this little life of mine

So, recently I asked my blogging friend Mary for 5 Words to help inspire me to write an entry. She'd gotten some of her own from a fellow blogger, and I thought it was a great idea. Now that I have them, however, I find myself lacking other words to go with the five she gave me. This should be a piece of cake since they are relatively easy words. I mean, she gives me tomato, and lo and behold, here I am blogging about our massive tomato plant and all the delicious fruit bursting forth from it.

She also gave me family, has always been a very important part of my life, and has been particularly foremost in my mind the past couple of weeks. First off, about a week ago I recieved a letter in the mail from my father's brother informing me of an upcoming family get-together for my Aunt Alice's 95th birthday (which was actually in January, but they're just throwing the party now, probably because the weather's better in South Dakota now than it was in January). I used to hear from her at least once a year - usually at Christmas - but hadn't for a couple years. I knew she'd had a couple strokes and was living in a home, and I figured she was just too incapacitated to write, or had passed away. I honestly don't expect this side of my family to inform me of such things, so I was surprised to get this letter. And very happy to learn my favourite Aunt is still alive and well!

Next, last Friday would have been my daddy's 74th birthday, which is really hard for me to imagine since he died when he was 45 (technically 46, but we don't really count those last couple of weeks between his birthday and his death-day since he was heavily medicated and really out of it). I find it hard to imagine him as an old man! I also find myself still missing him a great deal even after all this time.

Finally, this past Sunday was my grandmother's 94th birthday. (Yes, you are reading that right: my father's eldest sister IS older than my mother's mother! She's older than my mother's father, too, who is still 93.) To celebrate, mom and I bought Subway sandwiches, a pasta salad, watermelon and angelfood cake with whipped topping, and had a nice quiet lunch up my grandparent's house. Later I stepped outside to see how their tomato plants were doing:

They're doing great, btw. They have three ginormous plants all of which are loaded with tomatoes! Soon my grandparents will have more tomatoes than they know what to do with!

Another word Mary gave me was fantasy, which is the genre of novel I prefer. In fact, I've been reading a lot of really good fantasy novels lately: 

1. Darkangel  by Meredeth Ann Pierce

2. The Wild Wood by Charles de Lint

3. Powers by Ursula K. Le Guin

4. The Looking Glass Wars by Frank Beddor

5. Ink Exchange by Melissa Marr

Mary also gave me the word ocean, possibly knowing how very much I love the ocean, how I could stare for hours (and have, actually) at the waves coming in and going out, how I enjoy getting my feet wet despite how cold the water is, and how I love to photograph it:

The last word Mary gave me was composition, which I thought would be difficult to incorporate into this post, but actually I’ve managed to compose a pretty good entry. Ha! j/k.  Anyway, the kind of composition I normally do is in my photography. My mom says I have a gift when it comes to taking  pictures. I guess I do … but, sometimes I just get a lucky shot …

… other times I agonize over the arrangement and spend several minutes rearranging stuff and several shots from different angles to get it just right.

Whichever it is, I’m usually quite pleased with the final result. And, I'm actually quite pleased with the end result of this entry, too. It may not be as creative as a stort story or a poem, but at least it's more interesting than a meme or quiz!

Thanks for the five words, Mary! See you in Wisconsin in October???

Cheers!