“Some people say that cats are sneaky, evil, and cruel. True, and they have many other fine qualities as well.” – Missy Dizick
“The trouble with a kitten is that it eventually beomes a cat.” – Ogden Nash
“I believe cats to be spirits come to earth. A cat, I am sure, could walk on a cloud without coming through.” – Jules Verne
“People with insufficient personalities are fond of cats. These people adore being ignored.” – Henry Morgan
Filed under Amazing Animals
It looks like today will be another perfect day. We had one yesterday, too – sunny and 80 – and I’m not taking a minute of these for granted.
We leave in a bit more than an hour for Lunch Bunch. Today I’m taking gallon bags of spinach and lettuce from our garden to my friends. I absolutely love it when we have enough to be able to share with people who mean so much to me.
I’m hoping that one of my friends will have pictures of her new kitchen floor to share. She had a pipe burst during the last winter storm and it completely ruined her floor. Apparently a LOT of people had damage because she had to wait a long time for someone to be able to build a new one for her. I talked to her on the phone, though, and she said she was THRILLED with it.
I have some pics of our new carpet and new porch floor to share with my friends. It will be a LONG time before I get up to walk anywhere on the first floor of our house and fail to smile ear to ear. It’s such a pleasure to have things looking good. We’ve been opening our front and back doors to enjoy the weather in the afternoons. I can also see our new porch floor when we do that. And the carpet FEELS so good when you walk on it. :0)
Yesterday when we were going to get our mail and make a quick run to the grocery store, we couldn’t get our garage door to stay closed. It kept going down, then ‘bouncing’ off the bottom and going up again. Apparently the last big storm we had recently blew its mind. We ended up getting out the paperwork and reprogramming the remote that lives in the truck and the manual opener that lives outside the garage. Now it seems to be working fine.
Yesterday’s project bundle was threefold: 1) three loads of laundry, 2) put new sheets on our bed and change out the electric blanket for a summer velour one, and 3) change my clothes in my closet, putting winter stuff in the guest room closet and bringing summer stuff into my bedroom closet. I got most all of this accomplished yesterday. Today I’ll finish organizing my closet today, plus I’m promising myself to actually go through my stuff carefully, looking for things to donate.
I will also check my garden to see if I need to start the automatic watering again. We’ve been getting a lot of rain, so I turned the system off. We’re supposed to get more rain tomorrow night into Sunday…
We splurged last night, eating hot dogs and chips, with ice cream and fresh cut up strawberries for dessert. It’s been about a year since we did that last, so it tasted like Heaven. :0)
I hope that your Friday is wonderful. Enjoy every minute!
Filed under sculpture
“I got rid of my husband. The cat was allergic.” ~ Anonymous
stranamasterov.ru
“Some people say that cats are sneaky, evil, and cruel. True, and they have many other fine qualities as well.”
~ Missy Dizick
“As anyone who has ever been around a cat for any length of time well knows, cats have enormous patience with the limitations of the human kind.” ~ Cleveland Amory
Cats always seem so very wise, when staring with their half-closed eyes. Can they be thinking, “I’ll be nice, and maybe she will feed me twice?” ~ Bette Midler
Filed under Amazing Animals, Favorite Quotes
Filed under Driftwood Art, When Wood Comes Alive
My appetite won’t quit. I’m an emotional eater, and the stress level has remained pretty high around here, so I guess I can use that as an excuse.
I also have another excuse (see how creative I am?) – my husband has been working in our shop several afternoons lately, and I somehow convince myself that eating doesn’t count if he is not here to see it. Yeah. I know. Pathetic.
I have talked to myself – quite a lot during the pandemic – and I am TRYING to get back on track in my efforts to lose the lard.
One day at a time. I will eat lunch around noon and then take one green tea extract capsule. I will start drinking the bottles of water I’m supposed to be drinking – rather than coffee – and I will try to stay busy during the afternoon (when I’m most apt to indulge).
Filed under DIET!
Filed under Funny Signs - Humor, punny
These are critters made with fabric by Bryony Jennings, myowlbarn.com
Filed under Embroidery/Sewing Art
I lucked out and the storm last night did not clobber my veggies.
2nd tomato planter
Filed under Art From Found Things
I melted into a puddle when I saw this puppy. I couldn’t resist giving him whatever he wanted. Those eyes. :0)
We had lots of severe weather last night. It was all around us, but mostly went just north of us, with tornadoes, really high gusty winds, hail, lightning, heavy rain, flooding, and flying hairballs. Lots of people lost power, had damage, etc. A semi was blown onto its side on one of the main highways through Fort Smith. Trees were down, some on homes, and more. Several of the public schools in our area of Arkansas went back to Zoom learning due to damage and lack of power. I don’t think any lives were lost.
We lucked out. We walked around checking our roof and yard. I checked my veggie plants. We had some leaves and branches in the yard, but just little stuff.
We did our errands this morning, taking our trash down to the bottom of our driveway (650 feet steeply down to the street in front of our home). No damage on the driveway. We didn’t notice any damage in Greenwood as we did our errands.
We are home now, hoping for a quiet day. I finished getting things back in place yesterday after our new carpet and porch flooring project. I’m determined to keep getting rid of STUFF. I’m trying to get into a ruthless state of mind. Hopefully I can make some significant progress – AFTER I rest from moving all the stuff OUT and then back IN to our office, living room, foyer, and porch!
I hope that you are safe and well, enjoying a quiet Tuesday.
Today’s spinach harvest is the best I have ever had. I am really amazed hat how large and healthy the leaves are! Some of the leaves are 8 inches long!
I could have harvested a lot more today. I’m HOPING that the storm tonight doesn’t batter my sweet plants. I have a gallon bag of spinach and a gallon bag of lettuce that we’ll give to our hairdresser when my husband gets a haircut tomorrow. Meanwhile, we will have a huge chef salad for dinner tonight. :0)
We’re due for possible severe storms this evening, so I went out to get some pictures, just in case, so I could share them with you.
This sweet bunch of flowers tries to bloom each year. Usually, we have a bad storm just at the time these need a bit of protection. I try to get a picture or two, because they don’t usually make it through the storm.
It raises my spirits to walk around the yard, seeing HOPE in the planters.
Filed under Gardening, Mother Nature, Seasons
Filed under Art From Found Things
“Don’t accept your dog’s admiration as conclusive evidence that you are wonderful.” ~ Ann Landers
“Properly trained, a Man can be Dog’s best friend.” ~ Corey Ford
“Anybody who doesn’t know what soap tastes like never washed a dog.” ~ Franklin P. Jones
“The most affectionate creature in the world is a wet dog.” ~ Ambrose Bierce
Filed under Amazing Animals, Favorite Quotes
I’m waiting for my coffee to kick in. It’s overcast and rainy-looking. Severe storms are forecast for this evening, so I’ll need to get out to my garden and do a second harvest in case we get the hail they say we might.
I’m also going to try to finish getting things put back where they belong after our new carpet and flooring project. Even though I’m sleepy, I’m smiling every time I see the carpet and walk on it. It’s nice. And new, And clean. I also love the way the porch floor looks like weathered wood. I have my side of our entertainment center in the living room to straighten out and then things will be done. Hooray!
The garden was looking strong and healthy the last time I checked. I’ll try to share some pictures with you. I have all appendages crossed the the storms this evening won’t break the plants. One year we had bad hail that battered things so much I had to cut everything WAY back. Then the weather turned really warm and the early spring plants gave up the ghost.
If you’re feeling sleepy too, I hope we can both wake up and enjoy the day.
I’m getting ready to do some serious relaxing.
I finally finished getting our office back together after the carpet installation. I went through everything, trying to make it easy to find things. My husband will let me know if I was successful the next time he wants a new highlighter or something. Fingers crossed.
This is the main area in question. If he wants dividers for a notebook or tabs to go inside them, or whatever. I’m hoping he can simply go look for a couple of seconds and see that all the stuff for notebooks, dividers, and files are together on one shelf. Same for pens, pencils, tape of all kinds. etc. We’ll see. You can see that Amber is worn out after helping me organize.
My desk is newly cleaned.
These are things listed on Amazon – used books, and then my Amazon Handmade stuff.
This is the way the office looks as you look in from the foyer.
I absolutely LOVE the way that Szilajka Erzsebet uses mixed media for her stone ‘stories.’ Not only does she show great creativity and skill in telling a story with her stone arrangements, making me react emotionally to each one, but she also makes them look beautiful with the background painting. she has also used cardboard (I think) for the books here. I just can’t say enough about her artistry and talent. I love this one, that I call, “The Reading Tree.”
I am in the middle of a new series by Nora Roberts. called, “Chronicles of the One.” It starts with “Year One.” I’m in the middle of the 2nd book in the series, “Blood and Bone.” I have purchased the third book, “Rise of the Magicks.”
As with all of Nora Roberts’ books, I’m having trouble putting her work down and getting anything else done. :0) I love her strong female characters. She surrounds them with ‘real’ people you want to know. She has created a rich world, ripe with challenges, making you root for her success.
Our new carpet and porch vinyl installation was finished up by Friday mid afternoon. Aside from walking around smiling, we’ve been trying to get things put back where they belong. We had to empty out all the furniture, filing cabinets, etc. to do the install, and all that STUFF had to go SOMEWHERE. That ended up being EVERYWHERE – living room entertainment shelves, dining area floor, garage, my art room and the guest room upstairs, etc.
Friday I concentrated on making sure that we could make our way around the house without falling over anything – clear paths, places to sit down, place to eat, etc. My husband very kindly got my computer working again so I could work on getting over my computer withdrawal. :0) I also brought the drawers to my desk down from the guest room upstairs. There are 15 drawers in my old style roll top desk, so I made a lot of trips up and down stairs – good exercise, but a bit hard on this old woman.
Yesterday we moved all the files back into the office. We have two 4-drawers file cabinets and one 2-drawer cabinet. We got most of them back in. I’m working on one drawer today that was filled with OTHER STUFF – trying to go through it and get it better organized, and give away or throw away things.
Today I’m also concentrating on getting our supplies shelves fixed. Right now, the entertainment shelves in the living room are jam-packed with things from the office. I’m going to try to go slowly here, again trying to get rid of some things, but mainly to organize them so that my husband can find things. He has a harder time as the years pass, so I’m trying to look through things with an eye to where would be the easiest, most straight-forward place to store whatever supply it is – pens, rubber bands, tape, staples, etc. so he can walk up to the shelves and pick it out right away – or at least, that’s the plan. I’ll take my time.
We’re supposed to get rain today with more tomorrow, so yesterday I also took the time to check on my garden a bit. I planted some elephant ear bulbs I received in the mail. I may harvest a bit from the veggie garden this afternoon in case the weather people are correct. That will give me some good breaks from the reorganization of the office.
Have a great Sunday!
And today we welcome Mal, Humphrey the emu, and May, 2021.
The fact that all of these gorgeous Australian firefighters are young enough to be my sons doesn’t diminish my ability to appreciate the ‘view’ in the least as I help them in their fund-raising efforts by buying their calendars each year. :0)
I hope that things will get better and better as we start a new month.
I just walked out to my raised bed, square foot garden to see if the recent storms pounded my sweet veggies into the ground. (We had bad storms particularly Wednesday evening with high winds, lots of close lightning that had me cringing at times with the loud bangs, and some hail. Thankfully, all seems to have come through fine. Pictures to follow, and I will do my second harvest.
Have a happy May Day!
After we moved things off the floors and emptied all of the furniture in our foyer, home office, living room, and porch so it could be moved, the wonderful installers of Carpet Cabin in Fort Smith, Doug and Terry, arrived to install new carpeting and porch flooring.
You will never meet two nicer, hard-working, caring men. They were really great to work with. They did a beautiful job for us. They were here for one and a half days.
Now we are putting all the ‘stuff’ back where it belongs. It’s EVERYWHERE – my art room and the guest room upstairs, the shelves in the living room, the floor in the dining area. I’m hoping to have most of the stuff back in place by the end of the weekend.
To say we’re happy is a vast understatement. I was going for a BLEND between what we have. We still have old carpeting on our stairway, but the two carpets look fine together. The new one is different enough that we have a beautiful contrast to our eyes. We chose a really thick carpet, so it feels good under our feet.
I love the flooring on the porch. The vinyl looks like wood and it nice, clean, and FLAT – where the old vinyl had been eroded by the sun and rain. It had ripples and was almost without pattern any more. I’m delighted with the new look.
I will be trying to keep moving things, slowly and steadily, back to where they belong. Yesterday I moved all 15 drawers from upstairs in the guest room back to the office.
I feel very lucky that we were able to have this work done. It almost feels as if we have a new home. :0)
