Wednesday's Wander to the Wayside: Belated Snow Photos

I swore I wasn't going to post any more photos until I had thought of something to post about, but...I haven't thought of anything to post about, so here are photos of our HUGE snow and ice event last week. You would have thought we got two feet of snow instead of 2 inches, judging by the number of snowmen found even two days after the event. Children across the area got another day off from school, and memories to last at least until the next huge snow event.

The photo above is, obviously, the finches that I said make me happy (enlarge, please). There were up to a dozen of them on these three feeders at a time. The reason I put them under the eaves is because of the mockingbird that bullies everyone at the other feeders, and also the starlings were eating all the suet I put out but can't land on the little finch perches and socks.

This is Garrett, posing as if he's going to throw a snow ball at me. Notice the snowman on the chair behind him, left over from Christmas and yet to be put away. I also still have holiday lights on the bushes and around the door, so was the only one in the neighborhood, maybe even in the entire area, who was able to light up the snow that night.

I'm thinking that this snowman looked like a good idea the day of the snow...but two days later, not so much so. It looked like a giant penis (with eyes and a hat).

I thought this was such a clever idea, putting a patch of grass on his head for hair.

You can see by the leaves in the snow that they really had to scrape the ground to have enough snow for three snow people.

This was probably the most fashionable one I saw, and must have been quite the dashing snowman two days before!

It looks so funny to see all these snowmen but with no other snow around them!

This is Conner's snowman(men) at his house. A little on the short side, but so is he! And in his defense, it had done a good deal of melting by the time I took this photo.

I thought this was quite imaginative, a snow dog. Just kidding, it's actually a Georgia bulldog statue. (haha, that's my feeble attempt at humor)

Yes, another one.

We rarely get cardinals in our yard because of the woods behind us, but this one came by to peck at some fallen suet under the butterfly bush. Last week I thought I had a cardinal in another bush and got the binoculars out for a look-see, but it was only that stupid mockingbird doing an excellent imitation. I'm hoping this cardinal will go tell his friends that I have food.

I almost feel the need to apologize for doing another photo post, and of things that you can see right out your own door. When I thought about doing a Wednesday's Wander to the Wayside, it was intended to be more about me going out for a drive and exploring, with you in the passenger seat, but more often than not it's only from my driveway to my daughter's four minutes down the road!

Wednesday's Wander to the Wayside

I had to go to town today to pick up some prescriptions, so decided to take a few pictures. Nothing special, just things along the way.

I thought these statues were a thing of the past, but we are in the south. And I think that sometimes they're just displayed as an antique. Or not.

Everything is so brown here right now, so this patch of green moss really jumped out at me.

This is one of those photos that you really do have to enlarge to see what I was taking a picture of! It's an old homestead type place with the old-timey string of goards and a martin house. Both usually get taken over by the sparrows. And yes, I could use my zoom on some of these photos, but then you don't see the surrounding area!

Another one that needs to be enlarged. I love this place with the old barn. The horses hang out on this east side of the barn in the morning, and switch to the other side in the afternoon.

I get a kick out of some of the street signs around here. This is just a few, though some I passed were better (like Murphy's Law Lane) and I just couldn't get the other cars off my ass long enough to take a photo! Maybe I'll start paying more attention and make this a regular feature.

Our woods are mostly hard wood trees, so they lose their leaves in the winter, leaving a huge landscape of brown. But I thought this was kind of pretty.

These next photos are for Dana at Life is Good. She and her husband, Joe, are moving from Florida back to their home in Indiana (kicking and screaming the whole way), and will be driving to within fifteen minutes of our house. So, after some discussion as to whether either of us is an internet predator, they have decided to stop for a face-to-face meeting! They found a hotel at the interstate that takes pets (they have a recently rescued maltese, Beau), so I ran by there to check it out and see if it was a 'safe' area. I took lots of photos so they could see that it's nice looking, has plenty of dog walking area, is right across the parking lot from McDonald's and a Ruby Tuesday, etc.

I'm not going to say the name, because I don't want any googlers coming here wanting reservations, so I'll just say that last year it was a Rd Rf Inn, and now is a Qlty Inn.

This is the view behind the trees of the back edge of the hotel lot.

This is one of the driveways leading up to the hotel there on the left. Go right and there's the McDonalds.

This is the view from the driveway leading to McDonalds. Very well lighted, by the way. And plenty of room to walk Beau as the lot between them is grass and cleared.

Pretty much the same view but a different angle. That's Ruby Tuesday (my gosh they're expensive!) straight ahead on the left side. The interstate is right behind that.

This is the check-in area. Again, well lighted and very clean 'looking'. I only went in the lobby and didn't look at a room, but they were cleaning and it smelled and looked very clean - and not like one of those truck stop ratty looking places where you're afraid to go walk the dog after dark. It's $10 extra for a pet.

I'm really excited about this meeting, and look forward to it. We'll just play it by ear as to how much visiting we do (as they will obviously be exhausted after their long drive from Florida), or whether they feel up to coming to my house. I'm sure we'll be posting photos, so stay tuned at the end of February! Anyone else coming down I-75 between Atlanta and Chattanooga, give me a shout out!

I can't leave without sharing one of my cloud photos! It looked like a giant space ship!

Wednesday's Wander to the Wayside: Christmas Parade

I'm a real scrooge when it comes to Christmas parades. It's been my experience at the one's I've been to over the years that there's way too much advertising - for churches, plumbing, landscaping, cars, banks, politics, whatever - and very little Christmas caroling and kids. I'm sorry, but a politician with a wreath hanging on his car and the wife and kid waving is not Christmas to me. Nor is a backhoe just because it has lights on the cab. I know that the city needs the registration fee that these participants supply for - well, for what, exactly? For the cops that wouldn't be needed if there wasn't a parade? Why can't the businesses that pay the registration fee just decorate their vehicle and keep the advertising out of it or at least minimal...for the simple joy of entertaining the kids?

Garrett and I went to Ringgold's parade a couple of weeks ago, and once again I was disappointed. Sure, there were floats with kids waving, and maybe a speaker blaring carols from it for two seconds as they passed. But I get really irritated when there are fifteen minutes of politicians and plumbers between every one float with kids. The float with Santa took forever to get to us, maybe thirty minutes into a one hour parade- oh wait, it wasn't a float at all, it was Santa on a motorcycle - and he went by so fast that I wasn't even able to get my camera on him for a quick shot! WTF? Even Garrett almost missed seeing him!

I guess the important thing is that the kids enjoyed it for the most part (though there was some whining along the lines of 'when will it be oooveeer?'). I think most of them just wanted the candy that was occasionally thrown at them. We had a problem with some bigger kids standing next to us - every time the candy was thrown out, one of the three boys would jump in front of us and grab up Garrett's share, and the parents did NOTHING. After this happened maybe a dozen times, and Garrett had maybe four pieces of candy, I called them out on it. "ARE YOU KIDDING ME? YOU'RE REALLY GOING TO KEEP JUMPING IN FRONT OF A SIX YEAR OLD SO THAT YOU CAN HAVE MORE THAN YOUR FAIR SHARE OF CANDY?" (with a side glance at the parents, who had been visiting with someone behind them and not paying attention to their children). One of them apologized and handed over some of the candy they had just picked up from in front of me, and they didn't jump in front of him again...and the parents turned forward and started paying attention.

Anyway, here are the pictures from our evening together! We got there early and walked up the street to some of the stores (which takes about three minutes) and to the old train depot that is now a community building and tourist attraction. Garrett and I are like two peas in a pod, so just being together was a huge plus. Then we went to the drive-thru at Taco Bell on the way home - woohoo! When I have the kids for the evening, I really go all out!

As a side note to the parade, here's what I had to eat today: chocolate fudge from David's stepmother that came in the mail the other day, more fudge, a bowl of hot fudge pudding and peach cobbler (side by side) that Melody made for Brent's office luncheon, more fudge, a cookie from a bag that was actually going to be a gift for anyone who might have given me one and for whom I did not get one (because Melody wanted to know if I had any cookies she could take to Conner's play group tomorrow, and I needed to taste them to see if three year olds might like them, which they wouldn't have, so now I have to eat them), and more fudge. Ah, one of the joys of Christmas!