Gone Visiting – Monday Road Trip, Jingle, Jangle, Jungle

In 2014, when I participated in the A to Z Blog Challenge, they had a neat feature for the post-challenge period called the A to Z Road Trip. Visiting other blogs in the list and commenting allowed the participant to hit blogs they didn’t get to during the challenge itself. While I’m not sure if they’ll have this for the 2016 challenge, I figured what the hay, I’ll do it on my own.

My visit today is to a blog called Jingle, Jangle, Jungle: a blog about music, artists, and the stories behind them.

The theme for this year is “Women In Music.” Wow! What a neat idea. Plus, this blogger finished all their posts in February – a feat in and of itself, I might add. Even a death in the family and a serious fall didn’t deter from the challenge itself, and that’s even more impressive. Sort of takes all the excuses for not writing and throws them out the window. This is, all things considered, a good thing.

Happy blogging!

Make Something Monday – and I Cleaned Out a Bin!

Yesterday, I got a wild hair to rummage in my craft storage bins for some yarn that I bought waaaay back when I first started to knit. I put it away, thinking I’d make a sleeveless sweater or something for the holidays.

Only, I’d bought four skeins, which isn’t enough for a sweater.

And so it’s languished in the bin for ~cof~ years ~cof~. I also got some very difficult, fussy eyelash yarn of an eye-catching red. I tried mixing it with this gorgeous stuff and it looked awful. Rather than looking like a fur border, it looked like, well, a mess.

I’m not sure what magical alchemy happened yesterday. Mercury is retrograde; maybe it’s that. No clue. But in I walked to my office, let my fingers do the walking through my binventory (I made up a word!!), and voila – new project glee.

Only one problem. What the eff do I make, if not the sweater I’d been procrastinating?

The yarn is a lovely, skooshie Plymouth 24k in a red and gold, complete with gold flecks. I could do a rectangular shawl with thin tassels, (once I learn how to spell tassels ~fail~). I could do a necklace or beads.

Hmm. That’s actually not a bad idea. I have four balls of it; I could use three for a triangle shawl and the one remaining ball for some jewelry.

I started with a garter stitch border and then started yarn over increases three stitches in on each side. When I had enough of an edge to make the point strong, I started two yarn overs in the center. I’m going to do Little Arrowhead Lace from Barbara Walker’s Volume I, and then in the center, I think I’ll do budding branch once I have enough on either side of the center spine.

Oh. As I’m writing this, there are really two centers, one on either side of the spine. Hmm. I can do buds, but have them mirror each other. Facing center, or facing out? I’ll noodle on that, but I’m thinking facing center.

I got pretty far yesterday.

And I did not allow Kolya to eat the yarn. Or chew on the needles. Or steal the project bag so he could gnaw on the plastic.

Right. I decided to be a textile artist in a house full of cats. Brilliant.

What are you making this Monday?

Sunday Box Talk – On Artistic Blocks, Fear, and Forward Movement

As many of know, I’m an author. Last July, my coauthor Rachel Wilder and I decided to go independent with our Chicagoland Shifters series. That’s when the trouble started. It was as though I was a creative car engine, and I ran out of oil. I had plenty of gas, but no lubricant and the engine locked up. Boom. Nothing.

Artistic blocks are frustrating because there’s nothing visibly wrong But it’s like we’re bleeding to death with no blood coming out. And it’s incredibly difficult to talk about, because, after all, there’s nothing tangible that’s wrong. If we say something to the wrong person, we risk further blockage, requiring us to practice vigilant self-care in selecting our friends. I remember I told someone I was having a block, and she guffawed a loud bark. “A blocked Noony isn’t the same as anyone else blocked.” Only, it is, and I was, and damn it, it’s hard to get support.

Apropos of which, if you are feeling tuck, or clotted, or a vague yearning to make or write something, honor that and get help. The Artist’s Way is a great resource, as is a good therapist. So is taking a class or meeting with a friend to make or write something, no matter how small.

But my point in writing this is to say, there’s been forward movement. In December, we did “Six Geese Laid – A Holiday Fable,” set in the world of the Chicagoland Shifters In March, I was accepted to the Romance Divas Mentor Boot Camp and get to work with bestselling author Violet Vaughn.

In working with Violet, I’ve gotten Cat’s Cradle up on Apple and Barnes and Noble. I’m working on Kobo and ARe (All Romance eBooks). CreateSpace is nearly ready; I just have to fix the footers.

I know in business, speed to market is critical to success and sometimes a key differentiator between success and failure. I feel like I did everything wrong with our indie launch, but it’s taught me some important lessons:

Just show up. You can’t get the job done if you don’t get to work.
“Right” is none of my business. Just do the next task.
Blockage is real. I am not lazy, I’m blocked.
I can get unblocked.
Blocks are a normal part of the artist’s life.
Asking for help is a sign of strength, especially when it doesn’t feel like it.
It’s hard to work a full time job, have a functioning family, be a writer, and an indie author. That’s a lot of balls to keep in the air.
I like challenges. The December gym challenge got me to the gym 25 days in a row, and the April A to Z Blog Challenge got me blogging daily on three blogs, plus two team blogs and guest posts.
Sometimes, you need to just fucking do it. I started a Facebook group for Writer Zen Garden – I kept waiting for the right time and realized if I kept doing that, I’d wait forever.
PTSD and anorexia suck. In case you were wondering.

The moral of this story, or the “key takeaway” in corpspeak, is that the only failure is not getting back up. In July, I got Cat’s Cradle up on Amazon. I still haven’t figured out what stopped me putting it on the other vendor sites, but something did. Self-sabotage, most likely. Rather than sit and reflect on that, I can work with Violet and other writer friends and move forward, however slowly, to get it out on the other sites. I’m still not finished, but each experience teaches me something. For example, next time, I may hire someone to do the uploads. It is probably worth the money to pay them to do it quickly and efficiently, rather than this eight month lag-time and shame-fest that I’ve been drowning in.

If you’re reading this and seeing any echoes of your own experience, know this: just start now. Start where you are, today. Make something. Write some words. And most of all, forgive yourself for yesterday. We can only control where we are now, int eh present day. So own it, own your dream, and own your progress.

We can do this.

Write on.

Why Letterforms? – Reflection on the A to Z Blog Challenge, Letterforms in Nature and the Built Environment

My theme for the A to Z Challenge here at Knoontime Knitting was “Letterforms In Nature and the Built Environment.”

Why Letterforms?

I adore letters. I have my whole life. I started young as a calligrapher, and had a business at the age of thirteen where I did menus and certificates for local small businesses. While art was not something that was encouraged when I went to college, it’s always stuck with me in the back of my mind and I got back into daily calligraphy a couple years ago. It just seemed natural to look at letterforms in a non-traditional way, and while I was outside walking one day, it hit me. Why not look for accidental letters?

A book that was a deep influence on me was Alphabet Art: Thirteen ABC’s From Around the World, by Leonard Everett Fisher. This was one of the first calligraphy books I ever owned and I used to pore over it for hours, looking for similarities and differences in the way people make the alphabets that represent their language. I suppose because of this, it’s no surprise I studied languages when I went to university, or that I speak several now as an adult. My love affair with language and letters is a long one.

When I started the challenge, it was simply “In Nature.” I didn’t start adding the “Built Environment” until I was out on one of my photography walks, prowling the neighborhood looking for ABC’s. I found an “F” in a fence that made me laugh because of the double entendre, and it hit me that because I have become, of necessity because I live in the third largest city in the U.S., an urbanscape photographer, doing letters in built structures was a natural progression of the landscape photography training I’ve had. After all, “can’t beat ’em, join ’em.” And so, I set out to find more letters.

The more I photographed, the more I saw letters around me. I’d be waiting for a bus and examine a sapling waiting for Spring. Or I’d find letters in the joints of buildings and the elbows of signs. It turned out to be a lot of fun. I may even turn my photographs into a book, which tickles me because I can include narratives and poetry as befits the particular images.

On a more mundane note, as I did the challenge I realized that I needed some kind of footnote to explain to visitors what I was doing, and where, since I had multiple challenges going. Rather than re-write it each time, I created a “backmatter” file in my word processing program where I could write the notes, customized for each blog, and then just copy and paste each time. That really helped me feel like my posts were tied together with a common thread and helped me promote the different blogs where I was participating in the challenge. I’ll definitely do that again next year, because it made things feel much more professional.

Suffice it to say, I had a ball with this challenge and with picking a theme and, while it didn’t have anything strictly speaking to do with knitting, I found the inspiration it gave me to be invaluable. I can’t wait until next year’s challenge!

For your ease of viewing, here’s the list of the posts for the Challenge.

Letterforms in Nature and the Built Environment

A: The A-Z of the Natural World – Letterforms In Nature

B: B Is For Bush! (No, Not THAT Kind of Bush)

C: Urbanscapes And Letterforms In The Built Environment

D: The D in a Tree

E: The Largest E You’ll Ever See

F: Hit the Fence

G: Good Things Come In Threes

H: How Does Your Garden Grow?

I: There Is No “I” In Tree (possibly my favorite title of the series)

J: Jump Out At You

K: Konlabos. With a K.

L: Too Literal

M: Paint the Fence!

N: Noony!

O: O Say, Can You See?

P: Poussez, Tirez

Q: Quotidian

R: Lowercase

S: A Bit of a Stretch…

T: Look Up, Young Man!

U: Under-Over

V: V! V-I! V-I-C-T-O-R-Y!

W: Weird Sky

X: X Marks the Spot – Even If It’s Tardy!

Y: The Fork In the Tree and the Path Less Traveled By

Z: Zed

Thank you for joining me for the A-Z Blog Challenge. If you’re blogging in the challenge, please leave me a link so I can come visit you too. If you have a moment, please check out these other fine blogs:

The theme on my main blog, Explore the Worlds of A. Catherine Noon, is The A To Z of the Zoo. Join me as I explore Brookfield Zoo and finds animals, birds, and insects from A to Z.

The theme at Noon & Wilder is The A To Z of Chicago. Since I live here in the city and we have our Chicagoland Shifters based here, I figured I’d share a window into the city, Noon & Wilder style.

The Nice Girls Writing Naughty have a new home, and we’re blogging in the challenge again this year. Throughout the month you’ll be hearing from each of the Nice Girls, and during the RT Booklovers Convention from April 12^th to the 17^th, you’ll be getting live convention reports. Join the conversation!

The Writer Zen Garden’s brand new website is up and running, and we’re bringing you posts from me, Noony; my partner in crime, Rachel Wilder (the Wilder half of Noon & Wilder); the talented Darla M. Sands – a blogger in her own right, see below; as well as Grace Kahlo, Evey Brown, and author Tina Holland. Check it out!

My friends who are participating in the challenge (and if you’re not on this list, tell me and I’ll add you!):

Darla M. Sands, Awakening Dreams and Conquering Nightmares with a Pen
Kari Trenten, The Cauldron of Eternal Inspiration

Write on, and Happy Blogging!

The A To Z of the Zoo – A Retrospective

As is the custom after the A to Z Blogging Challenge, participants prepare reflections posts that discuss what they learned from the challenge, what worked, and what didn’t.

Plus, I have zebras.

First, the Lonely Zebra That Wasn’t

The last week or so of April, I cause the nasty cold virus that’s going around and it horse-kicked me into the barn. I don’t often get sick, but when I do… Yeah, yeah. Thank you, Dos Equis man. But seriously, this cold stinks. So I was frantically trying to keep up with my daily challenge posts, which I usually forward-posted on the weekend so I’d have time to visit my fellow challengers each day. But as it got down to the wire, and I got sicker and sicker, it got harder and harder to do.

And then the last day came.

I was a day behind! Oh noes! But never fear, I’ve got at least three challenge prep trips to the zoo under my belt, plus all my other zoo trips if needed, to make my final challenge post of Z Is For Zebra.

Only… there were NO zebras! Not in my March zoo trip. Not in either December zoo trips. Not in my last couple zoo trips. Not in my phone. By the time a half hour had gone by, and I was dragging and needed to go to bed, I had to face facts.

My last post of the challenge would be sans animal.

Never fear. I am nothing if not resourceful in the face of danger! And, there are plenty of peacock pics. I lurve me some peacocks! So not to be deterred on that, the last day of the challenge, my zebra post featured a peacock, a meme, and my fattest cat.

See? And who said challenges were for the faint of heart?

But today, Dear Reader, the day of my Reflections post, I have Zebra! Will post! Read on, MacDuff…

So we went to the zoo on Mother’s Day, which also happened to be my birthday. I told my family, we must find zebras! No worries, there are plenty of zebras. They are always wandering around their enclosure, nibbling at hay, and being cute.

We arrived, and all we saw were butts. Three butts. Zebra butts. But butts they were, and butts they remained – despite calling, and cooing, and clicking, and “Hey, you!”

We gave up, our sad intrepid little band, and made it to the okapi enclosure when it happened.

The most loud, awful, non-donkey donkey racket we’ve ever heard in our lives. It sounded like a cross between an angry emu and a mule arguing politics. (You think I’m kidding?) So we trekked back to try and find what made the noise and found this lovely fellow.

For those of you adults in the audience, even though you can’t quite see it in the shadows, it became immediately apparent why he’d been making such a god awful racket and why there was a large fence between him and the other, probably female, zebras.

It is, after all, Spring.

o.O…

As for reflections, I have these:

I like challenges, I’ve decided. This has been a year for them. I participated in a gym challenge in December, where I attended the gym 25 days in a row. I participated in the A to Z Challenge on three blogs by myself, as well as two team blogs. I did something differently this year, though; I decided to actually pick a theme that required research and collecting photographs. I have links to my other “Reflections” posts below, but here’s a recap of what I did on this blog:

This year, I decided to do the “A to Z of the Zoo,” which I like simply because of the alliteration. I limited myself to Brookfield Zoo, for no other reason than to give the challenge some, well, challenge. I have lots of photographs of animals in zoos because we love to visit zoos. In the past year, we’ve been to the zoo in Tacoma, St. Louis, and here in Chicago; plus there’s the Lincoln Park Zoo here which, while we haven’t been recently, has different animals from Brookfield. I figured it would make it more challenging to actually find animals at Brookfield.

We had to resort to Latin binomials for some of the animals, (a “Latin binomial” is the two word name scientists give to a specific animal that tells its identification and membership in specific animal sub-groups. This practice is known as taxonomy; not to be confused with taxidermy, the practice of stuffing dead animals. But I digress). We had a heck of a time finding several of the letters; for example, “J” gave us particular fits. If we’d allowed ourselves another zoo, such as Lincoln Park, it would have been an easy matter to choose a jaguar. But we limited ourselves specifically to Brookfield and so, on a chilly day in March, my husband and I went to the zoo with little yellow cards on which I’d printed the animals I already had, and we brainstormed the rest.

This turned out to be a ton of fun. I’m not sure what I’ll do next year, but I think I might try something like it again because I had a ball wandering around and photographing things. I got a lot of photographs that I didn’t use in the challenge but liked a lot; I’ll probably have those in later blog posts throughout the year.

I highly recommend the challenge to anyone who likes to blog, and even for those of us bloggers who are intermittent or unsure how to begin. I got a lot of ideas when I visited other bloggers on the list, and look forward to my Road Trip between now and next April where I plan to visit other challengers and see what they’re doing with their blogs.

Happy blogging!

And, for your reading pleasure, here’s a list of the posts for the A to Z Challenge, The A To Z of the Zoo:

Amur Leopard – For A!

Bears Napping, Bears Pacing, Bears, Bears, Bears! B Is For Bears!

Wray-Wray’s Namesake – When You Find Your Name on a Camel

Dogs – Of the African Wild Variety

Stephen Colbert Ain’t Got Nuthin’ On Him! Or, E Is For Eagle

Too Foxy!

Number One Goose, And Giraffe Have Long Tongues

It Came From The Ocean – The Dogs of the Sea – Harbor Seals

Gettin’ Beaky With It – The Ibis In The Pond

The Bird That Wasn’t: Jambu Fruit Dove – And A Party #Giveaway

Lookit Them Feet!

The King Of The Jungle

Mexican Grey Wolves Are Sneaky

North American River Otters… Were Busy?

The Secret Forest-Dweller

So Many P’s, So Little Time

The Q Files

Six Inch Thick Skin

Been Waiting ALL Month For This!

The Trouble With Tigers

What Izzit!? – Today It’s Uromastyx!

Varanids, Varanids Everywhere!

Water Dragon!

Xtreme Birds

Yes, It’s Snow Leopards!

Zebras Aren’t For Riding

Thank you for joining me for the A-Z Blog Challenge. If you’re blogging in the challenge, please leave me a link so I can come visit you too. If you have a moment, please check out these other fine blogs:

My theme on my Knoontime Knitting craft blog is Letterforms In Nature and the Built Environment. I’ll be exploring my daily round, looking for shapes in the natural world and build environment.

The theme at Noon & Wilder is The A To Z of Chicago. Since I live here in the city and we have our Chicagoland Shifters based here, I figured I’d share a window into the city, Noon & Wilder style.

The Nice Girls Writing Naughty have a new home, and we’re blogging in the challenge again this year. Throughout the month you’ll be hearing from each of the Nice Girls, and during the RT Booklovers Convention from April 12^th to the 17^th, you’ll be getting live convention reports. Join the conversation!

The Writer Zen Garden’s brand new website is up and running, and we’re bringing you posts from me, Noony; my partner in crime, Rachel Wilder (the Wilder half of Noon & Wilder); the talented Darla M. Sands – a blogger in her own right, see below; as well as Grace Kahlo, Evey Brown, and author Tina Holland. Check it out!

My friends who are participating in the challenge:

Darla M. Sands, Awakening Dreams and Conquering Nightmares with a Pen
Kari Trenten, The Cauldron of Eternal Inspiration

Write on, and Happy Blogging!

Zed

And so, Dear Reader, the A to Z Challenge has come to an end. Thank you for coming along on this journey with me. I hope you’ve enjoyed wandering the streets of my daily round, looking for letterforms in nature and the built environment. I have to say, it’s changed how I see the world around me and even given me an idea for a book. But in the meantime, I’ve got not one but two images for you today, one in nature and one in the built environment; a fitting close to my challenge this month.

And remember, May 9th is the A to Z Reflections Post Day, and the Linky List is open from May 9 to May 13. Keep an eye on the main A to Z Blog Challenge page for more info and updates, and of course come back here on the 9th for my reflections on my various posts. Also, if you’ve visited me and I haven’t responded or visited back, please forgive me; I’ve had a nasty cold and do plan to catch up to everyone over the coming days, I promise!

My theme here at my Knoontime Knitting craft blog is Letterforms In Nature and the Built Environment.

Thank you for joining me for the A-Z Blog Challenge. If you’re blogging in the challenge, please leave me a link so I can come visit you too. If you have a moment, please check out these other fine blogs:

The theme on my main blog, Explore the Worlds of A. Catherine Noon, is The A To Z of the Zoo. Join me as I explore Brookfield Zoo and finds animals, birds, and insects from A to Z.

The theme at Noon & Wilder is The A To Z of Chicago. Since I live here in the city and we have our Chicagoland Shifters based here, I figured I’d share a window into the city, Noon & Wilder style.

The Nice Girls Writing Naughty have a new home, and we’re blogging in the challenge again this year. Throughout the month you’ll be hearing from each of the Nice Girls, and during the RT Booklovers Convention from April 12^th to the 17^th, you’ll be getting live convention reports. Join the conversation!

The Writer Zen Garden’s brand new website is up and running, and we’re bringing you posts from me, Noony; my partner in crime, Rachel Wilder (the Wilder half of Noon & Wilder); the talented Darla M. Sands – a blogger in her own right, see below; as well as Grace Kahlo, Evey Brown, and author Tina Holland. Check it out!

My friends who are participating in the challenge (and if you’re not on this list, tell me and I’ll add you!):

Darla M. Sands, Awakening Dreams and Conquering Nightmares with a Pen
Kari Trenten, The Cauldron of Eternal Inspiration

Write on, and Happy Blogging!

Zebras Aren’t For Riding

Garçon! Where is mah ordehr!?

The peacocks roam free at the Brookfield Zoo, and it’s a lot of fun to run across them as they wander up and down the footpaths. And then we came upon this brazen fellow.

Is it any surprise at all that I wanted to go up and pet him?

I know, Dear Reader; I know. But sadly, on this, the last day of the challenge, I could not find ANY pictures of zebras! Not in any of the three prep trips, not in my prior zoo trips, nowhere on my computer. There’s a possibility some may be hidden on my phone, but I’ve already spent the last half hour looking and technically, the challenge ended yesterday.

I think Boria has the right idea, it’s time for a nap. I hate getting spring colds, don’t you? I have no energy and I fall behind in my wordcount – like for this challenge. But I’m truly pleased you’ve traveled the month with me, Dear Reader, and visited me as I explore The A to Z of the Zoo.

And remember, May 9th is the A to Z Reflections Post Day, and the Linky List is open from May 9 to May 13. Keep an eye on the main A to Z Blog Challenge page for more info and updates, and of course come back here on the 9th for my reflections on my various posts. Also, if you’ve visited me and I haven’t responded or visited back, please forgive me; I’ve had a nasty cold and do plan to catch up to everyone over the coming days, I promise!

Thank you for joining me for the A-Z Blog Challenge. If you’re blogging in the challenge, please leave me a link so I can come visit you too. If you have a moment, please check out these other fine blogs:

My theme on my Knoontime Knitting craft blog is Letterforms In Nature and the Built Environment. I’ll be exploring my daily round, looking for shapes in the natural world and build environment.

The theme at Noon & Wilder is The A To Z of Chicago. Since I live here in the city and we have our Chicagoland Shifters based here, I figured I’d share a window into the city, Noon & Wilder style.

The Nice Girls Writing Naughty have a new home, and we’re blogging in the challenge again this year. Throughout the month you’ll be hearing from each of the Nice Girls, and during the RT Booklovers Convention from April 12^th to the 17^th, you’ll be getting live convention reports. Join the conversation!

The Writer Zen Garden’s brand new website is up and running, and we’re bringing you posts from me, Noony; my partner in crime, Rachel Wilder (the Wilder half of Noon & Wilder); the talented Darla M. Sands – a blogger in her own right, see below; as well as Grace Kahlo, Evey Brown, and author Tina Holland. Check it out!

My friends who are participating in the challenge (and if you’re not on this list, tell me and I’ll add you!):

Darla M. Sands, Awakening Dreams and Conquering Nightmares with a Pen
Kari Trenten, The Cauldron of Eternal Inspiration

Write on, and Happy Blogging!

The Fork In the Tree and the Path Less Traveled By

I think, by this point in my walk, the couple about twenty feet behind me were convinced I was bonkers. I kept stopping, after all, to stare into the hedgerows or up at trees. I even back-tracked to get the correct angle to snap this lovely letter “Y” for you.

And in case the title sounds vaguely familiar but isn’t quite coming to mind, it’s from this snippet:

The Road Not Taken

by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

My theme here at my Knoontime Knitting craft blog is Letterforms In Nature and the Built Environment.

Thank you for joining me for the A-Z Blog Challenge. If you’re blogging in the challenge, please leave me a link so I can come visit you too. If you have a moment, please check out these other fine blogs:

The theme on my main blog, Explore the Worlds of A. Catherine Noon, is The A To Z of the Zoo. Join me as I explore Brookfield Zoo and finds animals, birds, and insects from A to Z.

The theme at Noon & Wilder is The A To Z of Chicago. Since I live here in the city and we have our Chicagoland Shifters based here, I figured I’d share a window into the city, Noon & Wilder style.

The Nice Girls Writing Naughty have a new home, and we’re blogging in the challenge again this year. Throughout the month you’ll be hearing from each of the Nice Girls, and during the RT Booklovers Convention from April 12^th to the 17^th, you’ll be getting live convention reports. Join the conversation!

The Writer Zen Garden’s brand new website is up and running, and we’re bringing you posts from me, Noony; my partner in crime, Rachel Wilder (the Wilder half of Noon & Wilder); the talented Darla M. Sands – a blogger in her own right, see below; as well as Grace Kahlo, Evey Brown, and author Tina Holland. Check it out!

My friends who are participating in the challenge (and if you’re not on this list, tell me and I’ll add you!):

Darla M. Sands, Awakening Dreams and Conquering Nightmares with a Pen
Kari Trenten, The Cauldron of Eternal Inspiration

Write on, and Happy Blogging!

Yes, It’s Snow Leopards!

And so, Dear Reader, I reprise my topic of a few days ago, the majestic snow leopard. Now, don’t be like that; I did actually find a “Y” animal at the zoo, the Yellow Spotted Toad; but, all due respect to my husband, I am not a herper and toads do not excite me.

Besides. The toad just sat there. And nobody ever got eaten by a toad, so there.

Moving right along…

These pictures are actually not from my A to Z prep trips. They’re from one of three visits to the zoo we took last year in April, before the two snow leopard cubs were born. Here you get to see Mamma and Papa before they were a mamma or a papa.

They sleep just like my cats!

Their feet are WAY bigger, though. Holy Jebus, look at those toe beans!

Aww.

Oh look! One’s waking up!

~squeak~

~double-squeak~

Holy crap, these are majestic animals!

You know, I’ve seen that exact same expression on my house cats’ face. I wanted to stare, but making eye contact is considered rude, so I looked down. But man. Sent chills down my spine.

Tomorrow, it will…

Oh, fine, for you literalists:

Mee-deep. Mee-deep.

So, who is this fellow?

Yellow-spotte… HEY! HONEY! I FOUND A Y!

Keep your voice down, will ya?

Then I noticed something.

The Yellow-Spotted Climbing Toad is, in fact, green.

And that’s not even on cold medicine, Dear Reader.

Tomorrow, it’s the Pièce De Résistance – Z! (Psst – it’s actually later this afternoon, since I’m late an’ all, but hey. Keeping up appearances, right? Right!)

Thank you for joining me for the A-Z Blog Challenge. If you’re blogging in the challenge, please leave me a link so I can come visit you too. If you have a moment, please check out these other fine blogs:

My theme on my Knoontime Knitting craft blog is Letterforms In Nature and the Built Environment. I’ll be exploring my daily round, looking for shapes in the natural world and build environment.

The theme at Noon & Wilder is The A To Z of Chicago. Since I live here in the city and we have our Chicagoland Shifters based here, I figured I’d share a window into the city, Noon & Wilder style.

The Nice Girls Writing Naughty have a new home, and we’re blogging in the challenge again this year. Throughout the month you’ll be hearing from each of the Nice Girls, and during the RT Booklovers Convention from April 12^th to the 17^th, you’ll be getting live convention reports. Join the conversation!

The Writer Zen Garden’s brand new website is up and running, and we’re bringing you posts from me, Noony; my partner in crime, Rachel Wilder (the Wilder half of Noon & Wilder); the talented Darla M. Sands – a blogger in her own right, see below; as well as Grace Kahlo, Evey Brown, and author Tina Holland. Check it out!

My friends who are participating in the challenge (and if you’re not on this list, tell me and I’ll add you!):

Darla M. Sands, Awakening Dreams and Conquering Nightmares with a Pen
Kari Trenten, The Cauldron of Eternal Inspiration

Write on, and Happy Blogging!

Xtreme Birds

The Andean Condor has a wingspan of over twelve feet and is one of the largest birds in the world. He is a scavenger, a type of buzzard. He’s got black and white wings and red eyes and a really.big.beak.

One day in December when we visited the zoo, we stood watching the condors and the bigger one knocked the littler one of its perch. Now, I assume this is a mated pair, i.e. a female and a male, but I don’t know for sure. I said, joking, “Aww, are you gonna take that?” Not a second after I spoke, the displaced condor rushed the victor and a ten minute battle ensued.

At one point, one of the birds’ wingtips banged the cage and made a very loud sound, like something heavy hitting it. It became immediately apparent why their cage is as sturdy as it is.

The wingspan is stunning.

So are their eyes. Except the bars got in the way…

And in this one, a branch…

And then the other one caught up and whammo!

Holy she-it.

Maybe we could go look at the penguins next?

This one looks like art. You can suddenly see where the majesty of some First Nations’ bird costumes come from, nu?

Majestic fricken animals.

But no, I do NOT want to pet them.

I did, however, in my not-stage voice, comment to my husband after a few minutes of watching the fight, “I wonder if this is a marital spat or foreplay?”

What I didn’t realize is that a family with younger children had walked up behind us, and I got quite the glare from the father.

Oops.

Thank you for joining me for the A-Z Blog Challenge. If you’re blogging in the challenge, please leave me a link so I can come visit you too. If you have a moment, please check out these other fine blogs:

My theme on my Knoontime Knitting craft blog is Letterforms In Nature and the Built Environment. I’ll be exploring my daily round, looking for shapes in the natural world and build environment.

The theme at Noon & Wilder is The A To Z of Chicago. Since I live here in the city and we have our Chicagoland Shifters based here, I figured I’d share a window into the city, Noon & Wilder style.

The Nice Girls Writing Naughty have a new home, and we’re blogging in the challenge again this year. Throughout the month you’ll be hearing from each of the Nice Girls, and during the RT Booklovers Convention from April 12^th to the 17^th, you’ll be getting live convention reports. Join the conversation!

The Writer Zen Garden’s brand new website is up and running, and we’re bringing you posts from me, Noony; my partner in crime, Rachel Wilder (the Wilder half of Noon & Wilder); the talented Darla M. Sands – a blogger in her own right, see below; as well as Grace Kahlo, Evey Brown, and author Tina Holland. Check it out!

My friends who are participating in the challenge (and if you’re not on this list, tell me and I’ll add you!):

Darla M. Sands, Awakening Dreams and Conquering Nightmares with a Pen
Kari Trenten, The Cauldron of Eternal Inspiration

Write on, and Happy Blogging!

A Catherine Noon

Explore the Worlds of A. Catherine Noon | Bestselling Author

Gone Visiting – Monday Road Trip, Jingle, Jangle, Jungle

My visit today is to a blog called Jingle, Jangle, Jungle: a blog about music, artists, and the stories behind them.

Make Something Monday – and I Cleaned Out a Bin!

What are you making this Monday?

Sunday Box Talk – On Artistic Blocks, Fear, and Forward Movement

Why Letterforms? – Reflection on the A to Z Blog Challenge, Letterforms in Nature and the Built Environment

Why Letterforms?

Letterforms in Nature and the Built Environment

The A To Z of the Zoo – A Retrospective

First, the Lonely Zebra That Wasn’t

As for reflections, I have these:

And, for your reading pleasure, here’s a list of the posts for the A to Z Challenge, The A To Z of the Zoo:

Zed

Zebras Aren’t For Riding

The Fork In the Tree and the Path Less Traveled By

Yes, It’s Snow Leopards!

Xtreme Birds