Digital Camera and a Little Ingenuity

Last month I called my gas company about my bill. I had to go outside to read the meter that the meter reader had been estimating. I knew he'd been estimating because there was no way he could have read it from outside the tall locked fence. Standing next to it I could barely see the meter that was almost at ground level underneath a very bushy bush. Even bending to read it, the cover was so badly etched it was difficult to read. I was going to have to crawl under the bush and get face to face with the dials on that meter. The ground was cold and rocky. Heck, I'm a calligrapher, not a contortionist, which is what I'd need to be to read each of the tiny dials. The guy on the other end of the phone line insisted I had to be accurate in my reporting. This was hard!

Hmmmmm. What to do, what to do?

Aha! I got out my trusty digital camera, reached it under the bush and snapped this photo. It still wasn't easy, but so much easier than before. I love it when things work out like that!

And the estimating meter reader is very good at his job. Right on the money. Gas just isn't cheap.

Moms Are Blessings Too

Yesterday was my mother's birthday. Happy Birthday, Mom!!!

One of my early blogposts here was about hanging laundry out to dry with my mother.
I always thought Mom was so pretty, and I loved that she smiled a lot. This is her high school graduation photo, way before she was my Mom.

Here she is in 1973 for the baptism of my first son, wearing the baptismal gown hand sewn and embroidered by my dressmaker grandmother for my aunt, and worn by Mom and three of her older siblings and by all seven of Mom's kids and both of mine. With Mom and Steve are my two youngest sisters.

Here is Mom with her two sisters and a sister-in-law. This was on Easter in the late 1990s. Her sisters, 10 and 13 years older, insisted she had to let her hair go white; she doesn't like it.

And here is Mom with my oldest son's firstborn son (and so far only.) These two photos were taken on Easter and Christmas, 2010.

Love you Mom! I know you won't see this, but I'm happy to be celebrating your birthday!