Patrick Palmer Art

Patrick Palmer – escapeintolife.com

My Mouth is Watering!

Wim Beunderman via LinkedIn

This was posted today on LinkedIn by Wim Beunderman. I rarely react so strongly as I did with this photo – my mouth actually watered!  I’m not sure if this is Wim’s photo or someone else’s, but whoever took it gets my vote for extreme talent.  YUM!

Heat Index Square Foot Gardening

http://www.theyounggardener.com

Our actual temperature is forecast for 102 this afternoon. (Heat index will be “105-110+”. ) In the southwest, the denizens say things like, “But it’s a DRY heat” – as if you don’t fry in that. In Arkansas, right now it’s NOT a dry heat, and it’s pretty awful. Even with our irrigation system, flowers and the remaining tomato plants are just barely hanging on.

I cleaned out my square foot garden last week, and am now spraying weed killer on the floor of the garden under the chest-high raised wooden boxes of our garden, as well as around the perimeter of the garden, around the trash cans of the components of Mel’s Mix (the alternative to native soil), etc.

I’m getting good exercise from weed whacking and cleaning up our concrete areas with a leaf blower, toting a 2 gallon container of weed or bug spray, and trying to weed my flower planters without croaking in the heat.

I’ve given up trying to work outside ‘in the morning’ or ‘in the evening’  like sane people do. Something seems to always come up, making it impossible, so I divide my day into

• ERRANDS – trying to be clean and reasonable presentable
• HOME – where I just try to stay alive, doing as many sessions as my energy will allow outside (taking breaks and drinking lots of water), and then going up for a shower, clean clothes, and lots of rest the remainder of the day.

I used to be like the picture above, loving to bake in the heat of the summer, preferably beside a swimming pool, but not a necessary thing. Now I barely step outside and I’m wet from head to toe and avoiding the heat as much as I’m able.  I love working in my garden and with my flowers, but NOT when I’m frying like an egg.

“What a man needs in gardening is a cast-iron back, with a hinge in it. ” ~ Charles Dudley Warner

Lyrics

http://www.pinterest.com

Holding My Own, But Not Blazing Trails This Week

http://www.pinterest.com

This picture makes me laugh. I love the creativity of the person who thinks like this AND the expertise of the person who did the photoshopping to create it.

I had a stagnant week, ‘getting-the-lard-off-wise.’

Progress to date is 16 pounds off and 17.3 inches off.

I’m frustrated that I can’t report any improvement this week, but I’m pleased that I ate three of the four FLEX meals we’re supposed to eat and didn’t gain anything. I enjoyed a FLEX SNACK of a scoop of chocolate ice cream from Braum’s after bowling with friends; a FLEX LUNCH of the salad bar with “Breakfast Bunch”; and a FLEX DINNER of chicken fried rice from our favorite Chinese place. (I got a ‘small’ portion, but I ate the WHOLE thing.)

I can report that I AM doing yoga every day, but the bulk of my ‘exercise’ has been sessions of working in the yard. With our heat index above 100 (our actual temperature will be 102 today!) just walking around in the heat is work for me, much less the weed whacking and spraying of stuff toting 2 gallons of liquid – several half hour sessions per day.

I have become a camel, glugging down water to a fabulous degree, over and above the 64 oz I’m SUPPOSED to be drinking.

So – I didn’t lose, but I didn’t gain – holding my own. I’ll ‘keep my head down’ and ‘keep on keepin’ on,’ and will hopefully be able to report some progress NEXT week.

Stupidity Reigns

Sarcasm Dujour – http://www.pinterest.com

Between my husband and me, our life is one LARGE surprise party.

Our latest ‘party’ is listing two things for sale on eBay. We’ve done this for years, but not often. We listed an iMac, and then two external drives, asking that payments be made via Paypal.

We sold both in the last several days, but then the party began. It turned out that we had neglected to check the email address listed for our account at Paypal (listed nowhere on the site except on listings you’ve posted.) We still had our OLD Paypal email from when I had my Creative Artworks website on our LAST listing, so it went on the NEW listings automatically. Since we’re old and doofus, we didn’t think to check. The buyers paid, but the payments went to lala land, since neither that email nor the Paypal account associated with it, exist now. We tried everything to fix it, finding out that the ONLY place you can change it is in a new listing. We listed a DVD, changing the information to the current email and Paypal account associated with it, but that doesn’t help us with the old listings. ARRRGH!

When we explained our goof to the \buyer of the external drives, sending him an invoice via Paypal, he said he had found the drives elsewhere, so we canceled the sale. After communication with the buyer for the iMac,  he said if we would list it again with the “buy now” price he had bought it for during the auction, he would buy it right away. We’re in the process of doing that now, hopefully not losing this sale, too.

What should have been simple listings and sales got hopelessly complicated because we FORGOT that the old information was on the Paypal account (only on eBay) and that we didn’t understand where we should have looked to make sure our information was correct before listing. Since we don’t sell things that often on eBay, we’ll probably forget what we have now learned the hard way. We’ll make notes about this, but then the notes will mysteriously disappear….

As Bette Davis said, “Old age ain’t no place for sissies.” 

 

Red

“Beautiful for a Lady” – Paul Militaru Photography

 

“Romantic Delicate Rose” – Paul Militaru Photography

 

“Romantic Rose” – Paul Militaru Photography

Artistic Pots – Take 2

“Lunar Eclipse” –
anubistj.deviantart.com

Karen Margulis Art – Pastel Paintings I Love

Karen Margulis – kemstudios.blogspot.com

Beautifully Said

http://www.dailymail.co.uk

Admission

Rosemary Clement Moore – http://www.pinterest.com

“Field Maple”

“Field Maple” – Paul Militaru Photography

Artistic Pots – Take 2

Danko Handmade – http://www.etsy.com

Artistic Pots – Take 1

Ann-Decker-northern-potters.co.uk

Life Lessons

Positive Energy via Michael Remillard

 

I’ve tried all my life to remain calm in an emergency and haven’t managed it yet. This beautiful quote and illustration suggests it’s a skill you can practice. Does that mean you have to find emergencies over and over and then try to solve them, trying to remain calm in the process?

When my husband and I lived in Tulsa, Oklahoma a million or so years ago, we bought our first house. It was a lovely two-story wood home with a very small lot in a nice area of town where most of the homes were at least 50 years old. There was a small, rectangular ‘swimming pool’ taking up most of the back yard that didn’t hold water. :0)  It also had a garage apartment that we fixed up and rented out.

After several years, I came home from a day of teaching school to find the garage apartment in flames! My reaction was to freak out. I did make sure that our renters weren’t inside. Then I called my mom, only figuring out several minutes later I should probably call the fire department…

I’ve spent a lot of time in my life trying to do everything I could to AVOID emergencies. I guess that’s a good thing, but it doesn’t give you much help when you encounter the next one. I run around like a chicken with its head cut off, squawking and crying and panicking, rather than keeping a cool head and doing what’s necessary.

I admire people who know just what to do if someone gets hurt. My mind goes blank, forgetting everything I ever knew, other than maybe calling 911 – something my husband would rather DIE than do. HE wants me to get him into the car and go to the ER – the way he has done over the years (rarely, thank goodness) with ME.

 

 

Maybe I’m not alone in needing some practice.

 

Interesting Suggestion

http://www.gamerzplanet.net

“Sunbathing”

“Sunbathing” – Paul Militaru Photography

Diane Whitehead Art

“Nosey Bear” – Diane Whitehead – artoutwest.blogspot.com

I Missed the Whole Thing!

my-little-poppies.com

I waited, hoping for a chance to go out and celebrate some much-needed rain. I finally gave up, read awhile, got sleepy and took a nap in my chair. When I joined my husband in our office later, the window was wet! My husband said, “You missed a nice rain.” :0(

In the evening, when we went bowling with friends, they were envious because they didn’t get any rain at all, and live only on the other side of town from us. It was so humid last night it was like wading in pea soup. The bowling alley was nice and cool with a/c and fans. We walked outside to be enveloped by a blanket of suffocating air again. We were wet by the time we arrived at our truck. Thankfully, we either celebrate or console our bowling efforts with a scoop of Braum’s ice cream afterwards. I got the best flavor: chocolate, of course – (my Nutrisystem FLEX snack for the week!)

Oil Paintings I Love – Take 20

Justyna-Tumblr-artdecorationsdesign.com

Snarky Sarcasm – One of My Favorite Things

Rebel Circus via http://www.pinterest.com

Godzilla

This is the back of the Godzilla mailbox decoration we put up on the way to do our errands this morning. He’s one of our favorite ‘characters.’ You can see how I tried to blend in his feet into the mounting piece.

 

We enjoy making these a lot. I’m not sure what we’ll make next, but we always have an eye out for something interesting to tackle. We’re now loving to add some 3-D effect of something else unusual.

Renovation

I just finished cleaning out the aquarium, adding some of the things we used to have in the hummingbird bird bath we built that we finally took down. The hummingbirds – and no one else – seemed to want to take a bath there. The sound of the water was nice, but I was having to clean it out a LOT and it was a big – at least half a day – job.

My fish aren’t unfriendly, but they aren’t good conversationalists. I have no clue if they LIKE the renovation of their tank, or wish I would put it back the way it was. The water is clean now, with a fresh filter cartridge, so they should be happier with the state of life in general, if nothing else.

The only thing they show interest in is their twice-a-day feedings. When they see me coming, the four of them gather in the corner of the tank, wriggling their tails as fast as they can and opening and closing their mouths. I speak to them, but it’s hard to come up with new and different things to say about feeding time.

 

I DID notice them checking out the woman in the bathtub, though, noses downward as if they were sniffing….

Rich in Doggies

My husband and I have long deluded ourselves, thinking we’re smarter than our doggies and that we’re training them to live in our home, behave when meeting someone, etc.

Amber is in the photo above. She is a yellow lab, now 16 months old, weighs 92 lbs, and we’ve been told that she’ll continue her ‘puppy-ish’ ways until she’s at LEAST two years old. We’re working on all the regular commands, plus a few particular to our home, but Amber is very independent and will do almost anything to get her way.

Example: We have taught her to bark at the door when she would like to come in or go out. Amber has ‘learned’ this, but has embellished the lesson to include us. We now respond quickly if she either sits beside us and then says, “BARK!” so loudly that we jump straight up in the air, saying ripe words and moving quickly to let her out. A creative alternative to this is that she sits beside me when I’m on the computer and then puts her nose into my left armpit and then routes around, harder and harder until I laugh, get up and let her out. We are now trained to get up and go to whatever door she has decided to go to. Not only that, but she has taught us to reward her for barking to come in with a cookie. If we’re distracted or try to ignore her – she follows us around and then, when we’re least expecting it, yells “BARK!!”

She knows what time it is and starts running around the living room like a mad thing when it’s time for us to feed her in the evening. She won’t be put off, either, adding routing around, trying to climb up in the chair with us, or the dreaded, “BARK!!!” until the humans do what she wants. She herds us to the kitchen, waiting impatiently as we feed cats in the garage, fish in the tank, and then make food for her and Molly. She DOES go to her eating place and WILL sit until we put the food down and tell her “OKAY.”

 

This is sweet, elderly Molly, a cocker spaniel/schnauzer cross whom we adopted many years ago to cheer up our pit bull. She is now about 13 years old. Her mission in life is to make us laugh or say, “AWWWW!”  She has been a treasured member of our family, and she’s now finally adapting (mostly) to her bull-in-a-china-shop ‘sister’ who regularly runs right over her and considers her a personal chew toy. Without our doing anything, she has picked up on the bark at the door behavior and then demanding a cookie upon entering the house. We have dubbed ourselves ‘doggie doormen,’ not knowing what we did with ourselves before we were letting animals in and out. She growls and yodels to add to the furor surrounding dinner time, thinking she is one fierce doggie.

We are very rich in doggies, and they are DEFINITELY smarter than we are.

When Wood Comes Alive – Take 21

au.pinterest.com

“Dogwood”

“Dogwood” – Karen Margulis – kemstudios.blogspot.com

“Yellow”

“Yellow” – Paul Militaru Photography

Shhh!

http://www.boredpanda.com

The Wicked Witch is Dead

keywordsuggest.org

I just came in gasping and weaving, from getting the garden cleaned up – making a check to make sure I harvested all the onions yesterday – pulling off the demarking strings (most of them snapped the minute I touched them) and re-spraying the bug killer in the boxes again.

The last step will be when I can get my breath back and my temperature down below ‘WAAAAAY – too – hot.’  I’m going to mix up weed killer and spray it on the floor of the garden, and all around. At another time I’ll do the weed eating of what I hope will be dead weeds around everything and then I’ll be ready for fall, hoping that we don’t go directly from lethally hot summer into way-too-cold fall.

We have GOOD air conditioning in our home and in our vehicles, so we can insulate ourselves from it, unless we’re determined to get yard work done.  I’m counting the sessions working in the garden as most of my exercise for the day. Once I’m finished with that, I’ll do my yoga and then head for the showers.

I hope that if it’s hot where you are, you have somewhere to go to give you some relief.

“Looking at Me”

“Looking at Me” – Paul Militaru Photography

Traveling Fun

englishitaliantranslations.wordpress.com