two pumpkins!

Originally uploaded by sujacojust a little blurry but was enough to satisfy this Grammy who's been missing them across the mountain.

Puppy Party

I'm having a sweet little moment after seeing this set of Puppy Party photos. So adorable.

Phoenix & his Monkey

Taken at night while sleeping, Phoenix hugging his dear Monkey. He will be a year old in two more weeks, September 9.

Oops!

Happy Monday! I hope your find your shoes.


We are expecting 96 DEGREES today!

5 Months Old

* Look at my baby boy. Skyler captured this shot of Phoenix sticking out his tongue this morning.

* It was fun being #1 while it lasted. UT lost to Vanderbilt last night so I'm sure they won't hold that spot by next Monday when the newest AP top 25 NCAA poll comes out. I had to turn off at the last 3 minutes. I get so emotionally invested sometimes.

* We got a little snow this morning. The surrounding mountains may get several inches before the day's through. I'm traveling in the morning over those mountains so I hope the highways are clear by then.

Freshly Fallen Snow

Shirl's winter photo of her farm this week after a snowy, windy, morning. Isn't this beautiful? I liked it so much I saved it to my desktop.

link

rub-a-dub-dub, baby susan in a tub

baby susan in a tub
Originally uploaded by sujaco.

Everybody's got a nekkid photo, don't they? ...Oh, they dont?

Thanksgiving Traditions?

Do you or does anyone in your family have any Thanksgiving traditions?

I don't think that we had any. I read that someone ate spaghetti-o's for Thanksgiving because they hated turkey. Mine is pretty normal.

When I was about 17 and microwave ovens were first introduced to the world, my Father had some type of promotion at his store (sold tires, furniture, appliances) where they cooked a whole turkeys in a microwave, which was pretty revolutionary at the time. He brought one home for our dinner and I made a big stink about not eating it because I was sure it was contaminated with radiation from the microwave rays.

But I would LOVE to be able to have a photo or video of each Thanksgiving dinner table for each year to see all the seating changes that took place. Would that be cool? People who have passed one, people you were dating or married to, etc. It would be a real cosmic quilt of friends and loved ones who've been woven throughout your life.

That's what I'm going to meditate on today. All the different people who've come in and out of my life and how thankful I am to have been able to experience them in it.

To Sir, With Love... ? No, wrong Lulu

Lulu is a site I've seen around for years now. Lulu.com lets you publish and sell and print on demand books, e-books, online music, images, custom calendars, and more.

Just upload your manuscript, your photos or your digital files, use their formatting tools to get everything set up just the way you want, from size to binding to cover art, and... well, that's it. You're the proud parent of a brand new digital creation, ready to publish and cherish.

You set your own price, they print and ship each item as it's ordered, and you collect 80% of the creator revenue on every sale. To sell or give as gifts.

So many of you are very talented photographers. Either pros or just as a hobby. On Lulu you can print an nice photo album up for your family (for Christmas gifts?).

Lollygagging In The 'Burbs

This is a photo of one of the turkeys that roam my friend Pam's neighborhood; off of Beaverdam Rd in North Asheville. This was taken early Thursday morning and it was still a bit foggy.

There were about 7 more turkey lurkeys that had already crossed the street. They're all over that mountain and they just saunter and lollygag around, taking their time. I think they're quite charming. My friend Pam -- notsomuch.

Our October Leaves

or I could call this photo "Outside My Window" because it's outside my bedroom window, although I was outdoors when I took it. In Australia, it's Spring so obviously their outdoor photos won't have leaves changing colors like the US does now.

I know what you're thinking-- another cellphone masterpiece from Susan. heh heh [/sarcasm]

What does FALL look like at your house? Will you email me a picture to susanATeasybakecovenDOTnet or post it in the comments? I'll post it here with this one.

* * * * *
Here's what Fall looks like at Shirl's. How cool that she caught those falling leaves! Wow!

5 days old

whatchulookingat::5 days old
Originally uploaded by sujaco.

When I'm away from Phoenix I find myself lingering over his photos and counting the days until I see him again. What an enormous feeling of completeness, satisfaction, peace I feel since he came into our lives.

Here's Baby! My 1st Grandchild

throw-em-up
Originally uploaded by sujaco.
There are a few more pics on Flickr. (Photo taken with cellphone)

Welcome to the world my first grandchild, Phoenix Sebastien. 7lb, 10oz @ 12:29am, 9-9-07.

His big Winnie hat on and his little hands like this made Skyler laugh and joke that Phoenix was throwing up gang signs! Hardly.

Skyler went into the hospital Saturday around 1pm and had him early Sunday morning and they came home from the hospital Monday afternoon. I spent 3 nights, 2 at hospital with her and baby and one at home with her and baby and left Tuesday morning when they were both napping. She's breast-feeding and I could not be more proud of her.

She, who will freak out when she gets a bee sting, delivered this baby after half of her epidural wore off and everyone was waiting on the doc to come and fix it before baby came out, but the doc didn't show up until she had pushed baby out. So she just looked at the delivery doctor and said, where is he? She said, his head needs another inch to be all the way out. Skyler waited for the next contraction and bared down, grunting, sort of directing her delivery. Wow, I was SO impressed. I was sitting by her left side, but she wouldn't let me touch her so we had eye contact and I talked to her and told her to listen to her body, (something I always say) and to do what feels naturally.

I believe he's the most beautiful baby I've ever seen. Big beautiful lips-- large, dark blue eyes and everything he does is adorable. Long fingers that Granddaddy is likely to wrap around a blues guitar one day. I can think of nothing but him and keep replaying the weekend over in my mind. I have a lot of pictures in my cell phone and keep looking at them. I'm going over in the morning to take Skyler and baby to his first checkup. I miss them both already.

Grandmother, Grandmama, Big Momma, hell, just whatever Phoenix wants to call me

It has been SUCH a pure joy to share this event with you. You know who you are. This website address is only given out to the people I have the closest connection with-- my friends.

A Helping Hand

I took this photo a few days ago. Does anyone know what it is? It's some kind of large pink lily and I put it in a larger bowl of water. Wanna know the story behind it?

I was down in my back during flower planting time and didn't get to tend to Robin's (my dear sister who's passed on) flower garden the way I wanted to. And after an early frost, the tulips AND the daffodils died and nothing else came up in that bed. I also had those huge orange flowers and those humongous blue alliums that never showed their face at all this year. So the flower bed was looking gloomy and I took some hand clippers and clipped the stray stuff leaving one healthy unrecognizable stalk just for the hell of it.

Lo and behold, that one healthy unrecognizable stalk bloomed into a sassy, pink lily-looking display. And the fragrance... oh my.

Out of the blue this lone flower decided to put on a show in that dreary patch of grass. It was as if Robin had seen no flowers in her flower patch and lovingly lent me a hand. And I kid you not, right at this very moment I can smell that lily. Magic!

**UPDATE: I believe I've found the flower online. It looks very much like an Oriental Lily called "Muscadet". You can see this link for comparison.

Blog Post In Progress

Blogging Around The Block

I haven't been motivated to clear out my flower beds as yet. But soon because I have blooms ready to unfold their glory to the sun God. I have the double daffodils that are pale pink and ivory and my ice stick tulips that are white with pink and blue streaks ready any day now.

Stopping by Karen's blog I see she's getting her grounds ready for spring blossoms. She's got some nice photos of her dutch irises and other beauties.

I can't get into Marie's for some reason just now but earlier today I saw the sweetest photo of a new born calf nursing. Very touching. And she always captures the best of her subjects of which many are four legged.

Bryn is feeling the spring coming on, too, and speaks quite eloquently of its arrival.

Anathea observes the changing pulse of the blogosphere. Have the drumbeats of paranoia sounded so loudly we're unable to hear anything else?

Shirl's cat, Snuzzles, may be part dog. He's actually fetching and bringing back the mouse. Pretty cool cat.

Julie is fiddling with Flickr to make a nice portrait. Of course, it helps when you have a great looking face to work with like she does!

** Why does a box appear around my little red star bullets in front of the posts? It doesn't show up in editing and usually a border="0" will eliminate that. It reminds me of our sweet Mandarin Meg because I always turned to her for web help.

Photo taken 11:58 am, January 19, 2007

I thought this was an odd weather photo. It's on top of Holston Mountain in Elizabethton, Tennessee, and I found it on my WeatherBug. The sky is a strange blueish-pink and then you see only the treetops which are iced over!

Much of the country has had a lot of ice with icy roads to contend with. Guess winter is finally here.

Blue Ridge Blogging

Marie @ Blue Ridge blog is a photographer for her local newspaper in western North Carolina and posts a beautiful photo most every day for us all to enjoy. If you've not met Marie before, stop in and have a look around.

Today she has a photo of an angry deer that Shirl might like to see. Shirl also takes many nice photos of deer around Michigan.

powered by performancing firefox

Offbeat Brides (and grooms) tell their tales. A new book provides resources for indie weddings.

When Ariel Meadow Stallings and Andreas Fetz started making out at a rave in 1998, they weren't planning on hooking up for good. But love sparked in the warehouse where they met, and they stayed together.

Stallings writes in her first book, they were planning a "hippie/raver/freakfest wedding," for which she wanted to dress "like a fairy-freakish electro forest queen" and Fetz, who "dresses like the Midwest academic feminist he was raised by," wanted something comfortable because they'd be outdoors. Everything came off marvelously in August 2004.

So what to do next? Clearly, help others with their fairy freakfest forest (or underwater scuba diving or circus musical or Burning Man) weddings. That is, write a book. [via]

See (www.offbeatbride.com) and her Flickr group (www.flickr.com/groups/offbeatbride/), where other "offbeat" brides can upload their unconventional wedding photos.

*Photo of Rebecca's wedding can be see on Flickr.

Offbeat Bride: Taffeta-Free Alternatives for Independent Brides by Ariel Meadow Stallings has a publication date of Jan. 28.

Although it's not for everyone, it's nice to see people add their own creative twist to the traditional wedding and fun to read their stories. My two weddings were both pretty dull. The first one I wore a floral jacket and skirt and the marriage lasted 3 years. The 2nd one I wore jeans and a nice blouse and we're about to celebrate our 20th anniversary this summer!

It was Robin's birthday yesterday, December 13th. She would have been 52. It's been almost 13 months since she's been gone. She was still 50 years old. December 13th is also the day when Robin always made sure the Christmas tree was up. I had it about 85% decorated yesterday. It's a 7 1/2 foot artificial tree and looks gorgeous. I just need to add the faux pearl garlands and the angel on top which I'll do later today.



I took Mother for cataract surgery yesterday. She's had it on one eye years ago and now she got the other eye done. We have a check up this afternoon. She had a tough time after the numbing wore off last night and barely slept from her pain and discomfort. Advil wasn't cutting it at all. Poor thing. She's just trembling today.

We have the "Light Up For Jesus" Saturday. Here in Smalltown, USA, you can say "Jesus" and the PC folks won't come after you. Although Light Up For The Holidays would probably be a better fit. Anyway, it's where all the neighbors line up those white bags with sand and votive candles and light them at sundown. Then everyone from all around drives by with their parking lights on to view all the decorated houses with the streets lined with soft, glowing lights. It really is magical. Usually someone flies over and gets a good aerial photo of the two large neighborhoods here in Golf Course Acres and if I'm able I'll post one.

Better get with it. =)

Scroll down over there on the right side and you'll see a picture of me on the webcam. The next good hair day I have, I'll update that photo, although that might be a long time from now!

I have it configured for Yahoo messenger and my id on there is sudio1. Feel free to add me. I'm trying to configure it for my AOL IM, too. (susanjcook on AOL)

Time to read email and blogs. Later, tater.