I'm Up Again, Full Moon, Beaver Moon, Full Frost Moon.

November 28. 29, 2012.

Good Morning, one and all. Did the Full Moon keep you awake, also, as it did me?

Being very tired, I went to bed just before 9 o'clock last night. Slept like a charm. Got up at 1:15 a.m. to relieve myself, and couldn't fall back to sleep. Too many thoughts coming into my mind, because of the lovely Full Moon. The November Full Moon is called the Beaver Moon because it was the time to set traps, before the waters froze over. This Moon was also called the Full Frost Moon. 

Knowing I could not see the moon from any windows in my house, I tried to ignore it. The moonshine came through the little slits in the closed blinds in my room, and it kept drawing my attention as I was trying to get back to sleep. I would close my eyes, thinking I'd fall asleep, and then would look to see if the moon was still trying to cajole me to take a peek. 

So I got out of bed, put my warm socks on, my sweat jacket over my pajamas, and came into the living room. There was so much light, that I could walk around without putting the lights on. The computer lights under the computer table lit up the kitchen and the Full Moon shining through the closed blinds in the kitchen and the living room were tempting me so much that I opened the front door to see just where that Full Moon was. 

I stepped to the edge of the itty bitty front concrete (patio)(porch) which is about three inches from the ground, and looked up into the sky, and there it was! Directly above me, it was, at the zenith, looking so majestic with its accompanying 'star' near its side. Clear sky, brisk air, so gorgeous a Full Moon that I could have stood there for fifteen minutes taking in all its beauty and love. 

But it was not the thing to do, as old as I am, and sometimes unsteady on my feet (what would happen if I had tripped and fell down in that cold frosty air with no one around to help me up? ("Help, I can't get up!" ), so I came back into the house. Oh, I did take a couple of shots with my camera to document the brightness and the frost on the front lawn at 1:45 a.m., the beautiful tree across the street, and then the Full Moon at its zenith before I thought that I had better get back into the house. 

Now I sit here, telling you my story, and trying to decide if I should attempt to go back to bed yet, or stay up another while and make those cabbage rolls that I am thinking about. Some of the ingredients are in the fridge waiting for me to begin cooking. I think you already know that sometimes when I cannot sleep in the wee hours of the morning, I make cookies, or a nice soup, or do up the dishes that I let go because I was too tired to wash them last evening. 

I've been known to wake up at this time and get out of bed instead of tossing and turning trying to get back to sleep. Did you know that in very ancient times, humans did have a wake-up period after midnight, and then after one activity or another, would get back to bed until the crack of dawn. I guess we do need eight hours of sleep per day, but not really all in one lump. 

Love and hugs in the Moonlight, I say again, "Nighty-Night..."

Mom - Grannamae - Anna Mae. 

I'll see you at the Corner Post... 

Dancing In the Kitchen with Only Doggies as An Audience.

November 24, 2012.


As I went doggie-sitting for a few days, my computer went with me so I could keep in touch with my family. I also like to listen sometimes to music on the computer. Two of the doggies are Labs, and the other is a shepherd of sorts. They live much of the time inside the house, especially if it's too cold outdoors, or rainy, or too hot in summer. They love the owners and the owners love those doggies. I love them too, and now and then I doggie-sit so they know me quite well. We usually stay in the kitchen along with the computer, and I prepare my meals and snacks, and my presence in the same room keeps the doggies content.

I enjoyed one of my favorite programs this morning from southern California, on my computer. The doggies were in the house, because it was so cold outdoors during most of the morning. Lucky the shepherd and the Lab Princess were sleeping as usual under the desk in the kitchen, and Lily Lab was lying on the little carpet in front of the stove, all tightly curled up as snug as a bug in a rug. I sat at the table in front of my computer, listening to the melodies that the DJ was playing on the program, while I was reading and answering emails.

Suddenly one of my very favorite tunes was announced, and I got up and began to dance to it -- "CAB DRIVER" -- in the kitchen. I wasn't wildly doing the dancing, just trying to keep my balance and keeping in step with the music. I just LOVE that song, and always have. After about fifteen seconds, Lily lifted her head and looked at me. I looked back at her while I was dancing, and another few seconds passed. She lowered her ears, and they were closer to her face than usual, and she had a strange look in her eyes. I kept smiling at her, she kept looking at me, I kept dancing the steps, and sort of using my hands also, waving them once in a while. She kept looking, her ears were kept lowered and snug to her face, and her eyes were sort of getting a small look of something like embarrassment or some different look. Her paw was sort of lifted a couple of inches, and she lowered it, and it seemed that somehow she wanted to get up and join in the dance, but she didn't get up, just moved her paw again, and she kept looking at me with that same look in her eyes. She didn't move her ears at all during my dancing, they were in that same lowered position. Finally the tune ended, and I stopped dancing and sat down.

I wish I could have known what she was thinking all the while I was dancing. Her eyes never left me as I danced, and I kept looking at her eyes, returning her gaze. She could have been thinking,  "What in the world is this woman doing?" or "Gosh, I wish I could dance like that!" or "This woman is ku-ku and I think we'd better call the vet!"

          I'll see you at the Corner Post...

Nostalgia -- I'm Missing the Snow!

November 21, 2012.

When you've lived most of your life in Pennsylvania, and move at the age of seventy-nine years of age to the state of Mississippi, you certainly do miss the snow! I miss it terribly.

I always loved the first snowfall of the year, even if it is a short time of flakes descending upon us. Sometimes it is a long storm, and the snow piles up about two feet! THAT is excitement, and a lot of work to get shoveled out. One of the most beautiful things to see is a snowfall of shiny flakes when the sun is out. Those flakes look like thousands, millions, of diamonds gently floating down to where we live.

The Birds and Blooms magazine has lovely photos of birds sitting on branches laden with snow, and you are so amazed at the beauty of snow. This is one reason that I am thinking of snow.

This one shows snow falling, and it looks like a female cardinal sitting on the branch of red berries, which are hawthorne berries. Poisonous, but so beautiful. Perhaps the berries are poisonous to some creatures and humans.  They look much like bittersweet berries. 

The bittersweet bushes grew in the woods near Grandma and Pop's farm in Pennsylvania, and they were always so pretty to see. I still miss that farm and the lands around it, because we went there quite often to visit the grandparents when we were growing up. I think they bought the place in 1939, when I was six or seven years old. I don't know what time of year they bought it.  

The hawthorne bushes I saw near Dallas, Pa., when I went for a ride about twenty years ago  to see the woodsy snow just after a snowstorm. Oh, my, how very beautiful that was, the trees and bushes were so close to the secondary road, and it was simply breathtaking! The beauty was so close to one's eyes, you had to be careful not to swerve into the snowy ditch!

On this approaching Thanksgiving Day, let us give thanks for all the wonderful times we have had this year, and for the beauty of nature around us. 

See you at the Corner Post...