Emptying the nest

An Empty Nester’s AI Search Turns Into Simple Silliness

Shelley

Words we use to describe creatures, including humans, are funny, aren’t they? Yes, they are! The ideas generated pop right out of the skies and onto my page like I’m one with the block editor! Not really, but with AI anything can happen, right?

I felt blue this morning as I scrolled through my photos looking for blue things. This photo below made me laugh. I should be like a bluejay and look up instead of down about being an empty nester mom. How it turned its head that way is a mystery to me!

I wondered why I felt so blue. Oh, yeah, it’s the day after seeing our adult kids for their birthday celebration, and it hits me again – our kiddos have grown up and are running free. They’re happy – I should be happy! We gather when we can.

We had a wonderful time seeing them and celebrating their birthdays.

31 and 28. That’s how old Mr. and I were when we got married and bought our house.

And now, our yard that the kids played in as they grew up is different, yet the same. If I close my eyes and dream back to those days, I can still see them and hear them playing here.

They played with our dogs in the fenced-in area. Safe from harm’s way.

Now the fence is occupied by the birds we (I) watch from the kitchen window. This year, I’ve witnessed a lot of empty nesting activities for the birds.

The crows caw as they chat with their offspring. Those sounds have replaced the sound of laughter and kids/dogs running in the yard.

I didn’t witness it, just saw the aftermath of that day of the crashing bath

as the crow launched from the side of the birdbath, the big baby bird knocked the top off, it landed in the rocks, and chipped the side of it. It must’ve been a scary day for the youngin who did the crime.

I wonder if the mom scolded it as it flew off to hide in the distance. I know I wanted to scold the bird – those toppers are hard to find/replace this year due to shortages.

The things that moms/dads look out for our offspring never really end. Sometimes, the youngins do the teaching and we old folks just listen and smile.

I started looking up again as I scrolled through more photos. I love the sky blue sky (my all-time favorite color as a child was sky blue).

The red, white, and blue against a clear blue sky always look stunning to me.

And the yellows of tiger lilies against the blue sky are attractive to me.

This week, as I was watering the plants, a Monarch fluttered by me and flashed its wings. I used to chase them with the kids. Our oldest used to call them Flutterbys. I probably told you that at some point, I don’t have new stories, just happy memories to share.

The Catchfly is a favorite landing spot for the flutterby this year.

No matter how many sunrises I rise up to in our empty nest, I’ll never tire of thinking about our kids and the life we share with them – whether they’re near or far from our home.

So then I wondered, is there an acronym for Empty Nest Mom Who Misses Her Kids? Seems easy enough if you ask AI right?

So I clicked on acronymgenerator.net and typed in those words and wow. The asker should be careful what they ask for. Just saying. . .

Needless to say, I didn’t find an acronym from those words that fit my feelings of an empty nest. I’ll leave AI to the birds.

Enough of that silliness. I’m not SAD as in Seasonal Affect Disorder. It’s simplicity at its finest being an empty nester mom. I think fondly about our kids and our empty nesting time in life – it’s an indescribable way to say it’s what makes me smile the most!

Post Inspiration – Linda G. Hill’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday – Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “acronym’.” Choose an acronym and use it any way you’d like. Enjoy! Lens-Artists Philo of Philosophy Through Photography looks at SIMPLICITY and Terri Webster Schrandt’s Sunday Stills July 9 Monthly Color Challenge: BLUE (any shade)

PS – Have you tried AI to help you answer questions or to help with writing? Did you see WP/Jetpack added an AI function? What simple pleasures made you smile this week?

Published by Shelley

Letting my quirk out one post at a time.

55 thoughts on “An Empty Nester’s AI Search Turns Into Simple Silliness”

  1. You’ve met the challenges & prompts once again. Well done. You have quite the cast of animal characters that visit your home, which also means you welcome them! Love the family pic … and thanks for introducing me to acronym generator. Have a good Sunday and week ahead.

    1. Thank you, Frank, I appreciate your words of encouragement. 😍

      Good luck with the acronym generator – I have a hunch you’ll be better at using it than I was!! 🤣

      Happy Sunday and week ahead to you too!!

  3. Lovely images of a lifetime of memories with your daughters, Shelley! It’s easy to feel blue when we don’t see them as often. You have been in your home for a while! My daughters were sad when we moved out of their childhood home in 2020, especially my youngest. She lost two childhood homes that year–her grandma’s home (my mom’s) the one I lived in for 10 years until I was 20. She got over it and has her own house now (thank goodness). Love your collection of the birds’ silly antics taking their baths. Too bad a big crow knocked the top off. Wow, we forget how big the really are. Also, very funny with the AI stuff. I’m just not ready to deal with AI at this point. I have enough issues with WordPress and their constant changes (I’m getting O-L-D), LOL! Have a great week my friend!

    1. Thank you, Terri – I appreciate your words of wisdom. Aw, that’s tough to lose childhood homes. I’m sure our kids will feel much the same – my in-laws live next door to us so it would be a similar situation if we both sold or couldn’t be in our homes anymore – our daughters would really feel the loss too.
      The birds are so into the bird baths this year. Especially the crows for some reason. It’s fun to watch the babies (huge babies) learn to navigate the bath and the fence and the trees.
      I’m with you on the AI stuff, not ready to go there. As a teacher do you think its a good idea or not? I imagine kids never learning to write a story/paper on their own. Where will their writing voices go? Lost forever? It might make for easy grading of papers though?
      I was not happy when WP and my Jetpack updated this week – I’m getting OLD too and it is getting OLD when they run updates I wasn’t ready for!!
      Thank you – you too, I hope you have a great week! I enjoyed seeing your blues – the ocean, the flowers, and all the blue skies! NICE 😍

  4. Time really flies by these days, Shelley. Where have the years gone I ask me? I love the photo of the butterfly and the tiger lily! I am glad that you guys have wonderful memories with your daughters. Priceless. ❤️😊

    1. Yes, they are flying by. Mr. is your same age and says that often! 🤣
      I’m glad you enjoyed the photos. That Monarch stuck around long enough for me to watch it, run back into the house to grab my camera, and then let me take photos while it enjoyed the Catchfly.
      We hope you have wonderful memories of your kids too, and the family time you just shared this past week in Michigan. Indeed – priceless!! 🥰😊

          1. Thanks! My sister turned me on to this place when she was visiting a few weeks ago. I love the fresh salmon that is already cooked. Just heat and eat! I also like the Oat Milk with four teaspoons of Stevia sweetener added, yum!

  5. I think my folks loved forward very much to being empty nesters. They built a house on a lake with only one bedroom! 🙂 But I can understand your blue-ness. In a different but same sort of feeling, someone sent me an email this week that had a couple pictures of my parents when they were very young, before kids. It was sooooo good to have more images of them, especially images I’d never seen. When someone has been gone a long time you get sad because you aren’t going to have the opportunity to make more memories, and when you get a little gift like I got it really means a lot.

    1. That’s planning ahead by your folks 😉 That’s so wonderful that you received photos you had never seen before. I felt a little like that when I had to go through my mom’s belongings and treasures from her high school years when her and my dad fell in love. As a child I had no idea those photos even existed.
      I agree, when they’re gone it is sad – it’s nice you have the opportunity to rekindle the happy memories. Thank you for sharing your thoughts!

  6. You have a beautiful family Shelley. I agree with you, it is hard to let them go and yet what more could we want than to have them happy. My stage of life…my husband retired for the first time at the age our kids are right . Strange… Love the blue you brought today and the simplicity of life in many of your days. Those birds. Fun to watch…sometimes. I enjoy a slice of your day/life today.

    1. Thank you, Donna, I appreciate your words of encouragement. Someday (if they decide to have kiddos) we’ll enjoy the grandparenting moments like you get to enjoy. That’s fun that you mentioned when your hubby retired. Mr. retired 22 years ago…that’s just 6 years shy from how old our youngest is.
      I’m glad you enjoyed the blue and the birds and seeing a slice of our lives here in WI.
      I so enjoyed your take on the Simplicity prompt. Your words of wisdom have me pondering as I look at the desk and my office space where I work and about how much I could use some simplicity in my life!! 🤔😁😉
      I hope you have a great week! 🥰

      1. Thanks Shelley. Your “grand” time will come, I am sure. The good thing is it will be in the time right for them. It is a fun stage of life. Thank you for your encouragement. I love our blogging community and it matters to hear from you. Have a good week too.

  7. I love the blue theme challenge this week Shelley. I laughed at your picture of the bird with its crazy head tilt and shame on that crow breaking the topper. They are so huge and we have had a ton of crows around here lately – in fact I took some pictures of one I saw in the neighborhood to use for a Wordless Wednesday post one time. In my garden’s heyday, which seems like longer than just a dozen years ago, I had four birdbaths … I catered to all size birds (two large, one medium and one small). It made me scratch my head when I would see the biggest birds in the smallest birdbaths and they’d splash out all the water, so the smallest birds would sit on the rim of the bigger baths looking in, scared they’d drown if they took the plunge. That is a nice family shot Shelley … a nice looking family and I’m glad you got together again.

    1. Thank you, Linda, I’m glad you enjoyed the post. The crows are so big and fill that bird bath when they hop in. Only one can fit at a time inside it.
      This year with all the dry conditions all the birds have been visiting the bird bath. We have a smaller plastic one that the little birds prefer. I’m guessing that if the crows landed on it, it would fall over right away. One year we did have a small bird slip in and not make it out. That was SAD!
      Thank you – our kiddos and our son-in-law know each gathering a photo must be taken so we’re getting good at doing the drill 🤣😂 It was SO nice to be together with them again, we had a great time!

      1. I did enjoy the post and forgot to say that I have not used AI yet (to answer your question). Hugh Roberts had done a post about using it within WP and showed an example how he wrote a post. Poor bird drowning – yes, too deep and they can’t get back out again. I always worried about that too. Well at least you have one of the girls’ significant others handy to take a group shot.

        1. I’ll have to check out Hugh’s post. I’m not excited to support the AI efforts though.
          Yes, he’s become the family photographer and does a great job. 😊

          1. Lucky for you he did not cut off anyone’s head. 🙂 My father cut off my head as I was so tall and always had my mom or me in the far corner of the photo, almost out of the photo and landscape (or nothing) in the rest of the photo. I will send you Hugh’s link in a separate comment – I know you will have to approve it, so alerting you here.

          2. I think I remember you telling me about your dad’s photography skills. 😉 I hope enough of the photos turned out that you get to enjoy them!
            Okay, thanks for the heads up on the links.

          3. They were special to be sure Shelley. I come home with duds all the time, but those are not posed photos, so no excuse there for him. Someone once told me that Leica cameras, which he used, were not easy to use. I don’t know about that and I never used the manual settings on my Canon AE-1 35mm camera, just the automatic setting.

          4. I don’t know about those cameras either. I think it’s fun that you can look at them now and laugh. 😉

          6. Thanks, Linda! I checked Hugh’s post out and left him a comment there. I think I’ll still be one of those WP bloggers who liked the Classic style, etc. and will put off helping AI learn how to be the best blogger in the word press world! 😂🤣😉

          7. I’d be reluctant to use it too Shelley – the whole AI and ChatGPT creeps me out a bit. Lots of scamming going to go on with it as well. Better to write your own stuff. 🙂

          9. I heard a writer for Hollywood shows talking about the strike and they claim studios will have ChatGPT do the writing, not them, so lost jobs.

          10. There ya go, sadly, the proponents of this technology aren’t ready for what will happen when we embrace it just ‘cuz it looks like fun and ‘I can always disregard it’.

          11. I do think that people that write for a living, like newspaper/magazine, not necessarily book authors, must be pretty worried their jobs will go away. We write for fun, but AI could replace them, just like self-checkout/U-scan replaces grocery store cashiers.

          12. Exactly! And some of them will have just wasted their $ going to college for those jobs. It’s sad to me. 😥

          13. Me too Shelley. When I graduated from college with a degree in mass communications (print journalism), the market was flooded with print journalists and investigative reporters thanks to Woodward and Bernstein and the Watergate scandal. I could not find a job and they could not even find a place for our class to do internships which were necessary to graduate with that degree. I was put into a P.R. place in downtown Detroit writing “wire shorts” … little newsy items about the City of Detroit. Very discouraging after getting a college degree.

          14. Yes, indeed. Your degree helps you write post for your delightful blog 😍
            I worked with many people who had degrees in something else and were working whatever job they could.
            Makes me think that perhaps college promo material must’ve been written by AI 🤣😂🤣

          15. Well thank you for saying that Shelley – in my mind’s eye, my blog justifies all the schooling to get a degree to never use it. My father was mad I could not find a job and said “I could have bought myself a T-bird or your mother a mink coat. Sigh. I have known several people who never used their degree … yes, no one can take education away from you and it stays with you forever, but it is still disconcerting. I “get” why I couldn’t find a job – the market was flooded with journalism grads, but Wayne State University did not help place people either. AI is going to take over the world eventually – I wonder if they had a similar concept on the TV show “The Jetsons” – did you watch it as a kid (I know you are younger than me).

          16. You’re welcome. I agree, wholeheartedly with your sentiments.
            YES – I remember watching “The Jetsons” – as some people say, they always tell us what they’re doing/planning before they do it! 😉

  8. Enjoyable as always Shelley. Great photos of life over there, the birds and butterflies. I am not an AI fan with words but dabble with photos 🙂

    1. Thank you, Brian – I’m glad you stopped by and enjoyed the photos.
      What do you do with AI for photos?

    1. Thank you, John, I appreciate you stopping by to share your thoughts! I enjoyed your take on the prompt too.

  11. Such amazing examples you have given us Shelley!
    What a great feeling, to see family members together!
    These moments are a treasure! Is it not so?
    Sure they make the rest of the life taste sweeter.

    I always love watching the fireworks. And your photograph with the blue background added simplicity and spread joy!

    Wonderful timely click of Blue Jay and the empty nest, sure the image can lead us to so many stories.

    Love your yard. It looks amazing!
    Enjoyed reading your thoughts about the crows. So true!
    What a joy to watch tiger lilies and the busy butterfly!

    You are clever and your clicks perfectly suit my simplicity theme and also Terri’s Blue theme. Well done. Every image of yours looks so simple and each conveying a story.
    Thanks a ton for joining us.
    Have a great weekday.

    1. Thank you so much for your words of encouragement! I appreciate you stopping by to check out my contribution to the prompts. Thank you for hosting the challenge and for helping us consider simplicity in photos in so many different ways. You’ve inspired us all! 🥰😍😊

  12. I enjoyed reading this and am intrigued by how you manage to get so many beautiful photos of nature. Well done. As for AI, I heard it referred to as plagiarism software and thought that about sums it up.

    1. Thank you, Ally, I appreciate your feedback. I wander around a lot with my camera. The pictures of the birds by the fence are from my kitchen window – my camera when not being carried around with me on the walks outside is always sitting on the kitchen table at the ready for the moments I attempt to capture. There are a LOT of duds!
      I agree wholeheartedly – that’s a fitting description of AI!

  13. Hello Shelley! I found your blog through The Spectacled Bean – it’s nice to meet you! I enjoyed reading your post and looking at all your gorgeous photos. As for AI, I think it can be useful in some cases, completely ridiculous in other cases, and it can also be upsetting. People are worried about their livelihoods, losing jobs to AI. However, it seems to be here to stay, so we might as well learn how to use it to our advantage, I guess.

    1. Hi Michelle! Thank you for finding your way here via Ally’s blog – The Spectacled Bean blog is one of my all time favorite places to hang out with all the cool kids!
      Yes, those words describe AI. Didn’t some writers for the actors just lose their jobs to AI? I worry about the kids that won’t learn how to write on their own. They already had a hard time the last three years.
      Thank you again for stopping by! I enjoyed visiting your blog too. Happy blogging and sewing to you!! 🥰

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