Mo'a Romig-Boyles

A Ghost In The House

This is a recycled post from my old Blogger blog Leikur og List. March 10, 2006. This is a true story.
There will be a new post on March 27...

Do you believe in ghosts? I do and we have one. Now it could be a poltergeist, except for the fact that there is not an adolescent living here in our house.
My ghost likes to play tricks on us, to keep us on our toes I suspect. One thing it will do is turn the kitchen light on and off. Another favorite is slamming the window screens down in random windows.....this always occurs when the house is very quiet.
The roller blinds in our bedroom is another favorite toy....after I have pulled them down for the night, they will go up, with a lot of noise and drama, just about the time we are about to go into REM sleep.
My all time favorite are the television tricks. Our ghost waits until we are deep into the story of a great movie to turn the television off. Sometimes the television will go on when we are sitting in the family room reading or at our computers.......I will ask what show would you like to watch......if my tone is harsh the television will be turned off again. There is no way to please a ghost......at least not our ghost.
One night I was awakened from a deep sleep with people screaming and crying....I thought this was happening outside my house. Curiosity got the best of me and I got out of bed walked into the hallway to look out the window, it was then I noticed that the noises were coming from the TV.....I got rather miffed and told the ghost if he/she wants to watch television in the middle of the night, at least turn the volume down so that we can sleep. I think it listened to me, as I have not been awakened in the middle of the night since, however, sometimes when we go into the family room in the morning the television is on.....Now I must tell it to turn the TV off when it is finished watching. I would add a photo here if I had one, I think he/she is camera shy, or just shy as I have not seen it.
Do you have a ghost and does it play tricks on you? .

Shadow In The Night

This past week has found me running on a treadmill of Doctors appointments and taking my Father for Radiation treatments.  He has skin cancer on the top of his head.  He had surgery and now is a third of the way through the Radiation treatments.
My Mother is very happy with all the wonderful Birthday wishes from you...it makes her feel very special...Thank You :)

Below is a recycled post from November 21, 2005.   This was my ninth post on my old blogger Leikur og List. 

I got chilled in the middle of the night. I tugged on the duvet ever so gently :) nothing happened, so I gave it a good hefty tug. Out of corner of my eye, I caught a shadow that seemed to stop mid-air, accompanied by an loud and annoyed, meow . When things settled down, I realized that the shadow was my cat, Brie. What amazes me is that she did not fly off the bed, rather, she teetered on the edge a bit and then settled down with a loud purr. I rather suspect that this was a great thrill to her, albeit, a surprise. My husband slept through the whole adventure and is hearing about it now, as he reads this :)
Brie is named for.....you guessed it......the delectable and my favorite, cheese. I try to explain the name to others, as their eyes glaze over, that the name fits her perfectly, because her outer fur is as soft gray and her inner fur is white.....much like the rind and the soft inside of Brie cheese, I guess I am reaching here. My son who was, I suspect, not impressed with the name, said "I think you should have named her hub cap", where that came from I have no idea. Mercifully “hub cap” did not stick, however, my husband’s nickname for her did and she is now, alternately, called “Brie”, mostly by me and “Breezer”, by my husband.
Brie’s favorite toy, is a small ball made of a chenille type material,with tufts of some shiny material, that comes loose and deposits all over our rugs.  We call this toy “mousie” when she hears that word, with the sing song intonation we give it, I kid you not :)she comes running, with the look of purpose on her face, from where ever she might be hiding at the moment.
Her best friend is our canary, neither the canary or Brie know that their friendship is a  rather unlikely one. Brie has spent hours by, Oli Moses’s cage, looking out the window, at all the juicy birds, with whiskers quivering and tail thrashing, thinking what a good meal they would make. This amuses us to no end. I guess that it is true, that, “one does not, eat ones friends”.
Brie has had many a nap on top of OM’s cage, however, this practice can get rather annoying for her in the spring, when OM looks up and sees the soft material that would be just perfect for that nest he is making. Brie is not amused. I have looked high and low for the photo of Brie sleeping on OM's cage.....to no avail, however, when I find it, I will post it here.
Oli Moses is our second canary, our first canary's name was Oli. Oli Moses was to be called Moses, we got him in upstate New York, in Grandma Moses country.....long story, I shall spare you. I had a hard time using the name Moses in the beginning, so my son suggested that we call him, Oli Moses :)

Going Green

It seems the fashion these days to go green.  In that spirit I will be doing a recycled post from my blogger Leikur Og List.  This post is from December 2005.
I was reminded of this particular post when I was lamenting the lack of snow this season here in Southern New Jersey.

We had our second snow of the season yesterday....first snow was a dusting and this one did not live up to expectations. We had been promised a good, stay at home, make a thick soup, light a fire and some candles, cozy under blankets, listen to Christmas  music, kind of snow, instead we got a scant inch and freezing rain. All was not lost, as we decided to decorate the family room Christmas tree. When we finished decorating, as a reward,  we did all of the above , it was ever so cozy. 
This morning the sun is out and the snow and ice sparkles like so many diamonds. I use the Rhododendrons as my thermometer, today their leaves have unfurled, from their curled into a cylinder look they had yesterday. I fear that by tomorrow the snow will be gone again.....this seems to be our fate here in Southern New Jersey.
Here are some photos, taken yesterday and today.

....a Rose by any other name......Ornamental Cabbage

The bird feeder.The squirrels have brought it down to the ground three times. I have repaired it each time with Apoxie Sculpt, adding more and more design to it, one time this dragon and in front of it a baby dragon.

A photo taken of the Rhododendron in the sun, this morning

Note on photos: Ornamental Cabbage is one of my favorite plants for winter it will last until I replace them with either Primroses or Pansies in late winter.
The bird feeder in the photo above fell one last time as beyond repair.  We replaced it with an identical one sans the ornamentation.
The Rhododendron is in front of my house. It surrounds two trees and is about ten feet tall, by twelve feet long and wide.  The ornamental grass is now two years later three times the size it is in the photo above.