A Trail Through Time

 Jan 14, 2024

On our way to the park this morning, I saw a lot of activity at the nearby Devil’s Millhopper State Park. As the dog was getting his exercise, I googled what was up at DMSP. It was an event celebrating the 50th anniversary of the park! I’m still feeling a bit under the weather, but I really do need to start getting out and doing more, so I decided to go and check it out.

The trail around the rim of the sinkhole had rangers and volunteers dressed in period costumes from the 1500s through modern day, and each would give a little talk about what was going on in this area during their time. It was a lot of fun, and educational! :)

Hard to narrow it down to just one photo, but I’m going with the spearhead artifact on display. The volunteer dressed as the character from the 1970s (for reasons), also collects fossils, and artifacts. He joked that he has gone on excursions all over the world, but the most interesting find he’s ever made, was digging in his backyard, which wasn’t too far away from the park. The spearhead is estimated to be 8000 years old, and it’s all in one piece which is pretty cool. He was a really interesting guy, and very knowledgeable about the geology of the area. Funny thing is, I’ve met him before—at the dog park! LOL! 

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MitM

“The King is Alive” Jordan Feliz

This one actually is one of my current favorite songs :)

Cozy Cacher

 Jan 13, 2024

Another day mostly spent inside, so another geocaching tee photo. It’s a good thing I have a lot of these ;) I belong to a mail order club that sends a shirt every month. This one is my favorite—cute design, good color, and it’s super comfy!

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MitM

“World Chat Song” by Impresario

This one is going to take some explaining. I play a game called Villagers & Heroes. It’s been around since 2011 or so, but I’ve only been playing slightly over one year. Most online games have some kind of communication channel for everyone that is on the game right then. In V&H, it’s called World Chat. Since this game actually enforces a family-friendly atmosphere, World Chat here is nowhere near as awful as it can get in other games. In fact, the server I play on, US3, kind of prides itself on being very friendly and helpful, so when new players start, and ask the same old newbie questions, we answer them; over and over.

A few years ago, a player made this video parody of “The Sounds of Silence”, talking about World Chat, how silly it can be, and all the newbie questions. I had heard this song mentioned a few times in the last year, but I hadn’t actually gone to watch it until just the other day. I laughed, but I get all the jokes :) If you watch the video, make sure to click on the info button—it will bring up the lyrics, which even for me were hard to understand at times.

Oh where…are seeds at?

Dog Park Friends

 Jan 12, 2024

We often see the same dogs at the dog park, at least once or twice a week. This friendly guy is Chico. He’s about 2 years old, so has a lot more energy than Titus. Titus is usually ready for a nap when we get home from crossing paths with Chico :)

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MitM

Blessing Offor “Your Love”

Mantle

 Jan 11, 2024

For a very, very long time, I’ve wanted a mantle over our fireplace—mostly to have somewhere to hang Christmas stockings ;) My husband has been working on making one ever since his new workshop was completed (well, mostly completed. Long story). Today, he and a friend of ours worked on installing it! I love it!

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MitM

Rerun of the Lauren Daigle song. Oh well.

Super Dog

 Jan 10, 2024

The storm cleared away, giving us bright blue skies and much colder temperatures. Titus enjoyed his morning playtime at the park though. This photo is a little blurry, but I liked his flapping ears, so it wins out for the day :)

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MitM

Everybody (Backstreet’s Back)

Ok, I have no idea on this one, LOL! I’ve heard it plenty of times, but unless it was on during a football game recently, I don’t know why this song would be stuck in my head. Ah well, the subconscious is a weird thing :)

Mother Nature is Confused

 Jan 9 2024

I started seeing the warnings a few days ago, for this big storm about to hit us. In my area, high winds mean downed trees (not fake Christmas trees even), and downed trees mean downed electrical lines. Very similar to hurricane season, which supposedly ended at the end of November. All morning it was gray and dismal, with enough drizzling that everything was wet, but no big stuff yet. Early afternoon we started to get the thunder, lightning, and gusts of wind, along with heavier rain. It still didn’t seem like that much, but our garage flooded after the first wave. 🤷‍♀️ There were a few more waves, which was also very hurricane-esque, before things calmed down and the storm moved on. Our neighborhood has a system of drainage ditches to help with water mitigation from these storms, and one of them is in our front yard. This is what it looked like after wave 1.

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MitM

Maverick City Music “Jireh”

Fake Tree Down

 Jan 8 2024

Last year we got a new fake tree. It’s much wider and taller than the prior one, so it can fit in only a few spots where it makes sense to have the Christmas Tree. We chose the nook in the kitchen, which means the table normally there has to move, so something else has to move, etc, etc.

While I had some energy, I removed the last of the lights on the tree, took it apart, and started moving all the things back to where they are supposed to be. Weirdest thing: the fake tree dropped needles. What?! I mean, it’s not as many as a real tree would have dropped, but I was still amused :)

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MitM

On Christmas Eve I looked to see what new songs Pentatonix had done in the last few years. I used to be a huge fan and knew it all, but since Avi left I’ve fallen off with my crazy fandom. Anyway, found this one, watched the video once, and that was it. Now two weeks later, it’s what I woke up “hearing” :)

Pentatonix “Pure Imagination/Christmas Time is Here”

Solar System Silliness

 Jan 7, 2024

Today was a hang around the house clearing my throat constantly type of day. I did go to the park with the dog, but forgot to take a photo there. This is one of what I’m sure will be many, Random Things Around the House.

My husband has some friends that always give him kids’ toys for his birthday. This was last year’s gift. The little spaceship pieces have velcro around the edge, and when you toss them at the target, in theory they will stick to it. It more or less works, and friends with small kids love it for a good ten minutes, so there’s that ;) We leave it up all the time, because why not?

Geocache Maintenance

 Jan 6, 2024

When you hide a geocache, you’re supposed to keep it in good shape, or archive it and remove the container. I have one I hid at a nearby park, and we are there almost every day to let Titus run off some energy. I usually just glance at the geocache to make sure it’s still there. Sometimes I check to make sure the logsheet is still usable. Today was one of those days, and the answer was NO. The little ziplock bag that the paper log is in had gotten a little tear in it, and we’ve recently had a lot of rain. I use “Rite In the Rain” paper for my logsheets, but even that doesn’t really stand up to a thorough soaking. So, it was back to the car, and my caching supplies, to replace things.

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MITM (Music in the Morning (yeah, that one kind of works))

Ok, I also am having trouble getting my text to realign to the left after I post the photo. Sigh. Well, this makes this section stand out a little more, I suppose. If the alignment switches back and forth, you’ll know that some days I got it to work properly ;)

So anyway, my acronym has improved, but unfortunately after posting the last couple, I have forgotten the songs I woke up to on Saturday and Sunday. Doh.

Epiphany

 Jan 5, 2024

We have an outdoor nativity set that currently includes three wise men and a camel. For the last few years, I’ve done this cutesy thing where I set them up as far to the East on our property that I can, and then slowly move them towards the manger :) They “arrive” on Epiphany (Three Kings Day for some of you).

Working Out

 Jan 4, 2024

I’ve been trying to get in shape for a long time, and while progress has been made, I have a long way to go. Part of this effort is a personal trainer that comes to the house twice a week. She’s fantastic, very knowledgeable, and also adaptable to any given situation. Like today, for example, I’m not contagious, but I am not 100% and can’t do a regular workout. So we did some stretching, light weights, general movement, in the hopes it would help my system boot this crap out finally.

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SSIMYWIWU (hmm, going to have to work on that)

Phil Wickham “I Believe”

Geocaching

 Jan 3, 2024

Yet another strange thing to realize: in 2012, I wasn’t geocaching. Geocaching has become such a huge part of my life! If you don’t know what geocaching is, the short answer is “a worldwide scavenger hunt”. People hide containers, usually recycled pill bottles or something like that, and post the GPS coordinates on geocaching.com for others to see. Other people then try to find it, using their smart phone app, or a handheld GPS unit like a Garmin. Each physical geocache has a logsheet for you to sign your geocaching name, and sometimes there are little toys or collectible items for people to trade. You then rehide the container as you found it, so the next person can find it. There are longer answers, of course ;) Go to geocaching.com if you want all the details and learn how to start your own account.

On Friday, the 5th, I was supposed to be going out with some friends to the Ocala National Forest and get some tougher geocaches. But I was still sick when this was planned, so we said we’d see how I was doing on Wednesday. Well, on Wednesday I was still coughing and feeling pretty beat, so I had to cancel :( I had to make do with wearing one of my super comfy Geocaching Tees ;)

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Adding in another segment to these blog posts: Songs I Woke Up With in My Head

I spent close to a year texting these to my son, to which he replied: “  “

Maybe it’s not that interesting, but I’m going to do it here anyway. I listen to a lot of contemporary Christian music, so the songs are almost always of that nature. And it’s usually not even my favorite song at the time, just a song I heard recently that happened to get stuck ;)

Today it was Lauren Daigle, “These Are the Days”. Let’s see if I can successfully post a link…

These Are the Days

Titus

Jan 2, 2024

It’s strange to realize that since I last blogged, we got a puppy, he grew up, and got old. Titus is our now semi-retired service dog. He is a diabetes alert dog. He can sense high and low blood sugar, and has two signals to tell his person (my husband), or someone else (me) the message.

I’d have to go check, but I may have posted a photo of another diabetes alert dog back in 2012. We were flying out, and this dog was in the waiting area with his owner. The dog signalled, and my husband and the owner started talking about it. A few days later, we were on the waiting list to get our own dog.

Titus was delivered to us in late May of 2013 and has been the best boy ever since :) He’s our first labrador, which was an eye-opening experience. ENERGY! Man, did he have some energy! Nowadays he’s almost slowed down to our level—LOL!

2024! Let’s Try This Again :)

 Jan 1, 2024

A friend of mine, over the past summer, that she missed my photo-a-day blog from 2012. I thought at the time, hmm, maybe I should do that again? Then, of course, promptly forgot all about it. Until Jan 3, 2024 :p

I remembered, but also didn’t actually get started on it. Mostly this is because I’m sick and have been since just before Christmas. Partially, it’s because I will procrastinate at the drop of a hat…if I get around to dropping said hat.

I had to remember how to do this, so that was a good day or two, getting back on the site, hoping it still existed, and that I could find my old blog. It does still exist! It found my old blog for me! There remained the issue of being sick and not really doing much that was photo worthy. I wanted to start out with a bang, something interesting. Oh well.

If you’re still here, here’s my “photo” from Jan. 1. Pretty much a screenshot really. I sniffled and coughed my way through a disappointing football game and went to bed before the other one started.