Going back

Every now and then it's nice to look back.
2010 - Duke was looking a little on the shaggy side this time last year. We seemed to be doing a lot of hanging out in the yard.

2009 - We sure did take a lot of pictures of pretty weeds. I always loved these things when I was a kid and we had a ton  of them growing in the empty lot next to our house. That is until someone built there. I don't see many of these any more.

2008 - We still had our cat Pringle then. He got his name because when I brought him home the first thing he ate was a Pringle potato chip. 

I would go back further but that would require some effort on my part and effort isn't in my vocabulary tonight.

A sunny gift

My fine feathered friends left me a gift. I suppose to thank me for the exquisite cuisine I have been providing them with.
I found this in front of my house.

To show my appreciation for your kindness I'm sharing my gift with you.

I hope you all have a bright sunshiny day tomorrow.

Weekend report.

Even with all the running around that we ended up doing over the weekend, I was able to finish up quite a few projects.
The accordion folded flowers are now all in pots. I made 5 of these. I still want to do 5 more with a Halloween theme to them

The quilled flowers are also in pots. I made 5 of these

I took some scrap pieces of wood plannking that Wade had left over from doing the basement and glues on some scrapbook paper, a few quilled pieces and stapled a piece of twine to them. I have 3 of these

I also finished up the last 3 sunflowers in the cans. 

 

I got a 5 more cards made too. For some reason after doing the quilling with the bigger strips of paper I'm having a hard time getting myself to work on the regular ones for cards and more necklaces. I think I'll work on some of those tonight. Only 11 more days to go.

Green Acres

Since it's Sunday and we should all be relaxing and taking it easy I thought I would take you back out to Carl's house today. I'm sure he won't mind if I invite you along. You could do a little 4-wheeling

We can walk around the pond. Do you feel like taking a swim out to that little island?

Maybe you just want to sit back and take in the view.

You can check out the water pump but don't touch the handle. Wade tried that while Carl and I were out looking at the tree yesterday. It seems this pump is home to a swarm of bees.

Carl's Amazing Tree

Today was Wade's birthday. I took him out for breakfast this morning and then this afternoon he wanted to go to his friend Carl's house. Carl owns quite a bit of land and he had been telling us about this tree he has that you just had to see to believe. So while we were there he gave me a ride out in the woods on his 4 wheeler to see this tree.
This picture may be a little dark

A closer look at the trunk and the way it curves

Here I drew a red line to show the way the tree is growing. The line across the bottom is where the ground is. Where it begins to curve back up, it's not touching the ground. 

The coolest tree I've ever seen.

Here a mess, there a mess

Everywhere a mess mess

I tried. I really did try to keep the mess down. At first I was very good about putting things away as I went along. Somewhere along the line things went terribly wrong. The above messes aren't even all of them. I couldn't take it any longer and had to clean some of them up last night.

I thought these were finished. Now that I have them together they just look like they need something else but I don't know what.

Spread too thin

It's possible that you may have noticed I seem to be spreading myself a bit too thin lately. Between working full time, trying to get ready for the craft show, blogging and everyday things, something had to give. The only thing that's been getting my full attention lately is my job. Once I'm done for the day I only have so much time left and I haven't had the ambition or energy to do all the other things I need to do. So here I sit with tons of projects that need to be worked on, a house that looks like a tornado hit, a dog who wants a walk, a blog that needs posted on and other blogs that need read.
Today I have to show you something that one of the girls at work made. She brought it in to show me and it is so cute I told her I needed a picture of it and it was going to be my blog post for tonight.

I'm going to have to get the pattern from her and give these a try when I have time. I love them.

Not sure if I'll be around tonight or not. I'm going to try and get some crafting done and if there's time left over I'll squeeze in some blog reading. I will eventually catch up with all of you though

Nothing much

Nothing much to blog about today. Mom and I just don't feel like doing much of anything. We decided to even turn off the comments for tonight. So all you have to do is look at me and smile then you can move along.  Have a nice night everyone

Mush

I found these out in the yard the other day.

I offered to make Wade some mushroom soup and he turned me down. I don't think he trusts me :)
Seriously though, I wouldn't know a good mushroom from a bad one.

Fail

I hate to admit it but I failed to meet my goal for the weekend. It wasn't of epic proportions, and I knew going in to it that I had set my sights a little high so I'm not completely disappointed. So if I failed, then why am I posting? Because I made the rule and I can break it if I want to. Plus, what I did manage to get done is worth blogging about I think.
Saturday I was doing good but my momentum was gone by today. I also ran in to problems with supplies. There are a few things I needed and didn't want to make the trip to the store. One last obstacle was drying time. I'm still waiting on a few things to dry before everything can be put together.
I have lots of parts and it's just a matter of final assembly. Oh well, I'll catch myself up. I always do.

I made 5 sets of each of these flowers. So that was 15 quilled flowers and 15 accordion folded flowers. They still need leaves and then they will be going in to pots.

I made 5 quilled pumpkins, 5 trees and 5 fences made with my cricut. These will be going on to the wooden bases like I did with the dogs and cats.

And there are 10 pots waiting to be filled. Did I ever tell you how cheap I am? I'm sure that I did. But anyway, have you ever seen how expensive Styrofoam is? Well I have 10 pots and getting enough for each of them could have gotten pricey. Instead I bought a cheap can of the spray foam insulation and filled the pots 1/2 full with them. These are one of the things I'm waiting on to dry. 

The original goal for the weekend
15 accordion flowers (done)
15 quilled flowers (done)
5 pumpkins (done)
5 trees (done)
assemble all (fail)
All in all I would say it was still a very successful weekend.

Don't move a muscle

Apparently at 3:30 a.m. I made a movement that indicated that I was awake and ready to start the day. That's the time that Duke jumped up on me, wagging his tail, letting me know that he was ready to go outside for his morning routine.
Already awake after letting him out it seemed like a good time to get some coffee and catch up on emails and blog reading. By 7:30 I was ready to get started on the crafting and I spent the next eight hours working on projects.
What do you suppose Mr. Duke was doing while I was busy as a bee?

That's right he hit the lounge chair, with a pillow no less, and napped.

Mission accomplished

With the help of encouraging blog pals and a trusty canine watching over me I met my first goal. I set out to finish, by today, 5 cats and 2 frames.

The first frame.

This one is finished but it was still drying when I took the picture

check out the little mice that I put with the cats.

The tail is the narrowest piece of paper I could cut. Looking at the picture it appears that the cat has been gnawing on that mouses tail. It may be time for a new blade in my paper cutter.
So now it's on to the next goal. I set a pretty high one for the weekend. I may be expecting a little much out of myself but I'll certainly try.

Another good day

I met my goal for the day but I didn't leave much time for blogging. A real quick post today, catch up on my emails and that's going to be it for the night. Hooray for tomorrow being Friday.
I don't have much but I'll show you a picture that I took a couple weeks ago. I couldn't tell you exactly where it is other than it's a doorway on some church I saw and I liked the way it looked.

 This first one is the original, straight off the camera. It was ok but I wanted a little different look for it. First of all I didn't like the note they had taped to the door so I had to get rid of that. I also played with a little bit of texture and some color adjustments and cropped it just a little.

I'll have to catch up with all  your blogs over the weekend. Have a good Friday

Escaped

Well hello my blogging beauties. How are all of you this fine evening? I have escaped the clutches of the slave driver, Duke to bring you flowers.

I know what you're thinking. You are wondering why I am here instead of hard at work on my projects. Well, because I wanted to bring you flowers. You deserve them don't you know.

What's that you say? You think I'm slacking and making excuses?  Nothing could be further from the truth. 

Duke already told you that I had set some smaller goals for myself. I gave myself assignments for each day and once I finish them I give myself some blogging time. If I'm posting and visiting that means I've been working diligently and completed my assignment for the day. If there is no post for the day then you'll know I've been goofing off.
Enjoy the flowers.

So help me God

I'm going to tell you the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. That's just the kind of dog I am you know.

The truth about me is that I like to bark. I like to bark A LOT. I bark at people going by, the UPS truck, funny noises, and anything else. I just like to bark. One day I barked so much that mom said she would get me a special collar just for barking. She never made good on that promise though. I never did get any special collar. It's OK though, I can bark just as well in my every day collar.

The truth about mom is that when she first found out she was going to do that whole craft show thing, she wrote a list of all the things she wanted to make and how many of each. Well she hasn't been very focused on getting things done. Now she only has 24 days left and she's starting to think she's not going to reach her goals. She decided to set mini goals for herself. I'm shutting her off of the blog reading until she does at least a little bit every night. If she doesn't come around to see you you'll know that I have her under tight supervision.

The truth about our blog friends is that we love you guys.

She did it again

Happy Monday everyone. Yes, my mom did it again. She forgot about the old blog. She was being lazy busy doing other things and totally forgot about doing a post. When she noticed the time she asked me to make an excuse  apologize for her absence. I know you guys really don't mind that she's off doing other things though because we all know that you come here to see me. I am after all the star of the show. I may have to consider getting a new mom if she keeps slacking like this. I probably should go check my food dish to see if she managed to remember to fill that.

Tee Bee Tee Em

Did I confuse you? Tee Bee Tee Em or T.B.T.M stands for Too Bad Tomorrow's Monday. I was just talking about time yesterday and here I am wondering what happened to my weekend tonight. It sure did fly by fast.
I did get a little bit of crafting time in though.

Back on day 3 of my vacation I showed you picture frames that I had painted. I finally finished them on Saturday after we got done doing all our running around for the day. I have 2 frames finished but only took a picture of one of them.

Before settling on the above picture I had a little fun. I framed my flip flopped foot.

I tried to frame Duke but he wasn't in to it.

I got a little side tracked making origami bows.

My blog friend Helen did a tutorial on these. I thought they were really cute and now I'm in the midst of a bow obsession.
I also managed to finish off 3 Scotty dogs, 1 Westie, got 4 more cans ready for flowers, edited some pictures to use for cards, and started a 3rd frame.
Now it's time for me to go get ready for my kicking and screaming tantrum tomorrow morning. Hope everyone enjoyed the weekend

All I need is time

If I had all the time in the world

I would frolic in the fountain of youth

Have a big bash for all my friends

And spend all of it with my best buddy by my side.

It's a strange thing, but when you are dreading something, and would give anything to slow down time, it has a disobliging habit of speeding up.  ~J.K. Rowling, "The Hungarian Horntail," Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, 2000

The Sun Shining Over Mill Run

Continuing on from yesterday we're going to see what I found upstairs at the Market Place. Wade was the one who told me about the place and had said that I would probably like it. After we walked through I asked him what was upstairs and he said nothing.
One look at the stairwell and I knew I had to go up and see for myself. One picture from the bottom of the stairs and one from the top.

Rather than me trying to explain what  this mural is I'll just show you the picture of the plaque on the wall.

 So at the top of the stairs there was a long hallway. There were several different rooms. Some were for various art classes, one was a dance studio and there was even one that was set up as a small art gallery.

I didn't take too many pictures but I could have because there wasn't anyone around. Maybe another day.

The Market Place

Last weekend we stopped in a place that I've never been to before. The building was originally an old train station. Now it is home to the Meadville Council On The Arts. Inside is like walking through a craft show. My kind of place.

Outside they had a farmers market. I loved the look of the building

Another glimpse of a little piece of history.

Tomorrow I'll show you what I found upstairs.