October 7, 2025
You Don’t Even Have to Have Your Own Pets….
to get your spirits lifted.
October 6, 2025
Posted in Life As a Shared Adventure
23 Comments
Dogs and Their Owners
The Economist had an article about how dogs and their owners often look alike and have similar personalities. I enjoyed it but it’s behind a paywall so I asked ChatGPT “do dogs and their owners really start to resemble one another?” It answered:
Yes — at least a little bit, and there’s actual research behind the idea.
Psychologists have studied this and found that people can often match dogs to their owners with accuracy much higher than chance. A well-known study by Michael Roy and Nicholas Christenfeld (University of California, San Diego) asked strangers to look at photos of dogs and their owners separately, and the strangers were surprisingly good at pairing them up.
A few patterns explain why:
- Selection effect: People often choose dogs that mirror something about themselves. For example, a tall, lanky person might unconsciously prefer a long-legged breed like a greyhound, while someone with curlier hair might lean toward a poodle.
- Shared lifestyle: Owners and dogs influence each other’s activity levels, posture, and even body weight over time.
- Facial similarity: In some cases, owners and dogs share features — big eyes, long noses, round faces — that make them look alike.
- Emotional mirroring: Dogs pick up on their owners’ expressions and body language, which can give the impression of resemblance.
So it’s not that owning a dog makes you start to physically look alike, but rather that people gravitate toward dogs who reflect them in some way — and then shared habits and expressions reinforce that resemblance.
Would you like me to show you some of the funniest documented examples of owner-dog lookalikes?
I said yes, and this is what it came up with:
I think the woman is frowning too much. The dog looks serious, but not as upset. I think these pictures by Gerrard Gethings are better examples.
What do you think?
October 5, 2025
Posted in Life As a Shared Adventure
24 Comments
The Power of Pets
Having a pet isn’t always enough to lighten our moods, but they can help.
October 4, 2025
Posted in Life As a Shared Adventure
24 Comments
Another R.I.P., September 7, 2025-September 30, 2025
I planted my second celery stump September 7, 2025 and it had already started growing by the next day:
September 8, 2025
Here’s a picture of it taken September 12, 2025. It’s the one on the left.
I tried planting it as soon as it started putting out a little root, but I knew it wouldn’t survive because celery like a lot of sunshine, and our apartment doesn’t have it. I was surprised it looked perky as long as it did. It looked fine went I went to bed September 29, but it had wilted by the time I got up the next morning.
September 30, 2025
I gently tugged on the stalks and they came out.
September 30, 2025
Sigh. I won’t try celery stumps again. I’ll stick with my shade-loving pothos for my window sill. They love it there.
October 3, 2025
Posted in Life As a Shared Adventure
26 Comments
It Wasn’t a Song, It Was….
four lines of poetry that have been going through my head the past couple of days.
Every clod feels a stir of might,
An instinct within it that reaches and towers,
And, groping blindly above it for light,
Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers;
—June by James Russell Lowell
Russell was talking about summer, but a lot of people would think of spring. Not me. It’s the beautiful days and cool nights of autumn that energize and motivate me. What about you?
October 2, 2025
Posted in Life As a Shared Adventure
24 Comments
A Laugh From the Past
We’re talking about having a big project done up on the land. It could go smoothly, but things can always get complicated of course. For some reason that reminded me of a friend years ago. Her husband was remodeling their kitchen-family room (one big room). It was taking forever and she was the one spending the most in the unfinished mess. She had to laugh when her little girl said to her even younger little boy one day,
You know, Bobbie, when Daddy dies you will have to finish this room.
October 1, 2025
Posted in Life As a Shared Adventure
30 Comments
That Was a Big Surprise
Kaitlin and I have been talking about how to notify people what’s going on if I were to stop blogging. I have a firewall which is sometimes tricky to get behind, so we decided it would be easiest if she just told people in comments to my last post. It’s probably not necessary, but she could also tell people by commenting on their blogs, using the links to their user names when they comment.
I decided to make sure that worked so I tried going to cheerfulmonk.com straight from DuckDuckGo, the search engine I use (unlike Google it preserves privacy). But when I tried it, this is the first thing that came up:
None of the other listings took me to my site either, and I was curious to see what else IPAddress.com had to say:
Cheerfulmonk.com is a personal blog that emphasizes the philosophy of life as a shared adventure. The site features a variety of content, including reflections on daily experiences,
travel stories, and insights into personal growth. The author shares a positive outlook on life, encouraging readers to embrace joy and connection with others.The blog is designed to foster a sense of community, inviting visitors to engage with the content and share their own experiences. Through thoughtful writing and relatable
anecdotes, cheerfulmonk.com aims to inspire individuals to find happiness in everyday moments and to appreciate the shared journeys we all undertake.
I don’t know what AI program they’re using, but this one blew me away. And don’t the words “sharing”, “connection”, and “community” describe why we all love blogging? I am so grateful for you all and that we can connect through blogging.
September 30, 2025
Posted in Life As a Shared Adventure
26 Comments
Party Time
This reminds me of when Kaitlin and Torben came to visit in 2008. They talked us into switching to Apple, so we all went to Santa Fe to buy my first Macbook. This is the picture of us “partying” when we got back to the apartment.
I smile every time I think of it. What’s your idea of a great party?
September 28, 2025
Posted in Life As a Shared Adventure
36 Comments
