hello all!

    It seems that I made it through the digital blog gates once again!  It is a beauiful day, and I hope all goes well for everyone as summer settles in.  I have managed to have had an unusual month of May during which I've had several birthday moments!  It seems turning 80 brings out multiple celebration genies.  In any case, I feel totally spoiled. I'm very grateful, as always, for sharing love with family, friends and community. For having so many years under my belt, I wish I could have been able to better solve some of the current problems our planet is experiencing.  I'll also say I wish there was a way that everyone could have a TRUTHMONITOR  to carry around since it seems so hard to do away with so much ugly and persistant misinformation! 

    Now I will try to bring up some recent photos I have wanted to be able to share. 

spring at home, with my pond, with rain, and with my second floor deck --  different perspectives on life sure can provide solice for the soul

 

Preparation for this summer's theater camp -- perfect pigtails on our star!  A play a week!!

Next see also the hallway signs of her fellow Thespians....

           Thanks go to these very longtime friends who made sure I remembered that my May birthday this year was worthy of a monthlong celebration!!  (Photo by ROW)

    I am so happy the blog is working for me today. I will keep on trying.  In the meantime, again, I wish everyone a safe summer and a time of working for increasing kindness rather than for still more anger and cruelty in our public arena.       Ann

 

O MY GOODNESS, finally a new post

       It has finally happened!!!  Almost by mistake I visited my blog tonight, just to see if anything had changed that would allow me to add a new post. 

     Well, happily for me, all things appeared just as if nothing had held it back during the last several weeks!!  So I am going to go ahead and try to do the post I had planned over a month ago.  I so hope this means I will be able to return to posting every other week again.   I am excited!  Hi, everyone!!

Kentucky neighbors out the back window of a friend's house in southern Kentucky, last month

 

 

a favorite photo of a great blue heron, in a cove on Grayson Lake, during a ride in a small boat

from a walk in the woods one spring with Doug and Karen, after Doug discovered this patch of spring trillium covering a large rock, on a steep hillside

an amazing birthday card from Jean P. on my 75th birthday

our hen, our happy moments

 one moment at home, one night, one sky

 

 

 

dear friends in England, not my photo except that I love it

Dad with patient offspring, seen outside an upstairs window, during a 20 minute family feed

along the ride home from town --  Appalachian hillsides

shirt image is of Justice Stevens, my son's hero

two grandchildren photos which I couldn't resist including in this potpourri of photos

    Well, I couldn't actually do what I expected to for this blog -- another mystery to be worked on -- so I simply switched to sharing some photos I love.  All that remains now for tonight is to "publish" these without a hitch.  Thanks for sharing this happiness with me. 

      

        

missing family

post #520

        I'm a pretty tough cookie, but sometimes it's the pits to not be able to touch -- or be in daily touch with -- my family.  Because of the capricious and nasty virus, not touching is definitely the healthy and necessary thing to do.  However, some days the feeling is weirder than others. SO my advice to someone else would be to own the weirdness, and DO something that "speaks to your condition."  So I'm switching gears for this weekly blog post of mine to (drum roll...  ) FAMILY.  I have spent time with them today by seeking them out within the maze of thousands of photos on my laptop.  I'll be sharing about 18 photos, without giving many names or positions on the family tree. I'm going for the random wonder of who we end up with. (Not everyone is represented here. Therefore I hereby give myself permission to do this again in a second post in the future!)

 

what was on the screen

 

 

 

 and where the face actually was, in my office room! (notice blue curtain...)

 

 

                                       practicing outside distancing last spring ......

Thanks go today to my tolerant family. I feel much better..... I can't wait to surprise you and others again in the future......

what we ask

post #498
       
         We ask
                 will kids go to regular school in August? or
                 will the virus thrive in that shared air?
                 will they work again from home?
                 will their spirits support each other, 
                         day by day, and in the years ahead?
        
        What will they learn? How about us, who cry at night,
                   from exhaustion, from these questions,
                   from those who are afraid and not able to act,
                   from what our world is teaching us, if we listen.
            
         What of this will the children remember next year, or
                    fifty years from now.  

          Can it be that they'll know
                   we love them and we did what we could?


      Today, in honor of kids I know, I just wanted to go through my images and pick out a few of the kid photos I have made over the years. Some of the kids are related to me, some are not, all are known to me.  Many have been on one of my posts over the past ten years -- so many are older now than they were then! Enjoy!

  

Mountaintop Removal Rally

measuring the milkweed