From fungus to flowers

While fungus can be pretty cool and fascinating it's not always real pretty to look at. Today wild, weed or otherwise I bring you flowers

This one was planted by the birds.

This is on a vine that is growing through my forsythia.

This is growing on another vine that has taken over a flower bed in the front of my house. It's choked out just about everything in there.

This isn't a weed and because of the one above I have very little of this left. I can never remember the name of it though.

A fungus among us

I strolled around the yard with the camera yesterday to see what I could see. The wood pile by the shed was full of things to take pictures of. Ok so I found it fascinating but Wade thought I was a bit strange for taking pictures of this.

I have absolutely no idea what any of these are actually called I just like to take the pictures

This one is kind of pretty with it's stripes

This sort of resembles witch's warts.

Decisions, decisions

Back to the subject of what to make to take to the picnic we are going to today. I had so many things to choose from I just couldn't decide.

While I was at work yesterday I decided I would bake some cupcakes. These are chocolate fudge cupcakes with a strawberry filling and iced with a whipped cream frosting.

Funny story. My boss is notorious for coming in the bakery and snitching a cookie or or other sweets I may have out. Well I dumped these cupcakes out of the pan and had them on a tray then I went to lunch. When I got back to them there were only 23 instead of 24. I assumed that my boss had been in there and took one although no one had seen him if he had. About a half hour later one of the girls in the deli said "Ann, do you know there's still a cupcake in this pan?" Oops!! For once the boss was innocent.

OK, so you would think I was done but not so. Like I said, I couldn't decide on just one thing. I chose three instead.

When I got home I made some cherry jello fluff.

And last but not least, I also made some BLT pasta salad. This is small shell pasta with chopped up cherry tomatoes, red onions, peas and bacon. Mix that all together and just use mayo for a dressing.

I can hardly wait to eat. I'm surprised I haven't eaten one of those cupcakes yet.

A nice night

It was a nice night to be outside visiting with the neighbors. My camera caught two of them

Want a closer look? Can't decide if the look on the rabbit is one of disbelief or superiority.

What would you do

We've got this thing to go to on Saturday and we have to take a dish. I can't decide what to take. I thought maybe cupcakes. Then I thought about a past salad that I recently made that was pretty good. Other options were jello fluff and deviled eggs.

So if you were going somewhere and had to take a dish, what would you take? Your answer doesn't have to be any of the above choices.

Woffie for Wednesday

3 stages of Gibbs

First the original

Next is adjustments to lighting and sharpness

And finally because I adore textures we have this one

Gray day

That's the kind of day it was. The sky looked like this all day long

I had to drop my vehicle off in the morning for it's annual state inspection. I have it done at a garage a few blocks away from home. I dropped it off, walked home and contemplated how to spend the day. I found that coffee and computer time was the perfect way to begin.

Then I procrastinated a bit about repricing all my craft sale items. That is coming up real soon. August 5th and 6th to be exact. Any way, I'm lowering all the prices since this is likely the last craft show I will do for a while and I want to get rid of as much as possible. Once I got started I managed to get it all done, repacked and ready to go.


After that was done I walked back down the street to pick my ride back up. I'm all legal for another year now. Back home again, I decided I would paint some rocks. It's gotten quite popular to paint rocks and hide them for people to find. When you find one you post it to a facebook page and then you can keep the rock or rehide it for someone else to find. Some I've seen are quite elaborate. Mine are pretty simple and on the small side but they were the best rocks I could find for now.

And that was my day.

Be back tomorrow

The main event after I got home from work yesterday was extreme napping. I'll be back tomorrow.

Gone fishin'

I haven't really gone fishing. I'm heading off to work this morning as usual. But even though I don't fish I think I would rather be doing that than working. Oh well, such is the life of a poor girl who hasn't hit it big in the lottery.

Yesterday I did drop by Edinboro Lake before I went grocery shopping and this guy was fishing

Obviously this is not the original picture but that one didn't turn out so well

Got it

Today I have a picture of my teeny tiny tomato. I stuck my thumb next to it so you could tell how little it is. The one other tomato on the plant is even smaller than this one. It may not be producing a ton of tomatoes but at least I haven't killed it.

And while I'm talking about produce, something else I haven't killed yet is my celery. I first showed this on July 5th in this post

Maybe my thumb has a tiny bit of green in it after all.

The best I can do

I was going to tell you about my tomato plant that one of the customers at work gave me. I tried to take a picture with my phone and it didn't turn out too well and I didn't have the ambition to try again.

Standing in for the real thing is this one

So this tomato plant that I got hasn't grown much at all. A while back when we got all the rain, the pot it was in got overy saturated. But still it lived. It got 2 teeny tiny buds on it that looked like they shriveled up and died. Right now it has two teeny tiny tomatoes on it. They look like they are about the size of a pea. When he gave me the plant he told me it was supposed to produce 6 lb. tomatoes.  Those babies have a long way to go.

Make waves

It's not always a bad thing to make waves. Sometimes you just need to start with a splash and have some fun.

Enjoy the little things

For me some of the little things are taking pictures and then doing edits like this

Thoughts with pictures

If I had a perfectly manicured lawn that was weed free I wouldn't be able to take pictures like this one.

If I took care of pulling all the weeds around the shed I wouldn't see this.

If my shed wasn't such an inviting place for critters to hide and live I wouldn't see things like this ground hog having dinner in my back yard.

More

More from Saturday

To start with this is the road that leads to the park I went to

The name of the park

I spotted a very steep hill with a worn path. I climbed to the top to see what I could see.

What goes up, must come down. As I started down the hill I questioned whether or not that had been a smart idea. Thankfully I didn't fall. Would I do it again? Probably but next time I wouldn't be wearing flip flops.


These just caught my eye.

A day in the park

Yesterday I took a ride to a park that is located right on lake Erie. I took lots of pictures but won't overload you with too many. I may spread it out over a couple days though.

The one above had a truck parked under that tree on the left. I cropped it a bit and then cloned out the truck. It's not bad if you aren't looking at it real close. Then since I went that far of course I had to go overboard with the editing.

It is such an honor

I proudly accept the award that was bestowed upon me by Anni of Hootin' Anni's Chronicles.

What is this award you ask and why did I receive it? Well let me tell you about it. The other day I posted the picture of the chipmunk on the wood pile. In the post I mentioned that the little guy was hanging out on the sheds makeshift balcony. Well Anni graciously pointed out to me that I missed the letter f in the word makeshift. I almost died laughing when I read the comment she left me. To make it even better she made me my own special award which not only am I going to show you in this post but it is now proudly displayed at the top of my sidebar.

Thanks Anni

When you stop and think about it makeshit is kind of what I do. Normally I makeshit in my craft room instead of an outhouse but well, an outhouse could be convenient some days.

I tried something new

I didn't take a picture until I was finished. Briefly, I started with an 8x10 stretched canvas. I painted then added a photo that I printed. Added a little more paint here and there then some words that on one were printed from the computer, on the other it was hand written.

This is my daughter's cat Ace. I did this one using a saying she had posted on facebook. She said her favorite colors were pink, blue and green so I used a little bit of all three when I did the background. I also framed the picture of Ace by glueing on some green jute twine that I had.

This one of Gibbs I started by applying masking tape in a crumply fashion to the outer edges. The tape wasn't sticking down well enough so I added a layer of tissue paper to hold it all in better. Next I painted the whole thing black then added other colors to highlight the wrinkles I added the picture of Gibbs then fisnished it with his name. The capital G was cut from my cricut machine then I traced around the G on a piece of brown card, wrote out the rest of his name and then cut around it all. I added the glitter to all but the first letter then I glued on the die cut letter.

Both need a sealant sprayed on them but I don't have any until I get to the store. That won't change the look of them so for the picture  they were done.

I had fun doing these and may try with some other pictures.

Where's Dale?

I was out on the deck the other day and looking back at the wood pile next to our deck I couldn't figure out what was sitting on top of it. I went in to get the camera so I could get a better look.

I don't know if this guy was visiting the rabbit family or if he's moved in as well but he was quite content hanging out on the shed's makeshit balcony.

till the cows come home

I went in search of information on the phrase "till the cows come home". First I didn't put a whole lot of effort in to my search. Second I didn't find much information. Pretty much as many may know, it means a long time. As for the origin, there didn't seem to be much information on that that I found. I suppose you could say you'll be waiting till the cows come home to learn any more about the phrase from me. You won't have to wait to see a picture of cows though.

Moove over because I have one here for you. I drove down a back road after I dropped Gibbs off at the groomer Monday. When I saw these cows I stopped to say hello

Me being me, I played with it. Not a huge difference but it looks more like a painting now than a photo.

What is it that you'll be waiting for till the cows come home?

He feels like a new dog

A little before and after today.

Before going to the groomer. He looked scruffy but he's been worse and if you remember Duke you know he definitely would get worse looking than this.

OK Gibbs, time for the big entrance. 

You look good Gibbs I don't know why you look so grumpy.

Maybe you just weren't ready yet. Now you look happy. 

Gibbs says he may look like a new dog but he's not giving up any of his old tricks.

Dinner and a dog

That's what you get from me today.

Hamburger, pasta salad and baked beans served on a very patriotic paper plate

It's not the whole dog but a close up of his face in black and white with some posterization done to the picture

It's off to the groomers this morning so Mr Gibbs will be looking quite spiffy later on today.

Just an ordinary day

There was nothing about yesterday that really stood out from all the other days. It was pretty typical. The weather wasn't bad but it wasn't spectacular. It hovered around 70 with a cool breeze and a sky that looked like it wanted to rain.

There was no activity in the pool. The rafts congregated at one end awaiting better days for someone to enjoy them.

The fish thermometer hung by the steps waited for someone to come check the water temperature.

And little dogs sat looking rather sad that there was no activity going on.