I always have too many books (I did de-accession five books this past week), but one can never have too many toys.   And these are the toys that I mostly acquired in NM this summer.

These are the blinged out Godzillas and dinosaurs.  The Godzillas came from a toy store in  Santa Fe and the large dinos came from the Natural History Museum in ABQ.  The pterodactyl was found in a local art supply store and is my new favorite dino.

I didn’t really have enough time to carefully peruse the purchase of these wind-ups, my parking meter was about to run out!

This lovely hopping eyeball was a gift from an old friend.  Of course he had two, so I got this one to take home with me.  Thanks BooBoo!

These are tiny toys, I got two of each in case I wanted to make earrings out of them, but they are so adorable I think that I shall keep them as is.  And I do love jellyfish (from a distance at least).

The teeny tiny dinosaurs make a nice contrast to the larger ones.   They are very detailed in spite of being miniature.   I expect that They will be lovely to photograph in absurd situations.   And I don’t have to find room for them on an overcrowded bookshelf.

I had let my tiny front plot of grass become a wilderness, before I finally did something about it.  I mowed about half of it, but I did try to leave all the flowering bits for the bees and this is what’s left.

I have no idea what this is, but it seeded itself next to some Anise (this escaped the beds first and it is everywhere), so I have let it  grow on.

The yellow flowers are unknown, and the purple flowers are escaped from the flowerbeds.

A different one.

The biggest part of the wilderness is made up of oregano.  I expect that I planted a bit of it to use in cooking, but it escaped the boundary and set up shop in the lawn.   The bees love it and perhaps they are making some interesting honey with this somewhere.

And this is the back yard.   These flowers appeared a couple of years ago, and they grow without any assistance from me.

Besides all the wildflowers, I have a small section of tame flowers.   I think I planted other things as well, but due to neglect the main thing that survived was the marigolds.   They will probably seed themselves in the lawn for next year, and the patch of grass will get smaller.  It’s more for the next crop of bees.

Back before the digital age, photographs were not ubiquitous things. One had to compose the scene in the view finder, fiddle with the various camera settings, take the picture, send it off to be developed and hope for the best.  My friend GA had a post recently about a person who collects vintage dog photographs.

Libby Hall, Collector of Dog Photography

She has selected some of her vast collection of pictures into books, and so I got several of these (I know that I said I wasn’t going to buy any more books, I guess I was lying).

And these books really are quite charming.   Back when photographs were expensive and difficult to make, people went to the trouble to immortalize their dogs, because dogs are important.   As I thought about it I realized that I have jillions of photos of my dogs.   They are mostly of interest to me, but I keep them because they remind me of the love of my dogs.

This was the first dog I had as an adult.  We got him in Louisiana, and he moved with us to North Dakota before coming here.   He was laying in bed when I snapped this picture.

This picture of my next dog hangs on the refrigerator.   I took it here at the house as he was resting on the landing looking cute.   He was sure that his duty was to protect the house, and he did this faithfully.

I paid to have this photo of Miss P taken by a professional photographer, and it hangs in the dining room.  She is wearing her floral collar that we bought for her in Hawaii’i.

This is my tiny vintage dog photo.  It was taken sometime in the 1930’s, and is a bit crumpled with age.   This was Joe, and that is my grandfather holding him.   My mom kept this photograph, and because she liked it I have kept it too.  Because I am the keeper of memories in my family and I remember these dogs.

I know that I often speak of downsizing, getting rid of my possessions.   But things keep following me home and I am powerless to resist (well perhaps I don’t try to resist all that hard).   I love rabbits, they are so adorable and who could possibly have too many rabbits (probably me).

Besides having the outdoor rabbits I now have these cuties (yes I am aware that I didn’t really need them, but).

These ones are small enough to fit in my pocket, and they were left over from our most recent garage sale, so I decided to give them a good home.

And books continue to be a weakness as well.   And these were free, but I did promise myself that they will join the great cosmic pile of stuff out there, somewhere, at a later date.

These will join them too.

But for now I have had to find places and spaces for this stuff to reside.  I do notice that the ceilings are rather bare.   Hmm.

One of my nieces graduated from college this past weekend, so I ended up going to her graduation for some inexplicable reason.  (It is inexplicable because I did not even go to my own graduation 😉 .  The students were in the standard medieval garb of black gowns and mortar boards, but I fell in love with the outfits that the faculty had to wear, and I will admit to being a little jealous of these splendid robes.

I do realize that the colors of the robes somehow reflect the disciplines of the professors, whatever that might be.

There were loads of gorgeous outfits, but they were marching down the aisle right smartly and did not give us time to admire the get-ups.

Of course the best outfit was this magnificent pink cape and mitre Biretta worn by the Archbishop of Atlanta (he got an honorary degree, so he needed to look nice).

The president of the college (the one wearing the medallion) had spent three hours the night before, smiling in pictures for the students and family members.  It’s all part of the job.  The ceremony was outdoors and lasted for over two hours and as the temperature was in the high 80’s F (about 30 C), I must admit I admire the fortitude of these distinguished academics.   Perhaps I don’t want a robe after all.  Or

I could have dressed like this spectator, she was getting some wear out of what had surely been purchased as a bridesmaid’s dress.