until he moved on?! Men!

Thanks for sharing your adventure with us, Harriet! Pretty cool that in less than 50 minutes, we went from social media post to happy reunion. Who couldn't use a happy-ending fairy tale like that this week? 

B Grateful

Our alphabetical gratitude month continues today with the letter B, which means a few more blessings to share!

A = Autumn, Austins, Assumption

Ballots: Let's start with the most obvious one today! So grateful for our freedoms in this country and the right to choose our leaders! It was quite an unusual election day. With the whole pandemic happening, more people than ever cast their votes ahead of time – just in case they couldn't make it to the polls today or in case polls were closed for COVID reasons. Hubby and I are old school traditionalists. We grabbed our masks and our own pens and voted at our town hall.

Remember, no matter what the presidential election results are... B kind. If your candidate wins, don't gloat. If they lose, don't respond with anger or violence. Show compassion for your friends and neighbors like it's any other day.

Books: I'm grateful for my books – physical and digital. A lot of people like to watch TV for their down time. I like to escape in my books. Or course, it goes hand in hand with my love for English and writing! Words are powerful, aren't they? Open the Bible if you need convincing on that one. And if it weren't for books, I wouldn't have my Book Club! Love my fellow page turners. They started out as a group of random fellow readers and now we're "sisters." 

Brother: Since I mentioned sisters (sort of), I'd be remiss if I didn't mention my ONE brother. I learn so much from him. I'm grateful for his wisdom, his love of clever humor, his unwavering faith, and his sense of adventure!

Blog: Of course I'm grateful for this blog. Aren't you? Ha. I am blessed to have an outlet for my random words of humor (well I think I'm funny anyway), inspiration (occasionally), and daily nonsense. I'm grateful that every once in awhile something I write touches someone's soul – or their funny bone. This is blog number 4,675 so the odds are in my favor on that one. 

Seriously, I am blessed to have you with me right this minute! And you'll be blessed with my brevity. Gotta go distract myself from election returns with a good book!

#gratitudemonth

Gratitude Down to the Letter

When I saw the absolutely gorgeous sunset this evening (as in 4:45 p.m.), I had to pause and just say "Thank you, God." Despite this incredibly unsettling year, there is still so much to be thankful for. 

There is!

It was a good reminder that November is Gratitude Month. I'm going to observe it with a twist this year. An alphabetical one.

Just a few blessings a day. I'm starting with the letter A because my brain is full and I don't know think I can handle scrambling it even further in 2020:

I'm grateful for autumn. Mother Nature's quilt of many colors. Mild days, bonfire nights, and hoodies!

I'm especially grateful to the Austin family. You welcomed me as your own. So blessed to have so many loved ones close by when my own family is so far away. 

Speaking of family... I'm grateful for Assumption and the many people I've come to know in the past 10 years. Even though our child has graduated, I have friends and family for life.

And finally... America. God, please bless the USA. And you, dear reader, if you haven't already: VOTE tomorrow!!

#gratitudemonth

A Surprise Sleeper

I thought for a minute when Sylvester stole my chair today that she was warning me not to watch the game or it would put her to sleep. While you might think of Sylvester as a sleeper, it means something else in football.

Sleeper is a term used mostly during the draft to refer to NFL players that a fantasy manager believes is set to have a breakout season. The word "sleeper" comes from the idea that most fantasy football guys (or gals) will "sleep" on this player or overlook their potential.

Guess I overlooked my Vikings as a sleeper today. Not bragging. I mean obviously with the win over the Packers, we'd still need to win 3 more in a row just to get to .500.

But I feel like the Great Pumpkin finally came and it was worth the wait. Oh please, let me have this moment.

Besides having a loser team, I am coping with the first day of non-Daylight Saving Time. You know, dark at 5:01 p.m. and all that. Uff da. Keep thinking it's almost bed time. Will I make it to 8 p.m. or will I be the next sleeper?

Maybe I should ask the Great Pumpkin!

#SKOL