Arte y Pico

Thank you, Granny Sue.

This is the first blogger award that I've received and I feel pretty good about it coming from Granny. If you haven't read her blog yet, you need to check it out. Granny Sue is a professional storyteller from right here in West Virginia. Her blog chronicles her storytelling travels and her back-to-basics lifestyle. Only for her, it's not 'back' - it is what it is and there's a lot to be learned. Thanks, Granny, for sharing your life and travels on your blog. Thank you, too, for this recognition.

Here are the rules:

1. Pick 5 blogs that you consider deserve this award through creativity, design, interesting material and that contribute to the blogger community.

2. Each award should have the name of the author with a link to their blog.

3. Award winners have to post the award with the name and link to the blog of the person who gave them the award.

4.Please include a link to the Arte Y Pico blog so that everyone will know where the award came from.

5. Show these rules.

My picks?

1. Tales from Creekistan -Amy The Black

2. David Wayne Hampton -David Wayne Hampton

3. Appalachian Scribe - John Norris Brown

4. Smokey Mountain Breakdown - Rosanne Griffeth

5. And although this blogger has been on hiatus since April, I am looking forward to her return; I admire what she's doing: mamaVision - MamaV

Spring = Mud

Spring = Mud
Anyone who lives outside the realm of concrete and asphalt knows this is true.

This is one good reason that I am the queen of practical footwear. 'Practical' really means sturdy, comfortable and waterproof:



Screech, however, is not so practical.


To her, springtime means freedom from footwear:



Minimal footwear:



Or cute, pink and girlish footwear:



Screech may not be practical, but she is stylish.

Tracking mud into school is apparently not stylish (maybe someone should have told me this before now).

So, rather than succumb to her mother's boring and mundane solution (boots), she has come up with her own ideas about how to keep the mud off her feet between here and the bus stop:



[Look closely at these pictures and you'll see that I have not been as inventive in the quest to keep the mud out of the house.]

Screech demonstrating the tying-plastic-bag-handles-around-ankle technique:



And the not quite stylish results:



If it doesn't warm up soon, I may suggest adding some sort of practical insulation to these bags to prevent frostbite.


I just discovered a new site -Picture West Virginia- and their current topic is 'Spring,' so I decided to submit this post over there, too. Go check out the robins eggs and cherry blossoms (and if this muddy post gets linked, I'll let you know).