The Shadow Knows

Ever wonder how tall that tree is in your front yard? There's a relatively easy way to calculate, using the tree's shadow.

1. Measure the tree's shadow. (say, 60 feet)

2. Measure a yardstick's shadow. (say, 2 feet)

3. Multiply the tree's shadow by 3. (60 x 3 = 180)

4. Divide that number by the yardstick's shadow. (180 ÷ 2 = 90)

5. The result is the correct height of the tree (90 feet)

So, the calculations look like this: 60 x 3 = 180 ÷ 2 = 90.

Or another way: Tree shadow multiplied by 3, divided by yardstick shadow = tree height.

After years of struggling to find out how tall that huge black locust tree was in front of my house, I finally found this method and discovered the tree was 90 feet tall.

The Gratitude Project

Sorry for the plain vanilla post today. Blogger is having the hiccups and won't let me upload pictures properly.

I want to alert you to something awesome happening over at Susan Wiggs's blog, The View From Here. It's the Gratitude Project.


From November 1 until Thanksgiving, she is posting 3 things per day that she is grateful for. She challenged visitors to the blog to do the same, on a daily basis. The results have been wonderful. And heartwarming. And eye-opening. And sometimes even hilarious. Do please stop by Susan's blog and click on "comments" at the top of each post to read all the wonderful lists of things readers are thankful for. If you feel inclined to leave your own list, do so! It is so uplifting!

When You Live Alone ...

I need a personal manager. Someone to following me around all day telling me what to do, and when. That's one of the bad things about living alone. You aren't accountable to anyone, so you slip into bad habits. You don't have someone in the house raising an eyebrow when you start to do something you shouldn't, like eating cold spaghetti for breakfast. With your hands. You don't have to be embarrassed by your housemate finding your dirty undies piled on the bathroom floor. There's nobody to remind you to go to bed when you should. Take your pills when you should. Go to the doctor when you should.

This is why people who live alone get weird. And lazy. Having another body in the house keeps you honest, makes you toe the mark. And right now, I need a personal trainer to help me organize my life better. Any offers out there? Warning: I'm a hard case! *g*

Waiting for People

It seems more and more I spend my life waiting for people who couldn't care less about the fact I have rearranged my schedule to accommodate them. At times I have postponed errands while waiting for my doctor's office to call or a client to deliver a job. I've sacrificed sleep by getting up way before my usual time in order to be alive and alert for the person who ends up being several hours late to service the refrigerator or the telephone.

Yesterday I rose from bed after only 4 hours of sleep because the furnace guy said he'd be here at that time. He was 3 hours late, and I had a headache all day from lack of sleep.

Today I arose after 5 hours of sleep because two people were coming over today: the roofing man who, it turns out, arrived 4 hours early, while I was still asleep; and the carpenter, who was going to drop by "sometime" today to discuss the projects I needed quotes on. I've been hovering around the house all day and haven't heard from him, and now it's almost dark. It's also too late for me to run to the Post Office to mail some client packages.

If you're late for a doctor appointment, they get mad at you, but if the doctor is late seeing you, you're supposed to accept that. If you rearrange your schedule in order to have a block of time in the afternoon for the computer guy, he calls you at the crack of dawn and asks if he can come over in the morning so that he can have his afternoon free to play with his friends. If your car breaks down on the highway and the towing company says they'll be there in half an hour, they show up in 3 hours (as happened to me).

To me, being late shows lack of respect. When a repairman calls to rearrange a previously confirmed appointment so he can play, it shows a lack of respect. When you sit in a doctor's office for 2 hours past your scheduled time, it shows a lack of respect.

Am I being overly sensitive, or are my expectations out of line? What do you think? Have you ever been at the mercy of a time robber?

NaNoWriMo, Here I Come!

Okay, I'm taken the plunge, and I'm doing NaNo. Still haven't a clue what I'll write about! I brainstormed with my critique group, and came away with some fleshed out stuff on story ideas I presented to them. Most of these are stories I've had from years ago. They were in my "ideas" folder. But none of them are really outlined in any sort of detail except for one of them.

And the one my critique group liked is my second favorite. I'd actually been leaning toward my #1 favorite, because I at least had names and a plot for my characters, whereas with #2, I had nothing but the half-formed idea.

So wish me luck! It's the 11th hour, and I still haven't decided!

National Novel Writing Month

I'm considering joining NaNoWriMo next month. When you sign on with NaNoWriMo, you commit to writing a 50,000 word novel in one month. That comes to about 6 1/2 pages per day. If you aren't a writer, that sounds easy, right? Well, if you are a writer, you know just how hard that can be.

In my case, it should be easier than it is for those who hold down a full-time job. I am self-employed, so I have more time for this sort of thing. I don't commute. My biggest obstacle is procrastination and a lack of stick-to-it-iveness. I always have stuff I need to do around the house, and I let that interfere.

Plus, I'm pretty busy with the editorial business right now. That will always be my first priority, because it puts meat and potatoes on the table and oil in the furnace and gas in the car.

Have you ever participated in NaNoWriMo? If so, how did it go? Any tips for a newbie?

Mowin' the Lawn, Lovin' the Smell

Today I mowed the lawn with my reel mower. No gas exhaust or noisy engine--just the satisfying whrrr of the blades cutting grass while I labor behind the mower, pushing with all my might.

There is a part of my yard that has the most unusual and fragrant smell when you cut the grass. It's hard to describe-but the closest I can come to is a cross between new-mown hay and a subtle perfume. Yes, perfume. It definitely has a perfumey fragrance to it. The grass in that part of the yard is junk grass, not nearly as nice as the rest of the yard. But it has an incredible smell.

For the longest time, I thought my neighbor was using her clothes dryer, because I can always smell the fabric softener she uses. But I soon realized that lovely smell was coming from my own yard. I sleep with the slider open at nights after mowing the grass because I can smell it for about 4 days afterwards.

When I'm older and grayer and can't get around so well, I know this will be one of my trigger smells, reminding me of my younger days when I used to mow the lawn back at the ol' homestead.

Do you have a favorite smell? A trigger smell? Do tell!

Mondegreens

I love mondegreens. For the uninitiated, a mondegreen is when a person says something, but you "hear" something else. Such as "What a friend we have in Jesus" being misheard as "What a friend we have in cheeses."

So today I was listing to KPLU, the local NPR station. They're having their annual fall fund drive, and one of the pledge gifts for those who donate a pledge is a KPLU tote bag. Only, I kept thinking they were saying "toe tag," as in a cadaver toe tag. In my vague absent-mindedness, I kept wondering if it was a jokey Halloween gag gift.

Not until they started calling it a grocery tote bag did I realize what they were talking about. This made me laugh. Okay, so my hearing isn't what it used to be, but heck, if you can't laugh at yourself, what can you laugh at?

Life is full of humor. It's there, free for the taking. Have you ever heard a mondegreen?

Another Moment of Grace

This morning I had another one of those unexpected moments of grace: drinking a good cup of coffee while standing in front of the slider in a patch of brilliant sunshine. You see, fall is finally here and last night we had our first frost of the season. I woke up cold. But standing in that bright sunshine, inhaling the rich aroma of coffee and taking occasional sips from my mug made the world right again. Isn't it funny how small things like that can have such an impact on our outlook? What was your most recent "moment of grace"?

One Thing Leads to Another . . .

I've been so busy I haven't had time to keep up with my blog. Shame on me!

And right in the middle of being terribly busy with client work, what should happen but I get a sudden urge to move furniture. Well, not an urge, really. You see, it all began when a friend gave me a sort of combination bookshelf/storage thing for my office. This resulted in rearranging a lot of furniture, sorting through piles of junk, and ending up with mounds of trash.

I got tired of climbing over and around the bookshelf thing I'd temporarily stored in the laundry room, and in a moment of frustration I moved it into my office. The only place I could put it was where the old rolltop desk sat. I used another desk for my work, and the rolltop was just a glorified storage place for office supplies. So I moved the rolltop to a spare bedroom. But that meant I then had to find room for the table that had been in the bedroom. It's an old ugly dinette table, so I decided to take it to the dump, since it wasn't eligible for Goodwill (I'd cut a big hole in it to accommodate an old sewing machine I no longer owned).

In typical Murphy's Law fashion, one thing led to another and another and another, and I ended up spending all day yesterday rearranging furniture, cleaning out desk drawers, moving contents to new locations, sorting through and tossing a lot of useless junk, etc. Until 4:30 this morning. Oy!

Now I'm in the process of removing the legs from the table with a screwdriver so that I can fit it in my car for a trip to the dump. I also have a mound of paper trash to burn, and boxes of stuff for Goodwill. Life is never simple, is it? Have you ever gotten involved in what you thought would be a small project, only to have it burgeon into The Project That Took Over My Life?

If Your House Caught Fire . . .

. . . what's the first thing you would save? The second? The third?

Pets are a given--I'd open doors so the dog and 2 cats could escape. The first inanimate thing on my list, without question, would be my computer back-up disks. They contain my novels and my client work. (I'm a freelance editor)

The next thing would have to be my artwork. I'm an art freak with an eclectic (and much loved) mix, collected from antique stores, estate sales, folk artists, mail order catalogs, and Goodwill. Much of it is original and cannot be replaced. Not a day goes by that I don't give eye service to the beauty of my art objects..

Sad to say, I'd have to let my 5,000+ books burn. Though most are hardback reference books, they can be replaced. The one exception is my personal recipe book--a 3-ring binder containing not only my own culinary creations, but recipes collected over a 40-year span.

And then there are my wonderful trash cans. I haunt Goodwill, and over the years have collected an assortment of precisely perfect receptacles for collecting trash: the one that is exactly the right size for the weird place under my kitchen sink; the narrow one for under my desk where it won't interfere with my leg space; the tall skinny rectangular one that fits nicely into an odd niche and is big enough to hold 2 large sacks of dry dog food; the little bathroom wastepaper basket that is utterly perfect; the one that's the perfect size to fit into a small space by my craft table. What makes these receptacles so wonderful is that they are nonstandard sizes and you can't get them in any stores.

Oh, and I almost forgot my special coffee mug!

So, what would YOU rescue if your house caught fire? (We'll assume pets top the list)

Same Rose, Different View

I guess you could say I love my camera. After taking over 100 pictures of the same rose, I ended up with perhaps 5 really good pictures. Those of you who are photographers will understand.

Here's a picture that I particularly liked. Of course, it helps that I love the color pink.

A Rose by Another Name . . .

. . . is still a rose. Or however that saying goes.

Yesterday I took over 100 pictures of a rose. That's one of the shots on the left. It's from a rose plant, one that consists of a single stem and one rose. I planted the rose in my garden years ago, and it has never grown taller than two feet. It has no branches--it's still a two-foot tall stick. And it has never produced more than one one perfect rose each year.

I love the velvet texture of roses, and their scent is divine. A rose is Mother Nature's gift to mankind.

Perseid Meteor Shower

I watched the Perseid meteor shower two nights ago, and it was fabulous. In 45 minutes I saw 17 shooting stars. It's all so wonderful and mysterious. When I see something like that, I am reminded of how much I take for granted. Mother Nature is amazing, the Universe astounding, and shooting stars are like the cherry on top of a banana split.

Have you seen the Perseid meteor shower? Did you think it was as wonderful as I did?

Funeral Duty

My cat, Christopher the Assassin, is a killer. If it moves, he kills it. If it's edible, he eats it. If it's not edible, he eats it anyway. I've never owned a more bloodthirsty cat.

Today, on my porch and sidewalk, there's an interesting array of victims: a rat, a mole, a mouse, a shrew, two birds, a snake, and (sob!) a baby bunny. And what does this macho cat do after he's spent the morning hunting and eating? Comes into the house and demands lap time, with accompanying purrs and kneading. Just as if he were a normal, law-abiding cat without feral tendencies.

But I guess that's okay. For the first time in 34 years, I don't have moles in my yard. Since Christopher began hunting moles, I've been mole-free for years.

Now it's time for me to go out and do funeral duty, which means picking up the various bodies and flinging them into the woods. How about your pets? Do you have any critters that are hunters like Christopher?