Hi there 🙂

Today I had another little Googling marathon to do in order to wrestle the Jimpix words into a poem.  But it is always educational!

From Jimpix

I did not know what I was going to do with ‘kern’, and at first thought this would work; but I then looked at the preceding word, and stumbled upon the composer instead!  Very helpful 😀

‘Salisbury’ has a few possibilities, but I approached it from the music angle – and found they have a Jazz Club!

‘Tia’ is (as you probably know) short for ‘thanks in advance’, but I decided it would fit better as a name in this poem (and definitely not as a type of stroke…)

So, with a wee road map appearing, I wrote my piece!

Fitting  Jazz  Kern  Would  Forceful  Tia  Murmur  Salisbury  Pine

It was fitting that, as I walked in,

The Jazz band were playing ‘Yesterdays’

(My favourite Kern composition)

I looked around for the usual lurkers,

Hoping one of them would toss me a drink.

The hangover had been particularly forceful;

And Tia’s voice even more so.

As the Saxaphone’s murmur and caress

Made me thankful Salisbury is anything but plain,

I threw back my first shot;

And my heart began to forget how to pine

For lost loves and dreams.

Scribbles in red

I am not a follower of Jazz myself (though ‘Montaffera’ and ‘Comfy Restless’ would probably fit right into the scene?) but I learned about the piece’s history here, heard it here, and I like it!

I was a bit sad, when I was Googling ‘jazz kern’ and came across a Facebook page for a dead dog 🙁 but, all in all, I had a good session with my generator nemesis today!  Thanks Jimpix!!

And thank YOU for reading 😉

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Copyright © 2017  Montaffera All Rights Reserved

Please do not use any of my content (posts, pictures, poetry etc) without my permission, but feel free to link back to my blog if something catches your eye. Thank you!

Hello!

From randomlists

The kids have been teaching me card games; and playing with dinosaurs, dragons and blocks.  There have been some good stories coming out of their endeavours.  I’ve mostly been called upon to be their referee and photographer. 

I have also had red wine and yesterday’s chocolate cake, so life is all good with me!

Maybe the tipsy writers I was talking about the other day were onto something?!  The poem seemed to flow pretty easily tonight…

There is, however, something sinister going on in this one; and I hope the speaker manages to get help ok…

Door  Wacky  Impossible  Curtain  Calculating  Wistful  Actor  Tranquil  Nonchalant

As I chapped on the door

I had no idea

Just how wacky a step

This would be.

It was impossible

To predict just then

The insane curtain you

Gather round.

Cloaking your intent/

Calculating mind.

The wistful me, sucked in.

Advantage: yours.

Such a pro actor, you.

Every tranquil thought

Of mine: shattered on sight.

Swept up, hidden.

Appearing nonchalant

When in truth a plan,

Meticulously hatched,

Is in full swing…

Notepad workings

See what I mean?!

I can only see a woman standing at a blue door, and then shadowy images of a blurry person moving inside around her, later in the poem. 

What do you think has happened?  Is it a man she is speaking about?  Is it a relationship, or is she much younger than him and he’s kidnapped her? 

Is it another woman holding the one at the door captive? A strange kind of suffocating friendship – or an affair? 

What did you get from the poem…please let me know in the comments 😉

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Copyright © 2017  Montaffera All Rights Reserved

Please do not use any of my content (posts, pictures, poetry etc) without my permission, but feel free to link back to my blog if something catches your eye. Thank you!

Hi again 🙂

It is waaaay past my bedtime, so I will post up the poem I wrote and run.  I am posting on the 21st, but will make WordPress backdate it as I did write it yesterday, honest! 

From Randomwordgenerator.com

I have just finished tinkering with my chocolate cake post, as the editor pretended that it had cropped out Eldest’s face, but hadn’t when I enlarged the thumbnail! EEEEK! I do not like having my kids’ faces on here because I just don’t feel it is safe!  Not being techy minded (and having purged the cache…) I am not sure why it didn’t crop properly, but the pic is down now.  Sigh.  It was a nice birthday candle pic, too.

When I saw that there was a phrase in the generated words, and therefore technically ten words instead of my usual nine; I decided to pair up the other words, too.  So what follows is a bit of a nonsense poem.  But I hope you like it anyway:

Normal  Button  Crossing  Similar  Disaster  Pyramid  Mail Carrier  Tile  Survey

Oh, to have a worldwide

‘Normal Button’.

It would be housed at Westminster

And seen to be as bad

As nuclear:

Crossing similar (levelling) lines.

I wonder if there would have to be

A disaster pyramid drawn up?

At the pinnacle: what would occur

If we didn’t revert back…

(Yeah, it would have to be reversible,

Because we all know we’d get bored)

Eventually, there would be a clamouring

To get back to diversity.

We’d understand our differences more.

Harry Potter would still be allowed an owl

As his mail carrier;

I would have my ‘tile survey’

Granted when I felt shy…

Scribbles

The line at the end may be a bit obscure, but what I meant was when one studies any pattern in the floor tiles instead of looking up, because of feeling acutely self-conscious 😉

Would you like a ‘normal button’?  How would it work?  Would it emit a gas, do you think?  Or a sound that was on some frequency that everyone’s brain reacted to?

Would mental disorders stop certain brains from responding?  Or above average intelligence?  (Would animals be affected?)

What actually constitutes normal behaviour?!  (If I have to ask that question, am I beyond the experiment?  Would I have to be locked up when the sound/gas was let loose?)

Would the resistance use my brain chemistry for their counter culture…?!

I need to go to bed 😉 na night, all.

X

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Hi there 🙂

Today we got around to making Eldest his birthday cake!  We used this recipe, and I never hear a complaint from those who try it (I have had a few abstain as they don’t like chocolate, however (!!!) )

Eldest’s fourth birthday cake was made by doubling the quantities of everything and then having fun cutting up bits and positioning them before splopping the icing all over it with abandon.  He loved it, and so did his party guests!

Yum yum!

Today we went for a tame version of the cake, but it was still fun to watch it come together.

Nigella states in the recipe that you can use a food processor, but mine has only successfully made a few smoothies and lolly mixtures…so I use a bowl and a wooden spoon.  The children also help a lot 🙂

So, after the ingredients were all in their respective bowls, I got to work stirring up the messy stuff and adding it to the dry stuff (very technical).  I did not wear an apron, so I got snapped by the boys happily sporting some of the flour 😉

Then came a good bit: the final spooning out of the mixture into the tins!  I am very lazy and try to get out of the buttering faff if at all possible…I just put baking paper in and around the tins, and hope the mixture spreads ok.  Does anyone else do this?!  They turn out fine.  If fact, they come out very easily, because I just remove them by the paper edges, and leave them to cool!

The boys played cards (Jack Changes) while I tidied up the diningroom, did the dishes and started melting the butter and chocolate for the icing.

And finally, after dinner, Eldest had his cake!  It is nowhere near perfectly presented, and the icing sugar is all lumpy, but it tastes good, and made our big boy grin.  Youngest even enjoyed his portion after dinner, declaring that the cocoa in it “doesn’t smell like poo any more” – which is high praise, don’t you think?

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Copyright © 2017  Montaffera All Rights Reserved

Please do not use any of my content (posts, pictures, poetry etc) without my permission, but feel free to link back to my blog if something catches your eye. Thank you!

Hey there 🙂

When I started prepping for this post, I was a happy girlie.  I had managed to have a bit of a lie in while the kids played; had supervised the filling in of a worksheet Eldest’s teacher had sent home for him with another pupil; had fed the boys a filling breakfast and lunch; taken the boys out to play on their scooters and then with the outside toys (including cones to crash the cars into); had chatted with a couple of neighbours; and then given the boys the tablet while I wrote my poem – popping back and forwards to check on them as I perused a few other bloggy-type things like my social media feeds. 

I was feeling on top of things.  I was going to get my post finished before the kids were in bed, and then get a free hour or two to do a proper clean up before settling with a Kindle book I want to read.  I wouldn’t have to turf hubby off the PC as all the finicky bits would be done. (My laptop hates the editor window for this blog.  It sucks.)

Look at the nice lot of photos I took:

But no.  The fact that I was keeping eyes and ears on my boys regularly – interacting with them while also diligently getting on with my work – was not enough.  The little darlings still managed to outfox me. 🙁

I came down (for probably the sixth time in an hour and a half, I had even cleaned Youngest’s bottom in that time) to make dinner, to find Eldest had not only poured milk for him and his brother (who is not supposed to drink much milk) without asking, even though he had declared himself not hungry or thirsty enough for dinner  just 15 minutes before, but had also made them toast!!!

Now, there are strict rules in our house that say electricity is dangerous, and hot things are too.  For Eldest to have combined these things absolutely horrified me.  He has never made toast before, never asked me to let him (although under controlled conditions, come to think of it, it would have been fine) and now he was doing it unsupervised?!  With a four year old egging him on?!  Eeeeek!! 

Thank goodness it was the toaster and not the grill he used, I suppose…

To add insult to (what thankfully did not result in) injury, the boys had then proceeded to sit in the playroom’s carpeted area to eat their spoils.  Not up at the table as I repeatedly state they are supposed to.  I was beyond livid.

I can usually hear every step that anyone takes in the kitchen, as it is right under the main bedroom (where our PC is), and I am forever foiling their little plans now that they can get round some of the toddler-proofing; but with the tumble dryer rumbling away, and a craftily shut diningroom door, I was out of the game, apparently.  I will be using the laptop in the livingroom during the day from now on, when the kids are about :-/

I feel so awful about what could have happened!  My poor heart almost failed!

From Textfixer

Eldest says Youngest told him to do it, so he had no choice…the mind boggles, pondering what hold the four year old has over the seven year old for the latter to risk the wrath of me?! Needless to say their games on the tablet are in jeopardy, and YouTube is now out of the question for the rest of this week (I can check what they are watching from my phone or the PC as they use my account.  Horrid Henry has already been banned this week because Eldest was using some of the ideas in the cartoon for booby traps…)

Anyway, I did get to write a poem earlier, so this will hopefully still be published before midnight…

Friendless  Pony  Attribute  Genuine  Domination  Baffling  Architect  Beginning  Loop

I can’t remember truly being friendless,

But I have felt lonely many times.

I world-reject a bit.

I wasn’t ever one who wanted a pony

Or any real responsibility –

I liked being able to slip away

Unencumbered.

(But maybe I just grew into that

After I started school?

It is not an attribute my innate four year old self

Showed, I don’t think)

I try to be genuine

Actually, most of the time:

I. Can’t. Help. It.

I’m not out for world domination

(I find this baffling)

But I can contribute

Too much to a conversation…!

(Then act as architect, and queen)

I don’t quite know where the lonliness came from;

Was it the bullying?

Or the hormones?

Or the social pressure I imbibed,

That told me intense was unsafe?

Somewhere along the way

I clothed myself

In a pattern of despair.

A repetitive act, but

The first day’s forgotten.

But then: every knitted article

Has just one beginning loop…

Scribbly, wibbly, pencily…stuff.

It is funny what my brain comes up with when I read my words.  Again I got the last two lines in my head (and on the notebook) and worked up to it with ‘friendless’ as my second starting point. 

Do you feel lonely around other people?  Can you pinpoint why that is, or when you first became aware of the feeling?

Feel free to come chat to me in the comments.

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Copyright © 2017  Montaffera All Rights Reserved

Please do not use any of my content (posts, pictures, poetry etc) without my permission, but feel free to link back to my blog if something catches your eye. Thank you!

Hello again 🙂

From Jimpix (muhahahahaha)

So it came to pass: once again the generator of doom ground its cogs and presented me with a strange mix of words to play with.  It took me a bit of twisting of the ol’ grey matter to figure out how ‘Lednock’, ‘IBM’ and ‘Elwy’ were going to gel together, but I managed with just over 5 minutes to spare.

Obviously I did my research outwith the 15 minute window, I’m not that quick 😉

Splatter  Lednock  IBM  Experiment Wings  Elwy  Pharaoh  By  Chancellor

The rain did not start to splatter steadily

Until I’d almost finished marvelling at the majesty

Of Glen Lednock.

Drawn from dull conferences, and talk

Of IBM shares (and software in general) –

I was feeling free.

This experiment I’d started, oh five years ago now,

Had flexed its wings and shown me

That life was for the living.

Paradoxically, it was the dead that spoke to me most.

Whether crouched in an Elwy cave,

Tracing Neanderthal;

Or staring into Pharaoh faces, imagining the

Baking heat upon their taut skin, once –

It got me by.

It kept me sane when others rattled on about money

And gloomy predictions, ignored by the Chancellor.

History doesn’t lie…

Scribbles in purple

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Copyright © 2017  Montaffera All Rights Reserved

Please do not use any of my content (posts, pictures, poetry etc) without my permission, but feel free to link back to my blog if something catches your eye. Thank you!

Hello!

A new poetry post will be up later, but I thought I’d just say a big THANK YOU to all the lovely people reading this.  Mainly because I am always honoured that people read my ramblings, but also because yesterday was an amazing day for me and this blog! 

There was a flurry of views after my poem appeared on The Drabble blog – in fact it was my best day by far at no fewer than 84 blog hits in 24 hours!! That smashed my previous record of 46! 

I really appreciate every single one of you, and love that you send me words of encouragement on Twitter, ‘like’ my posts here, and hop over from Facebook to see what I’ve posted. 

Moreover, the fact that a few of you have also subscribed to get my posts delivered to your email is alllll kinds of awesome 🙂

I grinned a ridiculous amount of much (as we say in our house) yesterday, and it was just the best feeling!

There are days when I wonder if this blogging and writing thing I do is just self-indulgent and silly, but when I see such interest and other places featuring my work, it makes the daily scribbling and posting seem relevent and worthwhile.

*Tears up a bit*

Basically?  You all rock!!

Big group hug!!

Thanks again 😀

Montaffera

xxx

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Copyright © 2017  Montaffera All Rights Reserved

Please do not use any of my content (posts, pictures, poetry etc) without my permission, but feel free to link back to my blog if something catches your eye. Thank you!

Hiya 🙂

We were on the beach today!  It was not warm, we were not building castles, or paddling; or bathing in that much sun –  but the air, the air!

I feel like the clouds are moving when I look at this – do you?!

We packed a picnic lunch for the boys to have in the car, and bought rolls at a wee newsagents for us adults.  We ate, piled on a few layers, put up available hoods (it was windy) and then negotiated the steps down to the shingle.

There were boats to look at, and a cat whizzing about, seeming to follow us (which we were not expecting).

Youngest got tired and was carted off to the car by hubby, and Eldest and I went for a longer walk along a cycle path.  I took pictures and selfies, of the scenery and with my son – he returned the favour, too!

I think Eldest easily walked over two miles today, and it was so nice to have him holding my hand, and pondering things with me again.  I have really missed our wanderings, and last week at that time he wasn’t even able to lift his head off the couch for long!

Eldest and I weren’t sure the caged stones would stop a REALLY angry sea

Both boys slept on the way back home, but that was a good thing because they were then well rested enough to have an enjoyable Skype session with their grandparents (and a visiting uncle).

What a lovely day!  It is such a shame that it had to be the very last of their official Easter holidays, though…  At least they did get to have both of us in an environment they love at least once, it would have been terrible to have only had Youngest’s party as the highlight of these holidays, after Eldest missing his birthday.  (We have a tame party planned for him for Sunday).

From Randomwordgenerator

I am not sending either boy back into education tomorrow.  I have written a note for the management team of the school, explaining our reasons for keeping them at home for at least the rest of this week.  I am hoping that they understand.  Hubby weighed Eldest this morning, and he has put on 2-3lbs this week, but we would still rather see him gain more before the rollercoaster of school takes hold.

Another week of cuddles, and garden adventures if the weather holds.  It’ll be like having my toddlers back again 😉

Tonight’s poem was written a bit backwards.  I got the last verse straight away from reading all the words, then had to figure out how to get there.  Silly subconscious, eh?!

Module  Thank  Crew  Exploit  Visit  Extract  Alive  Fox  Mouth

It was only

A module I took on a whim –

But thank those stars

That got me there!

Just behind some

Guy with a crew cut

Sat the most gorgeous woman –

She knew how to exploit me with a smile.

I remember that lunch

Turned into drinks;

Which ended in a visit

To my halls’ room…

Later, she read me

Many an extract

From her steamy novel;

The memory stick,

Apparently,

Always slung around her neck

So none could steal

The raunchy thoughts therein.

I still think that

No one alive

Could out-fox

That clever mouth.

Scribbly page 🙂

So how did I get the first bit out of the last bit? 

Well, ‘module’ led to University, which led to lectures.  I had to introduce the ‘she’ from the last lines, so I did.  Other than that…I’m not really sure…but I kinda like it, so I hope you do, too?  😉

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Copyright © 2017  Montaffera All Rights Reserved

Please do not use any of my content (posts, pictures, poetry etc) without my permission, but feel free to link back to my blog if something catches your eye. Thank you!

Happy Easter, one and all!

I have left it late and hubby is asleep as I type this, so I won’t be able to scan my scribbly pages tonight, but I will try to get them up tomorrow 😉  it has been a full-on day on the kid wrangling front, and hubby is very tired because we had to make sure we got up when the boys did. 

Why?  Well, we had hidden eggs in lots of places, and we wanted the kids to have their pointer sheet before they found all the yum without us (and we came down to discover them lolling in a chocolate-induced stupor…)  Unfortunately, that meant our day started before 7am!  We did feed them breakfast first, and they had little chicks in their favy colour for company, naturally 😉 

Eldest directed proceedings, and was in charge of counting what they’d already found, but Youngest was definitely a sniffer dog in another life!  He was ridiculously quick at finding the goodies!  We had to hold him back at times, to let Eldest have a fair shot…

From randomlists

I am continuing the philosophical mood from yesterday with tonight’s poem.  The boys were again pretty difficult to handle, despite having had a good wee jaunt around the house by 8am and the promise of intermittent chocolate…and both parents at their disposal (if they were nice to us).  Our house is stuffed full of toys after the birthdays, as I have mentioned before, and they don’t need to be near to each other if they don’t want to be; but they spent their time today narking at each other/taunting their parents/refusing to settle to anything even with an adult willing to spend time/telling us repeatedly that they were bored!!  It was miserable weather and they could not get outside, but still there was definitely no shortage of entertainment.  In the end, Eldest watched a bit of snooker with hubby, and Youngest wandered off to make up stories about superheroes and suchlike things.  They also watched the tablet for a bit, but it was not a very successful or productive day, really.  😛

Offer  Complain  Selective  Fabulous  Sea  Hair  Frame  One  Pipe 

I took her up on her un-offer,

Set out to complain until

My lips got sick of forming words,

And her hearing became selective.

But, as I sat in her fabulous craft room,

Surrounded by a sea of the dearest faces,

(Every hair-style they’d had since they were born,

(Almost) my crazy children…)

Each frame familiar, and yet ghosts to me.

It all ran into one, in my brain.

I argued for a bit, back and forth,

(Diverted my eyes from my great-grandparents,

Standing in their best attire;

Posing with the happy couple who raised me)

Half expecting some of the assembled ‘company’

To pipe up, because what I was saying was ‘wrong’.

I went home in the early hours

Because someone was pulling me;

Unseen, but present, and strong.

All the way back, I told the driver

(Who didn’t really care, but warmed to the topic)

About my Great Grandmother, and her sisters,

And the crafting legacy passed down (surely?).

And I missed them, those people, dead back in my teens:

My Great Grandfather, singing, and ‘chapping’ dominoes;

With slides of his travels, in never-ending reels.

I missed them: the stories, the safety.

The history held in furniture.  The biscuits and beverages –

And I again thought of my legacy,

As I stroked sleeping children’s heads

Covered them over, checked breathing.

Because it’s my turn, now.

They could only teach, these older heads.

I have to carry it on, as I am still here:

Do the parent thing so I can progress

To old age, and wisdom,

And sweet treats with tea.

Scribbly page one…

and scribbly page two

[I put the pages in on 18.4.17.  Ooops…]

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Copyright © 2017  Montaffera All Rights Reserved

Please do not use any of my content (posts, pictures, poetry etc) without my permission, but feel free to link back to my blog if something catches your eye. Thank you!

How do?

I think the rigors of the growth spurt, subsequent hormones and the (quite possibly) varying sugar levels in our Eldest after the bug and weight loss (and subsequent fluctuating appetite!) have had a severely detrimental effect on his behaviour.  Add to this the fact that mummy and daddy are still pretty pooped from the dramas of last week (!) and you have a bit of a powder keg. 

As I have said before, Eldest is really pushing himself to get back to full fitness, but we are still not confident enough in his health to take him on any length of journey, or anywhere that he may pick up a passing cold virus (or worse).  He did not have a sudden-onset sore stomach at all for the whole of yesterday – but that was for the first time in nine days, so we are not going to stretch our luck!

We went for a walk around the block as a family yesterday, and outlined our intention many times to the children. 

When we were getting ready, Youngest had a meltdown because scooters were not being taken (we wanted Eldest to take it easy over a longer distance) and cried for the first three minutes of the outing (read: the time it took to pass alllllll our close neighbours’ houses). 

Eldest held my hand and chatted to me in a lively way, commenting on how nice it was to be breathing in the fresh air etc.  As we rounded a corner and were almost half way on our walk, he informed us that we would have to cross the road to go up the ‘tractor path’ to the canal.  I reiterated that we were only walking around the block, not going on a 2-3 mile wander by the canal.  He asked me what ‘the block’ was, and when I explained that is was a set of streets near us and which ones they were, he lost interest in the walk and asked to go a short cut home, with a look of disappointment. 

Youngest then doubled over and said his tummy was sore.  On further investigation, it turned out it was just rumbling.  Phew!!

From Textfixer (I know, second day, will do a different one tomorrow)

As soon as we got in, it rained.

Today it actually rained on the kids, having been glorious sunshine around midday when hubby took them out.  Unfortunately, this time Eldest had absconded waaaay up our road on his bike and was refusing to come back, so hubby got rather wet, too…

My words today made me go all philosophical.  Not like me, eh?!

Time  Canvas  Apocalypse  Chart  Dog  Almighty  Extremist  Liver  Accomplice

Time –

That huge blank canvas

We fill with the mundane

Out of a skewed sense

Of duty.

We fear the apocalypse –

But not enough

To chart some course

That never seeks to dog us

With depression.

Some call on the Almighty

To provide a preferred path;

Some use the same dogma

To an extremist end:

Blast through complacency.

Then there’s the writer:

Pickling his liver,

Voicing collective feelings;

His reader a willing accomplice

In his self-annihilation.

Notebook Page – should say ‘15.4.17’ at the top…I’ve obviously been doing the Time Warp agaaaain…

I can never work out whether the fact alcohol doesn’t do anything spectacular for me is a bad omen for my writing.  I wonder what I am making my liver endure with all the Irn Bru Xtra I’ve been downing recently?  Am I orange internally?  Urgh.  I have switched to decaf tea with oat milk this last week.  While the kids were ill, I didn’t like how cows’ milk was making my tummy sound 😉  I think it makes me feel a lot more ‘even’ than the fizzy dayglow stuff does, I should really stick with it.

I think the fact I am an emetophobe has saved me from embracing a tipsy life.  I read this article with interest, however.   Despite a few gory details.

As I stagger (sober but tired) towards the heady age of forty (gasp!) the question of time is preoccupying me more and more.  I measure it in my kids’ milestones and birthdays, in school terms and holiday dates, in the anniversaries of my siblings’ marriages and my own. 

In the decade(s) since I hugged some dearly missed friend(s). 

I see the years mount up in the photos I flick through, in the posts I write here, in the lines on my face in the mirror and on the older people I love. 

But the essence of time still seems to slip through my fingers.  I never manage to come up with the perfect way to spend it, and yet have got through so much of it.  It is scary and reassuring all at once.

Sigh. 

I hope you get to spend some quality moments with people who adore you this Easter.  Have a great Sunday, and enjoy your chocolate!

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Copyright © 2017  Montaffera All Rights Reserved

Please do not use any of my content (posts, pictures, poetry etc) without my permission, but feel free to link back to my blog if something catches your eye. Thank you!