Home again, home again, jiggity jog

     I have been gone on an extended trip, a working trip and come home thinner and very grateful for my life here.  We saw several accidents, which were horrifying, found that the cottage we were to stay in had been burgled and even the bedroom furniture taken so that I slept on a couch with a throw pillow the whole time we were there.  We emptied the house and cleaned it up as best we could and there was no time for fun in sunny Florida.  I wouldn't go back for a mint of money!   Florida was interesting though, as it always it.  It seemed to me that the Spanish Moss was thicker than I remember.

 If you look closely, upper third,  left of center, you can see an opportunistic moss attached to the phone wire where it is looped!

We loaded the car to capacity and beyond.  I loved this picture because if you look at the window you see a reflection of me, taking the picture!

     The trip was a good distraction from the sadness of finding out my old friend Ida had left this earth for Heavenly pleasures, (no doubt about that, none).
And another sadness, my youngest daughter has moved across the country to Seattle.  I have had the pleasure of her company all these years and now she has gone away to have adventures apart from me.  I miss her more than I can say.  I helped her pack and move and in cleaning out the house, brought many things back to my own house.  When I realized that she was really gone, I got some of those things out and spread them around, to use and to think of her and be grateful that she has been so near all these years.

 Her parasol is awaiting repair to the handle.

 The pantry is full of a motly assortment of new stuff.

 The clothes pins I fasten plastic bags shut with have a new container.

 My hair clips now reside in the box she used to use.

 This tiny cup was detached from a tea ball to become a companion to an India silver teapot.  The dolls will have a teaparty for Christmas, of course.

 This stone sculpture by another daughter, Jude, now lives on the hearth.

   This Norfolk pine has pride of place in the window of the bird room.  Though these days there aren't many birds feeding.  You can see the pan of water I've been keeping out for the deer.

     This morning during breakfast I was staring out the window in a vacant way and noticed something on the screen.

I went out into the rain to take it's picture.  It's a Preying Mantis, her abdomen swollen by eggs, I suppose.  I will recognise the egg casing when she is finished, because we had one in a vase of dried flowers for several months, in our old house down south,  until they hatched and when I looked, the wall appeared to be waving like a flag, as a sheet of hundreds of tiny white babies climbed upward in search of sunlight.  I opened the door and the cat and I watched as they gravitated out, turning pale green as we watched them surge towards the light.  I can't even estimate how many hundred there were.  But lately, I haven't been seeing very many adult Preying Mantis.  I would have liked to keep her in a jar for Eliyah to see but I didn't want to endanger her health or her babies' either and neither would Eliyah.