Just annoyed.

Wednesday was just one of those days where everything annoyed me. People, places, things, and situations, it was all annoying. When I get like that, I'm lazy and uninspired. There are things that I could do and things that I should do but it's not happening.

I rarely ever get a phone call that is something that I care to take. It's normally one kind of solicitation or another. Lately, for some reason, I've answered a couple. Why I have no idea. The first one, the woman kept talking right over me every time I tried to interrupt her. Finally, she said "can you hear me" I responded with "I can hear you but you obviously can't hear a thing I said". She very quickly told me to have a good day and hung up. Call two was some guy soliciting for some policeman's something or other. When he asked me what donation amount I would like to give I lied and said that I was currently unemployed and could not afford anything. He said "That's ok" and continued on. I very loudly interrupted him and said "Are you kidding me? I say I'm unemployed and you say that's OK?" He hung up on me.

Oh look, top of the list it says scam likely. I didn't answer that one.

Around the yard.

Sunday night and Monday morning, I spent some time out in the yard. I did some much-needed weeding but there is still so much more to do.

I spent some time watching the birds and this one lone bunny.

The camera found all kinds of things to focus on including the bottom of the windchimes that my friend Debbie gave me.

Everyone loves a parade.

Is there anyone who doesn't like a parade? There's no denying that the big parades are quite a show but the turnout for a small town parade is always impressive.

All parades go up my street and pass right by my house. People start lining up early.

The anticipation builds when you start to hear the marching band playing. Then on the horizon, you see it coming.

Before you know it, the parade is over but not before plenty of candy has been thrown and little ones scramble to pick up all the pieces.

This, that and the other thing.

I mentioned my annoyance with the comment issue the other day. I really miss having them come to my email. When I first started blogging I would reply to comments right on my blog. Then it occurred to me that since I don't return to a blog to see if there was a response to my comment, then maybe other people don't either. That's when I started replying by email. Of course, then there is the issue of everyone who is a no reply blogger. Grace mentioned the other day, that by not giving a reply to comments on the blog she doesn't get to see the answers to questions that other people asked. Got me to thinking maybe I should just type my replies on the blog. I don't know, can't decide. It does seem to me that when I stopped I did lose several readers. Before I would do one long comment, responding to each person. I would prefer to have the reply right underneath each person's comment. I don't think is available in the pop-up comment. Does anyone know if I would have to switch to embedded to get that?


Random picture to break up the monotony.

After typing all that I realized this will be posting on Memorial Day. I should be creating a post that goes along with the holiday. Too late, I'm not going back and starting over. I hope everyone is enjoying the long weekend. I worked yesterday but I do have off today.

Another random picture.

The results from yesterday's game are in.

The participants in the order they appeared:
Mildred from Mildred's Blog
Sandra from Mad Snapper
Joan from My Quality Day
Grace from Dragon's Alley
Sandee from Comedy Plus
Ginny from Let your light shine

One last random picture.

And the results are:

Joan with 182 points
Grace with 129 points
Ginny with 128 points
Mildred with 118 Points
Sandra with 71 points
Sandee with 55 points.

Thanks for playing everyone. Maybe I'll do this one again some time.

Get your game on.

A little something different today. Let's play Blogger Feud. Below is a list of questions. This is based on the popular game show Family Feud. The points will be based on answers I found online. You give one answer for each of the questions below. You have until I schedule my next blog post which will be some time, later on, this evening. Tomorrow I'll list all the participants and their score.

Are you ready? Let's play

Questions:
1. "An eye for an eye" is one expression that contains the word eye. Name another

2. Name the most annoying thing other drivers do on the road.

3. Name something that's filtered.

4. Name something you'de find in a chef salad.

5. Something associated with Zorro.

It makes me sad

I don't like it when my email inbox is empty. It makes me sad when I don't see your wonderful comments coming to my email. None of them are being sent there. OK, so I can come right here to the blog and see them all, but it's not the same. Having to change my routine makes me feel all discombobulated.

Even Gibbs looks a bit bewildered and grumpy.

Once a week.

Lately, it seems like I come home at least once a week and am so exhausted that I have to nap. Sometimes it's just one nap sometimes three. Last night was my night. It was only a one nap night but I still had no energy for the rest of the evening.

Since I'm feeling like a slug I'm just going to throw a random picture in here and be done.

A dandy good time.

When one has lots of dandelions in their yard, one takes lots of pictures of those dandelions. Taking the pictures isn't enough for me. I must play and alter.

First I took these two pictures.

Then I duplicated the second one several times, twisted and turned each one, erased and played some more. I added it to the first picture and my dandy time was done.

Flop

Not all my projects come out the way I planned. I recently was trying a new type of card and have a couple of disasters to show you.
If nothing else I did learn how to do the cut for these. I've seen these called a swing card and also a flip card.

The first one.

Well, I was doing pretty good until I got to gluing on the sentiment. Oops! I guess I should have paid more attention.

Card two.

I used plain white cardstock for this one and thought it looked too plain. Well, everything is better with glitter so I put some glue on the one section and covered it with glitter. I suppose this isn't a total flop but at first, because of the glue that section of the card was laying rather funky. There are also small spots that don't have any glitter on them.

Just to give you an idea of how this card opens up.

Second time around

I finished the jar that I showed you last week and I did another. The second time around I used a smaller jar.
The first jar I finished the top off with jute twine and the second one I used a piece of lace.

If these had a wider mouth on them I would put a glass votive candle holder in the top but they are too small for that. They would have to be used to hold flowers or something else that needs a pretty little container. I've got 2 more jars that are partially painted. I'm not sure if I'll use the same napkins or try something different.

Through a dirty window.

I took these pictures through the nose print art on my front window. These are both in my neighbor's yard.

I don't know what this is but it's pretty in springtime and then later in the year, it gets red berries on it.

I love lilacs and for some reason, I could never get them to grow. All the ones I've planted have died. I'll just enjoy the neighbors instead. I wanted to go over and smell them. I just love the scent of lilacs.
Question: In the top right corner, do the lilacs look like a butterfly or a heart to you? First I thought heart then decided more butterfly.

A very productive day

Saturday started out a bit on the rainy side so it was the perfect day to dig in and tackle the mess in the craft room. I had already started a few days earlier by doing just a little here and a little there. I'm a bit embarrassed to show you this but here's the mess I had. In all fairness to my pride, this was taken after I had started ripping one section of the room apart to reorganize it.

For those of you who are super neat freaks, you could argue that this next picture is still a big cluttered mess but it's actually quite organized now. 

Then I turned around and took a picture from the other side of the room and looked at that big blank wall over my printer.

It occurred to me that I found something while I was cleaning that I could put there. I don't even remember how long ago I bought the rub on wall words but for some reason, I could never decide what to do with them. Well, now they are on this wall.

I'm thinking now I need some pictures of people laughing and maybe a big yellow sun to add to this. Even if I just leave it the way it is, it makes me smile when I read it.

Now that I have a nice neat craft room I can start messing it up again.

All in a days work

I don't do cakes at work as often as I used to but we still get orders for them. When I first started the majority of our cake orders were on the weekend and we would have at the least 4 cakes for the day. Now there are tons of people who make them out of their homes and our orders are much lower.
Yesterday I had to do a full sheet cake. The only color she asked for was a teal color for the border. Other than that she wanted assorted color flowers.

The left

The right

Somewhere in the middle

And the whole thing. As a last second thought I sprinkled on yellow, green and blue sugar crystals around the edges.

Tomorrow I'll be doing another cake but only a 1/4 sheet cake.

Running on empty

I was doing pretty good for a week or so with posts scheduled ahead of time. All of a sudden I realized my surplus had run out and it was time to scramble for something new.

The only new picture I had was of the top of this very cool plant poke I got for a birthday present.

Has anyone ever tried Grammarly? 
I've been using the free version and I've discovered that my biggest problem is with commas and putting a period at the end of sentences. It will kindly let me know that there are other errors too and if I want to upgrade to the premium version they'll let me know what they are. I suppose if I was writing something other than a personal blog it would be worth paying for. They send you a weekly email with a breakdown of how you've done.

Yesterday it was 82 degrees out when I left work. I finally had the energy and ambition to vacuum out my vehicle. I don't know how the floors get so bad. I mean I know during the winter I'm tracking in snow on my boots but my shoes are never all that dirty so how do the floors get that messy. I wish I could be like some people who have spotless vehicles. If I had a garage I could at least pull it inside and keep it vacuumed out all year long.

Couldn't wait.

I have a project that I'm working on. It's not quite done but I couldn't wait to post it. I saw a post on Facebook with step by step instructions for how this woman makes decoupaged bottles and jars. I was fascinated and had to try it.
I didn't have to buy anything for this. I had everything I needed. I had a big long explanation for how I did this typed out but decided to just show the pictures instead.

Like I said this isn't done. I want to add some jute twine around the top of the jar.

For some reason, the colors don't match. One picture looks more yellow, but the above picture is the true color. Above is one side of the bottle and below is turned.

 Finally a close up of a piece of the napkin that was decoupaged on.

They say it's your birthday

And they very well may be wrong but if it really was your birthday I would be ready with this card.

Weeden

Welcome to the garden on weeden. When I spotted the grape hyacinth growing amongst the weeds in a very neglected flower bed I decided to take some pictures. Of course, you know me, just taking a picture isn't enough. I have to play with those pictures also.

Scraps

When I make something with paper there are always leftover scraps that I just can't seem to throw away. Aside from letting them pile up, what are you supposed to do with them? I found the answer to that while browsing Pinterest.

You start with a piece of paper a bit smaller than your finished card. Gather your scrap papers and start cutting wedges. You'll be creating a sunburst pattern. Decide where you want the center of your sunburst to be. That center point is where all your wedges will start. Then just randomly start laying the wedges around your paper with edges meeting. Trim it up and add it to your card.

You can see the card that inspired me and the tutorial for how to create this on Four Wise Guys

Just for a little something extra, I thought I would show you how I've been taking the pictures for my cards. Lets back out from the above shot a little bit and see what's really going on there.

I use a white tablecloth draped over my dining room chair. Sometimes I just open the whole thing up and drape it over the back of the chair. This time I clipped it to the top. I move the chair so it's facing the sliding glass door. I still do some touching up in Photoshop elements but this is a nice uncluttered background.

Happy Mother's Day

Here's wishing you a mother's day

That's filled with every pleasure,

And a future that's as happy

As the memories you treasure 

~~annonymous

This is a mother's day card that I made on the Cricut. I don't have a picture of it before I played with the picture but it really is pretty much just as you see it. This was a free file from Shirley's cards  

I hope everyone has a wonderful day. 

Hello and smile

While browsing Pinterest I came across another card design that I really liked so I copied it.

First Hello.

And since I liked that way that one turned out and it made me smile I did another one.

Guard duty

Someone was very serious about his duties and wouldn't even turn around for a quick picture. Not much happening in the hood but maybe that's because Gibbs is on the job.

Springing

Last Saturday I saw a whole lot of springing going on.

No calorie cake

I haven't made one of these in a really long time. Who doesn't like cake? This one is tiny, calorie-free and it has a little candle in the middle.

This is made from a battery operated tealight.

The scalloped base has a hole in the bottom so that you can turn it on and off as well as change the battery.

I cut the flowers on my Cricut then rolled them with a quilling tool. The leaves were also cut on my Cricut machine.

The only thing I wish I would have done differently is to not glue the sides of the top paper down on the edges. I'll do another one and see if I like it better that way.