This was a puddle from a few weeks ago, frozen in my driveway. It has long since melted and dried out, but its image gets to stay frozen in time. I love the rippling patterns of the ice, as well as the delicate little frost embellishments adorning the leaves.
a muddle and a puddle
Once again, I’m exceedingly tired, so can’t really think tonight, much less write. There are some days when I do so much switching of gears, going from parenting to professional to personal to political to community commitments that the day passes with me feeling somehow like I’ve done too much and not gotten much done at all.
I did take a few photos today, mostly while out walking the dog. It was a very wet morning. I liked the way this assortment of leaves had arranged itself in this puddle.
full home, full heart
I collected my daughter from boarding school this morning, where she’s been since September. So now our home is full again with all residents accounted for. I still miss my out-of-state family, and look forward to the day we can travel to see each other once more, but for now, my heart is full.
And because I like to post photos, here are several photos of leaves and ferns that made me see a heart shape. (For what I intended to be a quick post, it’s a little crazy how long it took me to decide on what photos to share.)
fading (four photos)
I love taking photos of the vibrant colors of fall. But even as the leaves and flowers fade, my eyes are still drawn to the shapes and patterns.
20 twenty things
The other day, when I was making my little jokes about 20/20 vision and losing my glasses (in a very 2020 way), I found myself pondering things about the number 20. And that pondering led to some enumerating, and that enumerating became a list. On this 20th day of the month, and in the tradition of my ThThTh lists (but breaking tradition since it’s not Thursday), I present a list of things around the theme of 20. And it seemed only right to have a list of 20 of them.
1) 20/20 vision: Normal vision. It is based on what row of an eye chart you can read from 20 feet.
2) The 20-20-20 rule. To help with eyestrain. For every 20 minutes you find yourself staring at a screen, spend 20 seconds looking at something that is 20 feet away.
3) 20/20 hindsight. An expression meaning that things are clear in retrospect, typically after some misjudgment.
4) venti: size at Starbucks. It’s 20 ounces, and it means twenty in Italian. It’s sort of the “large” size, though there is also grande (which means “large” in Italian), but is smaller than the venti.
5) icosagon or 20-gon is a twenty-sided polygon
6) icosahedron: a polyhedron with 20 sides. The shape of a 20-sided die.
7) Twenty questions: a guessing game whereby one person thinks of a thing, and the second person tries to guess what it is by way of asking yes-no questions. The guesser wins if they name the correct thing before reaching the twentieth questions. (Experienced players know that it’s a good idea to narrow down the categories early on, rather than guessing one item in the universe of millions of things, i.e: Is it pants? This is the game for which “Is it bigger than a breadbox” and “is it smaller than a house” are frequent size-establishing questions.)
8) Vigesimal: base 20 number system
9) a score: a term meaning the number twenty. Fairly infrequent, excepting in quotations of the Gettysburg Address. (“Four score and seven years ago…”)
10) XX: The Roman numeral for 20
11) 20th anniversary gift: china/porcelain
12) a dart board has 20 sections
13) The (current) US twenty dollar bill. A frequent denomination distributed in ATMs in the U.S. Currently bears the face of Andrew Jackson.
14) Harriet Tubman 20 dollar bill. 2020 was supposed to be the year when abolitionist and historical bad-ass Harriet Tubman was supposed to replace Jackson on the 20 dollar bill. This has been put off, but many have taken the transformation into their own hands and used a stamp. (See image above.)
15) 20 is the smallest primitive abundant number.
16) 20 is the atomic number of calcium.
17) 20/20: a new-oriented US TV program.18) Twenty (2015): a South Korea film.
19) Twenty (2017-2018) a webseries.
20) The Roaring 20s. A nickname for the decade of 1920 to 1929. Now that we are in another decade of the 20s, we can only guess what it will be nicknamed.
pumpkin reincarnation
Carving pumpkins is a favorite Halloween tradition in our household. For me, as well as the kids. I guess there have been some years when I haven’t carved my pumpkin, but I think I do most. And more often than not, I seem to do variations on the same expression. Here was this year’s pumpkin:
And here is last year’s:
It’s a little like my pumpkin gets reincarnated each year. Except that as a vegetable, re-incarnation is probably not quite the right term. It’s not flesh, exactly. Reinvegetation, perhaps?
I do wonder how many similar pumpkins I’ve carved over the years. The earliest version I could find was this little guy from 2009. It even got its own blog post.
This year’s pumpkin has left for now–sent off into the woods to reconnect with nature, as it were. Until we meet again next year, little pumpkin.
snuggle puppies
My dog is generally not a snuggler. However, he does make some exceptions.
traditional fall foliage filler post
I’m wiped out again, and don’t have the energy to put together a post of substance. Perhaps tomorrow. But in the interest of keeping up my daily posting for the month, I am posting something. This is a photo from yesterday’s morning walk to add color to stand in place of content.
unceremoniously marking the day
Today marks the 14th anniversary of the start of this blog. I didn’t bake the blog a birthday cake, nor do I have a lot of time or energy to write it a long post. I will say that I am still very fond of this blog, and the many connections I have made through blogging.
Happy anniversary, dear blog! I hope that we have many more years together.
