Friday, October 31, 2008

Boo!






Here are the car girls and friends enjoying all the Hallowballoo.

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Life



Today I have the littlest car girl here for a visit.  She is a cutie!  Her and I and Bubba went for a walk out back.  She seemed entranced with her shoes and mostly watched her feet while walking.  She is going to be another artist, I think, as she heads for the pencils and paper as soon as she gets here.  I am not up on development stages but is that normal for a 1 1/2 yr old?

Life never ceases to surprise.  You can never tell what will pop up.  Yesterday, I had a lovely surprise in the form of an email from a nephew I haven't seen nor heard from in so many years, I could not say when.  Ben!  He sent pictures of his family, said hello, and that he would keep in touch.  How nice to have family connections.  I hope he stays in touch, now that we have re-connected.  You will, won't you Ben?  Also, a couple of weeks ago, Adria, connected with me through face book.  We have been playing games there, together.  Whee!

I have found a link I thought was interesting.  A young woman, following some advice from an old person from maybe Africa, started this site to give 29 gifts in 29 days.  This was supposed to help her heal from something.  This intrigues me.  I don't know why, but I have thought about it quite a lot.  Hmmmm...

  


Monday, October 27, 2008

Monday Morning NOTs

I guess I haven't had much going on around here, my happy home.  I think I am starting to settle in to a routine, and that concerns me.  Routines are for the "working class".  I am retired!  I do NOT have to get up at a certain time.  I do NOT have to perform activities based on someone else's timetable.  I do NOT have to eat on an assigned lunch schedule.  I do NOT have to dress.  So, today, Monday, I am NOT doing anything except just exactly what I want to do when I want to do it!  I did finally empty the dishwasher this morning, since the clean dishes in it were washed, I think last Thursday, LOL.  Now, whatever comes next is strictly MY call!.  Yaaa Hooo.  (I think I better listen to my biological clock and go do something NOW.)

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

October Creepy Crawlies

Today, I decided to vacuum under my sofa.  If I had shrunk down to about 2 inches, I would have been in a major environment of creepy crawlies.   I waded through "stuff" I cannot even describe!  Wads, yes wads, of old grey shed hair! From who, I would not try to pin point as we are all grey!  A fruit loop... ?  Toothpicks, beads, pen, chips, a dog bone, a needle, a hairy ball, bottle cap, foody things (I think), a screw, a broken nylon washer, a pile of black looking stuff that I assume is from the metal rubbing together where the washer should have been and lots of stuff that I just did not recognize!  So, my ten minute vacuum job, turned into a major clean up.  I had to shampoo the carpet even though I really wanted to just shove the sofa back into it's usual place and act like I never saw those October creepy crawlies!  LOL  Life is good......

Monday, October 20, 2008

Addiction?

Every morning I get me a cup of tea, sit down and pick up my lap top.  Like this morning.  I listened to the rain falling, sipped my tea, looked out over the valley and the village.  I used to check my email first thing in the morning, while I had tea.  Now, I check my emailS.  Then I check my groups.  Then I check out some blogs.  And, if you are a blog reader, you know one blog leads to another blog leads to another blog and so on.  This can use up lots of time.  So, (or should I say but?) you get addicted.  I have found this to be so especially since getting a laptop.  It is just so handy to grab the laptop and start looking at something.  After a while you look up and zip, all that time is gone, while you were in cyber space.  Well, I am fighting my addiction today...  I am off to do a bit of housework.  I will be back, when I need a break, checking on stuff............

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Class?

Today (Wednesday) I go to a class at the UBATC trying to learn Photoshop Elements program.  I am not very proficient yet.  The teacher seems to be focusing on portrait type photography, like wedding pictures, family pictures, stuff like that.  I want to be able to start with a background photo, one I have taken of landscape or something, then add some other elements to it like web pictures or scanned pictures and words.  So, far, we have not done anything close to that.  I do think, I have a better understanding of some of the tools in the program.  Hope I can remember them later!
Life is very quiet around here at this time.  I am very quiet. LOL
I do spend some time almost everyday, arting.  That is good for me.  I get antsy if I don't do something creative.  
I read everyday too.  I read a book once that said if you write three or more pages of just whatever pops into your mind every morning, you would get rid of all the junk in your brain and you would have more space for important matters.  The problem is, she said it had to be handwritten with a pen or pencil.  Well, how many of us are gonna do that when we have a keyboard??  Not me!


Saturday, October 11, 2008

The Final Results



Here is our little Statue of Liberty

Fall Season

Today, the forecast is for rain turning to snow by this evening.  We have had a few sprinkles this morning.  The mountains are blotted out by dark clouds so I think they are getting snow already.  The furnace has been active all morning.  We had the electric fireplace on while we had our morning visit and cups.  I went out to my garage area studio, but it is too cold to work there.  I am going to have to make the switch back to my indoor room for the cold months very soon, but want to wait to see if Indian Summer will let me stretch the work time out there.  My projects will take a different turn once I have to move inside.  Smaller, more paper oriented, like ATCs etc.  
I have been up and down the ladder in my kitchen the last two or three days, cleaning the light fixtures,  taking my green depression glass down and into the dishwasher, painting the platforms they set on,
putting the glass back up,  and generally rearranging things.  Everything on the kitchen side looks bright and sparkly now.   It was fun to re discover some things I have collected since moving on to our hill.  I had forgotten I had three green chickens, each a different size.  Next week, I will start on the cat collection, I guess.  I know I pared the cats down a few years back.  Perhaps I will again.  How odd it seems that I collected cats for so many years, and now, I don't really care about them.  I always thought cats were so cute.  I really do have some interesting collectible ones but, what does one my age want with them? And, if I didn't have them, what would I put on the beam they set on?  
Today, too, the car girls and I are starting to design some costumes.  The Statue of Liberty is on the table.  We will work on the torch and the crown.  Should be an interesting challenge. LOL 
   

Thursday, October 9, 2008

The Greatest Gift...

The other day I was thinking about how my knowledge and creativity came about.  I thought about my father.  He was for the most part a silent force in his kids life.  But, when I was very small, he fell for a door to door salesman's sale pitch and bought a set of "New Standard Encyclopedias".  I now realize this was because he valued knowledge so much.  He and my mother were children of their time, and only went through possibly an 8th grade education.  Good enough for their generation.  The Encyclopedias were given a place of honor on a shelf in a built in cupboard with doors.  Whenever any member of the family, or visitors had a question, the first thing my father would say is "get the book."  This meant one of us had to go get the encyclopedia dealing with the subject, look up the topic, read aloud for all to hear, whatever it was we were curious about or needed to know for school.  I can not remember not having that resource in our home, along with a dictionary, and the Bible.  All were used as needed to answer whatever questions we had as we grew up.  What a remarkable gift my father gave to me, without me really realizing that he was giving me a gift!  I have used it on a daily basis!  The source of gaining knowledge has changed now to more technology but the concept is the same.  I don't know if I ever thanked him for this...  probably not... wish I could now.

Monday, October 6, 2008

MORE!


I have to figure out what to do with yesterday's harvest of tomatoes!  I canned whole tomatoes, made quarts of tomato juice, we have made spagetti sauce to freeze, we made macaroni and tomatoes, eaten them fresh off the vine, sectioned with onions, sliced with mayonese topping, and now, I have all these tomatoes to do something with again.  Let me see...  I could make salsa, or chili sauce, or more juice, I could dry some but I still have dried ones from last year in the freezer.  We have given some to, well, almost everyone who wants some.  Who knew planting 12 tomato plants would turn into such a dilemma?  LOL  I love fresh tomatoes.  Aren't they beautiful?

Friday, October 3, 2008

Another Strange Visitor

I saw a dog at the corner of my street and the Highway with a long rope dragging from it's collar this morning.  So, being 4 dogs, I stopped and it was friendly and I got it in the car and I brought it home so she would not get run over on that busy road.  She was friendly, and nervous.  Animal control came and took her away.  I am glad she did not get hurt what with dragging around a big, I think, bull riding rope.  She got tangled up with the rope around here several times while we waited for the officer to come get her.  She looked liked she had a mangy tail, I hope Bubba doesn't get it.   She also looked like she had had a litter of puppies not too long ago.  I hope her owner finds her and takes her home and gives her a bath and treats her balding tail!

Yesterday, I had two sweet visitors, one of the car girls and her friend, who walked up the hill. We painted some rubber doll heads, which, they are going to put next to a gravestone in what LuLu calls the graveyard?  Holloween is such a pleasant holiday, right? lol




Thursday, October 2, 2008

Whoops!

Okay, I have tried to figure out how to remove one of the mantis pictures but so far no luck.  
These guys are really fascinating to look at so I guess we will just have double exposure! LOL

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Yellow Mountains



Today, when we look up north towards the mountains we can see they are patched with yellow.  The aspens are showing their fall colors!  Down here, below the mountains, on our hilltop we are having a fall mini resurgence of wild flowers.  The yellow buttercup looking ones are blooming around in our buffalo grass patch.  The blanket flowers are blooming along the back sidewalk.  The huge white primroses are showing up here and there.  Even the sagebrushes are blooming in their unique manner... they have a kazillion tiny berry-looking sprigs in the most lushious (sp?) sage green ever.  I love the sages, I love their smell, how they look.  Our rabbit brushes are also blooming profusely in their golden yellow displays.  There are a few purpley colored flowers here and there too.  The berries on the cedar trees are turning more blueish.  How lucky we are to have such a beautiful and natural place! Besides the flowers, and some birds, we have had some interesting insect visitors lately.  On the screens of the windows of the porch we had several large flat looking beetles hanging out for a week or so.  Then a couple of days ago I got the picture of the mantis!