Scattered Thoughts . . .

The first of seven shots... deer in headlights look... I'm really not much of a 'cat' person but, for the past few years, I've had one of our neighbor's cats follow me around like my shadow.  This cat is definitely not one of the more friendly cats in the neighborhood but whenever my health fails, this feline is right there peering in the window at me... for hours... It doesn't matter which room I am in, this cat will be there right outside that particular room at the nearest window peering in at me.  Whenever I do some work outdoors, this cat follows me around and, at times, has been known to leave me little gifts at my car door (mice).   Adam tried many times to get a photo of our resident shadow but never really had much luck. Today, as I was playing around with my oldest remaining digital camera (Edit:  I checked camera release dates and it turns out that I do have a digital camera much older than this one which happens to be one of my all-time fav

If you want to do something well, you must put in the time and effort. However, it can't just be 'putting in time'. This time and effort must also be effective time. There must be effective practice as opposed to ineffective practice which reinforces poor techniques.  If you are simply going through the motions like treading water to keep your head above the water, you are probably only participating (halfheartedly participating) in ineffective practice. Ineffective practice is a complete waste of time and energy and, oftentimes, only results in picking up poor techniques and bad habits. I don't know about you, but I do not like wasting my time and effort. Considering my lack of energy because of my poor health, this is even more important to me today than ever before. When you mindlessly go through the motions, lacking true effort, you are wasting your time and energy. This is not for me! Lately, I've been focusing on photography techniques (no pun intend

After my usual morning physical therapy and exercise session this morning, I was ready for lunch... well... I was in the mood for brunch today rather than my usual dinner-like lunch.  For those who don't know, lunch is typically my big meal of the day. Since I wasn't in the mood for my usual heavy dinner-like lunch, I looked for something else to make today... So, I chose to make some hash browns, hickory smoked bacon, french toast and coffee. That really hit the spot! Now, let me get back to my coffee...

Every year, when we attend the annual Amherst Railway Society's Railroad Hobby Show, we always set aside Saturday evening for a group night out on the town for dinner. The past few years, the place we have chosen for this group night has been a rather unique and lively little restaurant called The Munich Haus ... fashioned after a German festhaus albeit smaller and a bit more personal. We have chosen this restaurant consistently over the past few years for a number of reasons including it is unique, it is cultural, it is something we cannot experience near home, the food is quite good, the desserts are outstanding and it has that happy German festhaus atmosphere and vibe with live music, singing, clapping and, of course, tasty beers! This little yet always crowded restaurant has a large selection of draft beers from Germany... a vast selection of schnitzels... a long list of different types of sausages... chicken dishes... beef dishes... fish and seafood dishes... vegetaria

Typically, whenever the kids visit, the living room floor becomes obscured by a toy-box-ful of toys making it difficult to find enough floor to walk without painfully stepping on hard little pointy toys. During a recent visit, however, we changed things up a little by replacing the toy-box-ful of toys with the big trains which pleased Lukey immensely! While Lukey played with the trains... multiple locomotives... experimenting with the different sound effects and learning how to control these trains... Kenzie was content to just sit on the couch and play with Grammy.  Surprisingly, there were no cries when I asked Lukey to help me clean up for dinner. We dismantled all the track, stacked it all neatly next to their toy-box, and placed the heavy trains on their shelf... then we all moved to the dinner table. I was shocked that there were no complaints nor crying! After dinner there was a little bit of pouting because the trains were put to bed for the night but Lukey was qu

I've been stuck in the house for quite some time. Actually, I may have been stuck in the house for the longest time ever... in my entire life... anywhere.  It has been so frigid cold for the past couple of months that I have not wandered from the house for more than a few minutes at a time. These drastic temperature changes caused by moving from indoors to outdoors and then back indoors have been miserable for my health.  Another issue keeping me homebound is that my car has been sitting silently in the driveway, buried under snow, for more than a month. The car won't start so has not even run at all even to warm it up. If we have some tolerable, sunny days sometime soon, then I will get outside to see if I can salvage what is left of the old Honda and get her running again. A 15 year old car in the northeast where salt is used on the roads for more than half the year is an exceptionally old car. I fear we are at the end of this car's life expectancy. There have been

The other day I realized that this blog needed some updating. I just was not happy with how it looked so I spent a couple of nights trying to change the look as well as a little bit of the functionality but really had a tough time with it. Any change I made seemed to just make it worse. After thinking about what I wanted, sketching and jotting down some ideas, I started to get a clearer picture in my head of what I want. I have to admit that this is still not exactly what I want, but it is closer.  So, this morning was the rollout of the new look for my blog! I suspect there will some additional small changes in the coming days so don't be surprised by more changes...  change is good!