Anya, happy baby . . .

A morning face on reddish concrete.

I set the camera before I went outside,

but the lens fogged up almost immediately from the humidity . . .

Very dark skies this morning

(I was on my way to buy groceries)

and this is what the sky looked like . . .

With some perspective . . .

Two minutes later,

the front has dissipated into generic storm clouds.

The great thing?
The rain held off until I was inside
and was done before I left.

When I got home,
this gorgeous swallowtail was on the garage floor . . .

Yes, it's upside down.

Photography rule:
get the photo first "as is",
then you can arrange, change lighting, zoom.

So, I take the photo above.
Then, touch the legs so I can flip it over . . .
Auggghhh - it's alive.

Although, probably not for long.
It crawled for a few inches and then I took this photo . . .

Food for thought from “Time and the Art of Living” by Robert Grudin,

chapters 3 and 4:

III.11  How will we, five or ten or twenty years hence, look back on present time?  Most probably, with envy and regret.  We will wonder why, given youth and health and broad reaches of time, we learned so little, loved so little, risked so little; how so much time could have drained so immemorially down the sink of routine and distraction.  Yet these regrets . . . ignore the broader continuity . . . crucial decisions and opportunities are always before us, no less now than in the past, no less in the future than now.

III.15  . . . by mistaking process for being, and motion for stasis, we tend to fall out of touch with our reality in time – with countless opportunities for enlightenment and will which are offered daily.

III.21  If we did simple exercises for thirty minutes a day, we would greatly improve our strength, health, beauty and life expectancy.  If we studied for one hour a day, we could relatively soon learn languages, master wide knowledge and develop new professions.  If we sensibly invested $1 a day, we would in thirty years control substantial wealth.  If we did ourselves the almost absurdly simple honor of planning our free time, we would enlarge ourselves into a while new dimension of freedom.

III.25  We alternately envy, praise, despise and tease those unusual people who plan ahead, who keep precise calendars of when they will be where, seeing whom and doing what.  Yet in all these posturings we tend to ignore a benefit of their behavior which is at once the simplest and the most spiritual. They can escape despair.  The have cast tow-lines out to the future and can, when necessary, drag themselves through a becalmed or stormy present.  And they have peopled the wilderness of things to come with images of themselves in action or relaxation or festive attire.

III.28  But one thing we must not do is imagine that (the future) contains essential human qualities or unique opportunities which we now lack.

IV.6  Just as one sends a letter from place to place, one may send, to one’s self or others, letters though time.  Photographs, mementos and journal entries are letters we send into the future; and by writing or speaking about events gone by we can communicate to some extent with the past.  To do this regularly and intelligently is to expand our being in time.

Morgan County Fair time.

Love fairs.

Vince and I started at the Merchant's Building.

Honey sticks.

A lesson learned:

Don't let a 3-year-old eat honey sticks

while leaning over your computer keyboard.

Then, the 4-H and Home and Family Buildings.

A first-place quilt . . . 

The poultry area . . .

Scary things,

Castle of the Dead . . .

Kiddy rides with clowns . . .

Vince says the Zipper and the Orbiter are the best rides . . .

Then the other animals,

cows and horses and goats and my favorite, pigs . . .

A late afternoon shadow in the pig barn . . .

And, finally, the tractors . . .

Love fairs.

I'm hoping we'll go again this week.

China Buffet is the place of choice for lunch

on the last Sunday of the month . . .

Food for thought from "At Home in Mitford" by Jan Karon:

He saw Winnie Ivey sweeping the sidewalk in front of her Sweet Stuff Bakery, as she did each and every morning.  It was one of the sights he liked most to see:  someone putting their affairs in order.

I’ve never been one for physical exercise, she said, but what God does with our faith must be something like workouts.  He sees to it that our faith gets pushed and pulled, stretched, and pounded, taken to its limits so its limits can expand.

The trouble with you, Walter had said in a recent phone conversation, is that you’re too prepared.  You don’t give the Holy Spirit room to do wondrous things.  You need to take risks now and then – that’s what makes life snap, crackle, and pop.

Homeless winked and laughed his rasping laugh.  That man is th’ richest whose pleasures are th’ cheapest!

Mainstream Christianity glosses over the fact that it isn’t just a question of giving up sin, but of doing something far more difficult – giving up our right to ourselves.