Wasps, Learning and Celebrations

Paper wasp nest

Our (almost) daily walk takes us past a good sized paper wasp nest fastened to a barbed wire fence. We made a little detour to avoid disturbing the wasps as I had no desire to repeat a previous experience of being stung repeatedly while desperately running as fast as I could while my husband yelled: Keep Running!

Something got the wasp nest. It's completely gone. What hungry night predator managed to pluck that nest off the barbed wire? Always a shock when things disappear from one's life, even when it's something like a wasp nest.

Since we switched our computer to a Linux type operating system called Ubuntu (thanks to a helpful son-in-law), I've had to start learning to use an image editor called GIMP. Actually, I grizzled and resisted learning for a long time. But wouldn't you know, I found some good tutorials on YouTube. I followed one of GIMPtricks' tutorials to make this image:

We celebrated J's birthday. Every year he says, No Party! I know he's happy staying home and working on projects or learning about new things via the internet. He's currently taking a free online course from Stanford University on Artificial Intelligence. No worries about him exercising his brain. You can find out more about some of his projects at tropicarduino.blogspot.com

As his birthday approached this year, he repeated his mantra: No Party! It took some doing, but seeing as this was a decade birthday, I managed to cajole him into getting together to celebrate with a handful of people in town, the youngest being one year old twins and the eldest being a new friend who just turned 96. I have to admit I liked the part about no baking, no cooking, no clean-up. Just visiting and enjoying ourselves.

Remember to enjoy yourselves, readers, to laugh and appreciate those around you. And allow others to appreciate you.