Really. Go look and see if you don’t smile.
What in your wild life made you smile this week?
32 thoughts on “Happiness is the Comic Wildlife Photography Awards”
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Argh Ink
More than you ever wanted to hear from Jenny Crusie
These are great. I sent them to my family as well. We could all use a fun thing.
Just got the results back from my follow up covid test and they are negative, so I can go back to work. Some mixed feelings, because I got a lot done at home, but I am happy.
These photos are a great way to start the day.
We’re off to see what’s been done in our never ending saga of building a house. I said I’d never do this again. I should have listened.
We built our current house 25 years ago, am I’m still not over the trauma. Occasionally my husband says something about building our next house, and I tell him he’ll can do so with his next wife!
We built the house we live in now about 7 years ago and towards the end I kept muttering “we have to get this right because i am never doing it again”.
I’ve put up the bird feeders for the cold season and I enjoy watching the birds and various wildlife out the windows. The other day I saw a squirrel chase off a chipmunk from underneath the feeders, but then get chased off himself by an aggressive blue jay. Ah, nature. (I also get deer and cute little rabbits, which since I have a fenced garden, I can enjoy.)
Our toy Australian Shepherd puppy chasing our older, bigger dog in the woods and SQUEAKING as she chases.
My sister will be in from Virginia today! And, I got all of the cleaning done!! And, I’m inbetween Board of Elections work so that won’t interfere with her short visit!!!
The bad news is the election wrap-up meeting will mean I can’t follow her to South Central PA to our baby sister’s for Thanksgiving. I don’t know if I’ll be heading to my cousin’s or just staying home (shrimp and bok choy rather than turkey?).
Pixie’s dental went well; no extractions, just a cleaning. Of course, she ate the bandage on her leg before I could get if off. So I’m checking dog poop. It’s like having a toddler.
Relaxing makes me happy.
Happy making week; granddaughters overnight Monday, playing with youngest who did not go to school, she had a cold, listening to youngest composing and recording her song with my phone, cleaning, sorting the stuff, and a wonderful dinner with neighbours. Yummy dessert too. The best chocolate ginger cookie ever. Youngest granddaughter gave me a big hug, out the door, came back for another hug four times. Yes! And Bob’s book.
Loved the pigeon with the leaf on it’s head and the elephants.
The hearts working, all grey, click, number up and red.
My hearts are still almost all pre-redded.
Mine too, but I click them, they stay read but +1
Min, too. And when I click on them, the number decreases. So I accept that I like every post even if a strange IT-thingy decided this for me…
This weekend I’ve made myself happy by completing a big chunk of the ready-for-company checklist; the husband has a Honey Do list for today, after which I can finish the Swiffer-and-vacuum part of the checklist.
Meanwhile, I’m doing some looooooong-overdue cleanup on the two computers. Back in March 2020 when I got the new Ready To Work Remote machinery, I transferred most of the contents of my old laptop to the new desktop, but until this month haven’t bothered deleting the contents from the old machine. It’s going to be a process, because I’ve got a digital archive going back to the beginning of time, and the original hard copies are long gone – so I want to be really really sure they’re really really saved and being backed up to my cloud storage before those old copies go bye-bye. But it’s significant decluttering even if it takes a bit longer. The goal is to completely finish taking apart my old blog and emptying off the laptop by the end of February.
Happy my pup is done all her dental work and recovery. She was great through it all but never fun to have your pup go through surgery. So fab she’s all comfy cozy again.
Now it’s back to focussing on the three stories I’m working on. I discovered that somehow they developed sibling rivalry recently and are all pulling for attention. I also discovered I’m terrible at juggling multiple stories so am tasked with deciding which one to spend “quality time” with for the remainder of the month.
I’ve heard other authors are capable of rotating their WIPs so that they get work done on each concurrently, but I have yet to master that skill. If I ever do that will be a happy day:)
My parents drove in from Florida today for the holidays. It’s been two years (thanks Covid) so we will enjoy seeing the family this week.
And the grading pile is getting smaller!
I’ve seen the wild life photos before but it’s always a pleasure to re-visit again and again.
Happiness is a concept I struggle with, but being glad is something dear:
I’m glad that I’m no longer a Zombie (a severe cold) and able to slowly deal with the back-up of work that’s accumulated in the last week. I’ve even managed to escape into a nice story because the eyes were willing to work again.
I’m also glad that when I checked my dayjob-e-mail-account earlier there wasn’t an unsurmountable number of stuff to do tomorrow when I have to be back, at least being able to work from home. The prospect of venturing out is still daunting.
But now back to the proof-reading that should have been finished days ago…
This past week I stressed about a business trip that had me driving home late at night. My happy was that we got done early, so a half hour earlier on the road – which got us home (after 6 1/2 hours of driving) at a late hour, rather than a dangerously late hour. I was very happy to sleep in my own bed!
I’ve been enjoying gardening in the sunshine – especially extracting couch grass and bindweed roots. Had a lovely walk with a friend I haven’t seen for a few months. My happiest thing was a surprise: the friend who was possibly coming for Christmas has decided to go to Switzerland instead, which means I’m going to be on my own: which I feel amazingly good about. Really looking forward to making myself food I really love, and (weather permitting) going for lots of walks in the hills. I know I’m supposed to be miserable at the prospect of being alone, but I feel the opposite.
I am almost always alone for the traditional holidays. I don’t mind it at all.
I loved the wildlife funnies. Thank you for the link. The picture above, I’d have labeled “Two Kangaroos Swing Dancing”.
The dotter had an empty refrigerator yesterday, and we’ve agreed to Dining and Shopping” day on Monday. But I had an empty, too (mostly) so we made a dash to the Friendly Neighborhood Food Lion. I filled a single box of mostly meaty goodness while assisted by YG (youngest granddotter) managed to fill four or five recyclable shopping bags (they hold way more than evil plastic bags.)
You have to smile at YG, who asks “Can we get…” at every attempt to walk past chips, dips, crackers, cookies, every rot your teeth and fatten you up option the store displays. Juices (good), carbonated beverages (not so good), lattes and capucchinos (bad!), and stuff to mix in milk (okay-it’s milk). All the snacky choices for cheese, including the ones with pepperoni sticks. Prices are rising. I spent over $200 and this was just the “get us through the weekend until we do the real shopping trip.
Okay, my personal selections were oriented toward the coming week. Turkey tenderloins (NOT the brand I got last week), Stouffer family dinners (the trick will be to limit myself to one or two servings), pork chops and a steak, some ground beef. French beans (love ’em). Then I blogged about it.
Blogging makes me smile, too.
We’re mostly moved to our new place now, barring a bit of cleaning, and I’m feeling happy because I gambled on my ability to organise, and risked the hourly contract with the removalists, and it ended up coming in about a thousand less than they’d quoted for the fixed price quote.
I’ve got my children’s books cabinet and my fabric stash all unpacked and settled, and I’ve unearthed treasures we’ve had in storage for nearly ten years now. I’m happy.
I’m happy that my colonoscopy went well yesterday. Although my friend Harriet kept casting doubts on my travel arrangements, they all worked beautifully. I can’t get used to hearing the report from the doctor while still somewhat groggy, but at least they give you hard copies of all the results and recommendations. On the way home Claire and I stopped for lunch at a restaurant I had passed on my way to my shrink’s office before she switched to Zoom. I will never remember the name of this place because it is on the bus route I took least often, but since my shrink has no plans to return to her office anytime soon, it really doesn’t matter. But I enjoyed trying a place I had wondered about in the past even if I was too groggy to remember the name. I just remembered what I ate, so the name of the restaurant may return as well.
I’d be even happier if the Post Office would deliver my cell phone payment so that they will switch my service back on. I haven’t been able to find out if the local paper got their payment which was mailed at the same time because they prefer to deal with customers by phone and the send button on their website was disabled. I haven’t received a paper in 3 weeks and I miss my crossword puzzles.
I managed to buy my train ticket for Thanksgiving on Friday before I was sidelined by the colonoscopy prep. When I tried to but the ticket online, the computer program recognized neither the station nearest my niece’s house or my disability status. It was a real relief to be able to take care of that in person, even if Amtrak was woefully understaffed. There was only one person to sell tickets, answer questions, check baggage and answer the telephone. Also, they had moved that person to an entirely different part of the station than before the pandemic. If I had come in through a different door (which in a station that large is easy to do) I never would have found this one overworked person. Of course, there was a second person in an Amtrak uniform talking to the agent the whole time, but he never opened up a second station.
I asked for a copy of the schedule for future reference, but they no longer print them. This wouldn’t be so bad if I could have accessed the information I needed online, but evidently they have changed the name of the Milwaukee-Airport station to something less obvious.
Spent a lovely Saturday am wandering through local Christmas craft fairs with a friend. It’s less about shopping than spending time together but I am gradually ticking names off my list. My volunteer garden group had an end-of-season gathering and it was nice way to finish off my first year with this group.
I always find mid-to-late November a slog, so I had a few late afternoon naps. My labradoodle usually ended up cuddled against me. Sleeping with a pet is very soothing.
Managed to do three emails I had not been looking forward to, so felt accomplished. Will now have to deal with the responses, but that is a challenge for next week. Today I have pulled up the drawbridge, and am only reading and eating fun things.
Oh, and I broke down and turned on my Christmas lights outside yesterday, and almost immediately got a text from my neighbor, saying how much she liked them. She can actually see them better than I can, but I was very entertained at the instant reponse.
The comic wildlife is a favorite of mine. I love these pics. I have a pair of raccoons that regularly visit and make some fun pictures
I am off to the hospital to make sure I am still cancer free. I figure any year now,, I should start glowing in the dark. The last quarters results were mixed, one radiologist said yes, the other said no.
We are doing mad Christmas shopping. My parents are spending holidays with my brother and Mom wants to get all the shopping done before she leaves. I told her there are stores there, but I guess she doesn’t believe me.
This list of present ideas for 8o yo ladies. https://birthdayinspire.com/gift-ideas-for-80-year-old-woman/ When I’m 80, I too want to so neglect the housework that I need an orbital sander to get rid of the dust. #lifegoals.
Yesterday (while the kids were on a Scouts bike trip) I bought my 12yo a skateboard for Christmas. The (bigger kid) in the skate shop was immensely competent. He sold me the cheapest skateboard in the shop because ‘that’s all a beginner needs and he’ll grow out of it before he needs more’, and the most expensive safety gear – which he actually refused to sell me because ‘there’s no point if it doesn’t fit, he needs to try it on’. The he was ringing up the purchase and said ‘hold on, you can’t surprise wrap this, do you want a box?’. Came back with it in the box, taped, everything on the box marked skateboard blacked out, and told me that he’d taken the price tags off. And seriously, when did teenaged retail salespeople get so competent? We might have completely fucked up the world for the next generation, but the kids are alright.
I love this!
I loved Jenny’s website — the comic animals, I mean. Took me awhile to figure out that I could look at all the pictures back to 2016 by looking at the Galleries rather than just the winners, though. My favorites were the several burrowing owl photos with the huge yellow staring eyes. Years ago, I saw a group of them sitting by the opening to their burrow, in a vacant lot next to a Sonic near Roswell NM. The little tiny owls seemed so fearless, and it was amazing to see them living among piles of desert sand next to a busy drive-thru. Roswell NM has a very nice government website, btw — the letter R with an embedded symbol is almost as cute as a burrowing owl.
Annual mammogram tomorrow — no reason to think it won’t be satisfactory, and the new digital X-ray gadgets are much less painful than the ones they replaced. So that’s a happy thought.
Maggie the cat got her own bed, dishes, food, toys, and a blanket from her former home this week. She’s been curling up in her bed three feet from me every night since. (The less great part is that she wanted that bed on the dining room sideboard — I work at the table — and we usually expect to use the sideboard on occasions such as Thanksgiving dinners. Is she an entrée, or dessert?)
Further good news: my personal experience of the supply chain is that things improved this week — specifically, I hit up Trader Joe’s and they had some of the frozen food I rely on, and additionally a pretty good selection of holiday stuff. No pannetone yet, for some reason, but most other stuff.
Mammogram happily benign all around, and they realized that I only need a routine mammogram, not a diagnostic one, so they’re changing my chart (or whatever) so that next year it will just be an ordinary one.
My mom got scammed this week but the happy is that 1) the damage was limited to an amount she can afford 2) I think she is less likely to let it happen again 3) it made all my sibs realize how much time I spend dealing with her finances and paper work—they have been pressuring me to visit her more but unlike them I live too far away for weekend trips. Maybe now they will stop.
Also figured out some of the holiday presents for the adult kids who will be with us at the end of the year. Now that’s happy.
And looking forward to four days off next week.
My wild life happiness this week is having the family home together for Thanksgiving week. We saw Shen Yun this evening at the NJ State Theater. Beautiful dancing. Also, I sold 5 Wilde Temptation books at a vendor marketplace in Sussex County, NJ.
Nothing but good wild times ahead. Wait…that’s not quite right. LOL!
The biggest thing that made me smile this week was not having to put my 17-year-old cat down on Saturday. She has a bladder infection and is now on meds but she’s feeling better and scarfing back food like there’s no tomorrow. The vet gave me some tips for making sure she takes her thyroid medication so we’ve implemented those and hopefully she will be with us for a long time.
Fred the dog contracted kennel cough even though he is vaccinated and coughed most of Friday night. Most of Friday night except when I put him out to pee at 1:30 and he pushed the gate open and went walk about. Fortunately, he was only 2 blocks from home when Paul found him and herded him toward home. He wouldn’t go to Paul but I got him in the car and we got him safely back in the yard. Now he’s on meds too but feeling better.