Is Gender Specific All Bad?

Over the years there's been controversy about the toys we buy for our children. I would say it's come and gone since our kids were little and that's over thirty years ago. The more modern, evolved thinkers mostly didn't want children to be given gender specific toys. The feeling was sometimes that this caused the child to fit in a mold that they might not have fit into otherwise. For example, if you give a little girl barbies and baby dolls, she might miss her true calling to be a truck driver. A little boy who just gets matchbox toys and race tracks might not turn out to be a nurse which could have been what he was truly destined to be. I say poppycock.

After watching children and grandchildren for over thirty years, my feeling is that children gravitate toward what delights, interests, and excites them. And usually, although not always, their choices end up gender specific. However, almost all children stray from their gender specific toys and become interested in other things at least temporarily and this is fine and good.

But all this discussion is just an excuse to include the following pictures which do make me think of gender specific toys and how perfect they are for the gender of the child who received them. I recently wrote about two of my granddaughters who just turned three. One of them, Tessa Mary, received a toy kitchen for her birthday. She got lots of other presents but they were erased from her memory the moment she laid eyes on this most magnificent of all gifts.

And she didn't waste anytime getting busy with her cooking.

And one of the best parts of the whole present was watching her parents' delight in their daughter's happiness with her gender specific toy.

Don't get me wrong. They weren't delighted because she was playing with a gender specific toy. They were delighted because she was so excited and happy. If she'd have been playing with a dump truck, I'm sure they would have had the same big smiles on their faces...pretty sure. Maybe they would have. Hmmmmmm Well, maybe their smiles wouldn't have been quite as big but it would have been fine.

Let's just say she loved her kitchen and everybody was happy!

Where Have All The Fishies Gone?

As I've reported extensively, we had our long awaited koi spawning on June 28th. Since then, a good deal of our time and effort has been focused on bringing these little tiny, fragile babies to adulthood. We suffered extensive losses that I talked about on July 28th but after that the numbers seemed to stabilize quite nicely.

Then we went on our short vacation and came back to find that one of the tubs outside has once again suffered significant losses. In fact, when I first checked on it, I was hard pressed to find more than 2 or 3 babies in it where there had been a minimum of 50 or 60. We had very responsible, dedicated caretakers and they reported that the tub was never left uncovered but that they, too had noticed declining number in that tub.

So I studied it very carefully. I was trying to find more than the 2 or 3 babies that I had initially seen when I saw something else. A monster if you will. A true mutant. He slid so swiftly and stealthily from one hiding place to the next that I almost didn't believe I had really seen him. He was easily 10 times bigger than the biggest babies we had until then. And all of a sudden the mystery was solved.

I had read that cannibalism could be an issue with these guys if the sizes became too disparate but I'd not seen any evidence of that being a problem...yet. But now I knew where all the little fishies had gone and I knew why Big Daddy was growing disproportionaly compared to the rest of the babies. He was feasting on his brothers and sisters. That fat bastard!

It was a task but I finally captured him. You might think that he was summarily executed but hold your horses. A fast growing koi is a koi with a great attribute and rather than punish him, he was to be rewarded. I removed the large goldfish from the goldfish pond and put him in with the baby goldfish. If he feasts on them, it's okay because I don't have much love for goldfish - only koi. But he won't because most of them are about the same size as him. So he's safe from big fish eating him and he's in an environment where he should continue to grow fast.

After I captured him, I left him in this bucket while I tried to figure out what do do with him:

Later on I checked on him and he had seemed to have disappeared. I had to look closely to see that he had cloaked himself with the one leaf in the bucket. See how smart and wily he is?


Now I know where all the fishies have gone and I know that I have one smart, wily, fat bastard to nurture in place of about 40 babies. But I'm just gonna call him Big Daddy from now on.

Oh and don't forget to leave a comment in yesterday's post for a chance at those valuable prizes that I'm offering to celebrate my 100th post anniversary. Hurry 'cause so far all the entrants have a whopping one in five chance of winning!

Number One Hundred

I can't believe it's here already! My 100th post. And, I'm amazed that I've found blogging so fun and rewarding. I love the comments, the friendships, and the chance to explore other blogs. But most of all, I love the journaling. I'm grateful for the chance to think through things that I might otherwise take for granted and to let people I care about know how I feel and I'm even grateful for the chance to vent, complain, whine and fret about the important and unimportant things in my life and then, I get to hear the opinions and thoughts of people I know and people I don't know. It just can't get much better than that.

So, for my 100th blog post, I'm going to have a giveaway. First of all, I have a $10 Wal-Mart gift card to give away and second of all, I have four 8X10 prints that the lucky winner can choose from in color or black and white. They all follow the path less taken theme and they were all shot in the Indiana Dunes State Park. Here are the choices:


To enter, just leave a comment. Sunday night at 10 p.m., I'll draw a winner.

Due to unpopular demand, I'm extending this giveaway until Monday night at 10 p.m.

What's In A Name

We've just returned (night before last) from an excursion that took us to Kentucky and then out to Colorado Springs. In the last two weeks we've been able to celebrate the birthdays of two special little three-year-olds. Two more beautiful girls, you could never find. They are the sweetest, smartest, prettiest, and most loving 3-year-olds ever. And they are both my namesakes.

Here's Mary Addison, born on August 7th, 2006.


And here's Tessa Mary, born on August 24th, 2006.


I could say that it's nice that the children have these names and I'm glad that their parents liked the name Mary well enough to use it when naming their little girls. But that would be such an understatement. Neither set of parents will ever know how much it means to have my name bestowed on their daughters. I often choke up when thinking about it. It's amazing that they were born two weeks apart and both of their parents honored me so completely.

I will be forever grateful.

You Capture - Food

This week's You Capture subject is food. I've been gone, traveling all over the place, for about a week. If I could post pictures of everything I've eaten in that week, including fried cookie dough from the Kentucky State Fair, steaks from Colorado Springs, and every kind of fast food imaginable, there wouldn't be room for anyone else's food. It was that bad. Fortunately I took pictures of lots of other things instead. For my food topic, since our refrigerator is bare or more accurately, now filled with over-the-hill stuff, I decided to photograph food still on the vine. It's still food right?

For beautiful food creations and different slants on the subject, be sure to visit Beth at Ishouldberfoldinglaundry.

This Retirement - Is Pretty Hard Work

I don't think it's all THAT hot outside or even terribly humid but I'm dripping sweat...er...perspiration. We had three vanhoutte spirea shrubs on the East side of the house. I got 4 of them at a bargain rate because they were half dead. I planted them in a row so that they would provide a little privacy barrier and some pretty spring flowers. If you're not familiar with this variety of spirea, it looks like this:

The spirea is the white cascading flower in the front. When I was a child I played bride with these flowers many times. I really believed that that was about as close as I'd ever come to being one. It's a good thing Mr. Right came along. lol Now whenever I smell the pungent scent of a blooming vanhoutie spirea, I'm transported back to my childhood, to a small farm where I was lucky to grow up with all the animals a girl could ask for. But I digress.

I planted these four spireas and one died fairly quickly, two did very poorly, and one didn't thrive but it did grow some. So for years, I've looked at those things that we have to go to the trouble to mow around and that are so unsightly, but that I just don't have the time or energy to do anything about and I've not liked them at all. Then there's a place in the front of the house that has two spireas with a space in the middle that begs a third. So today. I cut off the almost dead two and dug up the one that grew some, and replanted it between the two with the open space, and filled in the holes that I made and that's why I was sweating ... I mean perspiring bullets.

And the whole time I'm doing it and especially when I'm finished, I'm thanking God for this retirement and this time to do some of the thousands of things that need doing and that I've wanted to do for about .... 14 years?

Oh and it was pretty hard work I guess but it seemed a lot more like fun to me. And I'm thanking God again and again.

I Need An ID

I stepped outside yesterday and spotted this interesting creature. I asked him to wait while I went back and got my camera, and although, he wasn't in the same spot, he hadn't left either. He was very patient while I took his picture and then he had to be on his way. Unfortunately he left before I had a chance to check his ID so I don't know his name. Can anybody help me?


Can you believe the transparent sections of his wings?!