May 14 - "Grass"

If I would've planned ahead, I probably would've saved the picture from Saturday for today and found something else that makes me happy. But I didn't. So, for the second lackluster day in a row, I bring you a rerun. But this picture is actually the first thing I thought about when I saw the word "grass". Because flipping through my DG albums and seeing all of the dead, yellow grass through the winter and then getting to spring time and seeing this shock of colour is always stunning. Not quite as stunning as the fact that I used to have friends who would go play disc golf with me, but you know. (* that makes two jabs at my responsible, grown up friends this week. Just wanted to acknowledge that.)

May 13 - "Mum"

I thought about being a wise guy and posting a picture of a hardy mum today. But being's as I already commented, several weeks ago, on how I'm an anglophile - I don't suppose anyone would've bought it as coming from a place of ignorance.

Part of my mother's day gift to my mum, while we ate an extravagant lunch at Ruby Tuesday this afternoon, was not pulling out my camera and taking a picture to use for a blog post. So you'll have to make due with this throwback photo. And before you ask, yes, I do still have that outfit. And I'm wearing it right now.

Happy mother's day!

May 12 - "Something That Makes You Happy"

In the past, whether shoveling snow or mowing the lawn, I'll put in the extra 5 minutes and clear the back alley for our neighbor Bob. Bob's a truck driver and often gets up very early or works very late - sometimes both. I don't do this extra work because I want praise for it - in fact, I probably would feel really awkard if it was ever actually acknowledged to my face. It's just something I can do to be a good neighbor and show a little Jesus.

Today, I woke up knowing that I needed to mow the lawn. As I got my shoes on, I was trying to decide whether I wanted to do the back bit (which really needed it) first or second. Then as I went out the back door to fetch the lawn mower - I saw that I didn't have a decision to make. Because Bob had apparently mowed our back lawn this morning when he did his. And you know, that genuinely made me happy. Not just because it meant that I didn't have to do it, but also because it means that our neighbors do notice the little things and they think enough of us to return the favor.

May 11 - "Kitchen"

The evening that we settled on our house, 2 years ago now, we walked in to find that the bathroom drain pipe over our kitchen was leaking. "Welcome home!!" Luckily, our new house came with a home warranty, so repairs would be covered. Not covered, however, was gaining access to the pipe. So my dad helped my take down the cabinets and expose the offending plumbing. We planned on make several improvements in the kitchen anyway, so we weren't necessarily concerned about being careful. One such improvement planned was getting rid of this ugly green formica. Ugly, green and cracked as a result of our creative removal. Fastforward to today - yup, that's the same ugly, green, cracked formica. And the worst part is that it's not that we don't have the money put aside to get this project done. It's just that, thus far, I've lacked the actual motivation to put the wheels in motion. The rest of the kitchen looks passible, if not nice. Maybe one of these days I'll actually finish the job! (Or pay someone who knows what they're doing to do it.)

May 10 - A Favourite Word

Two days this week with a picture of text. Sorry.

This post will be equal (or less than equal) parts truth and snark. FYI.

I like the word "sincerely". I went through a phase of writing letters to people, mostly because I got tired of how simple emails were. You could type them without thought. So instead of meaning something, it basically ended up being an endless stream of consciousness where you ended up knowing EVERYTHING going on in someone's life instead of hearing actual intelligent thoughts.

A good portion of the letter I wrote were to my friend Sarah, who as chance would have it was studying abroad in France. I signed some, if not most, of the letters with the word "sincerely" - because those letters were just that; sincere. I thought long and hard about what I wrote - not with any ulterior motive or goal in mind, other than communicating with a friend in a far away place.

So what brought the word "sincerely" to mind today? Why, it was a letter - which is what this picture is of. It was written to inform me that my rear driveway (which I already spent $20 fixing potholes in a couple weeks ago) is "violation of the Driveway Ordinance" and must be fixed within 45 days, or I'll receive a citation. Did I mention this "sincere" letter starts off as most deeply personal things do: "Dear Propert Owners." My heart is touched.

So yes. I like sincerely. I like it better when it's applied properly... nay, sincerely.

May 9 - "Something You Do Every Day"

Some five or so years ago, we got a dog. For the first several weeks we owned said dog, I took her for walks in the morning and at night - dutifully chanting, "Just go poo... just go poo...." as I'd read in some masochistic dog training book. Once she got the knack of going outside, walks sort of segued into me opening the door and waiting for her to do her thing and come back. Our frequent (read: almost daily) trips to various disc golf courses filled the exercise need in Jessie's life and everything was grand.

But then the great snows of Winter 2011 fell upon us and disc golf was made difficult, if not impossible. So as a means of filling the void, Jessie and I started taking walks again. Mostly around the neighborhood - a veritable cornucopia of streets and alleys - but occasionally down through the John Heinz wildlife refuge as well. And all this walking led to a very horrible thing - I now have a dog who doesn't just like going for a walk each day, but rather a dog who needs to go for a walk each day. If we miss it for whatever reason - be it busyness or be it torrential downpours - bad things happen. Not during the day, mind you. During the day we can sit on the couch watching Netflix and dozing in and out of sleep. But then around 9:30pm, she becomes what we like to refer to as "crazy dog". This manifests in multiple ways - including, but not limited to: running figure 8 laps between the dining room & living room (around the table and up over the couch), attempting to murder stuffed animals and lick attacks (which are normally sort of gross, but when your dog consider cat poop on of the 3 major food groups in her life - so much worse).

So anyways, that was a long story for a simple sentence. What do I do everyday? Walk the dog. (And if I happen to miss it, God help us all!)

May 8 - "A Smell You Adore"

There's lots of smells I like. Only a few I adore. Pipe smoke is one of the latter. Both for it's odor and also for the memories associated with it. So many wonderful, late night conversations with Patrick. Bird watching with Bill at the John Heinze Wildlife Refuge. Poker with the fellas.

Yes, I know smoking is bad for you. So are a lot of things that we do every day. All things in moderation, people.

And lastly, people often ask me what flavor tobacco I smoke. To answer this question, I defer back to Mr. Crawford who taught me: There are two kinds of tobacco - one smells good to everyone around you but tastes like garbage and one tastes good but only smells good to real pipe smokers. Guess which one is in my pipe?