Ailsa went looking through her travel photos for letters big and small, and asked us to do the same. What better place than New York City?!
That’s me on the far right in the pink mittens!
Travel theme: Letters
Cee’s Black & White Challenge: Small Subjects
This little caterpillar was crawling around on my friend’s deck last week as we sat soaking up the sunshine (as seen in contrast on the deck) of an unusually warm fall day. My friend said not to touch it as it is a Hickory Tussock Caterpillar which can cause a nasty rash if you come in contact with its bristles. A very pretty little guy though!
Buzzing Bees & Bobbing Geese
I am really not a lover of insects, but today as I walked the trail I kept spotting Bumble Bees flying and landing on the Golden Rod. I stopped to watch and take some close ups of one Bee’s endeavor to find the nectar. 
As I walked on I spotted a few Geese, who must have found something wonderful within the river as this was the scene I was greeted with
It really made me laugh- such a comical sight! Hope your weekend is a thumbs up too!
Grief
It’s a funny thing with grief. It lurks in the background, hiding in the hidden recesses of the mind. Popping into consciousness suddenly, unexpectedly, forcing you to face what you would rather keep buried, silent, repressed, for your own good. It is insidious, quietly running in the background, ready to show itself at a moment’s notice- when a song comes on the radio, a person walks by leaving a scent of perfume, a stray thought pops into your head taking you to a place you don’t want to go. And then the photo that appears in your FB feed, smacking you with the reality of your loss, the impossibility of it, taking your breath away. The months may pass, life may continue on, but everything is changed. Better to keep it locked away, deny it, than face the truth, and the pain that comes with the loss.
Sunset Scenes
Lessons From A Life Well Lived
Today is the anniversary of the death of my Uncle Jakob, I have been thinking about him all day and wanted to share a post I wrote last year about what a special man he was.
Jakob Schaffer was given a Blessing for “long life” from a Rabbi in 1937. The words of the Rabbi to Jakob were, (as translated from Yiddish to English)
“You are going to live a long, long, long healthy life. You have come from and crossed many frontiers. No man, no enemy, will have the power to put a hand on you. L’chaim and sholom.” (Life & Peace)
Uncle making breakfast at age 106
And so it was to be, Jakob Schaffer did live a long and healthy life, passing away just 2 months shy of his 107th birthday, in 2010. He had traveled to Israel just 3 months before his passing, spending two weeks visiting with family, going to the Western Wall, never sitting still for a minute.
I met Uncle Jakob in 1999, while doing genealogical research on my husband’s family tree. I was given his name and number and told he would have many of the family answers I was looking for. I was in for a great surprise. At the age of 96 it was remarkable that he remembered details from his childhood growing up in Poland, the names of family members, and how people were related to each other. He filled in all the blanks, and was able to bring to life the members of the family. We discovered that Jakob was a first cousin to my husband’s grandfather, but we took to calling him Uncle as we came to feel such a close bond with him. He and his wife (who died in 1990) never had children, and I was happy to step in as adopted granddaughter!
His vitality was amazing at such an advanced age. He took no medication. He took care of himself with no outside help. Nothing ever fazed him. He took everything in stride. He was always optimistic, positive and focused. When something would be troubling me he would always say, “Everything pass, no need to be upset or worry, because everything pass.” These words have stayed with me- reminding me during challenging times- I can hear his voice in my head.
He lived alone in his condo until the day he died. He cooked for himself, did his own laundry and shopping. He felt he could do his shirts just as well as the cleaners, so he washed them himself and then ironed them. He always took the stairs, and shopped at the local supermarket and carried home his groceries himself. Often on a Sunday, he would take the bus to the local mall, just to walk around, sit and have a coffee, or shop. He enjoyed just being out among people.
He was blessed with good health until one week before he died. Did he have a healthy life because of his positive attitude? Because of the non judgmental way he lived his life? Was it his fierce independence that continued to drive him? Whatever the reason, he set an example to be followed. To look at the cup half full, not empty, to think positively about people even if they differ from you, to get out and go. And to remember that when things get hard, this too shall pass.
Wordless Wednesday
Festival of Leaves
The trees are beginning to show some of their beautiful colors. I took this photo when the setting sun was casting its glow on the trees making the oranges and yellows even more vibrant.
Cee’s Black & White Challenge: Any kind of Camera or Photos of Photographers
Run Baby, Run!
My BFF ran in a half marathon today. That’s 13.1 miles. (or 21.08 kilometers) Perfect weather for it, a crisp fall morning which turned into a beautiful warm day. The run took place a few miles from where she lives, in a rural area as compared to where I live 50 miles North in suburbia.
My husband and I waited to see her at the 6.6 mile mark, the half way point, before she would loop around and do another 6.6miles.
Seeing the runners at the crest of the hill making their way down was exciting
and then Alice my BFF appeared!
and then she was gone…..
My husband and I walked the mile to the finish line to be there to greet her when she finished. While waiting we cheered those on who were coming through the finish line.
and watched two people who had finished who were not quite ready to sit it out yet, dance to the music that was playing
It seemed the race was winding down, the people crossing the finish line thinning out, but Alice had still not appeared on the horizon down the road. Her husband rode his bike out onto the path to see where she was, and came back shortly reporting her feet were aching and she was slowly making her way, but still had a little over a mile to go. I handed my things to my husband and said I was going to walk out to meet her, I couldn’t stand the thought of her being out there struggling alone. I met her when she was about 3/4 of a mile from the finish, still running albeit at a slow enough pace for me to walk alongside. As we came within sight of where the rest of her friends were waiting near the finish, they all walked down to meet her and walk in with her too.
but she crossed the finish herself
Victory!! She had said all along all she wanted to do was make it to the finish and she did! 13.1 miles! Months of training, for someone who had never run a marathon and she did it! 
End of Day
I am adjusting to working full time these days, leaving the house at 7:45 and returning home at 5:00. I am in motion most of the day- working as an assistant teacher, zipping through the halls to get to the copy machine, taking the kids out for recess and down to lunch in the lunchroom, making my way around the classroom to help those who need a little extra help. Yesterday the head teacher was out and so I was in charge, by myself with 19 expectant young first grade faces looking to me for direction. I flew out of school when the bell rang at 4:45 and needed quiet, stillness, and headed to my favorite pond. As always I found solace in the sound of the Catbirds, the Blue Jays, the Starlings. And when I looked to the West I was greeted with this sky
The sun shining through those clouds was awe inspiring. I stood for many minutes taking it in, and finding the tension of the day fading away.
Shannon’s Creative Photo Challenge: Silhouettes
This photo was actually taken by accident. I was carrying my phone not realizing I had hit the shutter button, taking a photo of myself as I was walking. I only noticed it one day while scrolling through my photos but kind of liked it and decided not to delete it. 
Serendipity Photo Prompt: Where’s Autumn?
Marilyn at Serendipity asks this week: Where’s Autumn?
Funny I have been wondering the same thing myself. Just the right combination of water, sun, and cold allow the leaves to change color. We had a very dry summer and then a dousing of rain last week,which only served to blow leaves away and turn them brown on the edges. The smaller bushes and vines are turning, but not the trees.
Is Autumn showing its colors where you are? Join in and share them!
Wordless Wednesday
Bench Series
For the month of October Jude is looking for a bench with someone or something sitting on it
Taken at Grounds for Sculpture Hamilton, NJ
Weekly Photo Challenge: Boundaries
Festival Of Leaves
I have become much more conscious of the leaves changing color, or the lack thereof this year, around the pond I visit. I have found it fascinating to see the daily changes and the amazing colors that come forth and their progression, right down to the veins in the leaves. Nature’s artwork.
Knock, Knock Challenge
This week the Ladybug asks: If you could find it in yourself, that bit of bravery to leave the comforts of your everyday life behind and pursue your own happiness and if money wouldn’t be an issue, where would you go and what would you pursue?
I can’t say that I have any burning desire to leave my everyday life behind. I have “reinvented” myself many times already, changing careers, unexpectedly ending up in places I never thought I would. It has kept life interesting and allowed me to meet so many different people and participate in many different things.
Years ago I actually had the opportunity to do something I had “dreamed” of being able to do. It had always been my desire to become a volunteer in a hospital when I was able to stop working. My “dream” of wanting to visit patients stemmed from my own hospitalization for a week after surgery and realizing what a boost it was when people came to see me. It turned my day around, made me smile, made me feel cared for and loved. I saw the importance in it for healing. The opportunity presented itself back in 2005 when I was going to change jobs but instead headed into “retirement.” I became a “full time volunteer” getting involved with many different volunteer opportunities, but most special for me was now becoming a volunteer for Pastoral Care in the hospital and visiting patients. It opened a new to world me. I usually spent 4 or 5 hours making “rounds” and talking with people. Sometimes we talked about religion or faith, but most times we just talked. We talked about what they did in their “real life” outside the hospital walls, we talked about family, with many older patients we talked about what their life had been like, what the world used to be like. Some patients came and went home quickly, others were there for many weeks and looked forward to my coming. It was life changing for me in that I had never witnessed illness before in such an intimate way. Never really thought about young people dying, the horrors illness can wreak on a person and their family. The terrible loss. It also taught me about hope and being positive when faced with adversity. The sheer will people have to get through things.
I volunteered for 8 years and then life changed again and I went back to work, becoming an assistant teacher in a classroom as a result of having volunteered in one and enjoying it so much. Once again pursuing something I love, and finding happiness doing so.
Shannon’s Creative Photo Challenge: Artists
Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: Back of Things
Written in Stone
Daily Prompt: Your personal sculptor is carving a person, thing or event from the last year of your life. What’s the statue of and what makes it so significant?
I would not dare to venture a guess about the events of my last year of life, or having sculptures carved to represent an event or myself. Having no children to take on the job of carving in stone what they thought of me, I have already taken care of the written text to go on my headstone when the time comes, leaving it tucked in along with my Will. The last visit I made to the cemetery to visit family graves I was taken by the stories many of the headstones told, and wrote a post about that visit.
Nine months before my mother in law died she had accompanied me and my husband to visit the gravesites of her husband and her parents. She had been fighting cancer for close to 12 years at that time, and I remember vividly her leaning on one of the headstones and saying to me, “I think the next time I come here it won’t be under my own steam.” She was right. As she and I walked among the graves that day she commented on the designs on some of the foot stones lined up around us, and mentioned she would like one with roses on it. When the time came to choose the headstone and foot stone for her we followed her wishes.
As I walked through the cemetery I took notice of some of the designs on the headstones and how interesting the carvings were.
These two say Mother and Father in Yiddish
This one is unusual with its birds on a branch, but sadly reads “our beautiful daughter”
The person buried here was someone I knew, a young man is his 40’s who died in an accident. He was an avid guitar player. 
It is humbling to stand amid the graves, to hear nothing but silence, just the wind and the occasional call of a bird. To see generations buried together, to think of the lives people lived, to look at the words carved out in the stone that families have written in remembrance of their loved ones.
Chomping Chipmunk
I was fascinated by this little guy – he was manic about grabbing leaf after leaf and stuffing them in. His cheeks grew larger and larger and when he turned around it really made me laugh to see those jowls protruding on either side!
Wordless Wednesday
Travel Theme: Fruit
Home Made Fruit Cake 
A Day In The Life 
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