Whack a mole

Have you ever played that arcade game Whack a Mole? Well I saw a version of it going on in my front yard the other day. To be more accurate, it was Whack a Squirrel.

You see the squirrels have a little tunnel system going in the snow. I was looking out the window and happened to see a little squirrel head pop up and then go back down.

As I watched it appeared in another spot and then went back down. Then there were two of them. I was laughing hysterically and yelled to Wade that there was a game of Whack a Mole going on in the front yard.

In this third picture you can see the tail from one squirrel as it's going back down in the hole and near the back you can see just the tip of another ones head.

And that was my cheap entertainment for the weekend.

Chillin

Duke sure knows how to take it easy and enjoy life. He loves to sit and watch what's going on out in the front yard. When he's not busy guarding the house he enjoys watching the birds and the squirrels and even the people walking down the street

All that watching can tire a guy out though. 

He can sleep anywhere.

Say What?

I've gotten myself a little beheinz

I opened up my reader today and found there were over 70 posts that needed to be read. So now I'm trying to ketchup

Yesterday we did some shopping and went out to eat after work and when we got home I got involved in some of my projects. While I'm enjoying all the play time I also relish the thought of catching up with all of you. 

I swear I must have adult ADD. I currently have 6 different projects started. The plan for the weekend was to start with one and work my way through them. All day long I have bounced back and forth between them and haven't finished one. I've also cleaned up the mess on my desk at least 3 times. Each time I get it cleaned something colorful or shiny catches my eye, sparks and idea and I mess the whole thing back up again.
Eventually (I hope) I will get all caught up with my visits to all of you. Leave the light on, I'm on my way but I'm running a little late.

The Brenda Photo Challenge (1-29) Frozen

Yeah! The Brenda Photo Challenge is back. Now that the holidays are over it's time to have some fun with the challenges again. The theme this time around is frozen which isn't hard for me at all.
Welcome to my frozen world

Around here everywhere you look things are frozen.
While I was on break at work I went outside to take some pictures of some of the icicles hanging off the roof.

That is one cold wall of ice. Another part of our building is two stories high and there were some huge ones hanging there also. By the time I went out though they had knocked them down. Wouldn't want anyone standing or walking underneath those things when they let loose.
Well that's all I have for this challenge. Why not go check out the rest of the entries.

Where did that come from

Duke was a little confused and surprised when he walked through the living room the other day.

Is that a fireplace?
Yes, it is, sort of. It's not a real wood burning fireplace but it is an electric one. Not much good for giving off heat but it looks nice and I like to watch the flames even if they aren't real.
We've had this in the basement in the "man cave". Since the living room is almost finished, Wade wants to start working on the room in the basement that has never really fully developed into a room. He lovingly refers to it as his man cave and it's probably the most used room in the house. Any way, before he starts ripping things out he wanted to get the fireplace out of the way and moved it in to the living room.

I asked him if he realized that I'm not going to want him to move it back down stairs when he's finished with the cave. He agreed that it does look nice there. Now all we need to do is decide on a rug and buy the molding and then this should be done. Now if I could just stop dreaming about a new couch.

A knifty scarf

Well I finished my first project with my knifty knitter. This has got to be the easiest scarf I have ever made. I think it took me much less time to do this than it did to crochet the last one I did.
I must confess though, I was about a quarter of the way through it and realized I had messed up somewhere along the line and I didn't know how to fix the mistake. I ended up pulling the whole thing out and starting over. In the end I was pretty happy with the way it turned out.

Just to be on the safe side I got a second opinion from an expert. He's final evaluation was that it was soft and comfortable. So my scarf got the Westie paw of approval. To show my appreciation I let him take a little nap on it.

a Valentine project

The first of the year is always a little sluggish for me when it comes to doing crafts. Christmas is over but I'm still in the mood to make things for gifts and decorations. At the same time I want to move on to other things. To get me through that transition period I took a project that I saw on Helen's blog Let's Create and started making some things for Valentines Day.
I'm pretty sure that Helen had made these for Christmas but they can be decorated for any occasion. Before I forget to mention it, I must say that Helen is one clever and crafty lady. She makes the most beautiful cards.
Anyway, I  made three so far.

I thought I would give these out to some of the girls at work and maybe even to some of my favorite customers. I guess I better get busy and make some more.

On another note, one of you left me a comment on my post yesterday that I just have to mention here. When I checked my email this morning and saw the comment I could not stop laughing.
Here's what I read
You have never been really able to just let kindergarten go--have you? 
To answer that question, no, I guess I haven't but you will be happy to know that I finally quit eating the paste.
Thanks Jerry, you started my day out with a great laugh 

Trash to treasure

A friend of mine had a box of stuff she was going to throw away. She was going to throw it away until she thought of me. She hung on to it instead to see if I might want it.
This is what she had

HOLY SMOKES! That's like spring time in a box. Just look at those colors.

She said when she saw this she thought of quilling. The papers are much wider than what you would use in most quilling since they are just over a 1/2 inch wide. Plus they are a heavier paper too, more like cardstock,  but I thought they were perfect for some JUMBO quilling.

Maybe if I didn't get in so close with the camera you wouldn't be able to see that I was a little messy with the glue on this flower. This is the first one I did and I have a little idea here for what this is going to be used for. More on that when I actually finish it.

Just for fun I took the picture of the box of paper and played with it in my Dazzling Reflections kaleidoscope program. I thought those would look good either as a background for a card or maybe I might print them out and use them for making some tea bag medallions.
Oh I just love it when people give me crafty material. I'm in heaven

Lazy days and Sundays

Yesterday I was a bundle of energy with all the cleaning and today it was a perfectly lazy day.
Tell me though, what could be more perfect than spending a Sunday on the couch in your warm flannel pajama pants?

Only one thing I can think of could be better. That would be sitting on the couch in your warm flannel pajama pants with a little white westie snoozing on  your lap

Amanda reminded me the other day that it's been a whole year today that she moved to Colorado. I can't believe it's been that long already although some days it feels like she's been gone forever.

Hibernation

Correct me if I'm wrong but when animals hibernate aren't they spending that time sleeping? The plan for this weekend was hibernation but I haven't done much sleeping.
I did a little blog hopping
I played with the dog
I went upstairs to make the bed and that was where things went wrong.
I ONLY intended to make the bed but then there was a basket of laundry that needed put away. When I opened the drawer it was a bit messy so I pulled everything out and refolded it. If I did one drawer I may as well do them all right? Before I knew what was happening my lazy day off turned into an all day cleaning spree.
I did find time to get a picture of Duke for you though

I even found some time to play around with the picture in photoshop elements. So here is my painting of Duke

Now I think I'll spend the rest of the evening working on a project or two that I have started, maybe grab some coffee and read a few blogs and whatever else I feel like doing. After all it's so fun to relax in a clean house

Answer time

It has been so cold here today and I've been moving very slow since I got home from work.  The last time I looked the temperature was 12 degrees but felt like -2 with the wind chill factored in. BRRRR!!!!! We're expecting pretty much more of the same for the weekend so my thoughts for the next couple of days are HIBERNATION.
OK so yesterday I showed you this

There were some really great guesses and two of you even got it right. Some of you had commented on how clean it was. I could have told you that I took the picture AFTER I cleaned it up when I was done using it. It doesn't look that clean while I'm working with it.
Here's another shot of the same machine. This time it doesn't have the hopper in it.

The hopper holds the donut filling. There are 4 different hoppers, one for each type of filling (lemon, apple, strawberry and bavarian cream) See the two little spikes on the front of the hopper? You push the fried donuts on to those spikes then push the arm underneath to fill the donut. The keypad is to set how much filling you want to go into the donut.

If by any chance some of you think you see a coffee mug sitting in the picture you are completely mistaken. There are no drinks allowed in the area so there couldn't possibly be a cup of coffee sitting there on my table.
Correct answers came from
Booker at They call me the Booker Man (with the help of his mom)
Tim at Everyday living

Thanks for playing along everyone.

What is it?

Are you up for a little guessing game today?
What is this? I'll give you one hint and that is that I use it every day at work.

So any guesses? Maybe that's not enough. Would it help if I showed you the whole thing?

How about now, do you know what it is?
I'll let you all guess today and give you the answer in tomorrow's post.

Let sleeping dogs lie

Yesterday while I wasn't the only one taking it easy. I had my pillow on the couch and someone decided to use it for his nap.

Aw, isn't he cute. So lucky too since he gets to do this every day if he wants to.  Shhhh, don't wake the Duke.

Wishing it was Monday again

Tuesdays aren't generally so bad but when you get to spend your Monday morning doing this...

I would rather have this kind of Monday morning. I had asked for the day off for a dentist appointment and was given one of my vacation days instead. It seems that too many of us that have accumulated the vacation days have been waiting too long in the year to take them. So now if we ask for a day off he's just going to give it to us as a vacation day. I wish I would have known that sooner, I would have just asked to switch with someone instead. I hate using vacation days for things like going to the dentist.
Oh well, at least I did get to start the morning hanging on the couch with the laptop and my coffee and the tv in the background for some noise.

Knifty

Some of you asked if I got anything good when I braved the snow to go shopping so today I thought I would share one of the things I bought.
One of the girls at work has a knifty knitter and had been talking about the hat and scarf she made with it. Being one who loves just about anything crafty I had to do some investigating to see what all you can do with this. I was impressed and have been wanting to get one ever since.
Instead of buying just one loom I bought the set that had 4 different ones

I haven't started on any specific project yet, I was just playing around so that I could figure it out.
It's pretty hard to see in the picture but I used the long loom and made a sqare using brown yarn. Then I sewed up the side and gathered up one end. It looked to  me like a little hat. Duke was not impressed. He thought it was just too small.

OK, maybe he's right BUT, it's just the right size for a little white westie muzzle warmer. 

Just look at those pleading eyes. He's hoping that all future work is made in larger sizes so that he's not forced to model.

must be crazy

So yesterday my plan was to go do some shopping. I thought that buying a few new crafty toys would help jolt me into making something. I did a few things around the house until it was late enough that the stores would be open. (I got up a little early on my day off)
About 15 minutes before I was ready to leave I look out the window and see this

Want a closer look at what it's really doing?

Yep, that's right. It's snowing like crazy.
Did it stop me? No way. I still went out. A girl could suffer from serious cabin fever if she stayed in every time it snowed like that around here.
So what did Duke think of all this?

He told me to take it slow and don't forget to bring him a special treat.

I've got an attitude

I've often been told that I have an attitude. Of course that is normally followed by the word problem. So what's the problem, I like my attitude.
This time though, it isn't me that has an attitude it's my blog that has been awarded the "My blog has attitude blog award" So how cool is that? The very talented and sweet Barbara at Barbara's World of Whimcees awarded this to me. I've been meaning to pass it on but I think most of you know how bad I am about this.

So I'm supposed to list 3 things that make me different from everybody else. That's pretty tough since I'm just your average person but I'll give it a try.

1) I have Duke laying here beside me while I blog :) I know, that's lame

2) I'm married to Wade (so far as I know no one else is currently married to him)

3) I am in possession of tonight's winning power ball ticket. (If for some reason I don't win I will know that one of you snuck in my house and replaced my winning ticket with a loser)

Now I'm supposed to pass this on to 5 other bloggers. That's always a tough one for me to follow. I hate choosing only 5 people and some of you don't do awards. Here's what I'm going to do. If you feel like your blog has attitude then go ahead and snag it. Personally every single one of you that comment here, in my opinion have attitude. (all good of course)

The last thing about this award is

Part of this award is that it comes with a $5 gift certificate to Digis With Attitude when you complete all the requirements. In order to qualify you need only to follow the first two requirements and display the Blog Award Badge (above) in your sidebar and link it back to the Digi’s With Attitude! Challenge Blog. You can get all the details here.

When is it enough

Everyone has their own opinion as to how much is too much. Some have a high tolerance while others can tolerate very little.
Wade and I think that it's enough

Someone else thinks that we could use a little more

C.R.S

I was mighty glad to read your comments on my post yesterday and see that I'm not alone in the blogging addiction thing. I really didn't mean to complain about it because I truly do enjoy it. I just wish that I had more time to do other things. I guess the only thing right now that I'm willing to give up would be my job, however, that is attached to my paycheck which I'm NOT willing to give up.
You're probably wondering what all of that has to do with C.R.S (can't remember stuff, although stuff is more often replaced by a 4 letter word) Actually it has nothing to do with it at all, and merely serves as an opening to tonight's otherwise short post.
I believe it was last month a made a card and can't remember if I had shown it to you or not. I used it the other day to send to someone and took a picture of it first.
This one has another one of those tea bag folded medallions on it.

I cut a piece of scrapbook paper in to 2" squares to fold for the medallion then mounted it to a plain green piece of cardstock.  The larger piece of patterned paper is the same paper I used for the medallion.

So I'm taking it slow tonight. I'm not commenting on EVERY single post I read and I may not even get around to all of you. If not I'll catch up with you over the weekend.

not off to a very good start

Do you remember the design a day calendar that Marie sent me? Do you remember me saying that I was going to make every one and do a weekly post about my progress? Well I'm embarrassed to say that this is as far as I've gotten

Not only is just one design but it's not even finished and it looks really bad.
Every night by the time I get home, have dinner and settle in for what remains of my evening I spend it sitting reading blogs. Don't get me wrong I love reading all of your blogs but I open up my reader and on a typical night there are about 55 posts to read. Reading 55 posts and leaving 55 comments takes me pretty much the rest of the night. I keep saying, "tonight is the night you are going to take off from the computer and do something crafty" and yet, I navigate towards the couch and the laptop. Last night I made some progress though, I shut off the laptop and turned on the Wii.  Oh I am so pitiful.

for the birds

Remember I told you yesterday that I saw a ton of birds in the back yard? The trees were filled with them. They weren't the usual flock that hangs out here though. I'm not sure where those guys took off to.
Anyway, I got quite a few pictures of them in the front yard.
When we went to the store on Saturday I bought a peanut butter flavored suet cake and that was the big hit on Sunday. Here there is one bird on it and 2 more waiting their turn.

Isn't this one pretty? He was quite patient waiting but eventually had enough of the others hogging it and decided it was his turn.

The crew on the ground

This was my personal favorite from the day. I just loved this picture.

I could show you more but the others don't look much different from these.

A question for those of you who know more about cameras than I do.
I really want to get a new lens for my dslr. I want to be able to get in closer to the birds. So what should I be looking for in a lens? Any recommendations?