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It’s Just Nature, Baby.

So, in yesterday’s post, I told you I had lots of nature pics to share. I was going to post them all here. That is until I realized I had more than 30 to share. Even I think that’s a lot of pics for a blog. And I’m a photo nut.

Anyway… I also mentioned the soldier beetle yesterday. Why? Well, ’cause they’re in lots of my pictures.

I was walking with the dogs at our WV place, camera in hand, enjoying the very tall, yellow wildflowers growing in abundance along our driveway. Along the road, too. Me being me, I took a closer look and saw this.

Not too remarkable, eh? Then I saw this.

Um, well, me being me, of course I thought to myself, “Heh, heh, look. Bug sex.” (There’s a kid in all of us you know.)

So I kept looking. The more I looked, the more bug sex I witnessed.

There are lots of yellow flowers. And there were copulating bugs on just about every flower I saw.

Going to town.

I was amazed. Not just at the numbers, but how densely congregated they were.

Next year, I’m thinking there will be lots of baby soldier beetles.

This wider-angle view might give you a better idea as to how many active couples there were.

That one branch of ONE plant, had more than a dozen active couples (go ahead and click on the picture for a close-up, you know you want to).

And there are hundreds of plants! It wasn’t just soldier beetles, either. Check this out…

Amazing. I’d stumbled upon a bug orgy. And I couldn’t resist photographing all of it. Now I feel, well, sort of dirty.

The session wasn’t really all about graphic images of bug sex, but practicing close-up shots. I’m amazed how clear the pictures turned out. Considering I was holding the camera in my hand with no tripod and there was a slight breeze.

Here are a few more cool ones…





If you want to see the entire collection, visit my “Nature” album on Picasa. The SLIDESHOW is the fastest way to see the pics. You can also click on any of the photos above to see a larger view.

I hope you enjoyed the show!

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New Beginnings

Yesterday was a big day in the ToadMama household. A big, big day. The beginning of a new chapter in Hubby’s life. He started his new job. And, even after only one day of orientation, he thinks he’s really going to like it.

“I met about 50 people today,” Hubby reported, as he was telling the family about day one. “And they were all really excited about me joining. It’s been a long time since anyone was excited about having me work for them.”

That just reiterates the fact that his former employers were idiots. It was WAY past time for him to get out of there.

On another front… I do have lots of pics to share from this past weekend. But not enough time right now to get them all posted. So I’ll just share a few. They’re all nature photos. I like nature. And since this blog is letting you experience the world through my eyes, well, here’s the kind of stuff I see.

First, a big, fat toad. He (or she, I didn’t look THAT closely) was on our porch in WV two evenings in a row.


Next, a pretty neat butterfly picture. That’s a SOLDIER BEETLE flying in the background. More on that later this week…


Here’s my favorite ladybug pic. Entomologists call them lady beetles, but that just sounds stupid. “Ladybug” rolls off the tongue better. I think it sounds more natural, too.


And the final bit of nature for today is just another butterfly picture. It’s not a super close-up or anything, I just like the composition of the picture and the vibrant colors.


I hope you enjoyed today’s nature shots. Trust me when I say there are MORE nature shots yet to come. And a weird story, too. I’ll try to get that posted tomorrow.

P.S. – Did anyone notice anything strange about the family photo from my Local Photoshop Disasters post? I thought for sure at least one person would comment…

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Whatever…

I’ve discovered that I am hooked on blogs now. I’m not sure that’s a good thing though. I spent a lot of time this morning searching the Web for great blogs. There are all kinds of blogs out there. Some good, some not.

Of all the blogs I looked at, I only decided one was good enough to bookmark. Julie’s Journal is the blog I chose. What grabbed me hardest was the subtitle, which is…

“Good girls have diaries…Bad girls have blogs.”

Not because I am bad, or even aspire to be bad. But because I want to have fun as I make my way through this life of mine. I think Julie and I might be kindred spirits. I’ll have to visit again, at least a few times, before deciding for sure.

But how can I not like someone who likes using ellipses (…) like I do, uses them incorrectly…like I do, and doesn’t seem to care. She likes Papi, the chihuahua, too. And posts funny pictures of her kids (this one is back-to-school day), even though they are way beyond the cute, cuddly, baby/toddler stage.

She doesn’t mind exploiting her kids either.

She’s real. Or seems to be. I’ll have to visit again to be sure. So far, though, I like what I have seen.

But that’s only one new blog. I need more. Help me out, here.

Is there a good blog you can recommend that will help eat away at what little free time I have? You know, the time I regularly squander doing stupid stuff like searching for new blogs and playing Scrabble instead of doing useful stuff like working (who wants to do that at 6:00 AM anyway?) or writing the next great American novel. Cool Web sites are good, too.

C’mon. Help me out here.

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Blueberry Pancakes


Blueberry Pancakes
Originally uploaded by Pabo76

First things first… I did NOT take this picture. I dug it up on Flickr. ‘Cause as I have said repeatedly, imageless Blog posts are boring.

Why a picture of blueberry pancakes? Because that’s what I had for breakfast. Hubby made them for me. As I sat upstairs, in my office, not working (reading lots of other blogs!).

It has nothing to do with his being an unemployed house-husband. (He starts his new job on September 2.) He’s just nice like that.

I’m a very lucky girl.

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What We’re Missing in West Virginia

cartoon from www.weblogcartoons.com Hubby and I stayed home in MD this weekend. With the long Labor Day weekend looming, we figured we’d just hang out in MD for a change. We actually had a nice day yesterday (Saturday). It was sort of like life before WV.

Neither of us had anything pressing that had to be done. Although I was determined to finish piecing the quilt I have been working on for what seems like forever. More on that later.

Oddly, as I was busy sewing away, it occurred to me out of the blue that we should visit Second Chance. It’s an architectural salvage company in downtown Baltimore That rescues “the wood, metal, marble, plaster, stone and other architectural elements that make [a] building special” which gives those “pieces new lives, in new homes, in new ways, with new uses.”

Second Chance has a dual purpose. They work with low-income residents of Baltimore, training them in a wide variety of skill sets, ranging from carpentry to craftsmanship, with the goal of creating skilled workers who can make a living wage with benefits for themselves and their families. These people “become self-supporting members of the community with new skill sets. At Second Chance, we believe that second chances are not just for buildings, they are for people, too.”

I’ve purchased a few things there for the WV place: kitchen cabinets, the kitchen table top, and a coffee table/end table for the living room. Yesterday we got two very cool cabinets, which are perfect for the WV garage, and two little cabinets to serve as nightstands in the guest room.

Afterward, we went to the nearby Cross Street Market hoping to find something for lunch. Neither of us could decide on what we wanted to eat. So we took the long way home, through the Inner Harbor, which was crawling with Yankees fans. We were heading into Fells Point, trying to decide what/where to eat, when Mike said, “Hey, I wonder if Lenny’s is open.”

Lenny’s is a big deli on the corner of Lombard and Center streets, just east of the Inner Harbor, at the end of a block that was once known as corned-beef row. It is not a fancy place. It has yet to be discovered by the tourists, but the locals and business people love the place.

When I still worked downtown, we’d go there for lunch periodically. Mike always got a reuben (corned beef, sauerkraut, swiss cheese and thousand island dressing grilled on rye bread). I’ve always had a sensitive digestive system and would never dream of eating such a thing in the middle of a work day. Yesterday, knowing we’d be heading home afterward, I decided to have one, too. It was delightful.

This morning, wondering what we missed in WV yesterday, I visited the Hampshire Review Web site. I was amazed to see that the Hampshire Review has a Web Cam. Not only that, they have a You Tube page, too!

There’s a video introducing you to the 2008/09 HHS Trojans (high school sports teams). Another video features Alverde Kelly, a county resident who turned 100 recently. There’s an even an older one, titled Local Pigs Go to State Fair.

Gripping stuff.

Cartoon by Dave Walker. Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons.

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Living in the Moment

I had one of those moments last night. You know, the kind that usually come from out of nowhere, blindsiding you, sort of. The good kind of blindsiding where, once you’ve had the thought, you’re left feeling all warm and fuzzy inside.

It was Thirsty Third Thursday (TTT). Amy and kids are home from their summer in Virginia, so she was able to rejoin he fun.

Anyway, back to the “moment”…

I was sitting in the back seat of Amy’s big-ass SUV (which she needs to transport three kids around safely and comfortably). Amy was driving. Shannon was in the passenger seat beside her.

The two were chatting happily away about Blogs they like. Talking about these people like they know them. I made a mental note at that very moment (not THE moment, which I’ll get to eventually), to check some of them out. I only made it through Woulda Coulda Shoulda and Navel Gazing at Its Finest which led to The NieNie Dialogues which led to C Jane Run (yes, I cried), before I realized time was short, I hadn’t posted to my blog yet, AND I have work to do.

Back to last night…

We’d just had a nice little dinner and a few beers (it was TTT, remember) and were on our way back to Amy’s house. They were chatting away about mundane stuff like blogs and the bloggers that they “Internet-know” (a new term I read on one of said blogs and loved), the prices of gas in MD vs PA vs VA, the different brands of blotting paper they use and which is the best/cheapest (I never knew there was such a thing).

That’s when the “moment” hit. The big realization that my oldest kids, who really are far from being kids any more, have turned into beautiful, happy, healthy young women. And these kids who were “born” to me when they were about 15 and 12–and I was younger than Amy is now!–have grown to mean far more to me than I would have ever imagined possible back then.

I mean, those aren’t the best years in any girl’s life, are they? Adolescence, that is. Imagine us all being thrown together, and me having to act all parental to teenagers when I was barely more than a baby myself (I see that NOW, of course). The ride wasn’t always a smooth one. I knew NOTHING about parenting kids older than 3 (Eric’s age), much less GIRL children on the edge of adolescence.

Now, in what almost seems like the blink of an eye, fifteen years have passed. That’s when it hit me, how lucky I am to have such amazing daughters who have also become my very good friends. (Not to mention 2 of the 4 regular readers of this inane little blog.)

The fact that I didn’t actually birth them makes it even sweeter. They don’t have to like me, after all. I could just be their father’s wife.

That was the moment. It was a good one. I love you both and am very happy to have you in my life!