Winnie the Pooh

Photo Challenge Day 10 - Childhood

One thing came to mind when I read today’s prompt: Winnie the Pooh.  That silly ‘ol bear was such a big part of my early years and, to be honest, he still is part of my life today.

When I was a toddler, my body developed an allergy for a host of things:  Johnson & Johnson products, my mother’s lipstick, long-haired dogs and cats, and stuffed animals. Stuffed animals? My first taste of the bitter in life. What is a typical birthday or Christmas gift to a young child? Stuffed animals. What did I have to do with every stuffed animal I received? Give them to my sister. You cannot imagine the tears. Is it any wonder I learned to love books? Is it any wonder I fell in love with the animals in the 100-acre woods?  Rabbit, Owl, Kanga and Roo, Tigger, Piglet, Eeyore, and of course my favorite Pooh.

My mother would tell a story that she was in a toy store and saw towards the back of a shelf a plastic Winnie the Pooh. He was in a box and the cellophane front had been torn. He was so dusty but he was the perfect gift for you. The lady behind the counter couldn’t believe I wanted him but I knew he was special. 

I don’t remember what birthday that was but maybe my 5^th? I wrapped my heart right around him, his glistening eyes, rosy cheeks and his cheerful smile. We became inseparable.  I slept with him every night for years, never minding his hard plastic body, just loving that my best friend was there, always there. This little guy went everywhere with me, even to college (though I no longer slept with him by that time) and he's lived in every house that I have lived in. My mother painted a portrait of him in 1972. I cherish that as well.  Good, it is so very good.

In his early the years, my best friend Pooh took some abuse. My brother burned his upper lip with a cigarette to get me where it hurt over something I had done that he didn’t like. My brother also stabbed him once, which is there is a bandaid is on Pooh’s belly.  That bandaid? Ancient. He was put in the toilet countless times and even hung from the ceiling fan by a rope around his non-existent neck. When people talk about issues they dealt with in their childhood, these are at the top of my list. But I saved him, dried him off, cleaned him up, bandaged his wounds and loved him through it all.

Pooh and I are together still.  He stays on a shelf in my bedroom. His faded and worn face so wonderfully familiar, so reminiscent of my mother’s love, of the Winnie the Pooh connection between us. He is my favorite friend, favorite story. One thousand stuffed animals could never replace him.

 

Lacing up

Photo Challenge Day 9 - Daily Routine

Today I offer my walking shoes, worn and in need of replacement though they may be. When I read the photo prompt this morning, I laughed. Since I lost my job in 2009, no two days hold the same routine for me. In some ways that has been refreshing and in other ways that has been very challenging. I like routine, like the familiar. Planning each and every day is a bit of a burden. I work for myself now and I've come to find out that that is a whole lot more responsibility than working for another. Some days I work at home and some days I cannot work at home because of the tv, the dogs, the floors that need constant sweeping or just that I am at home and feel like being at home and not working at home. Sometimes I go to my friend's office and work in her conference room and other times I am one of those people who camp out for hours at Starbucks. What is daily routine though is the morning coffee and walking the dogs.

Although perhaps I should have taken a photo of the coffee because it's pouring rain here today and neither the dogs nor I care to take a stroll in all that wetness.


 

Above

Photo Challenge Day 8 - Your Sky

On Sunday evening, the eastern sky was the palest lilac, so soft and delicate a color. It didn’t seem that the same sky could unleash rain or tornados, could be dissected by planes, or take balloons slipped away from little hands, higher, higher. It didn’t seem the sky could support a single feather.

Monday’s sky was bright blue.

Today’s sky is neither of those. Today’s sky is grey like lead and swollen with the rain it holds. Today’s sky is moody and grumbling, wanting to throw down its power over me, as if I didn’t already know it was there. Today’s sky looks like nothing but air splintered by this tree.


 

No surprise

Photo Challenge Day 7 - Favorite

Are words really needed here? I don't think so.


 

Smile

Photo Challenge Day 6 - Makes you smile

This painting my friend Mary Beth made me, this painting makes me smile. It's big, 36" x 18" and the blue "o"s are painted in blue in a nod to my father's eyes. It was a generous gift and it hangs in my hallway between the dining room and kitchen. The memory and the message are clear; and never fail to make me smile.  

You wear it well

Photo Challenge Day 5 - Something you wore

My friends Jacqui and Carrie gave me this scarf for Christmas. It is so very soft and oh so warm and cozy. The weather here has been consistently chilly and rainy so the scarf has not had a chance to see my closet because it is either wrapped around me or hanging on the back of a chair so that I can easily grab it when I walk out the door. Beautiful and functional.

It's in the mail

Photo Challenge Day 4 - Letterbox

When I moved into my house in 2010, I had very few changes on my list: new curtains in the living room, painting the powder room, and putting seagrass on the stairs so that Cheyenne wouldn't slip and hurt herself. On the outside, I wanted to do a few things such as plant a couple trees and replace a couple of unruly bushes with Gardenias.

And then there was the mailbox. I like mailboxes. I enjoy looking at the different ones when I walk through the neighborhood. Whether they are on a post or column or wall mounted, I think they should be sturdy and clean with clear numbers. The mailbox on my new house was none of those things. It was rusty and unevenly affixed to the fence with zip ties. It had to go.

When friends asked what I wanted for a housewarming gift, there was only one thing. We looked high and low, in stores and on line, before finding the perfect mailbox for me. I wanted it to be fence-mountable and vertical, made of sturdy material, not too plain or ornate, and be black in color. Finally I found the one I had in my mind at a local hardware and gift store. Mounting it prooved to be quite a challenge as it required drilling into the iron fence rails. Thank goodness for determined friends with special drill bits.

Today's photo prompt was Letterbox. Do people write letters anymore? I don't. I write thank-you notes and mail birthday cards but I don't know the last time I penned an actual letter. I've saved many letters that I have received in my life and I keep them in an old hat box. Perhaps I should have taken a photo of that. But it's my mailbox that came to mind when I read the prompt. My lovely mailbox that receives bills, magazines and catalogs, and the occasional hand written card or thank you note. My lovely mailbox that is partially blocked by the rapidly growing Blue Plumbago. I think I'll be trimming that this afternoon.

Adoration

Something you adore. Something? Some things. The internal discussion: But you can't adore things. Humans do not feel emotions for things. This dialog sends me to the dictionary for an exact definition. Adore: Verb 1) To love and respect someone deeply; 2) Worship; venerate. And then 3) To be very fond of <adores pecan pie>.  Really? The difference between fond and adore is a level of degree?

I don't remember my exact age at the time but when I was a young girl, I think seven or eight, I stated to my Grandmother that I loved my boots. She countered that I did not love my boots, that I liked them very much. I did love my Grandmother. She taught me how to read and she encouraged the spark of many ideas in my young head. Of course I argued that I did too love my boots. She, in turn, asked me if I loved my pony. Of course I did! She asked if it was the same feeling I had for my boots. No, not at all. She then said to me that humans do not feel love for inanimate objects.

What, I asked, does inanimate mean?

Look it up.

I did, and I understood.

So today's photo-a-day prompt, something you adore, had me furrow-browed because, yes, I am quite capable of making a little bit of nothing into a big deal. Such is life in my mind.

I found a compromise though.

Day 2

Breakfast. That's my photo-a-day challenge topic for today. I suppose I could have snapped the dogs inhaling their food this morning or my warming up their soft food in the microwave because it's cold and I thought it would be a nice treat for them to have a warm meal. But the prompts are interpretive and I opted for my breakfast.

I'm a creature of habit so I will go through long stretches of the same thing before I get bored. For months, breakfast was yogurt and coffee. For months after that, breakfast was a hard of soft boiled egg and coffee. These days, breakfast is a toasted multi-grain english muffin with a bit of reduced fat peanut butter. And, of course, coffee.

That coffee mug is intentionally blurred since I was playing around with depth-of-field, but it says New York all over it in different fonts and sizes. I bought it when I took my mother to New York for her birthday in 2006. It's a simple thing, just a mass produced inexpensive tourist item, but it makes me smile to have it, to remember where and when I bought it.

The most important meal of the day. 

New

Ah, here we are in the first day of the new year.  It's a dreary one here, chilly and wet from the rains last night and this morning. I like it like this, it's quiet outside, a gentle beginning. Inside, I have a fire burning in the fireplace, Cheyenne is snoring beside me on the couch and Dixie is curled up asleep on Cheyenne's bed that she has taken over for herself. The Tournament of Roses Parade is on the tv. I'm in my comfy pajamas and I intend to stay in them all day, even when I go to my friend's house later on for cabbage, black-eyed peas and some champagne. For now though, the front door open to the cool and quiet outside, the snoring dogs and the parade add up to a perfect New Year's Day morning, by design.

Also by design is a photo-a-day challenge I've opted to participate in this month. Day One's challenge: Me. I offer you a snapshot of myself taken in the living room mirror shortly after waking up. This one not so much to stretch any photography skills but to launch myself into the challenge, which I am doing because I want a daily prompt to launch myself back into this blog.

So, with that, here's me this morning, New Year's Day 2013. Happy New Year to you and yours. I hope it is one that sees you closer to your dreams. See you tomorrow!