same old

I know you've heard my excuses before but its the same old thing. I don't have anything so I'm using these signs I saw at Hobby Lobby

Bird art

My boss takes stale bread from the bakery and throws it in the back parking lot for the birds. Yes I know, bread is not really good for birds but I'm not going to be the one to tell him he shouldn't be doing it. Anyway the other day he brings me this piece of bread and says that the birds made a special sculpture just for him

If you look closely it even has a heart on it's chest.

Enjoying the morning

Saturday morning Gibbs and I went out to the front yard. I sat on the porch and he investigated the yard.

All done

I finished my wreath. In the picture yesterday I had four red bandanas and four white bandanas together.  I took that apart and redid it alternating two red and two white. Other directions I've seen for these do one and one.

 

In the center I added a wood oval that I painted white and then added the vinyl lettering

 

I finished it off with some glitter craft foam Stars

.

A work in progress

A while back Pam made a wreath that I liked and I thought I would try and copy it. I got this far and realized I didn't have enough of the white and the red bandanas

 

I'll post another picture when I have it finished

On the way

When I was stopped at a traffic light on my way to my appointment Tuesday I saw this car.

 

I zoomed in a little but this was the best shot I could get. At the next light they were too far ahead of me to get anything better. 

A unique one

This might possibly be the oddest cake I've ever done.

 

The story behind it was that the girl cut herself with a box cutter at work and freaked the boss out a bit.

Update

So I thought I would give you an update on my appointment yesterday. I thought it was just going to be an ultrasound but when I got there they did another mammogram but only on the left side. Once I was finished they had me wait until the doctor looked at them. 

 

When she came back she said that it was a small cyst and they were going to go ahead and do the ultrasound. I waited a few more minutes for that technician and when she was done I went back and sat to wait some more for the doctor to look at the results again. While I was waiting I snapped a picture out the window.

The doctor was pretty quick and the technician came out to say that it was a small 1/2 centimeter cyst and that there was no further action required other than to follow up in a year for my next mammogram. 

I liked the end of Grace's comment yesterday. It made me laugh. She said  I trust the mammogram results will fall into the 'age-related' category which is another way to say - No worries, you're getting old...

Just stuff

 Last Thursday I got my second shot so now I am fully vaccinated. The first one my arm was a little sore the next day but no big deal and other than that I felt fine. The second one, my arm hurt a whole lot more and I felt horrible the next day. I was tired and felt like I was getting a cold. I went home after work and slept off and on until bed time. The day after that I felt fine again.

I did ask again about a copay when I went to physical therapy yesterday. She looked it up and printed out a sheet showing what my cost was. She told me I could just wait till the end or until they sent me a bill but I said that I would rather pay as I go because one huge bill at the end was just too hard to do. My copay is $50 for each visit and I'm going twice a week. I think the next time I go I'm going to ask about cutting it back to once a week and I'll do the exercises at home as well.

Today I'm off again because I have another appointment. My mammogram came back as showing a slight difference from the last one I had so now they want to do an ultra sound. I'm not sure what I'll do after my appointment. I may do some running around or maybe I'll just come home. We shall see.

The weather has been a bit damp since Sunday. Sunday morning when I went to work it was pouring. It rained yesterday too and the forecast for today isn't too promising. I suppose we can use the rain though. At least it dried up long enough yesterday for the guys to come and mow my lawn.

PT

Can you guess where I was at?

 

I snapped the above picture while I was sitting and waiting for my physical therapy on my shoulder. I've gone twice so far and I'm supposed to go 2-3 times a week for 8 weeks. I have yet to be told what my co pay is and I'm hoping that they don't all of a sudden send me a huge bill. I did ask about it but she said she had to wait to hear from the insurance company. Quite honestly I could do all of this at home with the exception of the heat stim treatment at the end of the session.

Q&A

Today I'm going to do a little bit of Q&A from a couple of my recent posts. First up is questions I had on the last post I did on my living room

 

Pam asked if I keep the door to downstairs closed. Most of the time I do keep the door closed especially when I'm upstairs just to limit where Gibbs can go. Pam also asked if I was changing things out or having to paint too. Right now I'm just changing out but I do need to paint. The problem is I hate to paint so I'm kind of putting that off as long as I can.

Ginny asked if that was a working fireplace or electric. It is an electric fireplace and pretty much it's just for show because I really don't use it for the heat or the flames. Ginny also mentioned that Gibbs looks like he's wearing a fancy diaper. The answer there is yes he is. I have had the worst trouble with him and if he doesn't wear that there is no telling when he will lift his leg on something. It doesn't matter how close I watch him or how often I let him out. This is just the easiest solution to the problem

Finally Catherine asked what was up those stairs. At the top of the steps is the bathroom and then three bedrooms. Maybe someday I'll show pictures up there but for now I'm really not liking how those rooms look

The other question was on the flowers post

Several of you thought that these were lupines but they are Red Hot Pokers

An easy peasy cake

No flowers just border and writing. The colors made me think of a circus for some reason.

flowers

I was a bit late getting a pic of my peonies this year. The rain pretty much destroyed them before I got to it.

This one was still pretty much intact. 

I took these at my daughters house

My living room

My couch was delivered last Friday. Saturday when Amanda and I went shopping I picked up a coffee table and end table. Welcome to my new living room.

Now I have two rooms in my house that I absolutely love.

Each of the pictures is taken from a different corner of the room.

I haven't quite decided if I want to keep the wolf pictures on that wall or move them to the basement.

The door on the right in the picture leads down to the basement.

Sorry about the glare from the ceiling fan light. If I took these earlier in the day when it was light enough in there then I got too much light from the window.

The only thing else I want to do in here is a new rug and lamp. The lamp that is on the end table right now is one from the basement. 

Well that should be all the living room and basement pictures. You're probably getting tired of seeing it by now. 

Saturday

Saturday was a mother daughter day. Amanda and I went out to lunch at Primanti Brothers for her belated birthday lunch. Then we did a little shopping.

Their sandwiches have the french fries and coleslaw right in them. Talk about delicious.

We went to Walmart, Christmas Tree Shops, Hobby Lobby and made a quick stop in Lowes. It was a fun day.

Q&A from yesterday

    Ginny said she thought the dog looked too large to be Gibbs. It must have just been the angle that the picture was taken from because that was indeed Gibbs in the first two pictures.

Kate said she bet that Gibbs preferred the old curtains. Truth is I don't think Gibbs cares one way or the other about the curtains. He did prefer having the couch I moved to the basement sit partially in front of the window though. He would lay there and keep watch over the neighborhood.

Andrea asked if those were room darkening curtains. Yes they are and they do make the room very dark when they're closed. I ordered mine through Walmart. The funny thing was, I ordered 3 different things from Walmart at the same time and there was only one of them that actually shipped from Walmart. The other two items were shipped by different companies.

In the living room

By the time this post actually publishes I'm hoping that my new couch will have arrived. But as of right now, when I'm scheduling this my living room is still quite empty. I did however change up the window treatment. The curtains that were there we're ones that Wade picked out. I actually thought they were kind of ugly but he liked them so I didn't make a fuss when he ordered them. This is what they looked like

The photo is a little dark but you get the idea. They were a green color which was ok but probably not something I would have chose myself.

Now that I am mixing things up a bit I decided that I would order new curtains. This is what I got

 

I was amazed at how much bigger the window looked and how much brighter it made the living room. Here they are open

Then I decided I wanted to add some shears. Would you believe that I have never, ever had shears in my house? I am really loving the way this looks

 

And here is a closer look at the shears. They have a pattern on them which I really liked

Slim line card

Here's another card that I recently made. This is a slimline card. It fits into a #10 business size envelope. 

The standard size for these cards is 3.5" x 8.5" but I have been making them just a tad bigger at 4" x 9.25" so that they fill the entire envelope with very little gap. I guess I just like to do things my way.

Another card

Wades youngest son has a birthday coming up July 4th. I made this card to send him. It's rather plain but it's for a guy and I'm not real good at making cards for guys

The painting on the wall

This painting is currently hanging on the one wall in my new cozy space.

 

I'm not real crazy about it but have yet to replace it. It does have a story to go with it. Wade hated  shopping of any kind and one day I asked him if we could go into the thrift shop. He reluctantly agreed and we headed to the door. As I was getting ready to go inside he lingered behind and I assumed that he just didn't want to go in. I ended up saying never mind forget it I'll just come back later by myself. That was when he told me that he was just admiring this picture because he really liked it. I wasn't quite sure if I believed him because it sounded like a convenient excuse. So I said if you like it go ahead and buy it. I was surprised when he picked it up and took it inside to purchase. Will I replace it? Maybe, that is yet to be seen.

Amanda's birthday card

Now that her birthday is over I can show you the card that I made for Amanda. Here it is laying flat to fit into the envelope 

  

And here it is popped up

 

This was a free Cut file from awesome svg's

Happy Birthday Amanda

Today is my daughter's birthday. Hard to believe she is 39 years old already. Where have the years gone. I can't show you the card that I made her until tomorrow but I can show you the envelope that I decorated

 so again happy birthday Amanda I hope you have a fantastic day.

Top left is Amanda with my dads sister Mary. She was my favorite aunt, never married and loved all her nieces and nephews. The two on the left are Amanda with my mother. 

The bench

In lieu of a coffee table I am currently using this bench that I purchased a long time ago at a craft show. I often bought things that fit the decor of the cave to give Wade as gifts.

The bench came with two cushion inserts. The first one is a wildlife theme

 

And the second is a Christmas theme

 I have a wood tray that was also purchased at a craft show that I had sitting on top of the bench to hold remotes and a drink

 

Then I discovered that that tray fits perfectly into the bottom of the bench

 

At first I didn't really like this bench sitting there, but the longer it sits there the more I like it. 

On the ledge

 There is a ledge on 2 of the walls in the room formerly known as the man cave. That's where Wade kept all the various wildlife figures he had as well as some pictures of his kids and grandkids. I took a few things off and rearranged the rest to where I liked it. Here are a couple of collages of the different pieces that are sitting on the ledge.

Most of these were all pieces I purchased for him either for his birthday, Christmas or just because gifts.

Yesterday Jeanette asked if my house was a tri lever or a quad level. For some reason that comment didn't come through my email like it usually does so I'll answer it here. This is a tri level. I actually had no idea what a quad level was and had to look it up. 

On another note, yesterday I spent a very leisurely day off. I did some reading and I managed to get a weeks worth of posts written and scheduled. I always like when I'm able to do that.