Going on an adventure tomorrow, might rerun some of my first blogs or might be inspired to write while I’m gone visiting my children for a few days. Gonna miss these beautiful birds who have stopped briefly in my yard. I’ve said it before but I don’t think anyone could paint as beautiful a bird as God does! The rain didn’t bother anyone but me and Penelope. We had a big down pour and the birds just perched on the feeders and continued eating. Had to go inside to the lady den ‘cause the rain was blowing in on the swings.

Came back out and Penelope crawled under the blanket in her play pen and glared at me while I watched the birds. She’s probably jealous! She sniffed the grocery sacks and saw she got one bag of bacon treats and the birds got three birds suet squares, 20 pounds of seeds, and three bird cakes. She forgot to count her 12 cans of wet food! She’s a good dog and good company and I love her.

Y’all ever hear a bark train in your neighborhood? Penelope never joins the train but she sits up and listens. Sometimes if she’s in the house she’ll try to join in the conversation. I always wonder what the dogs are talking about. The bark train in the 101 Dalmatians movie is my favorite part. Late afternoon the dogs on the street behind us started a bark train and it spread around the neighborhood. Sounded more serious than usual so must have been a critter sighting, hope it wasn’t the neighborhood skunk!

Put all my peace lily plants on the bannisters to get some rain today and a sneaky lizard almost made it in the house. He was sitting on the leaves just waiting to jump in the house when I opened the door but I saw him first.

Was looking up to see if there was a word for fear of lizards. I don’t actually fear them I just don’t want them crawling up my leg or jumping on me. There is a reptile fear, herpetophobia, and the abnormal fear of snakes is ophidiophobia. Abnormal fear? I don’t really fear snakes just don’t want them visiting me in my house or sunbathing on my porch. Research says our fear of snakes an evolutionary thing. We recognizes snakes faster than any other object. We have an innate tendency to sense snakes and spiders and to fear them. This ability helped early man to survive in the the wild.

But the exciting part of that research was stumbling on the word, hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia! That word means a fear of long words! I love it! Checked the spelling twice. Seriously, who makes these words up! Well, seems the Roman poet Horace used this word to criticize writers who used excess words such as “a foot and a half.”

But my favorite long word is supercalifragilisticexpialidocious! I think my generation knows that word well! Looking forward tomorrow to some supercalifragilisticexpialidocious with my oldest son and his family.

“Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace, and gratitude.” — Denis Waitley