Around Here
bees · beetles · bugs · Eastern Redbud tree · fireflies · Flowers · hibiscus · I love trees · lightning bugs · Nature · Nature photography · Photography · squirrels · Summer · Trees

Around Here

Featured Amy10 Comments

I’ve been taking photographs of flowers and trees and plants and bees…all spring and summer. Ma’am the squirrel makes an appearance in the video below. She’s got babies now and she stops by, but those babies take up a lot of her time. She’s fully healed, so it’s hard for me to tell if it’s her or not her. I ask all the squirrels if they are ma’am. I am pretty sure they think I am the strangest food lady ever.

Some sad news to report on ERJ (my eastern redbud tree, for those who are new here. He and William The First, my Willow Oak, are tied for favorite tree first place): I noticed he wasn’t doing well a couple months ago and had an arborist come look at him. He has borers. The arborist seemed to think ERJ would pull through, but I have serious doubts. I know my tree, and he doesn’t look well. His leaves are yellowing and dropping. He has tons of suckers and tons of seed pods. I feel like this is his last hurrah trying to create new generations. I have applied the insecticide three times now and I don’t think it’s working. You might remember ERJ from previous posts. I will be very sad to lose him, but at the end of this video, you will see I have another redbud in my backyard and its leaves are huge. I love the heart shape of the leaves. It’s truly my favorite type of tree. But don’t tell William.

I hope you enjoy this trip around my flowers, an (unnamed) eastern redbud, a lightning bug, a bumblebee and a squirrel.

Summer, and the livin’s easy
At Least It’s Not “Loose”
blogging · daily prompt · Humor · Writing

At Least It’s Not “Loose”

Amy11 Comments

Which activities make you lose track of time?

One of my biggest pet peeves is seeing the word “loose” used incorrectly to mean “lose.” I cry in Proper Grammar when I see this on social media. It makes me sad. It makes me want to pick up my red pen and start editing. Yes, I am the Grammar Police, and if I catch you, you will not get loose, but you will definitely lose!

Easy peasy
Silence
blogging · daily prompt · music · Writing

Silence

Amy7 Comments

What do you listen to while you work?

My job asks a lot of me and my brain. For ten hours, I am essentially a computer analyzing data with some math computations thrown in. Music playing the background is a distraction, as is anyone talking. The birds are welcome to talk amongst themselves outside, and even yell at me for not putting out the peanuts quickly enough, but other than that? Silencio.

Yes, Disturbed covered this song, but I prefer the original.

Simon & Garfunkel – The Sounds Of Silence

Discernment
Advice · animals · birthday gift · blogging · cats · daily prompt · Grief · Love · Writing

Discernment

Amy18 Comments

What do you think gets better with age?

The ability to judge what is worth pondering or taking on. The insight and intuition to decide that something isn’t for you. The capability to decide that if something isn’t for you, you can leave it and go on about your day.

The wisdom to own your own shit and know that other peoples’ shit is not yours to own. To not give a fuck if people don’t like that you curse.

To determine it’s perfectly acceptable to water your plants wearing your bathrobe and your slippers. To go out in a very nice outfit, but not wear a stitch of makeup on your face. (This is closely related to wearing a bathrobe to water your plants.) Also, with age comes the knowledge and the understanding that what people see on the outside is not who you are on the inside. And who you are on the inside is much more important than what you look like.

My birthday is tomorrow. One more trip around the sun. Susie passed away in my lap this past Monday, and my best friend’s mother died about five hours later. It has been a difficult week, and I have scaled it alone, save for several good souls. And I have made it through. With age comes inner strength you didn’t know you had.

With age comes discernment. With age comes the knowledge that grief is love. You learn people can only ever treat you the way they feel about themselves. Sometimes you can do everything possible, but if you are misunderstood by others, it won’t make a difference. And you have to just let that shit go.

I have learned pets are a gift from above. Animals do not offer conditional love, theirs is only unconditional. They love simply because that’s what they do. For people who don’t know the love of a pet, or specifically a cat, I’m sorry. Your life has not been enriched in the way that mine has. Tiny humans grow up and they begin to place conditions on their love. It’s what the world does to us. But a pet never does. A 17-year-old cat still loves unconditionally, the same as when they were a tiny baby. My birthday wish is that humans may strive to be less conditional with their love, and be more like “animals.”

In honor of Susie, Happy Caturday, friends. 

Girl Power Selfie
Their Outlander Match
blogging · books · chick lit · favorite author · fiction · history · non-fiction · Outlander · poetry · prose · reading · Short story · Writing · Zora Neale Hurston

Their Outlander Match

Amy6 Comments

List three books that have had an impact on you. Why?

  1. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston – this is my all-time favorite book. I needed three credits in English so I took a summer course at my university and was introduced to the Harlem Renaissance. It’s not an exaggeration to say it changed my life. There was something magical about Ms. Hurston’s use of language. It envelopes and evokes. I still have the copy of the book for that class tucked away safely on my bookshelf. I do not let anyone borrow it.
My copy has this cover

2. Outlander by Diana Gabaldon – this is my second all-time favorite book. I had no idea what I was getting into when I started this book and series. I sent an email to the author when I finished this book and she replied. I printed it out and tucked it into the paperback, which has been read so many times it’s earmarked with love. Yes, I have the rest of the books too. Yes, I waited for what felt like 65 years for the show to be created. Yes, I’m waiting on season eight during the usual Droughtlander. But, I should say upfront the books are nothing like the series because the books are typically 1000 pages of genius storytelling, and though the series is based on the books, it in no way comes close to the original. This book is impactful due to its ability for the reader to step through the stones, as it were. It’s a place to get lost in if you’re looking to get lost. 

This isn’t my copy – mine is old and well loved and also I do not think it states on the cover that it is a New York Times best seller

3. Love Match by yours truly

Yes, it might sound a little strange to say this book impacted me a great deal, but if you’ve written a book, you know what I’m talking about. It doesn’t matter if your book was published or not, if you have written a book and it is yours, it has changed your life. If you tell other people, and they read your book, it changes you even more. When people start to have opinions about your words, that is probably the greatest impact. It takes a lot of courage to write and have other people read what you’ve written. One could even call a blog a type of book. It’s a book that keeps writing itself each day. It’s something that means something to the writer, but also it’s something that the reader takes part in. And it takes courage from the author to post their words. Words on a blog can be equally if not more impactful than an entire bound book. But that’s a different subject for a different day.

My Book

Incidentally, when I was looking for an image of my own book to post here, I found out my book is being sold on eBay for $29.08. Just a suggestion: my book isn’t that expensive brand new. I’m not sure that the seller is going to make any profit after shipping – unless of course, they found a brand new copy of my book. But another question then begs to be asked: where is my royalty check?

Thanks?

©️2025, itsamyisaid.com, all rights reserved

Just One Book
blogging · book haul · books · daily prompt · poetry · prose · Writing

Just One Book

Amy26 Comments

Do you remember your favorite book from childhood?

Are we talking about baby books that older adults read to you? Are we talking about the first book you read to yourself? Are we talking about the books you would buy at the Scholastic book fair? The fair they had every year in the trailer, and you would walk in and it would smell like new books and you knew this was your place? Or are we talking about books you read as an older child, the books that formed who you are and showed you other worlds can exist. And not only can you read them, you can write them.

I am sure they’re all in my memory somewhere, but they all exist as one.

My WordPressversay
Anniversary · birthday gift · blogging · Humor · Writing

My WordPressversay

Amy16 Comments

Probably one or two of you know I had a previous blog which is not deleted, but is archived. WordPress informed me today I started that blog twelve years ago.

Nothing much came of that blog, but I created a new one, which is the one you see now. Still though, twelve years? Maybe a suitable gift from WordPress would be new daily prompts!?

Happy birthday, original blog. Thanks for being here, everyone. Let’s have some cake! 

Where does the time go?