Oh my gosh! I’m alone for 20 minutes! Grab the remote, a cup of tea, a snack and run a bath! Hurry!

I wave to the husband and the kids and smile, sitting calmly in the chair, surprised by the sudden time alone.

They pull away from the house and still I sit, appearing to be calmly contemplating what to do with myself. But inside my mind is racing.

I jump up and race for the kitchen.

My thoughts are jumbled but determined.

Oh my gosh! I’m alone for 20 minutes! Grab the remote, a cup of tea, a snack and run a bath! Hurry!

They’ll be back before you know it and you’ll be back to fetching juice boxes and arguing over how many more math problems he has to do before he’s done with school for the week.

Tea. Tea. Tea.

Where are the tea bags? Where are they?! Oh! Here they are! Yes!

The dog is by the door. No. I don’t have any time for letting a dog out. I must hurry.

Ross Poldark is waiting for me.

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Let the dog out onto the porch, but her lead is stuck around the slide. Unhook the lead from the slide, hook her up, coax her out the door, run back inside, out of the biting cold wind that came with the temperature drop.

Put a cup of water with a tea bag in it in the microwave, put some peanut butter on some rice crackers, take the tea out and add some honey and then tip the entire cup full over, onto the counter and down to the floor.

Yell, “Damn and blast! Damn and blast!” in my best Rex Harrison in My Fair Lady voice. (Special note that I only approve of “swearing” if it can be said in one’s best Rex Harrison voice.)

Don’t be discouraged. Keep going.

Clean up the mess and put another cup of water with a tea bag in the microwave.

Once the mess is cleaned up and the tea is done rush to the living room and click play on Poldark, who is deep in brooding mode (yet again) while I copy photos to a flash drive and tap out the first draft of this blog post and then start the Sunday Salon post for Sunday about what books I’m reading.

Halfway into an over-dramatic scene between Ross and Elizabeth, the front door swings open and kids and a bedraggled-looking husband emerge. Total time alone: 20 stinking minutes, if that.

Trips to Walmart with two kids take me an hour, maybe longer. For my husband? Twenty stupid minutes.

Damn and blast, indeed, Rex.

Quieting the creative voices of others so you can hear your own

I fell into one of those Youtube spirals the other night (like one does) and I caught an interview from last year with Ellen and Bradley Cooper. Ellen asks Bradley if he is on social media at all, although she admits she already knows he isn’t. When he says “No, I’m not.” she feigns shock and says “Oh my gosh. What do you even do with yourself?”
He laughs, shrugs and mumbles something about being able to waste a lot of time on the internet without social media. But really, a better answer, since he was there to talk about a movie he was filming, would have been, “I create.”
“A Star is Born” comes out this week and Bradley both stars in it and directed it. If he had been sitting around wasting his life on social media, getting distracted by the drama and ridiculousness that can be found on it, he might never have made the movie or made the music for it along with Lady Gaga and Luke Nelson.
Lady-Gaga-and-Bradley-Cooper-in-A-Star-is-Born-2018-670x335Imagine all the books and paintings and songs we would never have heard if social media had existed earlier than it had. Yes, there are good things about social media for a creative. We can share our creations and our art to a wider audience and immediately. But what we lose in that immediate interaction is taking the time to really develop and plan our craft before we throw it to the world. What we lose is the time to actually create because we are distracted by looking at either the work of others or the drama of others.
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We are squelching our inner voice because we can’t hear it over the shouts and creations of others. We are comparing and contrasting and then going back to our creative work, thinking we can’t create as well as the others we’ve seen. Or maybe we think can do the same, but end up disappointing because we never give ourselves time to really develop the skills we need to create, as well as, or better than, those we admire.
Bradley Cooper worked with a voice coach, musicians and others for almost a year and a half,l before creating what many are calling a masterpiece. He had a vision and he put the work in to complete and present that vision.
If he had wasted his time on the distraction that comes with social media, he may have never reached his goal of creating something he is extremely proud of.
Though I don’t know what Bradley Cooper’s personal reasons for not being on social media are I do think abstaining from it strengthens his creative voice. It’s something other creative people, or anyone with a goal they want to reach, should try as well.

What I’ve been shooting (10 on 10 for October)

The month of September was the proverbial bad word that I won’t say here because I’m a good Christian girl. I tossed a lot of things I usually care about aside simply to survive the month and all the bizarre little things that kept going wrong. One of the things I gave up was worrying about whether or not I could make money with my photography. Another thing I had to let go of was trying to create images that would get me hired in my area. I just want to create images I like and if other people don’t want them hanging on their walls, that’s fine with me. I think sometimes we have to create to set our own souls free and if we set some others free at the same time that’s simply an added bonus.

This post is part of a blog circle where a group of photographers, artists and creators share ten images from the previous month, taken either on one day or throughout the month. You can find the link to the next person in the circle at the end of the post. This month I decided to share some of the images I’ve been creating just for me. I’d love to see the images, art, or words you’ve been creating. Feel free to add a link to them in the comment section even if you’re not part of the 10 on 10 Lifestyle Group (on Facebook)

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DSC_4995.jpgDSC_4850-2DSC_5142DSC_3759-2DSC_3381-2DSC_4807-3DSC_5153DSC_2144DSC_5277DSC_5636To continue to find other artists sharing today in the 10 on 10 blog circle, click over to see the beautiful images of Shea Kundler.

To follow my work you can catch me on Instagram at www.instagram.com/lisahoweler or at my photography site at www.lisahowelerphotography.com or on facebook at www.facebook.com/lisahoweler.

Tell Me More About . . . D’Vine Vineyard

When Dave Page found himself interested in growing a vineyard on his property in Columbia Crossroads, Pa., he had no idea the plot of land that he’d set aside for growing grapes would become a sought-after wedding destination for brides and grooms.

When you step outside the front door of Dave and Denise Page’s home there is a four-acre field lined with 1,800 grapevines of eight different varietals of grapes. Off to one side of what Dave calls “D’Vine Vineyard” (incorporating he and Denise’s names) is a handmade wooden pergola with a swing where brides and grooms pause to have their photos taken on their wedding day. Across the road from the vineyard is a rustic barn, sprawling cornfields, and a mini orchard of apple, peach and plum trees. Behind the barn is a pond that looks like a painting and an empty field perfect for setting up tents and tables for wedding receptions or other celebrations.

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DSC_2557Dave owns a total of 120 acres, part of which he rents out to a neighboring farmer to grow corn.

Denise says it was their niece who unwittingly started the now thriving wedding venue business in 2014 by telling the Pages she thought their rustic barn and the former working farm would be the perfect location for her wedding.

Though puzzled by the interest in the barn, built in 1907 by Dave’s great-grandfather, Fred, the Pages agreed to the request and began to prepare the space for wedding guests. The barn hadn’t been a working barn since Dave sold the cows off in the 1980s and was only being used to store equipment and hay. The Pages would soon learn that vintage, rustic, old-fashioned, or whichever term you might want to use, were becoming popular themes among young, and even older, couples as they looked for wedding venues.

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Their nieces’ wedding was photographed by Danielle Barden, a well-known wedding photographer from Tioga County, Pa., who shared the photos on social media, Denise says. The photos went semi-viral and more requests for the location began to flow in. The vineyard, located about 40 miles South of the New York Finger Lakes region, has booked close to 50 weddings and events since that first wedding in 2014.

DSC_2562The Pages were pleasantly surprised by the attention but didn’t make plans to quit their day jobs to start a full-time venue or event location.

Instead, Dave still works as a classifier for the American Holstein Association and Denise is a full-time nurse. A full-time event venue and winery may come someday, but not until they both retire, says Denise. For now, the pair books weddings or other events for the weekends, in a space where the renters do most of the work, including setting up and tearing down. Their children Brandon and Denee and daughter-in-law Cheryl help the Page’s run the business.

Denise and Dave never expected their site to become such an attraction, they say. The land began as a dairy farm more than 100 years ago and is one of only a few century farms in Bradford County. Five generations of Dave’s family farmed the land.

The farm was passed to Dave in the 1970s by his grandparents, Max and Louise VanVeghten. The barn is all the original wood, having only a new roof put on a couple of times over the years and some of the floorboards have been replaced. An addition was added around the time Dave took over. Dave has now turned the bottom of the barn, and part of the addition, into an area to press and ferment the wine, as well as a small bar area to be used to serve guests refreshments. The wine press is locked off from guests during events, per state law.

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Last year Dave also turned one of the old stalls into a changing room for the bride and her bridal party, complete with full-length mirrors, outlets for hairdryers and curling irons and even an old barber chair where hair stylists can prepare the bridal party members’ hair.

Dave added the deck to the back of the barn around the time of the first wedding.

Until he retires, Dave spends any free time he has testing wines, experimenting and sharing the results with a select few. He’s happy to show friends and family the wine bladder presses, the bulk milk tanks that he’s transformed to hold the wine, and the barrels where the wine ages, he says.

But for now he’s only making what he calls practice wine.

“We have a license in holding but we don’t bottle,” according to Denise. “We make wine for our own use. In the future probably we will do festivals.”

To learn more about booking D’Vine Vineyard visit their website at https://dvinevineyardandwinery.com/ or follow them on Facebook.

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On the eve of her fourth birthday

And there she was, drifting off to sleep on the eve of her fourth birthday. There was pink in her hair and I wondered what it was since we’d just washed our hair together tonight in the tub. Then I remembered she’d got paint in it a week before and apparently I hadn’t got all of it out in the bath that night. I thought about how much I loved noticing those little details of her childhood.

The day before she’d been sitting on the hill, in the grass and fallen leaves, outside her grandparents’ house, wearing a shirt on backward, since she still hasn’t mastered how to put them on the right way, with rainbow pants and chocolate smudged on the corner right above her upper lip, left over from the brownie cake her grandma and grandpa had made. After her bath, the day before her birthday, she put on an adorable, felt looking pink dress, as if she was preparing to wake up the next morning ready to celebrate her official birthday, one I couldn’t believe was already here.

She was the baby we never expected and the one we never knew we needed.

She delights us, surprises us, aggravates us and most of all she completes us.

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A downhome, country wedding . . .

Laid back weddings in the country are my absolute favorite type of weddings to photograph so when Travis’ mom called and asked me to photograph a simple country wedding at Mt. Pisgah, I was absolutely delighted. When I met the adorable, light-hearted and friendly couple I was even more delighted. I wasn’t able to meet Crystal and Travis ahead of the wedding since Travis was traveling for work and they were temporarily living in another state. The day of the wedding Crystal was helping to set up her own reception and smiling all the way through it and Travis and his groomsmen were unsuccessfully trying to figure out how to fold the handkerchief for their tuxedo jacket pockets.

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Back at the couple’s house, recently purchased but not yet furnished because of the move for work, Crystal and her bridesmaids were full of laughter as they dressed and worked on the complex but beautiful back of the wedding dress, looping strands of fabric together to create it’s criss-cross pattern. The bridesmaids had been given only one instruction for their dresses – make them a bright, cheerful blue and they each complied while choosing styles that fit their unique body types.

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The house was an old farmhouse that I guessed could have been built anytime from the late 1800s to the early 1900s. The light fixtures and much of the wallpaper seemed original and was distracting to this documentary-style photographer who is also a history buff.  I wanted to hold an entire shoot on the wooden, vintage staircase where sunlight was pouring in from an upper window and casting a square pattern on the rustic floral print wallpaper. Before the wedding, the light was hitting perfectly but in my rush to photograph the groom and groomsmen before the wedding I forgot to pose the bride in the stream of light until during the reception when I followed her into the house and asked her to stand in the light, now fading and less eye-catching than before.

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Up at the site for the wedding, next to the lake at Mt. Pisgah State Park in Bradford County, Pa., the grass had not been mown where the nuptials were supposed to be held, due to a month long of wet weather, pushing the ceremony to the pavilion. The inconvenience didn’t phase the couple who continued to smile and take it all in stride. The officiant focused his remarks on the power of love while the bride and groom smiled at each other, Crystal’s mischevious temperant in full view as it remained for most of the day, when she stuck her tongue out briefly at Travis who smiled and shook his head. Much of the time it was as if the were the only ones there, both of them forgetting their family and friends were looking on.

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Once their union was announced, and the kiss gave, they gathered for photos of the bridal party and family. Crystal, a collector of visual memories, was sure to ask for photographs of her and Travis with their closest friends and family, careful not to leave anyone out and cognizance of each person’s feelings.

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DSC_3551The day finished with a downhome, fun reception in the couple’s backyard, catered by Rooster Ridge BBQ and Catering in Barton, N.Y. and featuring a photobooth by The Photo Shack of Athens, Pa.

Thank you, Travis and Crystal, for letting me be part of your beautiful day.

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The heartache is real as family farms start to fade away

It was a humid August night and the field next to the now defunct dairy barn was full of equipment and maybe a couple hundred people. An auction trailer was set up off to one side and to anyone driving by it might have looked like some sort of community festival, complete with hot dogs and drinks and baked goods. But this wasn’t a party or celebration; it was the end of an era.

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The Robbins family had been farming this land and milking cows here for more than 40 years but debt and the inability to survive financially forced them to make the hardest decision in their lives – sell the farm equipment and the livestock. If that sale didn’t cover the debt they’d sell the barn, house and property too, Billie Jo Robbins said, admitting she was unsure what the future held for her family but that her faith in God’s plan for their lives was helping to lessen some of the anxiety.

She had taken a job at the local bank the year before to try to help the farm stay in business, but as milk prices dropped and operation costs rose, the family couldn’t plug the holes fast enough. Her husband, Paul, recently took a job at the local cheese making factory and the dream of passing the farm on to their two sons, Matthew and Kevin, is now gone.

The loss of a family identity and business is heartbreaking but even more heartbreaking is that the Robbins aren’t alone in their struggle and forced life changes.

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“Local dairy farmers forced to auction off farm.”

It’s a headline that should be in more newspapers and on more news sites than it is because it is real and it is happening in Bradford County, Pennsylvania, where the Robbins live, but also all across the country.

It isn’t only dairy farmers being forced to close their doors. Farmers of all types are being crushed under the blow of low product pricing, but dairy farms are being hit the hardest and according to various media outlets the hard hits are coming for a variety of reasons, one of those an oversupply of milk. Some question if the push for people to drink less dairy and more plant-based proteins is one reason the dairy industry is suffering, but this seems unlikely with Americans love of ice cream, pizza and milkshakes still going strong.

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And even worse than the farms closing down are the suicides of farmers who collapsed mentally and emotionally under the weight of the pressure and the feeling of failure.

According to an article on the National Public Radio (NPR) site, one co-op had three out of 1,000 farmers commit suicide in three years, and while those stats might not seem alarming by quantity the fact they are happening at all when at one time they weren’t, is frightening.

Even here in Bradford County farmers are receiving letters from their co-ops, first with dismal news about the future of dairy prices and the information for suicide hotlines and how to find counselors.

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DSC_9324_1DSC_9268Standing in that field the day of the Robbins’ auction one has to wonder who these buyers are. Local farmers? Corporate farmers? Farmers barely getting by themselves? Billie Jo wondered too and admitted it felt awkward selling their equipment to farmers who may be struggling the same way they were. She didn’t recognize many of the people there but others she knew because they were there for something more important than buying.

“Many came here simply to support us and that means so much,” Billie Jo said.

Farmers support each other, which is one reason many farms in this area of Pennsylvania are surviving at all.

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Sitting in a truck, waiting for her husband, a farmer from Troy says she doesn’t know what the main reason for milk prices dropping so low is but she feels before long the Bradford County landscape won’t be dotted with very many family farms anymore. She and her husband, now in their 70s, own a dairy farm and can’t imagine doing anything else. They’ll keep farming as long as they can.

Knowing they aren’t alone in their heartache or their struggle helps the Robbins deal with their situation easier than some might. Their faith in God keeps them trusting that beauty will come from ashes.

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To read more about the struggles of dairy farms in Pennsylvania you can visit my posts on The state of dairy farming in Northeast Pennsylvania: tangible struggles, palpable heartache and immeasurable joy and The Farm and Tell Me More About . . . Mark Bradley, Sayre Pa Dairy Farmer

The town that lost its’ library

The day the library died in the tiny town of New Albany, Pennsylvania, rain fell from the clouds like a waterfall and didn’t stop. The already saturated ground gave way with nothing left to hold it in place. A week before the bottom floor of the library had taken on water in another flash flood, most likely weakening the foundation.
Volunteers were working to clean out the ruined books two days before the water rose again, sending water rushing up around the building as it had before, across the major highway running through town and toward the gas station in the middle of town.
This time the building couldn’t withstand the rush of the water. No one had expected it all to wash into highway it had sat next to for over 60 years, crumbling like a matchstick house, but it did, taking with it some of what one community member called “the dedication of so many to keep it going.”
The downstairs of the building, where the library was, was empty of people when the building collapsed, but a family upstairs was there and held on tight to each other as it fell and their apartment landed fully intact in the water rushing by. Neighbors and the local fire department helped to rescue them, pulling them out and across the rushing water to safety.
The building hadn’t always been a library. A few times it had been a store and above it was an apartment for those who ran the business downstairs. After it became the town library many volunteers, most middle-aged to older women who were retired or homemakers, filled it with books, organizing and categorizing and creating a gift for what some might call a dying town.
Inside its walls were whole new worlds; voices never before heard, thoughts never before thought, dreams never before dreamed, chances to be given, opportunities to be provided, and lives to be escaped for just a little while.
For some, a library doesn’t seem very important, especially in this modern age when books can be read on digital devices and smartphones. But to a town without much, a library can provide a sense of community, a sense of imagination, and even a feeling of belonging.
“Expand your mind” is the encouraging message added at the top of the library’s Facebook page, updated the week flood waters first damaged the library.
Who could blame members of the town if they felt a desire to give up a little bit more on the town when they saw the crumbled ruins of the library either in person or in photos. Some 30 years ago the only factory in town closed, and in subsequent years the town pool was filled in, the only local supermarket burned to the ground, the town bank closed, the elementary school closed, the population began to dwindle and hope began to fade.
The factory never came back but the store reopened and later became a mini-mart and gas station, there was still a post office, a beauty shop, a borough park where the pool once was, and a sense of community- if only one that hung by a thread.
While the town may be dying from an economic standpoint, there are some trying to keep the community feel alive by organizing family days, fire company fundraisers, and, of course, preschool storytime at the library.

Let’s be honest, anyone trying to keep the community feeling in a small town alive today should be commended since it isn’t the physical community that is dying in today’s society, but the idea behind what a community really is. Defined by Webster’s dictionary as “a feeling of fellowship with others, as a result of sharing common attitudes, interests, and goals,” the psychological idea of community is fading into a world where our primary form of communication is smartphones and social media, or anything that doesn’t involve actual in-person interaction.

When photos of the library smashed in the middle of Route 220 surfaced on social media last week a deep feeling of loss was expressed, maybe because so many remembered a simpler time when talking to people face-to-face was normal and days for reading and focusing on less than 10 activities at a time was normal.

 

Honestly, there isn’t much to the town anymore, in some ways. I grew up two miles from there and many of my days were spent riding bikes with my best friends, Julia and Sarah, on its’ streets. I attended the elementary school, swam in the community pool, walked to the local store for snacks, ate with my grandmother at the small diners that are now gone, and yes, even visited the library a couple of times.
For me and others, losing the library was like watching even more of the community break away. After the most recent flash flooding, the library won’t be the only building that will have to be torn down, a fact that only adds to the heartbreak.
“I can’t remember a time without the library,” one man said.
His mother, Doris, was one of the volunteers who worked to build the library’s collection. Now in a nursing home, she asks visitors from her hometown, “How’s the library doing?” Family and friends have decided they won’t tell her the truth about the building, but instead simply let her believe, as they’ve always told her, “It’s doing well.”
Another resident, Todd, said, “The library was a labor of love of so many people. There were many times when some thought it was not used and thus not needed, but these people persevered and keep it going. There were times when hardly anyone came, but they still were there during operating hours. The people were dedicated to keeping the library open, found ways to bring in new books and create programs for kids. And most recently, it became a place for local histories and genealogies. Breaks my heart to see it completely washed away. “
“I remember being very young and going to get a book. It was a big deal to be able to pick your own book out!” a cousin of mine, Gila, said. “I started volunteering at 16 with Doris. I’d stay a few years and then move on. I always came back.

She was one of the main volunteers running the library, updating and rearranging it in the years and months before the flood destroyed it.
Volunteers aren’t yet sure if, or how, they’ll rebuild the library. A fundraising effort has started and the hope is that one day they’ll find a new home where they can again open a  small bastion of imagination, nurtured community and unvetted learning in a small, sometimes physically crumbling town.
Since I recently rediscovered my love for reading full books, and not only short excerpts, I’d love to see the fundraiser succeed and for the spark of knowledge to be lit again. And maybe through it, a desire to rebuild the other parts of town damaged or falling apart even before the flood.
To learn more about the fundraiser to rebuild the library click on this link….

August 10 on 10 Zooma the Wonder Dog’s summer follies

This is part of a monthly blog circle where photographers and bloggers share ten photos from the previous month on the tenth day of the month. To follow the circle find the next link at the bottom of the blog post, after my dog has finished her ramblings.


I haven’t been anything but trouble this summer.

DSC_5444That’s what my Mooom tells me anyhow.

She’s not really my Mooom but that’s what the short, loud human calls her so I do too. Plus she’s like a mama to me now that I live here with the human daddy and Plaything One and Plaything Two. She feeds me, cuddles me, tells me I’m a good girl and she even scolds me, just like a mama.

This summer she’s scolded me a lot. She doesn’t let me have any fun.

Before I go too much further I should tell you who I am. I’m Zooma the Wonder Dog, and I’ve talked to you before, filling you in on my adventures since I was adopted from the farm.

I hear my name yelled a lot these days and I happily bark back at the sound, even when it’s said in “that way” – the “annoyed tone” as Moooom calls it.

“Zooma!” “Zoooooma!” and “ZOOMA!” are how I hear my name a lot. It’s usually followed by statements such as:

“What are you eating?!”

“Stop eating that!”

“Get down off that table!”

“Did you just pee in there?!”

“That’s not where you poop! You poop OUTSIDE!”

“Leave the cat alone!”

Ah. The cat.

I call her The Beast.

She totally loves me. She does.

Don’t let the flailing and hissing fool you. We’re best friends. We totally are. She loves when I nip at her ears and chase her up onto the couch and corner her under the table. Those flying paws are a simple greeting of joy and adoration. Sure, she catches me with one of those sharp things on the end of her feet sometimes but I’m certain it’s a total accident so I just keep showing her love until she starts to love me back.

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It’s been real hot lately and I have what Moooom calls “lovely fur” all over me so I feel really, really hot when I’m in the backyard watching the neighbors push machines around their yards. Moooom says I’m supposed to be outside doing something called “my business” but since I have no idea what that is I usually just go out there and lay in the grass, chase the fat buzzing thing with wings that flies out of the hole under the house, tip my head at the other humans getting in and out of those loud things called cars and finding a new way to twist myself around Plaything Two’s table. ‘

When I get twisted around the table and cry Mooom gives me extra attention and says things like “Oh. You poor thing. How long have you been like this?” And then she pets me and hugs me and lets me kiss her face without saying things like: “Ew. I know where that tongue has been. Don’t you dare lick me.” which is what she normally says when I try to kiss her.

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Sometimes when it’s hot outside Plaything One and Plaything Two splash in something they call a kiddie pool. I like to bite at their ankles and toes and listen to them scream as they step out of the pool and then sometimes I stick my head in the pool and slurp out the water.

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I like Plaything Two because she feeds me all kinds of yummy treats, even when Moooom tells her to stop it. Mom calls Plaything Two, “Grace,” but I like to just call her Plaything Two. Plaything One is fun because he runs a lot and I try to bite his ankles and his shirts while he runs. Mom calls him “Jonathan” but again, I’m just sticking with Plaything One. He flails his arms wildly, and screams all crazy like while he runs, which is always entertaining to watch.

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Well, it’s been a long day of chasing The Beast and chewing up cardboard, bones, paper bags, Plaything Two’s toys, and having some ice cream at Johnny D’s, so I think I’ll take a nap, probably in the middle of the floor again so Moooom can say “What in the world dog? You can’t find a better place to lay?” and I can look at her with that innocent expression I’ve mastered, complete with the head tilt, raised ear and lolling tongue.


To continue this months 10 on 10 blog circle visit Jennifer Blake at Blueberry Hill Images