Taking a day or two off.

 Life sometimes throw us some curveballs. I'm taking a few days off to dodge them.

LOL

I'm feeling a little bit too tired to do anything more than a quick post using Facebook finds.

crafty

So on Monday when I made those ornaments that I showed you the other day, I also cut out a few vinyl designs to add to other ornaments.

So far this is all still sitting waiting for me to get my act together. But I did do another ornament that I'm not completely happy with. This one I started by decoupaging  a Christmas themed napkin to the wood. Then I added the merry Christmas vinyl design. My biggest problem with this one is that the red vinyl didn't show up well enough against the napkin. I had to outline with a black marker

Hydrangea

 I can't believe I haven't taken pictures of the hydrangea yet this year. It seems like it's rather slow to get blooms though. It doesn't have nearly as many on it as it has in past years and they're really just starting.

The smaller one that the lawn guy put next to it doesn't have any blooms on it at all

I need to get out there and clean up the siding. It's looking terrible.

Here are a few of the blooms.

Pioneer Woman Wednesday.

 Pioneer Woman is getting in on the Corelle craze. I recently saw these at Walmart.

July 25th

 Since yesterday was the official Christmas in July day I thought I would spend my day off doing something Christmas related.

I recently purchased some blank wood ornament from Amazon. Some are totally plain and some have a red and black buffalo plaid design around the outer edge with a blank space in the middle for decorating.

Yesterday I worked on some of the buffalo plaid ones.

I did these two

These were easy peasy. I simply cut the design from vinyl on my Cricut machine and then applied it to the wood.

In keeping with the Christmas theme, I hung these on the lamp post my daughter gave me. She liked it but didn't have the room for it at her place. 

A lack of grace

Yesterday, while at work, I was rushing around the corner to go grab the phone. I rounded the corner by the sink and tripped over a box that had been sitting on the floor. The offending box is no longer there . I took the picture after the girl I was working with moved it 

 

When I hit the box I went down like a rock. I ended up cutting my arm and had to go out in the store and buy some of the super jumbo Band-Aids.

If you're a bit queasy you may not want to look at the last picture. But here is my arm with the Band-Aid off.

Other than my arm I scraped up one of my knees. All in all though I really wasn't hurt. I think my pride took the biggest hit.

The day really didn't get better after that. I had to deal with an employee with a major attitude problem who doesn't get how it works. Apparently after I left the father called the store wanting a meeting with the boss to straighten this out. Let me just say here that this is not a minor child, this is an adult we're talking about. I use the term loosely because while her age makes her an adult, she has the maturity of a spoiled teenager. I honestly hate dealing with this kind of crap.

Lily

I can't believe I haven't shown any pictures of my lilies yet this year. Every year I tend to take a million pictures of them. This year not so many

screened

Recently I was standing in the basement looking out the window and noticed the dried up flowers on the iris in my front yard. I grabbed my phone and took a few pictures. What amazed me is that I was able to get a picture through the screen without the screen showing. First a picture of the screen to show that it really was there.

And here are the ones where I was able to focus on the plant without the screen showing.

moth sighting

Recently I spotted  a moth hanging out on my kitchen window screen I grabbed a quick picture from the inside.

Then I headed outside to get a better look at him.

I never seem to be able to get pictures of butterflies because they're always flitting around so fast but moths are a different story. They seem to like to find a spot and chill.

a Christmas in July craft

I purchased this Christmas tag diamond painting kit a while back. I did a couple of them the other day. There are several different Santa Claus tags in the kit, each looking a little different. These will be nice to either put on a gift or inside a Christmas card

Pioneer Woman Wednesday

The last time I was in Walmart I spotted these Pioneer Woman bath poufs.

 I couldn't resist buying one but I have to say I really don't like it very much. I always use the poufs rather than a washcloth but even though this one is pretty I don't like the fabric covering on it

a crafty Monday

Monday was a gloomy, overcast kind of day. I started off with coffee and visiting my blog friends. From there I decided to do something crafting. I had downloaded a free file for a layered Christmas card so I gave it a try. This came from Craft with Sarah

 I messed it up from the very beginning because I didn't line up the first two layers very well. No sense in giving up though I finished it up and then did a little bit of playing with it.

 I used some metallic, glitter, and pearl crayons to add some highlights. Now I just need to add it to a blank card. 

I started and now I can't stop

What is it that I started?

 

I have been watching Christmas movies just about every single day. Some I've seen before and some not. Now, I will be the first to admit that a lot of the Hallmark Christmas movies are pretty much you've seen one you've seen them all. Even still, I enjoy watching them. I find it funny though. The one night I watched one where the actor and actress were dating. The next movie the exact same actor and actress were brother and sister.

. There was a new one that came on last night called Campfire Christmas . 

What's next? Will I start making Christmas crafts? Maybe, maybe not. I can guarantee you though that I won't start decorating until after Thanksgiving

Out back

 Yesterday morning when I let Gibbs out for his morning routine, I spotted a cat sitting by the dead tree that sits just outside my property line. I grabbed the camera and took some pictures. After all a visiting cat is perfect blog material.

Of course I also took a picture of the weeds growing around the tree. I think they look kind of pretty.

I spent a ridiculous amount of time in photoshop elements trying to do something creative with this picture. In the end I decided it just looked better if I left it alone.

Before giving up completely, I did go to the guided edit and played with changing the background. I think kitty looks like a giant in a miniature Chinese garden (or maybe Japanese). Either way, trying to spark my creativity was a big fail. 

Wow

What a day I had yesterday. I was fast, efficient and at the top of my game. Okay so that last bit may be a slight exaggeration, however I did manage to even impress myself. On top of my regular daily duties I had several orders to fill

 

Order number one was five dozen donuts. Order number two was a donation of four dozen cookies. Order number three was a quarter sheet cake.

 

Order number four was a half sheet cake and order number five was another half sheet cake. I was scheduled till 3:00 yesterday and I managed to have everything done by 1:30. 

Today I think I'll kick back and take it easy.

Birthday wishes

This card came in the mail yesterday

 

The inside

 

The thing is his birthday is over a month away. It's not until August 23. He'll be 8 this year. 

On another note, I have a busy day ahead of me at work today. If by chance I don't have a post tomorrow, then you'll know that I came how and headed for the couch and a little Hallmark movie marathon and some napping.

Puzzle time

 Today I have something a little different. I took a picture of my Pioneer Woman (that you've already seen) and duplicated it. Then on the second copy I changed 5 things in the picture. Can you spot all 5 differences? Once you think you've found them all scroll down and see the next picture that has the answers circled on the left hand picture. Have fun.

Did you get them all? You can click on the picture to make it bigger if you need to.

Pioneer Woman Wednesday

I'm pretty sure there are still several things that I have yet to post about, but today I'm going to show you somethin I purchased recently. I was browsing the clearance aisle in Walmart and came across Pioneer Woman sheet sets. When I saw the $10 price tag I had to buy them

 I have very little willpower when it comes to seeing Pioneer Woman items in the store. If I see something new I always want to buy it

catching up

Since I took a blogger skip day yesterday, I figured I'd better catch up today. When I got home from work on Sunday I had no desire to go anywhere near the computer. So what did I do? I watched several Hallmark Christmas movies. I can't believe that's what I did considering how many years I have been yelling at Amanda for rushing Christmas. 

Monday was another eye appointment. I got the all clear on my eye and everything looked good. I don't have to go back for another year.

When I got back home from my appointment I grabbed Gibbs and a chair and we went out back to sit under the tree. He did some exploring and I did some reading

A day out

So my daughter and I went to that Christmas in July craft show yesterday. It wasn't very impressive. There weren't very many crafters there at all. After that we decided to go do a little shopping. We went to Michael's, Hobby Lobby, and Christmas Tree Shop. While we were at Christmas Tree Shops I found some Christmas decorations. Since it is Christmas in July I bought a couple

Christmas in July

 I was curious about how the whole Christmas in July thing got started. Plus I didn't know what else to blog about. I did a search and got my answer.

Apparently it all started in 1933 at a girls camp in North Carolina. That year it was celebrated at the request of camp co-founder Fannie Holt who was said to have been quite a character. The information came from THIS website.

I think I've always assumed that it was something that retailers made up to boost sales.

In July that is.