King of the Castle

When I went to bed last night, I had folded the afghans neatly and put them across the back of the couch. When I got up this morning, I found this dark furry spot.

My dog Max had pulled two of the afghans down and made himself a little nest out of them along with the throw pillows on the couch. You can see him a little better here with some more light on him. Talk about living the life of Riley!!

Everything in this house has been put here especially for him (or so he thinks!).
He is the king of all of he surveys!

King of the Castle!

It's good to be King!

Music Monday---Still by Elvis Costello

Still
sung by
Elvis Costello

These few lines I'll devote
To a marvelous girl covered up with my coat
Pull it up to your chin
I'll hold you until the day will begin

Still
Lying in the shadows this new flame will cast

Upon everything we carry from the past
You were made of every love and each regret
Up until the day we met

There are no words that I'm afraid to hear
Unless they are "Goodbye, my dear"

Still
I was moving very fast
But in one place
Now you speak my name and set my pulse to race
Sometimes words may tumble out but can't eclipse
The feeling when you press your fingers to my lips

I want to kiss you in a rush
And whisper things to make you blush
And you say, "Darling, hush
Hush
Still, still"

Come join Music Monday and share your songs with us. One simple rule, leave ONLY the actual post link here. You can grab this code at LJL Please note these links are STRICTLY for Music Monday participants only. All others will be deleted without prejudice.

Weekend Photo Wrap-up

I got up early Saturday morning to get ready for work and looked out the window. This is what I saw.

Visitors had "decorated" our trees for us during the night.

Our van had been wrapped in plastic wrap.

The empty box was left behind on the van's bumper.

This happens often here, not just at Halloween time, but year round. It is a prank played by friends on friends. Among the teenagers of this town it is a badge of honor of sorts to have your home "decorated" in such a way by your friends. My younger son laughed about the "gift" from his friends and cleaned up the mess in a matter of minutes.

* * * * *

This weekend my town had their Day in the Park celebration. On Saturday, games like three legged sack races, egg tosses, water balloon games, and others were played for fun and prizes. There was an antique car show, a dunking machine, carnival food booths, picnics, and kiddie rides.

At the end of the day, a fireworks display was held over the soccer fields.

I was working at the library during most of the festivities, but here are a few photos from later in the day at the park.


Someone brought this very large dog to the playground at the park.

People walk along the midway.

Folks put their money down for elephant ears and other foods.

Here they had Hawaiian Ice (made and served in Ohio, of course).

This was the Pence's Caramel Corn (and other treats) booth. Pence's is a local company that makes very popular caramel corn.

See if you can win a prize.

Take a walk through the monster fun house if you dare!

Youngsters enjoyed the kiddie rides.

Some of my younger son's friends were there.

The ponies were taking a break from the pony rides.

* * * * *

During the week, I am generally away working at the library during what would be our usual dinner time, and we rarely eat the evening meal together as a family. So on Sundays I try to make a point of fixing dinner for the family.

"Nothing fancy, just food," was something my grandmother used to say about her cooking. That is usually true about my cooking as well. Sunday dinner was chicken drumsticks, noodles, vegetables, and fresh-baked blueberry muffins. The boys seemed to appreciate the fact that I was around to cook for them tonight.

Free Chocolate? I'm There!!

If someone mentions free chocolate, I'm there. This is a picture of what I got in the mail yesterday. WOOT WOOT!


Chocolate is too good not to share with my friends, so I wanted to let my blogger friends in on this fun too. Visit RealChocolate.com at 9:00 AM ET on June 26 and every Friday through September for a chance to get a free Real Chocolate coupon. There is a limit of 250,000 coupons per Friday though, so go early! The coupon is good for a free singles pack of Mars trademarked brands including M&M's, Snickers, Twix, Milky Way, 3Musketeers, or Dove. You can't go wrong with free chocolate, right?

Now getting a coupon for free chocolate is certainly enough reason to make me want to dance. And if you like chocolate, you're going to like this song. Come on get up from behind the computer and move! You're going to want to dance to this one.

My Laundry Helper

My dog, Max, is an outstanding helper when I do the laundry.

My washer and dryer are in the basement. I bring a load of freshly laundered clothes up in a basket and dump them out on the couch where I fold them and sort them before taking them to the appropriate closet or dresser in the bedrooms.

Always at the ready, helper Max immediately comes over, jumps up on the couch, and lies down on top of the clean clothes as soon as I dump them out and start to fold them.

He doesn't like to have his picture taken though. When someone waves a camera in his face, he generally assumes one of two poses. Either the one you see here where he ducks his head and hides his eyes (usually he does this when I have the camera), or he bares his teeth and growls (what he does when anyone else has the camera).

He will continue to lie on the clean clothes the whole time while I have to pull them one by one out from under him to get them folded and put away. Aren't I lucky to have such a good helper?

Please Keep Ohio Libraries OPEN!!

Although, I try to keep things light on this blog, today I have something important to me to talk about. I hope you will indulge me with a few minutes of your time.

As many of you know, I am a librarian. My local library made front page news again yesterday, and once again it was NOT good news. You can click on the picture to enlarge it if you'd like to read the article.

At work yesterday, this is the flyer we were passing out to patrons requesting them to read it and take action if they would like to continue to have the library services be available to them.
I think these things are self explanatory, so I won't go on and on about them. I do want to say that since the downturn in the economy, our library has had a 20% increase in usage, and yet, we have already been forced to take a 20% cut in funding. This new proposal will increase the cuts an additional 32%.

Not only am I a library worker, I am a library user. Even if I weren't employed by the library, I would be extremely concerned about losing the services and materials available to me and my family and my community there.

As it is, I was informed yesterday by my supervisor that if these proposed budget cuts go through on July 1st, I will be out of a job. All part-time workers (which I am) and even some of the full-time workers there will be let go. So obviously, I have a personal stake in the outcome of this proposal as well.

I am asking any of my readers who are from Ohio to please contact the governor and your representatives about this issue and make yourself be heard if you would like to continue to have your local library open and available to you. Thank you for your time and listening to me express myself about this issue.

* * * * *

Now, since I don't generally go off into political issues on this blog and since I'd like to leave you with something to smile about, here is something to thank you for reading this far into this post.

I wanted to share this video with you today. My friend Michelle from the blog Crow's Feet sent this David Letterman clip to me, and it made me laugh.



Please, if you are a resident of Ohio, don't "play dead" the way this dog did. Contact the governor and your legislators about the recommended budget cuts proposed for Ohio libraries. These budget cuts will affect libraries all over the state not just the ones in my area of Ohio. If you use the services and materials available to you through your library and don't want to have them taken away from you, make your voice heard. Thank you.

Weekend Photo Wrap-Up

I meant to post these photos on Sunday, but I was having some computer issues then, so I'm doing it now.

First are a couple of photos from Friday night. Our town was having the annual street carnival known as the Jubilee. For a week our downtown square is transformed to a festival. We walked around to see it, but it looked pretty much as it does every year. Lots of rides, noise, music, bright lights, fattening foods, and fun.

And some sparkly things too! I'm not sure what these are---something that was for sale there. They looked like they might be some sort of headgear for a little girl to don so she can dream of being a princess. The sparkly colors caught my eye, so I took a picture.

If you'd like to see the photos I took of last year's Jubilee, please click here.

* * * *

On Saturday, we traveled to Bowling Green State University to attend the string camp concerts that my son was performing in and to bring him home from camp.

It was rather dark in the auditorium, so my pictures didn't turn out very well, but here he is on the left getting ready to play a duet with another bass player in a chamber piece.



After the chamber piece was through he gave me a big smile.

We met up with his girlfriend and her family for lunch. (She also attended the camp and had been playing her violin in a chamber piece in another hall.) This picture is rather blurry, sorry for the poor quality.



After lunch we returned to campus to hear the entire orchestra play several songs in the big auditorium at the music building. Photos weren't permitted in that hall.

From there, we went to the dorm room where my son had been staying all week to pack his belongings up into the car. This is the outside of the dormitory building. This is the same dorm that I stayed in as a freshman in college.
The rooms were just as small as I remembered them being (if not smaller!!).



A little bed, a little closet, a little dresser, and a little desk times two were all crowded into the very cramped space.

* * * * *

On Sunday, my sons went with their Dad on an outing to Chicago Wrigley Field to watch the Cleveland Indians play baseball there in celebration of Father's Day.

My sons are all smiles at the stadium.


Some members of a jazz band were standing on the stairs there.


This was the view of the field from their seats.

The weather was perfect and there was a crowd ready to watch baseball.

Unfortunately, the Cleveland Indians didn't bring home a win (so what else is new?!), but the fellows got some good male bonding in at the game.

While they were at the game, I visited my Mom and then spent a quiet day at home working on some projects that needed my attention.

* * * *

My Morning Glories are doing well and have begun to vine. They are just starting to cling to the iron rails by the porch.