52 Snapshots of Life, Week 8: Mirror

This week's theme for 52 Snapshots of Life, hosted by The Lazy Pit Bull, is MIRROR.

I had several opportunities, over the last week or two, to take pictures of the pets looking in a mirror, walking past a mirror, lying near a mirror, or (with the twins) looking at each other with a glass door between them, thus appearing to be a mirror.  Alas, too slow with the camera to catch any of these mirror moments!

So, dragging out a photo of Yours Truly from the not-so-distant archives.  This was about two months ago, when I got my hair cut! hah!  I snapped the sorta-selfie to show to the person who recommended my new hairdresser.  Admittedly, I don't exactly get my hair "dressed" these days.  It is all natural, no style and yes, that is my natural color.  Voila!  There ya have it!

Mirror, mirror.

The blogger, herself.

52 Snapshots of Life; Week 7: Love

L.O.V.E., love!!

That's the topic for this week's 52 Snapshots of Life blog hop, hosted by The Lazy Pit Bull.

This is going to be one of the easiest posts of all 52 weeks for me, since today is my parents' anniversary.  Not their wedding anniversary, but the anniversary of the day they met.  For their entire lives, my Dad always celebrated both today (the day they met) and tomorrow (Valentine's Day), by giving my Mom two store-bought cards and writing mushy, lovey-dovey things on the inside.

As everyone by now knows (and if you don't, where've you been!?), my folks signed their cards to each other "MTAITW", WWIIs version of "texting".  The letters stood for "More Than Anything In The World".  This became the title of my series of books containing my Dad's WWII love letters.  He wrote to my Mom every single day while he was deployed in various locations throughout Europe and the U.S.  If he missed a day, he'd send her an apology or even sometimes a telegram!  The missed days were extremely rare, and my mother kept all of the letters -- approximately 1,000 of them.

But, back to the day they met.  It was February 13, 1942.  Like today, it was "Friday the 13th" but for the Mueller-Altenburg family, it would be nothin' but lucky.  The event was one of these USO dances, stateside, where women (mostly nurses) and soldiers would jitterbug the night away in a church, barn, other available building, and even in railroad cars! My Dad was always a heavyset guy, and he thought this gorgeous nurse would never like him in a million years.  But, she, too, was smitten.  They saw each other again the next night, on Valentine's Day, and then kept dating.   They were married in December of that same year, in a hurried and secret ceremony at city hall in Chicago -- like so many other couples of the day -- to make sure they "tied the knot" before Dad was deployed.

My parents' "formal" wedding photo. No, the bride didn't wear white!  

Valentine's Day was always very special for my parents, especially my Dad.  He was very romantic!

So, in honor of my folks -- here's this week's blog post of LOVE!

52 Snapshots of Life Week 6: Create

I'm a little late posting my week 6 post for the 52 Week Snapshot Challenge (hosted by The Lazy Pit Bull).  This week's topic is CREATE. 

My mother was a talented artist.  I did not inherit that, or her penchant for being a nurse (I do not have the iron stomach she had).  I inherited my "talents" (ahem?!) from my dad:  writing and accounting, not necessarily in that order.  We both loved writing, and we both did accounting to pay the bills (oooo, see what I did there?  I made a funny!).  So, coming up with something for the topic CREATE is a real challenge.

I am writing "a" book (or is it three books?  I sort of have not come to a conclusion on that, yet).  It is a work in progress, and making little progress these days.  

It has been an extremely hectic week here, and for reasons I can't go into at the moment, I'm going to cheat just a tad and post a throwback photo as this week's snapshot.  It's a picture of my cat, Tux, lying among my father's WWII letters.  [insert shameless plug alert, here]  This photo became the cover for my second book, "More Than Anything In The World, Volume 2" which I published on CREATEspace.com.   

I really love this picture because it conveys so many things I love:  my pets, writing, my parents, and my sweet "un-husband" (that's his desk and his Rensselaer Polytech lamp!).  

Next week is Valentine's Day (already??) so we will be posting about L-O-V-E love.

Until then, stay safe, particularly if you are in the snowmageddon zone like we are!

Super Sunday #kittenbowl #puppybowl #thelucybowl

K2's K9s and Kitties is a proud supporter of  Lucy Pet Foundation!



I cannot believe I am about to write a (very wordy) post about the Super Bowl.

Thirty years ago, I went out for a drink on Super Bowl Sunday, with this amazing guy.  Well, neither of us were sports fans, so we sort of didn't realize it was Super Bowl Sunday (Super Bowl XIX, Dolphins vs. 49ers, for anyone keeping track).  We arrived at the bar in town for a drink, and the place was mobbed with football fans.  We still had no idea what the heck was going on!  LOL!  At the time, Massachusetts was in the middle of a January thaw, and my potential boyfriend thought he'd be cool and drive his sports car on that day.  Only problem was, the bar didn't have a paved parking lot, and the car got stuck in the mud!  To make matters worse, both of us were all dressed up, and he was wearing white jeans!!  Of course, he wasn't going to let me drive his sports car, he didn't even know me! So, somehow he managed -- with no help from me -- to get the car out of the mud.  By the time we got back to his house, one of the tires had sprung a leak and was almost flat.  Here we are, 30 years later, and yep, we are still together!  So, I guess you could say our "anniversary" is Super Bowl Sunday.  Which is hilarious, because, like I said, neither of us is a sports fan, and even though our hometown team (the Patriots) is playing tonight, we will not be watching!  By the way, said significant other has no recollection of that night in 1985!!  (Men!!)

Back in the day!  Gil, me, and our dog, Timba -- at Long View Farm

Some differences between 1985's Super Bowl (which, it was pointed out to me, was the aftermath of the 1984 season), and today's mega-event:

• The game in 1985 occurred on January 20th, a full two weeks earlier than the games that are played nowadays!
• The game was held in Stanford University's stadium; not in a pro-NFL stadium!
• The game was the very first to be broadcast by ABC!  (whaaat?!!)
• The game was played on Inauguration Day, so Ronald Reagan was sworn for his second presidential term on the same day!
• President Reagan appeared live via satellite from Washington, DC and performed the official coin toss (the first -- and perhaps only?? -- time a sitting U.S. President had ever done so). 
• One of the TV commentators, Joe Theissman, was an active player in the NFL -- he would be the last active player to ever provide television commentary during a Super Bowl.
• (This is my favorite fact!)  Celebrities were not yet performing at half-time... from Wikipedia, here are the headliners of the half-time show:  The halftime show was titled "World of Children's Dreams" and featured Tops In Blue, an elite performing tour ensemble consisting of members from the U.S. Air Force. Additional performers were recruited from USAF active, retired, and their dependents

My, how things have changed!

Today, we are watching Kitten Bowl on the Hallmark Channel, and Puppy Bowl on Animal Planet, in addition to Columbo on MeTV tonight.

Keep your eyes open for the Lucy Bowl Ad during Kitten Bowl.  It will air throughout the day, and provides a super-important message about adopting pets.  Unlike some of those for-profit companies advertising during the real game, and using cute puppies and cats in order to make money (hey, I get it, I'm just SAYIN'!), the Lucy Pet Foundation's ad is intended solely for bringing awareness to adoptable pets.    Here's the ad teaser that's been going around the internet for a few days



Pssst!!  If you click on the Lucy Bowl Ad link, in the paragraph above this video, you can see the whole ad!!  :)

Go Pats!!

Happy Anniversary to my amazing boyfriend of 30 years!