Inspiration

How I Dictated Away My Winter 2022 Blues

Shelley

Does our brain dictate what we see? Or do we see something that dictates our brain’s perception? Can we dictate the blues away if we focus our brain hard enough on the right things?

Those are good questions, I guess. I often ponder them when I’m feeling blue at Christmas time.

Listening to Elvis sing this song always reminds me of my mom.

I also ponder ditched blues when I let the blogging prompts dictate what photos and words I use in my posts. It’s not really dictation, per se, it’s more of a necessity that I willingly choose to use blogging prompts instead of thinking of something all on my own. It’s not too dicty for me to say it would definitely cause me to stall out if I didn’t, as I would have way too many options to choose from. My brain is often on overload. So I opt for the dictum of two wonderful bloggers who inspire me to share my photos and my dictions with you.

Once I saw the prompts for this week I could see the prompts everywhere I looked. On the envelope next to my desk, the back scratcher hanging in my office closet, the cap on the white erase marker, the slipcovers on 6 books on my bookshelf, a small 3-D printed cat sitting on my window sill, the envelope from Walmart photo, the handles on a bag hanging on the door to the closet, a tiny painting my daughter made in high school…the list could go on and on. The stage is set as to why I adore using blog prompts.

So what simplified dictates are I working with today? See if you can guess them, the reveal is at the bottom of the post (as always, ICYM previous posts of mine).

And now, a clue or two for you…

The prompts have little to do with food, but something about my dinner plate does.

And these items from my kitchen. I just love this cup with Japan stamped on the bottom of it. I got it at a thrift sale 30 years ago. It serves no dictated purpose other than I like how it looks as it collects dust. The other items do provide dictated service on a daily basis.

Our daily routine is dictated by a hungry cat that starts her plot to awaken the hoomans and feed her about this time EVERY day.

Truth be told, I am a morning person. The cool blues of a snowy morning pre-sunrise fascinate me.

Winter is on my head, but eternal spring is in my heart. – Victor Hugo

I kind of enjoy the early morning lights, too. Mr. has them programmed to come on at 4 am. Nice of him, eh? Dessy uses them as an additional reminder that we’re behind and haven’t fed her yet.

The morning lights in the kitchen emphasize my seasonal decorations in December. One I painted all by myself and the towels were in my mom’s kitchen. When they are put to use only once a year, they tend to hold up quite well.

I know, I know…some of you are saying to yourselves, “Whoa, that’s too early! Getting up before the birds is for the birds.” I wonder if the kids who ate their Wheaties and milk out of these containers (aka, my mom and her brothers) got up early with the birds?

Once they got to the bottom of the bowl, on the reverse side was etched, “Hello Everybody Shirley Temple”. Wasn’t that sweet of her to greet each child every morning?

Speaking of birds (nice segue, eh?)…

Have you ever watched a Blue Jay do its I’m looking for food dance in the yard in the winter? They don’t sit still for long. Especially when they are hungry. I’ve often tried to capture photos of them in the bird bath in the summer months. To no avail, so I roll on like a tumbleweed and wait until winter hoping they’ll be slower and easier to catch. I did catch one good photo though.

Looking out through the window, I see so many cool-colored birds. In the winter and in the summer.

People don’t notice whether it’s winter or summer when they’re happy.

Anton Chekhov
A Morning Dove, a Blue Jay, and a House Finch

Once in a while, I get an awesome photo – in my humble dicty opinion. I love the little blue bird picture below so much that I had it as my Facebook cover photo for a long time.

Where was I? Oh, yeah, back to dictation about lights – it’s that time of year when I play with my camera to capture photos of the Christmas tree lights. I like to switch up the ISO on my camera and turn the room lights on and off. Some photos come out fairly clear.

For the most part that is. I remember each year that it is all about how to

I play until things get blurry…kind of like the last two years.

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could blur out much of the frustrations we didn’t care for and find peace like a rabbit sitting still on a calm cool evening?

Oh, well, in my dicty way, I find that it’s the simple moments that dictate what fun we have despite any perceived dictated things that happen around us by dictators that are out of our control. Yeah, I went there…sorry, but, I’m human and have a right to sh*tty thoughts occasionally.

I try desperately to not go there often though, as those thoughts can bring on some Christmassy blues if I’m not careful.

All I know, at precisely this captured blog post moment, I’m not feeling blue. I played with the camera and loved how fun it was to see what I captured. Especially when I gave the camera quite a few snowglobe-like shakes while I took the photos.

I hope my subtle dicta helped you solve the mystery question of what the prompts provided for today’s post were. I hope I was just spot on enough for you to guess right!

Post Inspiration: Linda G. Hill’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “dict.” Find a word that contains “dict” and use it in your post. Have fun! And Terri Webster Schrandt’s Sunday Stills Monthly Color Challenge: Cobalt (rich, deep blue)

PS – Did you guess right? Do you remember the Hazel-Atlas company promotional items like the Shirley Temple items above? Did you have those or something else? What items do you own that are cobalt blue? What winter song always cheers you up? And a couple of out-of-the-blue questions…Did you ever use or transcribe from a dictograph? Do own a dictionary or do you rely on a search engine or your software to help you?

Published by Shelley

Letting my quirk out one post at a time.

36 thoughts on “How I Dictated Away My Winter 2022 Blues”

  1. I’m cracking up at the word dict for the other challenge, Shelley, well done on weaving it in! You have some great cobalts to share today. Also laughing at the cobalt litter box! Last year I had blue lights on my Christmas tree. I love cobalt glass but didn’t add any to mine this time. Enjoy your holiday weeks ahead and hope you will join me for 2022 year in review on January 1st!

    1. Thank you, Terri, it was fun to weave the two prompts together. I loved your photos, so many great examples of the gorgeous cobalt blue.
      Enjoy your holidays too – yes, I’ll be back for 2022 year in review. 🙂

  2. I love the very Christmassy photos, Shelley! Especially the last slideshow. Have a blessed new week, guys! ❤️😎

    1. Thank you, John, I’m glad to read you enjoyed the photos! I hope the weather warms up so you can get out on your bike to capture more photos! Take care and enjoy your week too!

  3. No cobalt blue glass here, Shelley, but good memories of childhood breakfast. Between cereal boxes and jelly jars, we certainly had our share of commercial activity – not to mention those cartoons on Saturday morning. I love your pictures today, especially the blue jays. We have tons of them, but they are very hard to capture.

    1. Oh, yes, the jelly jars and boxes and cartoons! Thanks for reminding me of those things too. I have some of the cartoon jelly jars from when I was a kid, and my kids used them too when they were growing up.
      I’m glad you enjoyed the photos. And I’m super glad to read that I’m not the only one that has a hard time catching the Blue Jays in photos!

      1. I have so many pictures of grass where “there used to be a blue jay there” could be the caption. They are so fast. They also have amazing eyesight. I toss a peanut for a squirrel, and while he’s looking for it, a blue jay swoops down, grabs it and is gone.

        1. I love that photo title. I have plenty of those photos too.
          I haven’t tossed out peanuts, but now that you mention it, the Blue Jays do appear to notice everything and get to the dropped seeds from the bird feeders the fastest!

  5. Your ICM photos are brilliant. Glad you managed to get a Blue Jay photo, a lovely looking bird. It’s fun playing with indoor photography when there’s lots of different coloured lights.
    Have a great Christmas 🤗💕

    1. Thanks, Brian, I’m glad you enjoyed the photos. I love playing with the lights inside at this time of the year. It makes the staying inside because it’s too cold outside feelings go away.
      Yes, catching that Blue Jay was hard. There were 4 of them and he was the only one that got close enough to catch.
      Thank you, Merry Christmas to you too.
      PS – Dessy is still working the room to bring down the tree…we’ll see who wins the battle!

  6. All is calm, all is bright – you’ve captured the best of both world. So calm and peaceful with the rabbit in the yard, then you have the brilliant and blurry Christmas lights. Very clever Shelley. I have nothing cobalt blue in glass but have a favorite dress that I’ve not worn since working on site. It was a wool two-piece dress with a a belt with a gold buckle. I had a heavy gold chain I wore with it – my favorite ever dress and always felt good wearing it. I’ve never seen that video of “Blue Christmas” but enjoyed it and it worked perfectly into this post. I always liked the song. My favorite Christmas song to cheer me up would be “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” or “Frosty the Snowman” because I am a kid at heart. I also like the “Chipmunk Song” (once a season is enough). 🙂

    1. Aw, thank you, Linda, I appreciate your words of encouragement.
      I have a cobalt blue blazer that I adored wearing too. I should just take it out and wear it again, the oversized look is back in. The outfit you described is in again, get it out and wear it even just for a day at the home office. It might make for a fun post for a day when you can’t get out and stroll the parks!
      We’re kindred spirits when it comes to songs, those are my favorites too.

      1. Yes, wearing our favorite outfit just made us feel good didn’t it? The animations in the video were clever. There was another clever video from a famous Christmas song that made the rounds a few years ago – it will bug me what it is.

          1. I had that odd moment this afternoon Shelley and remembered it was “White Christmas” by the Drifters. Same concept with the animations. I will send you the YouTube link in a separate comment. And, BTW … it was 15 years ago. I’d have said 5 years tops!

  8. “What items do you own that are cobalt blue? What winter song always cheers you up? And a couple of out-of-the-blue questions…Did you ever use or transcribe from a dictograph? Do own a dictionary or do you rely on a search engine or your software to help you?”

    Answers: 1) I have decorated in blue, silver and white for Christmas. I think I can say some of the ornaments are a cobalt blue color. 2) Most winter/holiday songs cheer me up, but I love my Pentatonix Christmas CDs. Their recordings are always beautiful and/or happy. 3) Yes, I used to transcribe from a dictaphone and at the beginning of my work life, I used shorthand at a lawyer’s office. 4) No dictionary. I rely on Google and the internet to look up words for me.

    I laughed at the early cat feeding time. Gibbs gets me up every morning around that time. I did have an auto feeder for him, but it no longer works since Hoshi is now free to roam at night. I have to get up, shut Hoshi out of the bedroom and feed Gibbs his kibble. What we don’t do for our fur kids, huh? Have a wonderful holiday, Shelley. Merry Christmas!

    1. Hi Mary! Thanks for sharing your answers to the questions. I love Pentatonix Christmas songs too – their voices are so beautiful!
      I did too on the dictaphone and shorthand. I wasn’t as good at the shorthand as my mom was. I wonder what she’d have to say about the internet as a tool for her. She was struggling to use her computer before she moved to assisted living. You know how it is to see our moms decline.

      Yes, the things we do for our furry friends. Your little Hoshi brings a whole new level of entertainment to your life!

      I hope you have a wonderful holiday, Mary! Merry Christmas to you too! (PS…I hope the storm wasn’t too bad for you, we got plenty of wet stuff and with the cold coming, it won’t be leaving anytime soon.)

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