BlueperB's Blueprints

Happy Monday, everyone!

I am happy because today I got to think about big little things and little big things while helping The Lady with her picture.  She was supposed to take a macro photography picture.  This morning I didn’t know what that means.  Now I do!  Macro photography is taking a photo of something little and making it feel great big .  At least that’s the big picture that this little monster got when The Lady tried to explain this to me.  That sounded like fun!  I thought that The Lady might take a picture of this little blue and orange furry monster and make me look as big as a T-Rex, or maybe an elephant.   She said that we needed to find something smaller than me.

Smaller than me?  I am very small.  How would something smaller than me look great big?

We went outside to see what we could find.  I spotted a bright yellow flower and asked The Lady if it was small enough.  She said that it would work nicely for today’s photo.  I gently held the flower’s stem in my claws.  It didn’t look big at all.

The Lady suggested that I look at the flower very closely.  Look at its petals, their shape and color.  Look at its stem.  Look at the place where the stem and the petals meet.

I don’t think I’ve ever looked at a flower so carefully.  All of the sudden this little coreopsis looked as big as a triceratopsis.   It filled my little monster eyes with big amounts of yellow beauty.  This little flower made a big impression on me.

I started wondering if I, a little monster, could make as big an impression on others as this little flower made on me.  The Lady told me that she was sure that I could and  that I likely already had.  She said that I have lots of friends and that I make them smile.  And, making people smile and feel happy, even for just minute, makes a big impression.

I wish that I could make all of the people and monsters and animals happy and smiley all of the time.  It makes me sad when others are sad.  The Lady reminded me that just like with the flower that first looked small and then big to me, one little smile can grow in to many smiles.  That made my little smile grow bigger.

The Lady gave me something else to think about:

Without water drops, there can be no oceans; without steps, there can be no stairs; without little things, there can be no big things! – Mehmet Murat Ildan.

That is a big thought for a little monster, but I will think about it.

Let’s try this again!

It is May and time for another Month of Me.  The Lady and I didn’t do well last year with our May posts.  Actually, we didn’t do well with any posts over the last year.  It’s funny to me how that happens.  Sometimes we are excited to write and other times we are not.  The Lady says that it is normal for creative people to go in spits and farts fits and starts when it comes to doing creative things.  Over these last couple years, we’ve had some starts, but I don’t think we’ve had any fits.  We made a deal with each other to do better this year!

I’m a little confused because The Lady said that this is a good week to get back to regular photos and writing because she is supposed to take poor trait pictures all week long.  Hmmm…it seems to me that our not writing this last year is a pretty poor trait.  Why do we want to take pictures of that?  Those would be very sad pictures!  I’m ready to take some happy pictures of me, Mr. Guy, and The Lady doing happy things together.  I asked The Lady why we had to take poor sad pictures.  She explained that it is not  poor traits but that it is only one word with only one “O”…portraits, which are “an artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expressions are predominant. The intent is to display the likeness, personality, and even the mood of the person.”  “Person?  What about furry little blue and orange monsters?” I asked.  “Monsters, too,” she said.  Well, that’s good.  And, I’m glad to know that we don’t have to waste an “O” and be sad!

I told her that I wanted her to portrait me as a happy little blue and orange furry monster.  That is my personality and my mood…most of the time.  I’m not sure about my likeness.  Does that mean that I like to be happy or that others are happy to like me?  Oh well.  I’m not going to think about that right now.  I guess that is really The Lady’s concern since she is the one portraiting me.

I was excited to have my picture taken until I realized that our house is under destruction and all of my shirts are packed away because I am getting a new room.  I tried very hard to stay a happy little monster on the outside, but my insides were sad without my shirts.  The Lady could tell.  She told me that my orange belly fur is part of my likeness so it would be OK for her to take a picture of me without a shirt.  She also said that we can go shopping for some new shirts that won’t be lost in the destruction zone of our house.  That makes me happy.  I like getting new shirts and it feels funny for all of my fur to show in every picture during my Month of Me.

Yay!  We got one day done!  The Lady told me that the first step is the hardest.  I don’t know if I believe that or not.  It seems to me like the next thirty steps through this month might be harder.  I hope not.  I hope we prevail.  Prevail…that is a new word I learned today.  It means “prove more powerful than opposing forces.”  Opposing forces?  The Lady says that opposing forces are things that make it hard for you to do something.  “Oh!  I understand.  Like laziness and boredom were our opposing forces last year during our May Month of Me and they prevailed so that is why we didn’t write much.”

The Lady rolled her eyes and said, “Somethng like that.”  She also said that it was a good thing that she had already potraited me as happy because right now she said my personality was being precoatish…or something like that.

I didn’t even ask.

A  furry little blue and orange monster gets VERY tired playing with a little human monster all day!

Good night!

I’m going to sleep.

Today I learned about generosity.  I helped The Lady take care of the plants in the yard  and in the greenhouse.  She thanked me for being generous with my time and effort.  I said, “thank you” but really I didn’t know exactly what I was being thankful for.  I thought I should be thanking The Lady for letting me enjoy the plants and flowers with her.

We then had to have a talk about what being generous means.

“Being generous often consists of simply extending a hand. That’s hard to do if you are grasping tightly to your righteousness, your belief system, your superiority, your assumptions about others, your definition of normal.” – Patti Digh

That made sense to me, especially the part about assumptions made about others and what normal means.  When I extend my hand to help Mr. Guy and The Lady, my hand looks very different from theirs.  I have furry blue hands with big orange claws.  Many would say that that this not normal.  But, my furry little monster hands help others just like human hands do even though our hands are not the same.

It makes this furry little blue and orange monster very sad when others are mean because of the way someone is different from them.   I have never met another monster that looks like me.  Most of the time, I like being different.   If the world was filled with all furry little blue and orange monsters or all tall people, or all skinny people, or all white people, or all green people, our surroundings would be very boring…and I wouldn’t be able to find Mr. Guy and The Lady in a crowd because they would look like everyone else!

I wonder if that would really matter.  If Mr. Guy and The Lady looked like everyone else and thought like everyone else and believed exactly the same as everyone else, they wouldn’t be Mr. Guy and The Lady.  They would be Everyone Else.  That would be very sad for this little monster!  I need them to stay special.

The Lady said that our discussion was turning away from generosity to something called being uni-Q.

Hmmm….uni means one.  What does one Q have to do with being generous?

How did we get from five Ks yesterday to one Q today?

And where did the pair of LLs and the Emandenopee go?  I am now more confused than ever!  I’ll be glad when we stop talking about all of these letters and numbers!

Anyone want to play Pictionary with a little monster?

Our days are all different because of trying to stay healthy during the pandemic.   Mr. Guy and The Lady don’t get up on Sunday mornings and go to church.  They have been watching it on TV.   I kind of like having them home!

The Lady has been getting up on Sundays and going for a run by herself or sometimes for a walk with a friend.  She says that being outside in the fresh air is as good for her spirit as is going to church.  Don’t tell the preacher people that, though!

This morning, The Lady told Mr. Guy and me that she was going to go run a quick 5K before breakfast.  Here we go again with those K’s and fives from yesterday.  I asked her if today’s Ks were dented too.  And , how did we get from a pair of Ls yesterday to five Ks today?  This alphabet stuff is getting very confusing to this little blue and orange furry monster!

The Lady explained to me that Ks are like miles but shorter.  5Ks is the same as 3.1 miles.  None of this makes sense to me, but that is OK.  I don’t run so Ks and miles are just a bunch of letters and numbers to me.

The run that The Lady did today was to benefit an organization called Girls on the Run.  She said that it is a group that helps girls become strong inside and out and to feel good about themselves.  That sounds like a good thing to me!  I think everyone should feel good about themselves.  I know that is hard sometimes so it is great to have people and organizations to help you along the way!

Continue reading “May 2 – Sunday Runday”

Hi!  Remember me?  I’m still here, but life has not been very exciting for a furry little blue and orange monster over the last year.  I have not been on any fun adventures and I have not met any new people.  I understand that we have had to stay at home because of COVID.  Today, though, I finally got to go on a little adventure!

It is the first day of May.  May has always been my Month of Me, so I am going to try to make May 2021 better than May 2020…well, I’m going to try to make May 2021 better than almost any month of 2020!  I’m hoping to have some fun so that I have something to write about.

Today I got to go with The Lady and Mr. Guy to meet one of The Lady’s friends who is also a former  student.  The Lady was going to help Mr. Johnny study for an important test that he has to take in a week or so.  Since it has been so long since I have been anywhere, I have not been shopping for new t-shirts.  I looked through my closet hoping to find a perfect shirt for today’s adventure.  Because Mr. Johnny is studying for his important test, I wanted to share good vibes with him!

The Lady said that Mr. Johnny’s test was about music stuff.  I thought we were going to go listen to some fun songs and maybe even get to dance a little.  Boy was I wrong!  All they did was talk about music in some foreign language.   Mr. Johnny asked about K dents.  I thought that was a weird question.  How does music dent your K’s?  And for that matter, what do K’s, dented or not,  even have to do with music?  The Lady told me once that music only has the letters A, B, C, D, E, F, and G.  To this little monster, dented K’s don’t seem like they should be a problem in music, but what do I know?  Then they talked about a pair of L’s that come in fives and eights.  No wonder Mr. Johnny was confused!  Even I know that pairs are groups of twos, not fives and eights!  And if the musical alphabet doesn’r go as far as K, it sure doesn’t go all the way to L or LL!  Don’t worry if you don’t understand any of this.  It has to do with the secret language of music theory.  Normal people don’t need to know this language!

They covered all of this in the first few minutes.  I was already so confused that while they continued discussing the rest of Mr. Johnny’s test stuff, I watched the birds and airplanes fly by and helped The Lady drink her coffee.

I’m glad that I am a little monster that does not have to worry about taking tests!  It seems like tests are just something to see how much stuff you can jam into your brain before your head explodes.  My head would explode quickly!  And after the explosion,  all the pieces of my brain would be scattered all around the ground like jigsaw puzzle pieces mixed with blue and orange fur.  I think any person who ever gives me this kind of test should have to put my exploded brain back together to figure out exactly what I knew.   That would be a good test for them, don’t you think?!  Hopefully they would do better than all the kings horses and all the king’s men did with Humpty Dumpty!

Once The Lady and Mr. Johnny finished talking about music, we finally talked about normal stuff like friendship and coffee.

I sure hope that Mr. Johnny does well on his music theory test so that next time we get together we can talk about something that this little  monster understands.

 

I don’t know how we can be so busy when we can’t go anywhere!  Lots has been going on at our house.  Some of the stuff that was happening was a secret, so I couldn’t write about it until after it wasn’t a secret anymore!

The first secret thing was that Offspring No. 2’s little monster celebrated his first birthday.  Well, his birthday wasn’t a secret, but The Lady and I made some secret stuff to give to him since we couldn’t go to the store to shop for birthday presents.

We made him a big birthday card with paint.  Mr. Guy and The Lady also got him some Lego. We put all the secret stuff in a great big fancy bag.

We went to the Little Birthday Monster’s house to take him his presents, but we could not get close to him.  We still have to worry about that six feet thing and not spreading that virus.  I’m glad we got to go to his house, but I wish we could have played and eaten cake together.

The elephant is the card we made for him.

The next secret thing that happened was Mother’s Day.  Offspring No. 1 showed me the monster socks that she got The Lady as a present.

It sure does take a lot of secrets to give people presents!  I guess that is because presents are supposed to be a surprise.

Speaking of surprises, Mr. Guy and I went out to the garden and I saw little green balls all over one of his plants.  I know at Christmas time people hang balls on trees, but it is May.  And May is not Christmas time.  And at Christmas the balls on the trees are all different colors and festive.  This plant only had green balls and they did not look festive or not even like very pretty decorations.

Mr. Guy told me that they are tomatoes.  They didn’t look like tomatoes to me.  Tomatoes are supposed to be red.  Mr. Guy explained that as they grow and ripen, they will turn red.  Oh!  So when this plant looks like a Christmas tree with red balls, then the tomatoes will be ready for us to eat!

And speaking of balls that we can eat…since we have to stay at home all the time, The Lady and Mr. Guy have been cooking a lot.  The Lady made these funny looking balls for dinner one night last week.  They were called felt awfuls.  Does that sound like something that you want to eat for dinner?

The felt awful balls were kind of green too.  I wondered if they were going to make me turn green and feel awful.  I told The Lady that I did not want to eat her felt awfuls.  She explained that the felt awful balls taste good and are good for me.  She said they were made from lots of  little brown balls called  garbage beans.  No wonder they are called felt awful balls, they are made from garbage!  I did not want to eat garbage!  Suddenly I had no appetite.

Then The Lady said that our dinner balls are falafel, not felt awful, and  were made from garbanzo beans, not garbage beans!  Once I knew that, I tried them and they tasted pretty good.

Some of the plants in our yard have pretty flowers instead of green balls.

The yellow flowers are more cheerful than the green tomatoes!

We finally went to the park again this weekend, but we stayed away from all of the people.

I like looking at the trees.  They are sooo tall!  I’m just a short little furry blue and orange monster.

We also watched the ducks.  I am still looking for a turtle to talk to about sheltering in place, but I haven’t found one yet.

Life sure seems weird right now.  I’m glad that I have Mr. Guy and The Lady to take good care of me.  I sure hope that each of you has ssomeone to be your friend and take care of you.

I don’t have very many words today.  I was tired and The Lady was busy working all day.

Our job was to take a picture of a bird.  I sat outside for a little while this afternoon and looked for birds but I didn’t see any before I got too hot.  The little red line thing on our patio went up to a 9 and a 3.  That is very warm for a very furry little blue and orange monster!

So, I decided that I could make a pretend bird instead of finding a real one in the sky or in a tree.  Since The Lady makes a lot of things with her sticks and string, I thought maybe I could do that too.  I found one of her sticks and string picture books and it had a perfect bird…a blue and orange one!

I found some orange and some blue string in The Lady’s big plastic toy box and I found some of her sticks too.  Then I started looking at the sticks and string book.  It did not have real words in it.  It only used K’s and P’s with a few togs and slps.  It reminded me of my text tiles from yesterday when I could not find all the letters to make my words.  This book was missing a lot more than just T’s, though.

Then I thought maybe I could make my bird without using the words in the sticks and string book.  I was wrong.  All I could make was a pile of angry blue and orange snakes.  Boo.  Hiss.

If I knew how to make real things with sticks and string, I would have made this cool bird.  I don’t; so I didn’t.  And, it is the only bird I saw today.