Nebulous Mooch

I went horseback riding last week and I feel like I should say it was great. There’s nothing better than being close to nature and spending time with one of Earth’s most majestic creatures. In reality, I hated it. I don’t understand why anyone would ride a horse when they could drive a car, ride a bike, or even walk.

I don’t do well with animals, mostly because I don’t know what they’re thinking. I always say that life would be so much easier if animals could talk. Then instead of charging you and barking, a dog could say, “Hey, get away from my yard.” Instead of scratching you, a cat could say, “I’d rather you didn’t pet me right now.” Wouldn’t that be much easier?

My horse’s name was Tango. He was the strong silent type who didn’t really want to listen to anything I had to say. He especially didn’t care to listen to me whenever I said, “Whoa.” I’m sure I was saying it wrong. It’s always the human’s fault, isn’t it?

Tango liked Spanish moss and saw palmetto and was sure to grab a quick snack whenever he passed them. He also seemed to think that I looked like the type of person who liked to ride face first into every low hanging limb on the path. I swear I was picking twigs out of my hair for days.

Here’s a picture of Tango and me. He is eating some Spanish moss, of course. I’m trying not to look terrified. I’m not sure which one of us was happier when the ride was over.

I just realized I haven’t posted any of my pictures here in a long time. These days I’m doing a little photo project that I’m calling In This Room. We’ve been crammed into one small room for awhile now and I’ve been taking pictures of our lives in this room. It mostly features napping. It also features how messy the room is. It’s hard to keep things neat when there is nowhere to put your things. Anyway here are some pictures from that …

I love visiting the SPCA website so I can choose the dog I’ve always wanted, but will never get. The other day when I went to the site I saw a dog that looked surprisingly like my father. Meet Big Boy.

Big Boy

My father

What’s the perfect activity for a senior citizen with an artificial shoulder and osteopenia (brittle bones)? Skydiving of course. That’s what my dare devil of a mother thinks at least. She went on her little skydiving adventure a few weeks ago. I wanted to post the video she has of it, but my tech skills are lacking today and I couldn’t figure out how to import it to my computer. You’ll just have to settle for pictures instead.

Oh yeah … before I show you the pictures, she wants all of you to know that she wasn’t scared at all. Her arms are crossed the whole time because she has an artificial shoulder and they didn’t want the five million mile per hour winds rushing at her to push it out of joint.

my mother and my sister

my mother and a crazy skydiving guy

my mother and my sister’s girlfriend and some crazy skydiving guys

I would’ve started praying here or maybe three hours before this point.

Oh my goodness!!!

Please let the parachute open.

Please let the ground be soft like the mattress on a Sleep Number bed when set to 3.

Whew! I’m lucky it all turned out okay.

I’m sure that if my mother could get to work like this every morning she would. Will I be going with her next time? No way. I like to keep my feet planted firmly on the ground, but my sister says she’s up for ANOTHER jump.

Side Note:

Why does the crazy skydiver guy have a helmet on? Where is my mother’s helmet? Did she refuse to wear one to up the danger factor? Would a helmet really do anybody any good if the parachute failed?

No words today, just pictures.

Here are some pictures I’ve taken since being back in Florida. If I hadn’t lost the wire I need to get the pictures off my camera there would be more pictures, but that’s the way the cookie crumbles.

Yesterday I finally go around to taking the 5 million pictures off my camera. (I’ve noticed that 5 million seems to be my go to number whenever I talk about there being a lot of something.) I always forget that part of being a “photographer” is actually doing something with all the pictures I take.

Anyway, I found some pictures we took in Heathrow the day we left and I thought I’d post them.

Aren’t I looking dignified …

Isn’t he looking goofy …

I think they should put one of these cardboard flag frame things up in every courthouse in the UK and use them for the pictures for the citizenship ceremonies. Standing in one of these with a cardboard cutout of the queen would make a jolly good picture.

We went to Yorkshire for the weekend because my husband was playing at a jazz festival there. It was rainy, foggy and colder than July should be. We went to Filey, a beach town my husband’s family used to go to on holiday. It was so foggy there we could hardly see anything. We also went to the Whitby Abbey. It was super foggy there too. Here are some pictures I took while we were there.

We spent the day in Bath. I’m not much for seeing the sights, so we didn’t pay to go into the Roman Baths. Admission fees just annoy me. (Does that make me cheap?) Instead we hung out and ate some delicious food. I ended up taking a lot of street photography there. Here are some of the highlights.