Vacation Pics! Part II

Our beautiful Inu in heaven with the big back yard to use ALL WEEK LONG....

April after being groomed....

GiGi After her grooming...

At Westmorland Berry Farm...these guys are always hungry!

Grandma and Grandpa's front porch...their flowers are always in bloom.

Out fishing in the boat....fun even if they didn't catch anything.

Alex's pic of "our" bedroom...

Grandma and Grandpa's glorious sitting room by the water...

Grandma's amazing paintings!

Vacation Pics! Part 1

Celebrating Mothers' and Fathers' Day...just a little late for Mother's Day.

Swimming off the dock...

Water Plants?

No fish caught yet....sorry Hubby!

Love the Inu! LOVE HER!

Grandma and Grandpa's Sleepy Poodle, April...

More to come...it's only Tuesday!

Wasn't Tagged, But Still.....

These are always so much FUN!




Courtesy of posting from Kate:

1. What were you doing five years ago? (That would be 2003, yes?)

• Trying to get settled in our new house (that was a story in and of itself).


• Trying to lose weight (did lose a lot, but it's back).


• Trying to get the kids settled into a new school.


• Hiking the Manassas Battlefields.


• Teaching online. (Wow! What a busy year, as usual!)

2.What are five things on your to-do list for today?

• Finish packing for vacation.


• Finish cleaning before vacation.


• Shut down this computer.


• Drive to the in-laws' for vacation.


• Attend nephew's graduation from high school. (Has it really been THAT long since he was just a kid???? WOW. Time flies!)

3. What are five snacks you enjoy?

• Oatmeal (with Splenda and spray butter).


• Cooked vegetables (with spray butter).


• Popcorn (with spray butter).


• Sugar free fudgicles (no spray butter).


• Melted cheese on crackers (no spray butter.)

4. What five things would you do if you were a billionaire?

• Give a ton of money away to causes of my choice.


• Invest so I can keep giving it away.


• Pay off this house, my mother's mortgage and my in-laws' mortgage. (Does that count as three? Who cares.)


• Get cleaners on a regular basis.


• Travel (with the best motion sickness med on the market).

5. What are five of your bad habits?

• Eating.


• Saying not-so-nice expressions that I grew up with and find myself repeating even now.


• Worrying and having to talk myself out of worrying.


• Forgetting to tone down my voice when the kids have given me back-talk for the fourth time in a row.


• Aren't those enough?

6. What are five places you have lived?

• Manassas VA


• Vienna VA


• Colorado Springs CO


• Lowell, MA


• Billerica MA

7. What are five jobs you've had?

• Sandwich-making-food-services-customer-complaint-person


• Educational middle management


• Online and live college instructor


• Avon/Mary Kay lady


• House wife

8. Why do you love these me-mes? (I added this one.)

• They make you think of where you have been and where you are now.


• They are rather egocentric and self-indulgent.


• They are relaxing.


• They let the world know who you are and where you are coming from (assuming anyone reads them).


• They warn off people who might be scared of who you are and where you are coming from.

Another Trip to Lake Brittle

I can't help it. The place is so pretty, I have to take pictures. The girls didn't catch craw daddies this time, but they did catch some bugs and found some snails.

We brought one of the snails home and put it in the fish tank. This seemed to make our catfish happy. But then the snail died. I'm not sure if the catfish have realized yet that their snail friend is gone.

RIP, little snail. Here are some pics in your honor.

More Musings

Okay, so every time I come visit this part of my blog life, I look at the title and say, "Hmmmm. Bull Run Writings. There isn't much writing here. Photos, yes. Kids art, yes. Writing, not really." Most of my writing is on the Poetry and Polemics blog. Both blogs are part of my fun little network called "Luxurious Choices."

Someone asked me what that name meant. If you've ever been to the Luxurious Choices home page and clicked on "about us" then you know the name came from my previous attempt to sell things like Mary Kay and Avon...you know, luxuries. But it's really difficult to get businesses like that going, especially if you don't do it full time, aren't into sales, and forget to collect money. Besides that, I always wanted to give my friends my discounts because I felt bad not passing my savings on to them. So this obviously was not the business for me to be in.

I "chose" to get out of that biz and work more on my writing, which is a "luxury" all its own. But as I wrote and got out more into the community, it became more apparent that we have choices all around us and that the worst choice is to close our eyes to these. Democracy--that's a choice. Values--those are choices. How we want to spend our time--choices. What we want our lives to mean--choices. What legacies we want to leave--choices. But what if we ignore all these choices? What happens then?

Feeling trapped is one of the most debilitating conditions we can ever have put on us or impose on ourselves. When we feel trapped, we make poor decisions or no decisions. When we believe we are out of choices, we panic and do things we might never do, and they are usually not productive things if they are based solely in panic.

So having choices and recognizing them really is a luxury. Hence the name. http://www.luxuriouschoices.net/

Here's to the luxuries of life! May we appreciate and contemplate every choice we have.

"The strongest principal of growth lies in human choice."

-George Eliot

Mother's Day at Harper's Ferry WV

What I really wanted was a weekend away with the family. Harper's Ferry, historic town known for John Brown's anti-slavery uprising, sits among the hilltops looking over and at the Shenandoah river. The views and legacy make for an amazing time away from the present and the suburbs.
I wish we had been able to take pictures in the Wax Museum where realistic figures portray the events of Brown's times. It's a little eery, but the kids are old enough to understand it now, having studied the Civil War in school.

Now I know Dive will say how he has buildings like these all over his town, and then I will say I am jealous because Harper's Ferry is a bit of a drive for us. But it was worth the drive.