Happy Halloween

Watch out for ghostly skeletons,

And those ghastly spiders too!

Have a Safe and Happy Halloween Everyone!!

Tess

It's the Simple Things in Life.....

It really is the simple, little things in life that excite us. Case in point, my husbands discovery of a double yolked egg. Chuck was nice enough to fix breakfast for us this weekend and he always gives me my plate first. Just as I'm poking at my egg I hear an excited "honey, look at this". There in the skillet was a two yolked egg. I knew he hadn't pulled a fast one on me because he hadn't had but 2 eggs in front of him to cook and one was on my plate. I hurried to get the camera to take a picture of this phenomenon. Phenomenon to us anyway as it was the first time either of us had seen a two yolk egg. I did some searching online and found a statement about double yolked eggs on wikipedia.com but it was flagged for no source shown so I searched further and found PoultryHelp.com. There I found the following:

"Double Yolkers appear when ovulation occurs too rapidly, or when one yolk somehow gets "lost" and is joined by the next yolk. Double yolkers may be by a pullet whose productive cycle is not yet well synchronized. They're occasionally laid by a heavy-breed hen, often as an inherited trait."

There is also a section on wikipedia about Lou Mitchell's Restaurant in Chicago, Illinois using only double yolked eggs. Interesting!

So Chuck had the excitement of cooking and eating a double yolked egg today and I learned something new? Have any of you ever seen a double yolked egg before?

Beautiful October Days

It's so hard to believe we are in the middle of October already. Days are blending together, so much to do...too much to do. Sometimes in order to take a deep breath and slow down we have to force it upon ourselves. I did just that over this past weekend. I picked up my granddaughter and kept her overnight. We had dinner together with grandpa and she played a while with Frankie, the new kitten. She was so pleased to see Frankie was doing ok. Then we read her homework assignment. A book entirely beyond her reading level but she did pretty good sounding out the words. A nice, quiet relaxing evening.

Sunday afternoon we went through McDonald's drive-thru and then took our lunch to a picnic bench at Homer's Pond. The sun was shining and the temp was in the 70's but it was windy. The wind made for an interesting lunch to say the least. We had to keep a hand or elbow on everything. The camera I brought along with a photo shoot in mind came in handy to hold down the napkins. It was very funny and I do love seeing and hearing her laughter. After lunch we went walking on the walking trail around the pond. She had so much fun finding odd places for me to photograph her. My little 9 year old granddaughter is not afraid of dirt or climbing at all, not one bit. She's not all tomboy mind you, but not all froo-froo either.

She found this boulder and had to climb it:

Then she hid behind a tree and peeked out at me:

This log was meant for sitting on:

"Don't worry grandma, I won't fall in."

This looked like a good place to rest and give grandma another big smile:


These were growing all over and she wanted to pick one. I convinced her not to but she insisted I had to take a picture, so I took two. I plan to print them for her so she can remember how beautiful Homer's Pond is during the cold winter months that are ahead of us.

If you haven't taken a nature walk with a child yet this fall do try to. It was amazing the things she seen that I had never noticed before. Our leaves aren't changing color as nicely as I would have liked yet, but I do enjoy the green!

Have you encouraged someone today?

There are times when one of those generic e-mails that are sent around and around the world finds it's way to your inbox and you can really relate to it. This happened to me today. I often wish the author's name of the wonderful quotes or essays were included in these e-mails but they usually are not. We take a chance of infringing on someones copyright if we reproduce the content on a blog or website. Sometimes the content makes taking that chance worth it. If anyone knows the author of the following I will gladly give credit where credit is due. I enjoyed this immensely and am sure you will too. Read on:


Once upon a time there was a bunch of tiny frogs who arranged a running competition. The goal was to reach the top of a very high tower. A big crowd had gathered around the tower to see the race and cheer on the contestants. The race began.... Honestly, no one in the crowd really believed that the tiny frogs would reach the top of the tower. You heard statements such as: "Oh, WAY too difficult, they will NEVER make it to the top!!" Or "Not a chance that they will succeed, the tower is too high!" The tiny frogs began collapsing. One by one except for those, who in a fresh tempo, were climbing higher and higher…The crowd continued to yell, "It is too difficult!!! No one will make it!" More tiny frogs got tired and gave up....But ONE continued higher and higher and higher. This one wouldn't give up! At the end everyone else had given up climbing the tower. Except for the one tiny frog who, after a big effort, was the only one who reached the top! THEN all of the other tiny frogs naturally wanted to know how this one frog managed to do it? A contestant asked the tiny frog how he had found the strength to succeed and reach the goal? It turned out....That the winner was DEAF!!!!
The wisdom of this story is: Never listen to other people's tendencies to be negative or pessimistic because they take your most wonderful dreams and wishes away from you -- the ones you have in your heart!
~ Author Unknown


Always think of the power words have. Because everything you hear and read will affect your actions! And remember everything that you say and write will affect another.


Therefore: ALWAYS be.... POSITIVE! And above all ~Be DEAF when people tell YOU that you cannot fulfill your dreams!