TUM (Team Up Monday): "Inside"

Well that was a nice long rest from blogging!  Oh my word the end of last year was so crazy, and it has been a long time since I have been so happy to see the back of a year - GOODBYE 2011!!  And well hello to you 2012, don't you look like an adventurous little number?

And adventure is right.  I started off the year by falling off a horse and hurting my back and my hip - again!  Guess they don't call him Generator's Flying Gypsy for nothing and since his name is Gizmo for short, that little duck, spin, rear, buck move has here on out been dubbed 'The Gizzy'.  Makes you dizzy.  And feel fizzy.  Puts you in a tizzy.  Quizzy?  Where did that come from?  Oh and guess what?  36-year old women don't bounce.  In case you ever wondered, they go splat.

Besides having to pick up 50lb sacks of potatoes while being black and blue up and down, I got a flat tire . . . in the van.  I can change my own tire if I am in the RAV, but in the van I couldn't even FIND the spare tire or the jack so I had to call Mark and then simultaneously discovered something else was flat: my cellphone battery.  Sigh.  So I hauled my sorry black and blue ass back into the store, hitting my funny bone and then closing my head in the car door in the process  (don't ask! who needs THREE Stooges?) to phone AAA. 

So, my tire was changed and without further adieu, here is my photo for this week:

It is the inside of my van this last delivery day.  Claire sweetly called my van clean and organized, HA!  That's because she can't see what the hay bale did to the back, I won't be giving any hay fever sufferers a lift!  Speaking of Claire, here is her-growing-in-talent-by-the-second-photo:

Love that the cup is turned around, love everything about it, it's lovely!  Linda did a live shoot using a family member:

I hope you used one of those anti-static softening sheets Linda, otherwise your socks will stick to your kitty.  Wait a minute . . . that's not a bad idea!  She might be able to bring those wayward socks back from the other side of wherever they go when you put them in the dryer right before you never see them again . . . cute photo Linda.

Mariette's photo this week is from her desk at work:  

I love stones like these.  When Ryan was little he was constantly picking up stones and putting them in his pockets - so cute.  He still does it, and I have bunch of stones lying around the house that he has picked up.  I like the fire and ice of the two center stones.

Finally, rather sadly, we lost a hen today.  She was the smallest of our hens and not the brightest but very, very sweet.  We were outside with them and came in for a cup of tea, Mark went back outside to prepare for a trip to the dump and a hawk had just pounced on her.  Mark scared the hawk away but Sweetie was already gone.  The hawk refused to leave the area despite many attempts to scare him off, and the rooster and other hens were not to be seen.  We spent over forty minutes looking for them, I was walking down the street and calling out my usual 'pik-pik-pik' which usually brings them running when I heard soft reply.  Under a tree was our rooster and other hens, he had taken them to safety, covered them with branches and leaf litter and was lying quiet as a mouse, on guard.  All that was visible was his head, had he not answered me I would have walked right by them they were so well camouflaged.  I was so happy to see them safe and sound, and so, so very proud of our handsome boy for being so smart and such a good protector of his girls.   We sent out a 'chicken-wire' to our friends and neighbors advising to be on the look out, and all the chickens on our street were locked in their coops.  The hawk had to get his dinner elsewhere today. 

That's me for this week, I am done.  One week down and fifty-one to go in 2012.  I think I am a little afraid.