And so it begins

Duke checked the sun dial in the back yard and he determined that the time was now.

The time has finally arrived to fire up ye old cub cadet,

and push out the craftsman

And he's off.

Mowing season has officially begun. Hooray! There's nothing quite like the smell of fresh cut grass. We won't even complain about the fact that this will also bring on the allergies. Who cares, let them come.

Brilliant observation

Do you remember this photo in yesterday's post?

I got an email from my cousin Carol. There was a copy of this picture and her comment was...

But of course -- he was on Guardian Angel duty!

I never even saw the angel wings until she mentioned it. Did you?

What's up?

You'll have to pardon me and Duke. We both seem to have our minds somewhere else these days. I think my head may be in the clouds somewhere because I can't concentrate on anything and absolutely nothing is getting accomplished.
Duke's excuse is that he was occupied with keeping a watch

Watching what you might ask. Well Duke had a little visitor again. Lola (yes, my son named her Lola) came to visit. She's a bit more active now and she can really give Duke a run for the money. It was fun to watch her chasing him around this time. It seems little Lola was a bit tired after all the play time and thought it was time for a bit of a nap.  Duke said he would just park himself right there and keep an eye on her.

He finally decided that she wasn't going anywhere so it would be a good time for him to catch 40 winks also.

But Lola says...

I'm not sleeping I'm planning my next attack.

I'm sorry if I haven't responded to your comments in the last couple of days. I really do appreciate all of them and I so enjoy reading what you all have to say. To update you all on the basement, we didn't get the storms they were expecting and the basement is safe. The river is gone from the back yard and now we are just waiting for the sun to come out and dry things out a bit.

slow progress

Work on the man cave has been very slow. The funds for that project depleted quickly since we had rented a dumpster and used some of them for little final touches on the upstairs. Slow doesn't mean there hasn't been any progress though.
This is what we were looking at before.

 I know, really bad. It was not pretty at all and believe it or not this was probably where we spend most of our time. Wade gave the couch away to a friend. He said that he's had it for years and it was way too big for the room so he wanted something smaller.
This is the same wall minus the couch and you can no longer see through it.

Personally I like the wood color just the way it is but he bought a dark walnut stain for it. He said it's a cave and it should be dark. Whatever, it's his cave I guess.
I thought that I was very thorough when I took the before pictures but when I went back to get one I discovered I didn't go as good a job as I thought.
Well for now this is what I've got. Hopefully there will be more progress soon.

rain rain go away

Last night we had rain. Lots of rain. It's not that I don't like a good rain storm now and then but I would prefer that it didn't do this.

 The first picture shows mostly my neighbors back yard. To the right where the water makes a bit of a turn is about where my yard starts. You'll notice that the water is all going into a large drain that we have on that side of the pool. However, the water starts doing this

Which means the drain is getting full and not much more water will be going down there. Instead it will continue on past the pool and proceed directly into my basement. This problem just seems to get worse ever year. There are supposed to be strong storms again tonight and tomorrow so I may be camped out in my basement keeping watch. We're trying to keep it from getting to the side of the basement that we're doing the work on. Keep your fingers crossed.

Nobody better lay a finger...

...On Duke's treat from the Easter bunny.
He's quite the character sometimes. The Easter bunny brought Duke a big peanut butter biscuit and he carried that sucker around all day long. Wherever he went the biscuit went.

He would occasionally lay it down and if I dared step too close he would pick it right back up. I even caught him trying to hide it in a corner of the basement. When he realized I saw him he picked it right back up and carried it away. If he went outside, the biscuit went with him. It wasn't until later in the evening that he even attempted to nibble on it.
As far as Duke is concerned, something are just not meant to be shared.

This is going to be one of those weeks where I'm fighting for time so blogging is going to be at a minimum. I'll catch up with you all when I have the time. Hopefully I won't get too far behind.

Happy Easter

Refreshed from her snowy
Slumber,
Mother Earth exalts her
Worth.
In a colorful burst of glory,
She blazons her wondrous
Rebirth

Renew your spirit, refresh
Your soul,
Rejoice with all humankind.
Celebrate life everlasting.
Peace and wonder are
Yours to find.>

The blessing of the Lord
be upon you...

Psalms 129:8 

I hope that everybunny

Had a most eggselent Easter

A perfect Saturday

Did you have a perfect Saturday? I didn't. I had a good day but not a perfect one. If it was perfect I would have accomplished all the things that need to be taken care of. Instead I chose to enjoy the weather a little bit. It actually got up to 75 degrees today.
Duke says it was a perfect day because I grabbed the leash and my camera and said "Come on Duke, we're going for a walk" I did not have to ask him twice.

As we headed down the street I happened to see this lock hanging on a chain link fence. Odd place for a lock but I thought it made for a cool picture.

We saw a horse

and a cat trying to hide from us

silly kitty needs a wider pole if he wants to hide.
Then it was back home to inspect the back yard.

We have a very soggy back yard right now but Duke says it's fun to walk through. I say it makes for lots of muddy paw prints on the floors.

Bunny invasion

The house is crawling with bunnies these days. It seems like everywhere I look there's another one.
Aside from all the hand made ones there are also flocked bunnies

The extra large outdoor bunny that lights up

and even a cute little bunny dish

I'm sure that if I dug in the box I could probably even find a few more. I think even Duke is starting to resemble a bunny.

I used this picture before (last year I think) but for those of you who are newer around here I'm posting it again.

Back on the bunny trail

You had a break for a couple of days from the Easter decorations but guess what? They're baaaaack.

Today I have another craft from the past for you. This one is in need of a little repair but he still doesn't look too bad.

Just look what you can do with a Styrofoam egg, a few pom poms and several other assorted supplies.  His body is a brandy snifter.

I don't know if you can tell but that is one of his arms laying inside. It must have fell off at one time and I was too lazy to glue it back on before I packed it away. I was trying to clean him up a little before his photo session and didn't realize there was a chip in the bottom of the glass and cut my thumb. Bad bunny. He may not get his arm reattached this year either.

The house that dad built.

After our little excursion on Sunday heading back home I took a short detour down memory lane.We were very close to the house that I grew up in so I decided to swing on by
My dad built this house and we moved in I believe in 1967.

The beautiful flowering crab apple trees in the front yard have been replaced with evergreens. The awnings were never there when my dad had the house. I see a chain link fence running down the right side of the property where there used to be a line of gorgeous lilac and snowball bushes. I didn't pay much attention when I drove by to see if they took all of them out or not but I sure hope they didn't.
I spent 15 years in that house and it holds so many memories. I almost wanted to walk right in and plop myself down on the couch in the living room.

First time

There's a first time for everything and on Sunday I had a couple of firsts.
I took a little trip to the mall and had called my son to tell him that I was going and would be over after that. He invited me to dinner at his new place which was also a first. He asked me to pick him up on the way so he could go too.
First stop was the craft store for a few supplies but when I was pulling in I noticed that they had put in a Christmas tree shop. I had never heard of them until I read about them on Russ's blog, Grampy's World. 
After spotting it I told Brad we had to stop and his response "I'm down with that"

Right after taking this picture his response was "Your weird mom"

Somewhere along the line we got on the conversation of Starbucks. I said I had never had their coffee but that Amanda loved it. We left Christmas tree shop with 4 bags, one for me and three for Brad. Then he said he was taking me to Starbucks and buying me a coffee. I think the fact that I foot the bill for his three bags worth of stuff had something to do with it but I'll just pretend it's because he's such a nice son.

We each had a caramel macchiato and let me tell you it was good.

So those were my two firsts for the day. How about you, have you had any firsts recently?

Here comes Peter Cottontail

He really is on his way. And he has help too.

This was another one of those kits that I just painted. Another one that's been around for years and years.

April Showers

Last Sunday I went to a bridal shower for a girl who I used to work with. Let me just tell you I HATE showers but I went any way. She's marrying one of the guys I work with and since I like them both I sucked it up and went. This one was no different than any of the other ones I've ever been to except for the fact that it was at a church social hall instead of someone's house and there were a ton of people there.
They did have some cute favors though.
Can you guess what Jeff's favorite hobby is? 

In case you don't know, that's a fishing bobber. 
I also thought the napkins were pretty cute so I brought one home.

I guess it made me think of quilling when I saw it.

What do you mean one more week.

I think Duke is getting  a little excited about Easter coming. He was checking his basket for goodies.

There's nothing in my Easter basket yet but mom said that Easter isn't until next Sunday,

Well I guess I'll just lay down right here by my basket and wait for the bunny to come.

I've been laying here watching out the window for the bunny but I still don't see him. Hasn't it been a week yet? 

My mom did an edited version of my last picture while I've been waiting for the bunny. 

OK this was supposed to go live Sunday, not Saturday. I forgot to change the date when I scheduled it. Darn. Now you get two posts today and I have nothing for tomorrow. I guess I have to go work on that.

Sitting story

I've made you wait long enough. Today I tell you the sitting story.
Thursday while I was at work my son calls me and the conversation goes something like this:
Brad: Mom, can you do me a favor?
Me: What?
Brad: Can you puppy sit?
Me: Huh?
Brad: I have to go to Meadville, can you puppy sit?
Me: What are you talking about?
Brad: I got a puppy
Me: Are you crazy?

Well of course he's crazy. He's young, he just got his own place, he's working 12 hour days and now he has a puppy. So being the sucker wonderful mother that I am, I agreed. Just for good measure he comes to see me at work and asks me if I want to go see his puppy. It just happens to be in the truck.  I guess he knows I'm a sucker for puppies.

OK so now puppy enters stage left and Duke is going nuts. Not like wanting to kill the poor thing nuts, more of a "what's this I wanna see I wanna see, let me see" kind of nuts. Now when Duke gets like this he's like a little rain cloud and where's there's rain clouds you're bound to see puddles.

Oh, I'm sorry, did you want to see what the puppy looks like? OK

There is no official name yet. First he thought he liked Calie, then he thought Daisy, now he's thinking Lola. Personally I was liking Daisy because then I was going to make my post title Daisy Duke time. 

So anyway, after sufficiently sniffing ever square inch of this poor little pup Duke has determined that it is a little girl puppy. He doesn't seem to care that she is only 5 weeks old. This led to about 2 hours of "Duke, stop that" and "Duke get your nose out of her butt" Oh let me tell you he was making me crazy.

I thought a little outside time would help. Little girl puppy enjoyed it, Duke was still all crazed and me? I was on my last nerve.
That's it back inside. Good little girl puppy found herself a place to lay down and take a nap. Aww, isn't she cute?

Duke did not get very far away. He finally started leaving her alone but he layed in front of her panting like it was  the dog days of summer.

 Duke looking to see if I'm still keeping an eye on him. "YES, Duke, I'm watching you."

I was hoping that the first picture would have been clearer. Do you have any idea how hard it is to hold one dog off with one hand, try and keep a puppy where a puppy doesn't want to stay and focus and shoot with the other hand? Let me tell ya, it isn't easy.

The Brenda Photo Challenge (4-16) Spring Easy

It's that time again. Another Brenda Photo Challenge. The topic is "spring easy". Part of the description for challenge stated ".If it Says Spring to you? Photograph it! SO, me Hardies....Lets get to rolling and Remember....Just have FUN with it!"
So I had to do a little searching here but I think I found just a little bit that said spring.
I took a close look at the trees in my back yard and what a pleasant surprise. They are finally waking from their long winter naps.

And here's another one.

I almost missed these. I was so glad I walked to the back of the yard when I saw that little bit of yellow peaking out.

 

Top left corner is one of those pink tulip bulbs I planted last fall at a neighbors request. You may recall my post about it. If I had more time I would link to it since it's worth reading

I know you're all waiting to hear about the puppy sitting experience but it'll have to wait until tomorrow.

sitting

Puppy sitting to be exact. I'll have to catch up with you on the weekend.

 More details when I have the time
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Where do Easter Eggs come from

Have you ever wondered where the Easter bunny gets all those eggs he delivers? He certainly can't be coloring ALL those eggs by himself can he?
Last weekend while I was enjoying the sunshine I made an incredible discovery. I'm going to reveal to you the Easter bunny's secret. He has a factory. Yes an actual factory where all all those eggs are made.

This is another old one. I didn't technically make this one. It was one of those kits that comes with all the pieces and you just paint it.

Chicks just wanna have fun

Every chick wants to have a little fun now and then and these gals are no exception.

I can't say that I blame them one bit. They've been stuffed into a box for several years. I can't remember the last time they saw the light of day. They were all gabbing at once when they got outside in the sunshine.

Yes, these are another craft from the past. I thought they were adorable. The only problem is there was a flaw in the construction. They don't stand up on their own too well. If they aren't propped up with something else they topple right over. Oh well, they're still cute.