Again?

Can you believe we've gotten snow again? Last night after dinner I looked out the window and saw it coming down. I took a few pictures just before 7:00 PM

 I guess we got our April Fools joke a couple days early.

Westie Wednesday

Duke and I have decided to join T and Louis over at Desperately Seeking Seersucker for
Westie Wednesday.
(The first link is to the blog and the second is too the Westie Wednesday post)
Not much chit chat for today it's just shots of Duke

Duke's profile shot

 Duke's "Mom, I'm tired get that camera out of my face" look

And finally Duke winking at all his adoring fans

A gift

A gift from one of the girls at work.

Duke did a thorough inspection on it and said that it passed.

Now I just need to find a place to hang it.

I may or may not be around tonight. If I don't stop by your place, I'll catch up to you in the next few days. I think I'm may just be sitting on the couch with my feet up tonight.

Signs of spring

I heard someone say that spring was in the air. Oh really? So I looked. I saw snowflakes in the air. Not a lot mind you, but the occasional flake fluttering to the ground didn't look very spring like to me.
I looked in the back yard. I found my birdbath that had fallen in a previous battle with old man winter.

I looked in my front yard. I saw that once again, even though I said I would take care of it in the fall, my flower beds were a total mess. I saw dead leaves, trash blown in from a neighbors overturned garbage can, a pop can discarded by a careless teen walking by. Just as I was about to walk away in disgust, something caught my eye. What's this? Is that green I see? Why yes, yes it is. My Iris are the first ones to bring me the good news that spring really has arrived. 

Duke's new do

Yesterday was the big trip to VIP Grooming Salon for Duke.
I pulled out the short leash and boy was he ever ready to go.

I couldn't get the little guy in focus. He was so excited that we were going. He was at the door all a wiggle with anticipation.

Come on mom, back this car out of the driveway and lets get this show on the road.  

Just so you all know, when I dropped him off I asked about taking pictures. I explained that all of Duke's adoring fans would be disappointed if I chickened out. Of course she was more than happy to let us get a shot or two. She even tried to get Duke's attention so I could get one in focus. 

Back home again and Duke is showing off his new look and his stylish bandanna. He also walked out with a little bag of home made dog treats. For me there was a handy dandy business card fridge magnet and a card good for 50% off on grooming after 5 visits. 

So the verdict on the new groomer.
She:

• made Duke look very handsome
• gave Duke yummy goodies
• she's very close to home
• has convenient hours
• got my attention with the 50% off card

Yep, we've got a new groomer. Heck Duke may even get there more often now.
So if you think that Vickie did a good job on Duke, why not stop on by her facebook page and tell her Duke sent you :)

Picky part 2

Are you all ready for the continuation of yesterday's story about Duke?
Recently I had some time to kill and was browsing around in a Big Lots store. I happened to pass by the pet section and see the cutest dog dish. I bought it for Duke but actually it made me think of Amanda and I knew she would want him to have this dish.

So what did Duke think of the dish? Lets take a look shall we.

So far so good. And the final shot for the story.

Now it seems to me that it wasn't the food at all. It was simply that the dish I was serving it in wasn't good enough. You could argue that he finally just got used to the food and the timing of the new dish was just a coincidence but I think not.
Come back tomorrow for a report on the new groomer.

Picky Picky

From day one I was buying Purina puppy chow for Duke. When he got a little older I stuck with Purina. One day the store had a special on Pedigree dog food so I bought it. Duke did not approve. He wouldn't eat. Even though I had a full bag I went out and bought another bag of Purina. I guess he was holding a grudge because he still didn't want to eat.
Since I had heard somewhere that Westies should be eating lamb and rice dog food, I spent the extra bucks and bought him some of that.
I ask you, what is wrong with this food?

Here, take a closer look.

Guess what Duke thought of it?

I'm blaming this whole thing on the human father who insists on saving something on his plate for Duke.
There is a second part to this story so stay tuned.

I finished something

Well hooray for me, I finished another project. I still have a backlog of projects started. They are all patiently waiting for me to get my act together and complete them. In the meantime, instead of working on those I start something new.
I was looking at a picture I have hanging on one of my walls. It has these cute little trees on it and it made me think of trying to do a quilled tree. I googled quilled trees to get some ideas. I found one that I liked so I sat down and did a rough drawing to use as my guide.

Every tree needs to have at least one bird in it.

I wish I would have cut the white cardstock a little smaller so that you could see more of the background paper. I ended up putting this one in a frame.

I have two ideas now. I'm either going to do another one in the same way or I'm going to do 3 more. If I do the 3 I was thinking one for each season.

Happy Dog

Doesn't Duke look happy

do you know why he's so happy? Well let me tell you.
I'm sure it's pretty obvious that he over due for a hair cut once again. Saturday he's going to the groomer and he's really excited about it.
We aren't going to the same one as last time though. I know I said I would since I really did like her but my biggest problem is she doesn't have Saturday hours. So in order to get Duke there I almost have to take a day off for it.
Well the other day I was reading our small local paper and saw an add for a groomer

 

This one is much closer to home than the last one and she has Saturday hours. Duke liked the fact that it says he'll be treated like a star. 

I wonder what this one will say when I tell her Duke is a blogger and I need to take pictures? Of course that's if I don't chicken out.

since you asked

Thank you all for the birthday wishes. They were much appreciated. Since some of you asked how I spent the day I thought I would tell you.
First off for those that wanted to know how you missed that post, there is a simple explanation. I wrote it on Sunday and it said it was scheduled. My posts are always scheduled for 7 p.m. (have no idea why I picked that time) Any way, around 8:00 last night for some reason I went in and checked and it had changed to a draft. Needless to say it went up late. Oh well.
Well, how I spent my day. I had to work so that's how most of it was spent. My son came to see me at work and brought me a rose.

Wade asked me what I wanted and I had absolutely no idea. I remembered some time ago I had put a few small items on my amazon wish list. I sent him the wish list and he bought me all 5 things that were on there. It included a game for the wii, a quilling kit and 3 different camera accessories. Now I'm just waiting for those to arrive.
On Sunday Wade had asked me what I wanted for dinner on my birthday. I told him I didn't care, whatever he wanted to cook was fine. It was my birthday and I wasn't going to cook. I decided on chicken stir fry but then we didn't have all the ingredients so my birthday dinner ended up being a fried ham sandwich. Worked for me so long as I didn't have to cook.
And that sums up the exciting day. Yeah I know not very exciting but it was a good day any way.

This last picture is one I took of my rose sitting in front of the sliding glass door in my dining room. There was already a ton of light behind the rose so I adjusted the levels around it so that you couldn't see any of the door. I upped the contrast on the rose a bit and I have to say I think it looks pretty good.

OK this is two days in a row now. This was scheduled to go up at 7:00. Now at 8:00 it's listed as a draft. Is anyone else having this problem?

#49

Well would you just look at this happy little birthday girl. The hair, the dress the whole thing just cracks me up.

Yes that happy little birthday girl in the picture turned 49 today. She's someone I know quite well actually. Can you guess who it might be?

Here she is when she made her first communion. Yes she's a catholic girl.

School days, school days, dear old golden rule days. (too bad about the bad complexion back then)

top left, senior portrait, top right picture taken at age 22 and bottom, whoa, talk about bad hair day.

OK I admit it, those are all me and today is my birthday. I would tell you how I spent it but other than going to work I don't know because I'm writing this on Sunday.

More editing

Doing the before and after challenge the other day got me in the mood to do some more creative edits. That also translates into my weekend didn't go according to plan. Yes I did do a little (and I do mean little) bit of cleaning, I did work on some craft projects, even finished one. Mostly I laid around, took naps and did a whole lot of nothing. It was rather nice.
So today I'm going to give you a couple more edits I did.

This was taken in the back yard. Just as I was taking the picture the bird started to fly away. Couldn't have worked out better.

now I have a before and after. I was outside enjoying the warmer weather yesterday and just thought the sky looked rather pretty. 

The textured overlay that I used in all of these was one that I got from Shadowhouse Creations. Amazing stuff over there and he generously offers it all for free.

I won a giveaway

Hooray I won another giveaway. Molly Smith had a giveaway on her blog for a copy of her book "The New Paper Quilling"

Not only did she send me an autographed copy of the book but she sent some extra little goodies along with it.

If that wasn't enough she sent me the sweetest little matchboxes all decorated for Easter.

Are these not the most adorable little boxes?

Molly is not only talented but such a sweet lady. I love seeing the things she does on her blog. Thanks again for the great prize Molly

The Brenda Photo Challenge (3-19) before and after

It's another Brenda Photo Challenge and this one is before and after. This was posted at just the right time for me. I had just finished doing an edit to an old picture and I was getting ready to post it on my blog. Well then I read the theme for the challenge and knew that I had to hold off and save it.
I used a textured overlay on the photo. The texture was a freebie I got from Kim Klassen cafe. (at least I'm pretty sure that's the texture I used) Why oh why don't I ever write these things down?
So lets get on with the picture already shall we.
This is the original picture that I took last summer

And this is the after

I wish I could tell you exactly what I did here but again, I don't remember. I may or may not have adjusted the brightness and contrast. I can tell you that the texture was layered over the original picture and I most likely used the soft light blending mode. I tend to do a lot of playing around until I like the way it looks.

If all goes according to plan I will be spending most of my Saturday doing some much needed cleaning and hopefully working on a few projects I have started. I will get around to checking out all the other entries but probably not until Saturday night.
Check out the rest of the entries on the Brenda Photo Challenge. Just keep in mind that I post mine the night before so others may not have theirs up yet.

can't take no for an answer

I think Duke has a bit of a problem. He seems to be so addicted to treats that if I tell him no he goes into fits of rage.
Just the other day he kept bugging and bugging for a treat. Now being the good mom that I am, I know that dog can not live by treats alone. I also know that eating treats before dinner will spoil your appetite. So I did what any mom would do and I said no, not now.
The next thing I know, I hear a crash and this is what I saw

Duke standing atop a pile of rubble. He tore paneling from the walls, tiles from the ceiling and he proclaimed that more destruction would follow if I didn't give in to his demands.

Next Duke asked me if I thought he was convincing enough during our little photo shoot. Since he worked like a pro we headed upstairs for a treat.

This is our basement, a.k.a. the man cave. As you can see the cave is getting some work done on it. Do you have any idea how much fun it is to put a hammer through a wall?

Buying dreams

Buying dreams is what Wade calls it when he purchases lottery tickets. Seeing as how we never win, those millions are nothing more than that, a dream.

Still twice a week he buys two powerball tickets and we keep hoping. Occasionally I buy a couple of the instant tickets and my luck is no better there. I think the most I have ever won is $20.
Do you play the lottery? Have you ever won?

take a seat

Wade is in the midst of a huge project at work. The shop he works at had two buildings. They just sold one of them so now they are in the process of moving everything from one building into the other. Not only does it involve moving heavy machinery but he's also in charge of setting everything up in the other building. Since they have been there quite some time they have accumulated a lot of junk that they are throwing away rather than moving. Some of it may be perfectly good but they just don't need it so out it goes.
Over the weekend, Wade took me on a little tour to show me how empty the one building was and how he had set up the other.
 While we were in the one building I saw this group of chairs destined for the trash. I don't know why but I was fascinated by them.

It was rather dark in the building and there was a light shining down right on the chairs. It just seemed to put them in the spotlight and say "Hey, you with the camera, come take our picture".  So I did. I changed the photo to a sepia tone because it just seemed to fit.

Ears up

When we are relaxing we say we are letting our hair down. I don't know if relaxing is what he's doing or not but sometimes Duke lets his ears down.

Not that he isn't still cute but I think he looks much more handsome with his ears up. So I'll look at him and say "Ears up Duke".

That's my handsome little guy.
Just for that you get a treat.

Hmm, I wonder if he does that on purpose just to trick me into giving him a snack?