Category Archives: joy

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me in meetings

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: mettlesome.

I took this Monday, after walking to my cold dark clinic, pulling paper back up charts and calling everyone to cancel.

Which duck would I be? The crested one, asleep.

I do not sleep through my Rotary meetings nor my clinic meetings, since my clinic has been open for ten years. However, I was very skilled at sleeping though hospital administration meetings. I was tired from being on call!

It was still freezing out, yet this small duck slept on. I think it’s a hooded merganser. I thinks its a pretty mettlesome place to nap.

four ducks on a cold pond: a mallard and a hooded merganser sleeping, a wigeon and another mallard
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Mundane Monday #196: nurse log

For Mundane Monday #196, my prompt is nurse log.

I hike with my daughter around Fragrance Lake, in Larrabee State Park on Saturday. There are lots of people, many with dogs. Fragrance Lake is 0.75 miles around. It is a little overcast and the lake is quite still, surrounded by trees and hills.

This is a nurse log, or really more of a nurse stump. The young tree is getting nutrition and support from the remains of the older tree.

Link your photographs on the topic nurse log. I will list them next week.

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Last week’s topic: gull.

klallendoerfer sends wonderful gull photographs.

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eagle angle 9

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: flight.

This photograph delights me. The young eagle is so ruffled and scruffy compared to the parent. Feathers all every which way, like a gangly teenager. And looks a bit sullen and grumpy, too. My teens were certainly hungry all the time and I suspect that the eagles were out because they are hungry too, so early in the spring.

Thank you, eagles!

As we walk away from the tree, here is a shot back. Both are still present but you do have to look for them. I look for the shape from a distance.

Adult and juvenile eagles high in a tree.
Adult and juvenile eagles high in a tree.
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all blue

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: chores.

I am not blue about chores. Not at all. I like chores. Being an independent stubborn woman, I don’t do them in the order or way that society currently seems to think we should do them. I do them in the order I think is important.

I was divorced in 2007, with a 14 year old and a 9 year old. My Ex promptly left town. He stayed in very close touch with the kids, calling about 5 out of 7 days, but did not see them for a year. I was working full time and had over night call.

My goal was that the kids would both know how to do lots of basic chores by the time they left home. Vacuum. Sweep. Clean the bathroom. Do laundry. Replace lightbulbs. Cook. Grocery shop. Plan a meal. Change a tire. Check the oil in each of our cars. We have a 1986 Honda Civic 5 speed, so include drive a clutch. Avoid debt and some basic money handling. Discuss insurance: car insurance, health insurance, others. I started turning over the responsibility for their own health care, dental, vision as well. I want them to know the family medical history and we discussed addictive substances and politics and justice. When my son was in college they asked for cell phones for Christmas. I asked them to research phones and a family plan and said, yes, I would do that. They did a great job bringing me the information. I wanted them to disagree with me as well. If they wanted to do something, they could argue their case and might convince me. I did not hire someone to do our household chores because running a household is work, honorable work, undervalued, and underappreciated. And expensive if you hire people to do all of it.

Both of my kids are much neater than me. Less packrat. At least, they are now… I think it’s a late expressing gene….

I took the photograph two days ago, on a walk in the evening. All blue.

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water babies

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: river.

Both of my kids are water babies, who love the water. The pictures are from 2005, my daughter and her cousin, loving the slip and slide. A home river and water. My daughter went on to seven years of synchronized swimming, four years of swim team and now is racing sailboats in college.

Slip and slide water joy
puddle joy