Welcome! There is a pitcher of both white and red sangria in the kitchen. I made coffee and hot chocolate (and have the special Adult Add Ins on the bar). Help yourself to cookies, or veggies or a slice of cake and come hang out on the porch with me.

Find a chair or a railing, make yourself comfy

Let me introduce you to the three people who create the most drama, love, excitement, and rewards and who make this house possible:

Eldest child. Older than she looks, as nerdy as her mom

Elder son- Jock/Theater Kid Hybrid who eats a lot. This was his first course that night.

My sweet, ‘Oh, it’s not menopause, it’s a baby’ kid. Knows far more than any child his age should.

Why “Life a little off-center”? I like to garden and have a photography background so I have taken entirely too many pictures of my flowers. When you photograph a flower you have to look carefully -is there anything in the frame that will distract from this beautiful bud? Is the flash off so that the colors will be their richest and most natural? Does what is in the frame show the best part of the flower? And, just when I think what I see in the viewfinder is perfect, I turn things just slightly off-center. Why? It makes for a more interesting picture. Anyone can fill a frame with a flower and it will be beautiful, but I like to set it off just a bit to make it uniquely mine.

Snap.

Ordinary dahlia (gardening joke, no dahlia is ordinary) on a sunny, bright day

Same bright and sunny dahlia looked at slightly off center

Or maybe play with the lighting to add some mood. Same plant, cloudy day

Same plant, same cloudy day, same ant crawling up my leg but a little off-center

What any photographer can tell you about composition, I want to apply to what I post here. I want to take something ordinary (family joke, no one’s life is ordinary), and look at it a little off-center.

Snap.