Welcome to my nightmare

The long weekend is over and it was back to reality this morning. Reality for me, after being off work for 3 days can be a bit of a nightmare. Going in and finding all the things that were done wrong or not done at all makes me crazy. I'm not going to spend the whole post complaining about it though.
Sunday we went to Conneaut Lake Park. They have a summer concert series called Bikes Blues and Brews. The concerts are free so it's the perfect way to spend the afternoon. The band that played Sunday was called Nightmare (I think) and they do an Alice Cooper tribute. I didn't listen to a lot of Alice Cooper back in the day but I know a few of his songs and I'm certainly not going to pass up the opportunity to go listen to some music.

Pretty freaky looking isn't he? We talked to him a couple years ago and he was actually quite polite and friendly.
This was where I took the picture of the motorcycles in yesterdays post. You should see how many of them there are when they have these concerts.
So this is what we left Duke home alone for. Tomorrow I'll show you what he got for being a good boy while we were gone.

Happy Memorial Day

I know I'm late with this but that's just the way it works with how I have things scheduled.

And I'm proud to be an American,
where at least I know I'm free.
And I won't forget the men who died,
who gave that right to me.
~Lee Greenwood

 Let freedom ring. God bless all the fallen heroes.

Someone will pay

Mom and dad went out today and didn't take me. I know this wasn't a "have to" trip because I know today is Sunday and they don't work on Sunday.

They better bring me back some treats or someone will pay.

Weekend

So we here in the United States have begun our 3 day weekend to celebrate Memorial Day. Now of course I know this isn't what it's all about but for the weekend I plan to
Slice some tomatoes and onions

Grill some burgers

Pass the macaroni salad please.

Boy do I love this time of year

I hope you are all enjoying the weekend.

A feather in my cap

The other day while out playing with the camera I had such a cool experience I have to share it with you. I was sitting on the sidewalk in front of my house taking pictures of the flowers. When I got up I wandered over to the tree and was taking pictures of leaves. I turned around and I was about 5 feet away from the bird feeder. The amazing thing was that there was a bird sitting on it. I raised the camera ever so slowly and snapped. The bird didn't budge. I must have taken a dozen pictures and he didn't move. I slowly walked around to the other side of the tree he was still there so I took some more pictures. I had my sony with me which only has the 18-55 lens on it. I took a chance and went in the house and grabbed my point and shoot that has 10x zoom. I slowly and quietly walked back out to the front yard. HOORAY! The bird is still there. I took another dozen or so pictures. Again I was only about 5 feet away from the feeder.

I couldn't wait to get back in the house and see what I got. Now I must confess here that I'm horrible at paying attention to critical things when I'm taking pictures. Needless to say in most of the photos the bird is in total shadows, BUT, all was not lost. I did get a few good ones.
This one didn't turn out too bad.

Another confession, I don't know a whole lot about birds yet. Some of you experts have more than likely figured that one out. I looked at this next picture and thought, wow, that bird has some strange looking eyes.

When I looked at this one I realized, that birds been sleeping. 

That had to have been one worn out bird to be so tired that it didn't care one bit about how close I was or how many pictures I took. Maybe he can spread the word to all his birdie friends that I'm harmless and I only want their pictures.

In all three of these pictures I used textures that I got from Shadowhouse Creations and Kim Klassens Cafe

Night off

I'm taking the night off. I'm going to clean out my email and schedule this post then I'm taking the rest of the night to do something else. I could blame it on the stormy weather but the simple fact is I just don't feel like it today.
I'm leaving the dandelions to keep you company though.

After the mushrooms

When you make a dinner that requires a can of mushrooms and you purchase canned ones rather than fresh, what do you do with the can?
Well this is what I did with it.
First I covered it with some scrapbook paper then glued on some images of old seed catalog covers that I got from The Smithsonian Institution Libraries.  I brushed on some mod podge, used a little stain to make it look old and then sprayed it with some clear acrylic sealer. I even let it dry in between each step.

This looked like it needed a flower growing in it but not having a green thumb I knew I wouldn't keep anything alive for very long. Fake works better for me. If you are going to have fake flowers you may as well have fake dirt too. I cut a circle from cardboard to fit just inside the can and covered it with my fake dirt.

 Can you guess what my fake dirt is? Instead of dumping out the coffee grounds after I made my coffee, I dried them out and then mixed them with glue. I spread that on the cardboard circle and let it dry. Wallah! Fake dirt. Yeah I know I missed a few spots but this was pretty much an experiment to see if it would work any way.
Now all I need is a flower growing in my mushroom can. Another jumbo quilled flower with a cute little flower button glued to the center.

I may not have a green thumb but I think this would qualify as a green craft project.

Who's cute

I should have done this post yesterday because after you see the pictures I'm sure you'll agree that it would qualify for Sandee's Awww Monday meme over at Comedy Plus.
The other day I was sitting at my computer reading all my favorite blogs and Duke walked in. I heard him jump up in the chair that I have in front of my sewing machine. When I turned around I saw this.

Naturally I had to grab the camera and start taking pictures. It was a little dark in the room so I had to use the flash and apparently Duke wasn't real thrilled with it. He tried to hide.

Nice try Duke but I can still see you and it must makes you look all that much cuter. He finally sat up and gave me the look that says "KNOCK IT OFF NOW".  I didn't listen to him though.

There are a few more that I took after this one but they are all of him looking straight ahead refusing to look at the camera.

Pick a side

I wonder if I could ask you opinion on something today.

Which do you think is my better side

This one

Or maybe this one?

The paparazzi was kind enough to help me build my portfolio.

The end of the weekend

Hello everyone. It's been a beautiful weekend here and we've been enjoying the weather. When it get sunny and hot I like to hide underneath this forsythia. I have a really cool hole dug in there to lay in.

 

Mom is a little sad today because her 4 day weekend is almost up and she has to go back to work tomorrow. That makes me sad too because she won't be staying home all day with me. To cheer both of us up mom got crafty and made me a new bandanna.

I look very good in red don't you think?
I hope you all enjoyed your weekend.

Bird Talk

Hey Ralph, what's that crazy lady doing down there with that flashy box?

I don't know but maybe if we just ignore her she'll go away

 Ralph, where you going? Don't leave me here by myself.

The Brenda Photo Challenge (5-21) May Flowers

It's said that April showers bring May flowers. However, it seems to me, this year the showers of April have only led to more of the same for May. Or could it be that the dreary and rainy days just last too long for my liking?
Either way it's time for the Brenda Photo Challenge again and the theme is May Flowers so the camera was hung around my neck and I went in search of some blooms.
Amongst the multitude of weeds in my flower bed I found these little beauties.

Turning around I was drenched by the splash of color from the tree in my next door neighbors yard.

Last but not least, why did the photographer cross the road?
To take a picture of the tulips in another neighbors front yard.

Look, pink tulips. You won't see any of those in my yard. My efforts to honor the request of a neighbor down the street were mowed down. He swore when we planted them last fall that he wouldn't run them over with the mower. I should have known better.

I shot the Cardinal

But I did not shoot the Chickadee

And he thought he could hide behind that tree.

It's all her fault

Little sisters are such instigators. Mine is no exception. I think some of you know Tanyia of Surviving Motherhood Barely. Yeah, that one. The super talented, overly crafty one. What you may not know about her is that she has an evil side that likes to tease people with an addiction.
She's been dangling links at me through the email. Links that lead me to my fix, my compulsion. I lose sleep at night because all I can think about are the projects that I could be working on.
One of those links led me here
For those of you who don't want to be bothered following the link I can tell you that it will lead you to a quilling blog and a post about jumbo crescent paper quilled earrings.
I like earrings but I'm not a fan of really huge ones. But I LOVED this idea and thought it would make a really cool pendant.
This is my version

I've started working on a third one too.
I got even with little sister though, two can play at that game. Knowing that she has the same compulsion that I do, I sent her a few links too.

A day in the sun

Remember last week I had the day off because of the whole jury duty thing that I didn't have to go to? What I didn't tell you was what a beautiful day it was. The sun was shining, it was warm and the perfect day.
Duke suggested that we spend it outside.
What a great idea that was. I pulled the umbrella out and we parked on the deck

I had the three essential C's with me (camera, crocheting, coke) and the perfect companion to enjoy the day.

I didn't even care that the deck is a hideous sight. I was just happy to be out there

Why I love spring time

It's spring fever.  That is what the name of it is.  And when you've got it, you want - oh, you don't quite know what it is you do want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so!  ~Mark Twain

Science has never drummed up quite as effective a tranquilizing agent as a sunny spring day.  ~W. Earl Hall

Spring shows what God can do with a drab and dirty world.  ~Virgil A. Kraft

And that is why I love spring

Explanation and info

My last post I talked about changes. Today lets talk about one of those changes I made, which was not leaving a reply to your comments here.
My main reason for doing so was it's easier for me to reply to an email than to go back and forth between my email and my blog typing comments. Yes, that is how I've been doing it, don't ask me why, I can't answer that. It also helps me to keep my in-box cleaned out rather than letting messages pile up (a very bad habit I have).
What got me started on this idea? Well I saw this image on the sidebar of Donna's blog Made in Heaven

I clicked on it and was taken to a post written on Jill Samter Photography. This post explains the reason for turning off word verification and how to do it. It also talks about turning on your email address so that your reply doesn't come in as "noreply@blogger.com. If you aren't sure if your email is turned on or not and you want or don't want it to be, I suggest reading this post. It will tell you how to check and change that option.

So will this save me time? Maybe, maybe not but the last couple of days have seemed to be a bit easier (no duh! it's the weekend) and my email in-box has been getting cleaned out and taken care of.

For now I'm just going to follow this path and see where it leads me.

Should I come to a fork in the road later on down the line, I'll figure out where I'm going to go from there.

Like I said yesterday "Anniething's possible"

Changes

Just like the changes that were made to today's photo, there are going to be a couple changes here.

You won't see anything too dramatic and for some you may not see anything at all.

The first change is my brand spanking new badge in the sidebar. Yep, that's right. I am a virtual volunteer for Epic Farms. I was thrilled to death when Jen emailed me and ask if I could do some editing for her. Why wouldn't I take an excuse to play with my photoshop elements. If you don't know Jen you must visit her blog Equine Epiphanies as well as the Epic Farms website.

Another change around here is that I am no longer going to be responding to your comments in the comment section. In a lame effort to try and squeeze just a few more minutes out of each day I've decided to respond directly through email. Now of course if you don't have your email address visible and your comment comes through as (no reply) I won't be able to do that. It doesn't mean I appreciate what you have to say any less. I love all your comments.

I have a few other ideas floating around in my head but until they land somewhere I'm going to leave them alone. All I can say is that with me, Anniething's possible.

Sound advice

I stopped, I looked, I listened, I took the picture.

 

Then we crossed the street.

So what is going on with blogger? I sure hope whatever problem they were having yesterday is finally resolved. I tried all night to put up my post and no luck.

Westie Wednesday

Hello everyone. Today is my day just like the title says. So here's a picture of me inspecting the back yard.

Today was also the day my mom was supposed to have jury duty. When she checked last night though, her number was dismissed so she didn't have to go. She got to stay home with me all day long. She said that even though it was nice to have the day off it kind of sucked because she won't get paid for today now. She only gets paid for the day if she actually goes.

Any way, since it's my day to post whatever I want, I found a really funny video to show you. I hope you like it as much as I did.

Yo Romeo

Does anyone know where Romeo is? Have you seen him around?
I'll tell you one thing.

Romeo is NOT on Juliet Street.

Where's my crown

Does the "Mother of the year" award recipient get a crown? I think I just might be in the running for it this year.
For Mother's day Duke took me out for a lovely morning walk.

Being the super mom that I am, I did not scold him for walking in as many mud puddles as he wanted to

When my daughter had these flowers delivered to me at work on Friday...

...complete with chocolate...

 ...I only for a mere 5 seconds made her think that I had left sick that day and didn't receive them.

And if all that isn't enough to prove how worthy I am of the award, there's one more thing.
When my son called to wish me a happy mother's day he asked me what I was doing. I said nothing, what are you doing today. His response?
No, it wasn't why I'm coming to visit you of course.
It was...
I'm having dad and Cindy (his dad's girlfriend) over for dinner.
I ever so graciously bit my tongue. Now if that alone doesn't qualify me for mother of the year I don't know what does.
No matter, award or not, I have these gorgeous flowers to look at. Thank you Amanda and Ian

Yes, these are the same gorgeous flowers that I shared with you yesterday.

Happy Mother's Day

Whether you are the mother of human children or the 4 legged furry kind. Duke and I wish you a very Happy Mother's day.

Arnold or Einstein

Saturdays are our typical day to do the little errands. This morning we headed out and made a stop at the grocery store. It wasn't the grocery store that I work at so I would appreciate it if none of you mentioned that to my boss.
I have a habit of always checking out the bakery when I'm in another store. You might call it an occupational hazard. While browsing to see what was available and compare prices to what I carry in our bakery I spotted these.

OK, that was not entirely true. When we were in the vicinity of the bakery I smelled those and went hunting for them. The aroma was killing me and they looked so good. They even had a little stand sitting next to them with samples. I was weak, I took one. I was the fish on the end of their line and they reeled me in.

When I got home I ate one. As I was savoring the flavor of my purchase I had a thought. I said to Wade "I feel like such a traitor". I took another bite. Next I said to Wade "Oh wait, this is research".  I concluded that on Monday my bakery department will be making cinnamon rolls with maple frosting.

So what do you think, am I a Benedict Arnold or an Albert Einstein?

Making a BLT

Of course I'm going about making my precious sandwich the hard way but it's going to be so worth it.
I think I have a bit of a wait though

But, I'm going to be enjoying LOTS of BLT's this summer

My tomato plants have graduated from the egg carton to foam cups. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I can keep them alive until the end of the month. Around these parts, Memorial day weekend is the day we start putting in a garden. I'm all prepared with my tomato plants, pepper plants and some seeds. I bought seeds for green beans, carrots and cucumbers. Not only will I be enjoying fresh home grown vegetables but I'll also have extra things to take pictures of.