Writing — Photography
Home Is Where the Heart Is… As Long As You Can Ignore Busybody Gossip That Is
The A to Z challenge on In Living Color: Finding interesting new ways to enjoy photography
The crabapple trees were in showy bloom on my recent trip home to the Idaho/Utah area, as well as a few Japanese cherry trees.
The rich colors are simply mesmerizing, and my photos really don’t do them due justice.
In Utah, I visited cousins I hadn’t seen in sooo many years. Like, in decades.
It happens sometimes. Families drift apart. Separated by a million things we may get busy with. Children, jobs, stress, mental health.
All excuses, but not too good of reasons now, are they?
Me and one of my cousins went bowling and she beat my socks off because I haven’t bowled in ages. But it was fun anyway. I attended a few girls’ softball games, benefited from a family BBQ or two and had some yummy Mexican food from a local hot spot.
It was so fun to catch up with them and I enjoyed taking strolls in the park and checking out the spring trees in bloom.
After a brief trip to Atlanta to take care of some business, I returned to Idaho. It’s lovely to visit in May. The weather was mostly warm, but with a tantalizing chill here and there in the air. Trees and flowers were in spring bloom. People were out and about. Taking walks in the parks and along the greenbelt of the Snake River while gazing at the amazing waterfalls.
Other people were fishing and boating.
I caught up with a few old friends and attended the local calvary chapel church a few times. It was mostly a positive experience, although there was one old friend I was particularly excited to see. We attended the same wacky cult church when I was growing up and she expertly coached us girls in learning volleyball. So, we arranged to go to lunch.
I kinda ended up regretting it. She took me to this crazy expensive fancy-pants soup place downtown. I ordered chicken tortilla soup, which was so salty that I had to ask for something else. They were out of several other selections so I opted for the coconut curry soup.
I didn’t want to go with that one though because I make this kind of soup at home all the time but there were really no better options. Sure enough, when they plopped it in front of me and I dug in all I kept thinking was… mine is way better and I wouldn’t have had to pay an arm and a leg for a small bowl of soup!
I load my soup down with hearty veggies, rice noodles and just the right amount of spice… their soup only had mostly huge chunks of chewy chicken that really wasn’t all that appetizing and a couple of carrot slices. The taste of cilantro was overpowering and they didn’t even bother adding fresh ginger.
Live and learn.
Anyway, besides the crappy soup this old friend just seemed to want to gossip — I mean, there’s a difference between catching up and feeling like someone just wants to hang everyone’s dirty laundry out for everyone else to see. All this horrible stuff about people we used to know.
I didn’t like hearing all that negative stuff but didn’t want to be rude so I played the good sport and then didn’t see her anymore while I was there.
Maybe you can relate? Have you ever known anyone like this? Some people love to gossip and I suppose most of us do here and there but it just got to be way too much!
Mostly, the rest of the trip went pretty well except that my daughter is still struggling with many things like mental health issues. It’s something I’ve thought to write about but just haven’t been able to yet. It’s just too close to my heart and rather painful.
It’s so heartbreaking to watch your children go through tough times! I’d much rather it all happen to me rather than her.
Anywho, I’m back in Trinidad and Tobago for now, where the plants my husband grew from sprouts are doing well — banana, coconut, golden trumpet, frangipani and several varieties of ferns. He’s got a wicked green thumb!
Hubby has been doing well also. He successfully kicked the bottle and has mostly stuck with it. I think he sneaks every once in a while. I can always tell and he hates that! I do hate to nag him but feel a bit of nagging is necessary to keep him from falling completely off the wagon, which would be real bad news for everyone he comes into contact with!
For some people, alcohol is just like poison. I myself decided to have one drink of wine one day, after not drinking anything for months on account of wanting to support hubby, and I enjoyed it but woke up the next day with a tummy ache and feeling kinda sick and tired. Uck!
No thank you! There are so many better ways to enjoy life. Like a nice slice of cake or taking photos of beautiful flowers.
Here are some of our latest photo challenge submissions at In Living Color. Feel free to join in yourself at anytime.
Really don’t mean for this to be a tag bomb but with so many changes going on it’s important for us to support each other!
Editor Allisonn Church writes about the love of awesome glass jars and her cutie kittie Moo Shu:
Barb Dalton writes her own H story, which includes home, hotels, handwriting, herons and her sweet daughter Hannah.
Carol Labuzzetta gave us this kool K story featuring amazing photography of caverns and Hawaiian Islands you have to check out:
L Burton recently joined in on the fun and writes about a lot of yummy things, like avocado fries and banana bread… sounds delish!
Feel free to join in on the fun of the A-Z photo challenge at anytime with any letter.
Apply to be a writer here.
