Falling back in love with going to work.

Footprint trails of my babies who have already left for school. The snow is deep and needs shoveling. These prints make me smile.Their shoe sizes make me scowl.

I like this picture of the black squirrel running down the tree. This is a view of my backyard. These squirrels (tree rats) are amazing gymnasts. I can imagine one hell of an Olympic gymnastics contest between squirrels and chimpanzees.

This is the view down my driveway. I’m afraid to know what those drops are about. I think it’s antifreeze from my daughter’s car.  Rather than shovel, I think I’m okay with smushing the snow down with my truck tires.  Hmm, just had to add smushing to my  dictionary. I think it should have already been there.

Here’s a nice view of my street. It’s a nice quiet side street. As far as I can tell, there is only one vacant house on the block; every other house is occupied primarily by older couples with no children, or younger couples with toddlers. There are two other black families on my street, but I’ve only met one person. He is twenty-something and drives the neighborhood ice cream truck in the summertime.

I don’t know anything about photography, but I do enjoy taking pictures, though mostly still life. I do remember some photo techniques from my grade school art teacher, Sr. Geraldine. It was something about thirds. Anyway, I just want to play at it for a while before I crack open a book about it. The siding on my house has faded horribly in the sun, resulting in a gross shade of brown, hence the sepia. There is much I hate about this house architecturally speaking. My deepest hatred  is for the oddly sized shutters and the scalloping hanging from the useless triangle. You can’t really tell here, but the icicles on either side of the house are massive.  They look very Ice Age-y. This is not a good thing. Nevertheless, I really like this photo.

So back to the walking. I like the pattern of tire tracks here. People going this way and that; evidence of the busyness of life.

Even though it says ‘St’, I use ‘Drive’. Why? Because I think Valleyview Drive has a nicer ring to it.

They don’t call my town ‘Tree City’ for nothing.

Tree City Residents use many of transportation. It would have been nice to have someone walking in this shot. As I was walking a biker rode across the street. I put up my camera, but he crossed before I could get the shot. Fortunately, a second biker happened along right on time!

Today probably wasn’t the best day to wear liquid eye liner. But I’m glad that was the only thing running down my face. I like the blurriness of the scarf in contrast to the un-blurriness of my head. I love the colors in that scarf! What's the photography term for un-blurriness? No, I don't mean focus!

Morning traffic. There isn’t much to this photo, except for the plume of smoke in the background.  I also wanted to get a shot of the snow falling to the ground. I love snow fall. I hate snow landing.

Ha ha! See how I cleverly edited the name of the institution? If I had time, I’d get rid of the stop signs.

One thing I rarely ever do when I’m on campus is sit outside. I don’t know why. There are a lot of attractive spaces to have lunch, read a book or have a friendly chat. With someone else, not by yourself. Or is that implied? I like the esiness of this photo.

I’m not a bird watcher. In fact, I sort of hate them. I hate them because they scare me. But I do like to look at them. I’m a bird looker. 

Almost there. The tall building is the library; twelve stories. I’m uphill and I think that’s why it looks short. I love the dis-proportionality here.

And we've reached the end of our scenic morning stroll to the office. Now it is time to make the donuts! Thanks for walking with me!

Living All Alone - Phyllis Hyman ( 1986 )

You Look Like Shit

Next time I go to the movies, I will be keeping count.

Chris Rocks.

Word of the Moment: INTERESTION

From the tales of Online Dating, we have a new feature, Word of the Day. Today's word is INTERESTION. Here's an example:

WELL I CONSIDER MY SELF INTERESTION SO WHAT R U LOOKING FOR ONE TO CHAT WIT OR ONE TO MEET WITH

Also to be noted in today's lesson, the word myself can be written as two words and punctuation is a lifestyle choice. Don't judge.

Haiku of the Year

It's time to move it

It's time to move it, move it

It's time to move it!

Lyrics from some song I can't remember the name of.

What does the world need from me in 2011?

"Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive and then go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive." Howard Thurman.

Someone in my old meditation group posed the question when considering what occupation she wanted to pursue. The discussion was loosely based on virtuous careers (if there is such a thing), and how to balance between living a peaceful life and existing in the real world. I'm struggling in my present job because it seems so unnecessary and redundant. Simply put, I find it boring. But then as I say to my son, "if you're bored, it's because you are the one who is boring." I need to find a new way to conceptualize my work.

So today, I stumble across this quote from Howard Thurman. I'd never heard of him before, which was a surprise to me. When I was growing up, my parents were determined to instill cultural awareness throughout our home. My mother made sure we never missed a Jet, Ebony, Right On! or Essence when I was growing up. My father made sure we had the Call & Post every Thursday, which is still today Ohio's leading black newspaper. I'm sure I read something of him, but it didn't stick. According to the always reliable Wikipedia, Mr. Thurman  was an influential American author, philosopher, theologian, educator and civil rights leader. I thought what does the world need was a big question. But now I think what makes me come alive is so much bigger and way more relevant.

Off the top of my head what makes me come alive is being creative. Being creative, thinking creatively, repairing or building, cooking, reading, learning are all things that make me feel engaged and plugged in. Recently, I've been really frustrated with the buildup of dog hair in the house. My vacuum didn't seem to be picking up all of the hair. I would find myself on my hands and knees with masking tape trying to remove the excess hair the vacuum just rolled right over. Considering the entire house except the kitchen and baths are carpeted, you can imagine how frustrated I was. Especially since my vacuum is a Bissell Animal Carpet Vac. I bought it for the express purpose of keeping my dog. It was really discouraging. That Dyson jerk kept popping up in my head, but I refuse to give him $500 dollars because he likes his balls.

Now with the holidays, I felt really ashamed to have folks come for a visit. I decided to take a look at the vacuum; broken belt, clogged filters, duh!! Off to the big blue box, spend $25 bucks, tinker, tinker, crack, fix...brand new-live vacuum!! Ta-da!! I was so happy, I vacuumed every inch of carpet I could find. I was genuinely proud of myself for doing what I should have done anyway. Very simple task, but it affected the quality of life in my home. Or maybe just in my mind. But to me it's the same difference. And the dog stays.

So now I figure I need to really focus on activities and projects that give me the same results. I think this is much more interesting than trying to save the world or finding what makes me happy. The vacuum really is irrelevant. Creativity is my fuel.