Odds and Ends

5 Things That Make Me Ask Why

The other day I started thinking about the non-serious things that make me wonder why and thought maybe I should write about it in my blog.  I came up with a list of 5 6 things that I thought of right away.  You'll see why I changed it at the end. 

Why do some people sit in the left hand turn lane all the way through a red light and then when the advanced green comes on they stay sitting there?  Are they not paying attention or what?  Sometimes its so bad that the people behind them can not take advantage of the advance green.  It's like - Excuse me didn't you want to turn left?  (This is what got me thinking about why this past week).

Why does it seem like whenever it is recycle/garbage day that Mother Nature wants to make things difficult?  It's either super windy, raining, snowing or freezing rain  -  the wind is the worst.   Does she have a thing about garbage days?  It seems like every week (well maybe not all but you get my drift) I'm chasing empty containers down the road. and cars are having to dodge bins, pails & lids that have blown into the street.  And why can't people do something about their newspapers so they are not blowing all over the place on recycle day?  (Does that count as a second why - no they both have to do with garbage/recycle day so I'll count them as one).

Why is that when the magnolia trees are finally in bloom invariably the wind will come up and we're lucky to get one day of the blossoms on the trees before they're all blown on to the ground.  It's something the same with peonys.  As soon as the blossoms open it seems that we get a torrential downpour that bends them over and smashing them into the ground.   Cages around them help ever so slightly but then you get the broken stems instead. 

Why in a supposedly paperless society do we seem to have even more paper?  This thought came to me after catching up on the household filing.  We're either going to have to get another filing cabinet or not keep things as long as they (the experts) tell us how long we need to keep them.

Finally, Why do I have such trouble getting rid of pictures?  I know I don't need so many copies of basically the same shot but something in me doesn't want to let me throw the extras out.  I dread the thought of one of these clutter experts coming in and seeing all the pictures (mind you they are in photo boxes etc) we have.  They always seem to want you to throw everything out and lets not get into my keeping negatives (whole other story).  Ooops sort of got off the track there didn't I?

And now for the reason I changed the number - Why when I get my blog post just how I want it the internet crashes and I have to write it all over again?

What are some of the things you ask why about?   I'd love to hear them

Story Telling Sunday - May

I've been sitting here wracking my brains trying to think of a story I could share that I hadn't already shared or that family members might prefer not be shared.  After hours of not coming up with anything I thought would be good I finally started going through pictures or should I say going through the laptop looking at ones I'd scanned in as part of my digitizing our slides.  Finally I had it when I saw a couple of  pictures of my niece and my Dad taken many years ago.  It`s most definitely out of season.  They're not very good but they are the only ones I have of them with Lisa (aged 2) participating in a family tradition for her very first time.  

I'm not sure how this little tradition of ours started but I know that every Christmas and Thanksgiving after my Mum died in 1976 my Dad took it upon himself to get the bread ready for the stuffing - he might have done it before that but I don't remember.  Dad did the bread every year right up to his last Christmas at the age of 97 in 2003. 

This was my May contribution to Storytelling Sunday that started over at Sian's blog last year. This month's stories can be found here.....Why don't you grab a nice beverage, sit back and enjoy everyone's stories and even better it would be great reading your story next month.

 

 

It Was a Nice Bright Morning

Notice I said was. Now it's gray and dismal but I did manage to get out and get this picture while the sun was shining earlier on the tree/bushes out front.

Well I could have sworn I took a picture with the sun shining on the tree but......I obviously didn't - I sure thought about it though.

Now off to think of a story for Story Telling Sunday tomorrow now that we've decided that the one I had thought of has been shot down.

Happy International Scrapbooking Day.

Those Middle of the Night Phonecalls

This past weeked was going to start out with remembering my Mum on what would have been her 103rd birthday on Saturday.

My Mum in a picture she had taken for my Dad while he was overseas in World War II

But at 3:25 on Saturday morning the phone rang. Middle of the night phone calls are definitely not good. They are either wrong numbers, fax machines with their high pitched squeals or just plain not good news. This one was the latter.

While I, half awake, tried to find the phone (that's the problem with portable ones), John wondered if it was a wrong number or a fax machine and then all of a sudden had a thought that it was his brother. Sure enough it was him calling from Las Vegas to say that the hospice had just called to say their mother had passed away.  About 7 weeks ago he'd been told that she was going downhill fast and at that point they didn't think she'd last the night so we were expecting it.

It's Been a Quiet 2 Months

At least on here it has except for Storytelling Sundays. So I guess a little explanation is in order but there really isn't much to say why. There was a trip to Las Vegas in there to visit with John's brother and his wife for a week and a couple of business trips on John's part but mainly it's been the not knowing what has been causing things that's kept me off of here.

We did get a good report from the cardiologist that it was not heart issues but are still left to figure out just exactly what is causing the problems and then figure out what to do about it. Next step is looking into my asthma more. While I wait for my time on the machine at the hospital the Dr has increased my asthma meds to see if that will help. Ok enough of that!

In the meantime I've amused myself by playing computer games on facebook - do not get involved in doing that! I bit the bullet this morning though and that is finished - they get you sucked in and it then takes way too much time away from the rest of your life.

One interesting but not wanted thing that happened in all this is my card that I use for purchases on the computer got hit with fraudulent charges. Boy isn't that fun getting that all straightened out. Just finished sending off the affidavits to the fraud department and should have those charges reversed any day now. But what a pain what with notifying companies and getting a new card. So glad I keep a really small limit on it. That now makes all 3 of our cards that have been hit at one time or another and it's not like I don't shred things and keep the cards and #'s really secure. I thought I had notified everyone that I needed to but while I was typing this up I remembered a couple that I hadn't notified - like for instance Amazon for my kindle purchases.

One other thing I've been doing is working on photo books from Shutterfly. I did one of our Panama Canal cruise in 2004 and liked it so much when it came that I've been working on one for our 25th anniversary back in 2007. They will never take the place of scrapbooks but I'm thinking that they will be good for our "not so exceptional" cruises. The Baltic/St. Petersburg one will most definitely get a scrapbook as will the Alaska ones but the Caribbean ones - photo books will do.

Well hope that got me caught up a bit on here aside from sharing some pics from Las Vegas and John's most recent trip to Houston. Now off to catch up my Project Life album.

A Picture You Don't See All The Time

After John hitting the jackpot on a penny slot machine.  It took awhile for them to show up with the cheque.  :)   Got a chuckle when they asked - "do you want cash or a cheque or a combination"  John opted for the combination.   Now to just get back that 30% they took in taxes.   Guess I'll be talking to our accountant first thing Thursday morning.

John's Visit to Pasadena

Every year John goes to a conference in the US southwest in around March.   Last year it was Palm Springs and this year it was Pasadena.   Unluckily for me because of the timing of my angiogram and getting the results we couldn't be sure that I could go along (although with the results of the angiogram it turns out I could have).   But he made sure to take lots of pictures on his free time during it and the 1/2 day he had at the end of the conference for me to see.

 Some architectural detail that got his attention.

After the conference ended he had a free afternoon before flying home the next day and used it to go see the Huntington and the Norton Simon.   He'd never been to the Huntington before but after a blogging friend (Mel) shared pictures from their visits to it last year I told him if he had a chance he might want to check it out.    We'd been to the Norton Simon before (2005) and he wanted to go back to it too so it was a full afternoon.   He ended up wishing they'd had a lot more to spend at the Huntington - good - that means when I finally get to go back to Pasadena we'll be checking it out.  :)  He ended up being sorry that he had only taken the little point and shoot (in interests of saving space & weight in his carryon) and would have loved to have had his DSLR with him to do it justice as he's just not all that used to the point and shoot.

 

These last two pictures are from the Norton Simon Museum - there are a lot more but I decided I better not share pictures from it's sculpture garden just in case that's not allowed.

 

The Answer

You're right! It is Las Vegas. We're here visiting John's brother and his wife.

Now as for the picture of the mother swan and baby - that's in the Conservatory of the Bellagio Hotel/Casino where we're staying.

Sunset last night (almost missed it).

I was lucky with this one - I peeked out the drapes when I woke up this morning (still on Eastern time)and was treated to this sight.   The moon does have a bit of a ghost but its the best I could do with no tripod.

Here's some pictures we took of the conservatory yesterday.

Some of the daily cleanup - they remove whole sections everyday and totally replace them to keep the display looking totally fresh and speaking of fresh too bad this wasn't in smell-a-vision.

A "live" picture.

 

Another Hint

The view from our room - mind you this was taken with the point & shoot as I didn't get the DSLR out of the safe at that hour.   :)   Will try to get some better shots with the DSLR especially around sunset seeing as that is west.

Oh another clue and this should cinch it for you  - I won $180. and then another $20. (yeah me) on penny slots this afternoon.  :)

 

Answer tomorrow along with some details of what I've shared.

 

A Tiny Hint About Where We Are

Any ideas?

Here's another one.

I'll say this much - the decorations here change 4 times a year - this time its done up for spring, its inside a hotel and it's quite the attraction - sometimes it's a real jam up walking around it.