Slow down

Duke, can you say hello to all your blog friends?

Duke, come back. It will only take a second to say hello. Everyone loves you ya know.

Duke!!! Slow down and PLEASE say hello.

"Oh, hello"

Duke, you really need to slow down, you move too fast.

a 50/50 weekend

Saturday was a blue sky,

grass mowing,

dandy of a day.

Sunday was a cool and rainy napping day.

A wordless Saturday with Duke

nonsense

I considered putting my two cents worth in today

However, after careful consideration, I decided there wasn't much point.

Oh well, at least it's Friday.

Have a seat

Last Saturday when Amanda and I went out shopping we got to the thrift shop about 10 minutes before they opened. I got out and took a couple pictures while I was waiting.

I have no idea why they were sitting out there but I'm glad they were.

How much is that doggy in the window

I caught Duke peeking in the window.

I'm surprised I can even see him as dirty as that basement window is.

So do you remember that song? If not here it is.

Seven year itch

Yesterday was our 7th anniversary. We didn't do anything special but then we never really do. We don't have pet names for each other, no honey or sweetheart or snookems. Mush just isn't us. I suggested a couple weeks ago that we just totally skip gifts all together or split the cost of one thing that both of us could enjoy. He quickly warmed up to the idea when I suggested we buy a new grill since the burner in our old one is shot. So that's what we did on Sunday.
The card he got me was perfect. It's totally us

A sorry excuse for a weekend

I hate to complain but the weekend certainly did not meet my expectations. Of course I didn't really have any expectations but that's besides the point.
I mentioned the other day that Friday morning our temperatures were 70 degrees. Saturday morning I looked out the window and it looked like a blizzard was approaching. The wind was blowing and it was snowing. It wasn't a lot of snow but again, that's besides the point.
Aside from going out shopping with my daughter on Saturday and grocery shopping on Sunday with Wade I did a LOT of napping.
I did manage to find a little energy to play in photoshop elements

I added textures to this that I got from Nancy at A Rural Journal. A very talented lady with a wonderful blog.  (Thank you Steve for pointer her blog out to me)

It's a shame I have to head off to work today. I think that since the weekend was such a bust I should get a do over before I have to go back.

Guess?

Can you guess what the picture is?
When solving problems, dig at the roots instead of just hacking at the leaves.  ~Anthony J. D'Angelo, The College Blue Book

How about another view.
The best angle from which to approach any problem is the try-angle.  ~Author Unknown

Did you guess or do you give up?
It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves.  ~Edmund Hillary


Well if you guessed this

You were absolutely right.

You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself in any direction you choose.
You're on your own.
And you know what you know.
You are the guy who'll decide where to go.
~Dr. Seuss

Weather makes you do crazy thing

That's my story and I'm sticking to it. We've had a few really nice days with warm temperatures and sunny skies but.....
Yesterday I went to work and at 6 a.m. it was already 70 degrees. When I came out of work it was raining, windy and 47 degrees and dropping.

The cold and wind is responsible for my bizarre behavior.
While laying on the couch I noticed how interesting my house looked upside down.

It wasn't dark in the room but for some reason I thought I would see if I could reach to turn on the ceiling fan without getting up off the couch. I had no idea I could reach that far.

And just because I wanted to know if I could do it or not I decided to stand on the ceiling fan. Right after this shot I turned the fan on and went for a little ride.

I managed to stay on for quite a while before it threw me off.

And what are you going to do with your day?

A fix

Since I started this week off by giving you a Duke fix on Monday I figured that ending it with more Duke would be a good idea.

Happy Friday everyone. Enjoy your weekend

Subtle signs

Last weekend I was out in the yard in search of something that would let me know that spring really was going to arrive. I found a few subtle hints here and there.


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

Springtime is the land awakening.  The March winds are the morning yawn.  ~Quoted by Lewis Grizzard inKathy Sue Loudermilk, I Love You

A star is born

I've seen a lot of stars made out of rulers and yard sticks and finally got around to making one of my own. I found the wood rulers at Wal-Mart for 47 cents each. They have a big hole on one end and I drilled holes on the other. After staining the rulers I tied them together with jute twine. They still slipped around a little but a bit of glue in one spot took care of that.

I ripped another one

Well actually I ripped three more.
Yes, I've been busy ripping more paper and came up with three more cards.

What a sport

While I have been sitting around being rather lazy, Duke has been keeping quite active.

He's been out communing with nature

practicing his golf swing

batting practice because he's thinking about being a professional baseball player.

and learning to play soccer

He considered tennis but no one wanted to let him play since he has a habit of peeling all the tennis balls and then cracking them open.

Well that's a good sign

I finally started seeing robins in my yard. I caught this one sitting on the rail around the pool.

The way the weather has been around here so far this year I have to wonder if we are going to have much of a summer.

Simplicity

I'm linking up with "A personal photo challenge" today. The theme this month is simplicity.
In keeping with that theme I am simply giving you one photo.

Now I suppose I could go into great detail explaining about the picture but lets just keep it simple today.

Mojo Busters

When you're mojo is gone, who you gonna call?
There are days when I think that maybe I should just hang up my blogging hat

And even though there are no inspirational light bulbs coming on, I just can't do that.

So I humbly ask you to bear with me while I nip this in the bud.

Happy hump day

Complete Frustration

Internet issues persist and I think Wade is about to pull out the last of his hair over phone calls trying to straighten things out.
I'm making this very short so I can get it scheduled before the connection goes out again.

Lame, yes, but it's the best I can do. Not only am I lacking in internet time but I'm also lacking in motivation.

Meet my other friends Monday

Welcome to this weeks addition of Meet my other friends Monday. The friends that are featured in this post appear in no particular order. I've started with bloggers who have visible email addresses. Once I work through those I will begin contacting others through the comment section on your blog. You could be next

Today we'll be visiting with Jille from Love to Craft. Now if that name sounds familiar it's because you just heard it here recently when I told you about the inspiration she gave me. I don't recall how I found Jille's blog and honestly I think she found me first and I returned the visit. With a blog name like Love to Craft I knew I had to like her and I was right. Lets just turn it over to Jille.

1. How long have you been blogging and what made you start?

I started my blog in 2008. My husband and I moved to England from Wales and I started blogging so that my family could see what we were up to!

2. What is one piece of advice that you would give to new bloggers.

Don't give away too much personal information but always be true to yourself.

3. Do you have any hobbies or special talents?

I am a teacher trained in teaching children who are between 3 and 7 years old, which would be the first schooling that children have. I started work as a teacher in a special school this time last year and have discovered that I am made for my job. It is very hard work but I just love it so much, the students that I teach are amazing and so are all the staff. Never have I enjoyed a job more. I also think that because I have to be creative in my teaching it has allowed me to become creative at home too. I am blogging daily and crafting again and I love it!

4. Of course you love all the blogs you visit but share a link to one of those and tell us why we should check it out.

Despite being taught by my Great Grandmother to crochet a foundation row, I never really progressed. I have recently taught myself to crochet and find I am inspired by Lucy at attic24.typepad.com

5. What is the one things that totally makes you crazy?

 Ill mannered people. I dislike rudeness.

6. Give one random thought.

I was trying to find a thought that was intelligent and insightful but all I can think is...

mmmmm.....chocolate (not sure that is random as that is what is always on my mind!) so here goes with another...laugh often,even if your bum is on fire!

Happiness is...

Basking in the sunshine on a warm day

The picture is from 2010. It isn't that warm out now and Duke isn't that shaggy. He does look happy though.

At the moment we are having a good internet day but problems persist and the phone company says there is no problem from their end. They would be happy to send a technician out to check things out with our set up for a price. Wade says no way are we paying them to fix their equipment. Today he's looking in to other options.

It's a 4 letter day

TGIF

nuff said

sorry for the extreme shortness of this post but we are experiencing some very annoying internet issues. If you don't hear from me all is well except for the access

Buying a little spring

Every year just before Easter we get a shipment of flowers in at work. There are always lilies, hyacinth, tulips, daffodils and mums. This year sales were horrible and we had a ton of them left over. Instead of letting them all die the boss reduced them 50%.
Heck yeah, for $2.49 I'll buy that one.

At first I had a bright yellow one that I was going to buy then I spotted this one hidden behind some others and just loved the colors of it.

Anyone that knows me knows that I'm horrible with plants so it may have a very short life. In the mean time though it's sitting next to my desk giving me a little feel of spring

Some things are too fun to only do once

I really had a lot of fun doing that ripped paper project that I showed you yesterday so I did a little something else.
This time I scaled it small enough to fit on a card.
Instead of taking a picture I scanned it

The heart is empty because I couldn't decide what I wanted to write in there. Plus if I waited till after I scanned the card I could play in photoshop and change the saying as many times as I wanted. Don't you just love her hair? Instead of ripping the paper for the hair I cut small triangles of paper and then fringed it with scissors.

I darkened it up just a bit and then added three different sayings.

I was so thrilled with the way this one came out that I sat and doodled to see what other things I could do with this technique so you may be seeing more of this.

Inspired by...

I was recently inspired by a post I saw on Jille's blog Love to Craft. She made the most adorable cards by ripping paper. I thought it was such a cool technique and so simple that I had to give it a try. But what to make?
My original plan was to also make a card but the first piece that I tore came out a little too big. Rather than start over just hunt for a bigger canvas to work on.
Enter composition notebook.

This notebook looks much nicer sitting on my desk now than it did before.

Here's a close up of the sheep. After I took the pictures I realized they had no ears so I did take care of that but didn't retake the picture.

If you want to see Jille's version of this technique and the project that inspired me to make this check out her post "Come see my brood"

Because you asked

No meet my other friends post this week. Hopefully I'll be back with another one next week.

Because so many of you asked what a tape runner is, today I'm going to show you. Mine is just a little cheap one but it does the trick

The orange thing in the upper left corner is the cap that covers the roller on the dispenser. You just roll that along the paper and it lays a nice line of tape on your paper. When it runs out you open it up and pop in a refill. When I went to the store the other day I made sure to buy two packs of refills. I'm good now. All I need is some inspiration.