1) Never EVER, EVER feed a boxer with a gas problem left over refried beans after dinner of burritos.... even as I was doing it I was thinking this is not a good idea. Yankee doesn't have enough candles to help me at this point...

2) Do not give a boxer (or any dog) a beanie baby to play with (even if it came in a box of other stuff that you bought at the auction for $1.00). Believe me you will regret it, you will be sweeping up beanies for weeks, months or even years, you will find beanies everywhere, even in your shoes and underwear for some strange reason.

3) Do not get dressed to spend a day in the garden in the summer wearing shorts, and a belly baring halter top THEN go and make breakfast of bacon and eggs, hot bacon fat on the belly is no fun whatsoever.

4) Do not assume that because your husband has a closet full of clothes that he will actually wear those clothes, nope, he will insist on wearing the identical 5 outfits week in week out, despite the fact that he has at least 15 pairs of pants and just as many tops in the closet, nope your darling husband will whine like a baby if god forbid you do not get a chance to do laundry one weekend and his favorite five outfits are unwearable for a whole 5 days... (and while I am at it, why is it that men, or my man in particular will dig through a pile of neatly folded underwear in his underwear drawer to get out one particular pair and then stuff the rest of them back into the drawer higgedly piggeldy so it looks like the underwear drawer has just exploded, what the hell is wrong with the neatly folded pair of underwear on the top of the pile? Anyone? Help?)

Do not allow a female cat in your household to go unfixed for more than about 3 nano seconds after her first heat, because invariably you will end up with a pregnancy and you will end up with kittens that you cannot give away and you will end up with 38 cats (been there done that), make sure, without fail that you get your females spayed at the first possible opportunity. All my girls are fixed now, and all my boys are too (other than Arnamade and you know his problem).

Never assume that your co-worker who you viewed as a completely competant, able person, who has everything under control, is NOT snorting cocaine in the bathrooms on a regular basis and letting her entire part of the ship go to a ball of chalk, eventually leaving you with the task of unscrambling scrambled eggs, 12 hour days, stress levels that would kill a bull, and clients with issues.

Never forget that our time on this planet is finite, that you will not go to your deathbed saying "gosh I wish I had done more housework" or "I wish I had spent more time at the office" you WILL go to your deathbed saying "I wish I had taken that photograph" (in my case) or "I wish I had skiied down that mountain" or "I wish I had climbed that mountain" or "I wish I had seen King Tut's tomb" or "I wish I had seen the barrier reef" Stop, sit, think. No matter how hard things are, financially and time wise, stop and think, when you are on your death bed what are you going to regret not doing, sit, plan, go ahead and do it, our time on this planet is finite people, don't waste it. One of the most wonderful songs I have heard in recent years is believe it or not a country song (I generally do not like country music) but it is called "Live like you were dying" Read the words of Tim McGraw's song it should be an anthem for all of us

He said I was in my early forties
with a lot of life before me
when a moment came that stopped me on a dime
and I spent most of the next days
looking at the x-rays
Talking bout the options
and talking bout sweet time
I asked him when it sank in
that this might really be the real end
how?s it hit you when you get that kinda news
man what?d you do

and he said
I went sky diving
I went Rocky Mountain climbing
I went 2.7 seconds on a bull named fumanchu
and I loved deeper and I spoke sweeter
and I gave forgiveness I?d been denying
and he said someday I hope you get the chance
to live like you were dying.

He said I was finally the husband
that most the time I wasn?t
and I became a friend a friend would like to have
and all the sudden going fishin
wasn?t such an imposition
and I went three times that year I lost my dad
well I finally read the good book
and I took a good long hard look
at what I?d do if I could do it all again

and then
I went sky diving
I went Rocky Mountain climbing
I went 2.7 seconds on a bull named fumanchu
and I loved deeper and I spoke sweeter
and I gave forgiveness I?d been denying
and he said someday I hope you get the chance
to live like you were dying.

Like tomorrow was a gift and you got eternity to think about
what?d you do with it what did you do with it
what did I do with it
what would I do with it?

Sky diving
I went Rocky Mountain climbing
I went 2.7 seconds on a bull named fumanchu
and then I loved deeper and I spoke sweeter
and I watched an eagle as it was flying
and he said someday I hope you get the chance
to live like you were dying.
To live like you were dying
To live like you were dying
To live like you were dying
To live like you were dying

Stop, sit, think people..... you have a year left to live, what are you going to do? Don't wait until you have a year left to live, do it now, spread your wings.

knocking on the moonlit door, and his horse in the silence champed the grasses of the forest's ferny floor." So begins my favorite poem "The Listeners" by Walter De La Mare. The first time I ever read it I was enchanted by its sheer brilliance when it came to telling a complete story. I remember studying it in English class and I enjoyed unraveling the entire story that appeared to lurk behind the words. Ghosts. Can you see him? I was taking photos of my dahlias one day and at the end of the day I uploaded the photos and noticed something not quite right in the background. Can you see him? It was the week of the anniversary of the Beirut bombings and there were many memorial services going on. My house was previously owned by a Marine Corps Helicopter Pilot who was killed overseas, in fact he and his wife's initials are still carved in the tree at the bottom of the yard. Can you see him? I have always been psychic, a gift given to me by my grandmother who has been a constant presence by my shoulder since I was born. I think he came home, that weekend, to look at the house, and to gaze at the tree where his initials are carved. Can you see him?



okay look closer, he is tall, dark hair, wearing a white hooded sweatshirt with the sleeves rolled half way up his arms can you see him now?


Can you see him?

then it's probably a duck. Recently the NC legislature passed a bill which mandated that for any child to attend kindergarten they have to have an eye exam. Now we are not talking about an eye exam that is routinely performed by a pediatrician, no, now the child has to have an eye exam performed by an optometrist. So no big deal you may perhaps say but it may interest you that the Speaker of the North Carolina House legislature happens to be - you guessed it - an optometrist. So now, basically they are saying to parents that unless you can shell out the money for an eye exam your child cannot go to Kindergarten. NOOOOOOO says the legislature, in the bill we have put a provision that for every child that cannot afford the exam the government will pay. Lets hear it for welfare for optometrists... now not only do they require a child to undergo a completely unnecessary eye exam but if the parents can't pay for it the government is going to line the optometrists pockets. And anyone has any doubt about corruption in politics? By the way just so's you know, here is a duck, and his missus.... quack.

If there is one things that can send me diving headlong into a wave of nostalgia it is the scent of bluebells. Bluebells for those of you who are not aware are for the most part here in the US known as English Wood Hyacinths or simply Wood Hyacinths. Sometimes they are even known as English Bluebells. Where I am from we have "bluebell woods" small forests which in the spring are carpeted with wild bluebells in full flower. In the carpet you can occasionally find a white or pink one but the majority of the flowers are the glorious sky blue and the entire forest smells of heaven. Bluebells have a scent very similar to hyacinths, which as anyone knows can scent an entire house with a single bloom. As a young girl I would walk down by the canal and wander down country paths until I eventually ended up in the bluebell wood. I would breath deep of the scent as it filled my nostrils, and revel in the seemingly endless carpet of blue nodding heads. Invariably I would pick an armful of the blossoms and carry them home to my mother where they would be carefully placed in a vase so that their scent could fragrance the house for weeks or more. When I first moved over here my mother packed, among other things, bluebell bulbs from her garden which I then planted in the forest areas of my garden. Over the years the clumps have got bigger. Today when I was out bringing in my laundry I noticed a small clump under a tree in the back in full bloom, and I had to immediately stop taking in laundry and go over to smell them. All of a sudden I was 10 again, wandering through the bluebell woods, picking armfuls for my mother. A single sniff transported me 3,000 miles and 35 years.

I am not one to trim my toe nails on a regular basis, toenails are for the most part, something that I tend to ignore. But, due to my wearing of pointy toed shoes in my youth and the resulting squishing of my toes, occasionally my toenails cause me grief, like now. My little toenail has grown to the extent that it is sticking into the toe next to it, obviously it is time for my toenails to be cut. I do not notice this until it is too late so to speak, until the toe nail itself is stabbing into the next toe and causing great pain. This is of course due to the fact that I appear to have toenails like Parrots beaks, while I can quite happily yank off the offending little toenail when it comes to my big toenails we are talking about serious pieces of equipment to remove them large pliers perhaps, or even a blow torch. And you know it doesn't help matters that I am one of those weird people that simply cannot stand to have my feet touched, even by me, if I ever get an itchy foot I have to resort to the hairbrush treatment to scratch it, I simply cannot abide to have my feet touched by anything or anyone, which makes clipping toenails a very delicate operation.

Anyhoo while we are talking about feet (what do you mean you weren't I was) here's a shot from last weekend, the caption that immediately came to mind was "do you think this branch makes my feet look big?"