It’s been rainy here off and on. Sweet, fuzzy Molly came in this morning from an outing with this piece of evergreen stuck in her hair. As you can readily see, one of the things I’ll need to put on my list is scrubbing her in the sink. She will be 13 years old the first part of March.
Amber, aka “Destructo Dog,” was 11 months old yesterday. People tell me that she will continue to grow and STILL act like a puppy (read getting into everything and destroying whatever she finds) until she is 2 years old. Her saving grace is that she’s very affectionate. She got into my husband’s lap in his recliner last night, nuzzling his ear and making him laugh. When she straightened up and looked like she was planning to jump from my husband’s chair to mine, I leaped up and sat on the couch. She waited a split second for the ‘okay’ and jumped up, turned around once after kissing me, and sat with me for a good 10 minutes.
Abby was described as a “Lap Kitty” in the newspaper when she was put up for adoption. A couple found her meowing in a tree and decided to make her a part of their family. Their two Siamese cats disagreed – violently. We brought her home after having to stuff her into our carrier. It took at least a day with me sitting in the back bathroom with her before she warmed up. We took her to the vet to get shots, be checked over, and spayed. We discovered she was pregnant. We had to make the decision to abort the kitties, since we’ve been awash in kittens before and had no interest in being so again. Abby is, indeed a lap kitty, moving from one of us to the other as wonderful places to sit whenever we sit still long enough.
This is our computer helper, Smoke, the newest addition to our cat family. We found her at the vet’s. I went up to her and put my finger on the outside of the cage. She walked right over and tried to nuzzle my finger. I was gone. I dreamed about her, named her in my dreams, couldn’t get her out of my head. We went back and adopted her. My husband remarked that – for a free cat – she sure cost a lot, after we got her shots and got her spayed. She is quite the hunter. I’m trying to convince her that moles, voles, and other ‘oles’ are preferable to birds, but I’m not at all sure she’s convinced. Even though she’s a lot younger, she is the head cat, with Abby deferring to her on whatever she’s decided she wants. She’s also a techno-kitty, loving to sit on the printer, the counter beside my computer screen, the table beside the counter, or in my lap as I type.
And finally, the fish –
I changed from a fish bowl to a larger fish bowl, and then finally to a 5 gallon aquarium. I bought 4 gold fish. One is a dark orange, two are bright orange, and one is basically white with one orange spot. (Guess what HIS name is…) The others don’t have names. They don’t say a lot, but they do respond when you put your finger up to the tank.
I feed them twice a day. When it’s time, I say, “Hi, Guys!) and they all swim to the front corner of the tank, in line vertically, very actively wagging their tails and staying in one place, if that makes any sense. As soon as I put food in, they move from the corner to gulp down the food.
So that is our wonderful animal family. We still miss Bambi, our sweet pit bull, but we picture him chewing on a huge rawhide bone, smiling happily at us around it.
Filed under Amazing Animals, Family
funnyanimalsite.blogspot.com
I wish that I could tell you that exciting things are happening at our house, but it ‘just ain’t happnin’ as Arkansans say.
My husband will probably work in the shop again, working on his welding lathe. He’s had to make almost all the parts, and he’s done a beautiful job. He has the main part of the tool welded together, painted, and on casters with brakes now. He’s having to carefully put the long 2″ in diameter solid tube of metal on the lathe today because it has to be exactly 2″ in diameter, and there are places where it is over that. This means it won’t go inside the 2″ hole in the tool that it has to, so he’ll have to carefully cut off the parts that shouldn’t be there, whittling the piece down to as close as 2″ in diameter as he can get it. He’s heating up the shop now. I’ll take progress pics soon and post them.
I’m making slow progress on my clean-out-the-pantry project.
I have discovered in all the cleaning out/purging/donating/reorganization stuff I’ve done this year, that I try to have one area serve way too many purposes. I’m trying to consolidate and relocate stuff that ‘shouldn’t be there’ more than anything. Hopefully, this will result in my being better able to find things going forward. (An example of this is I had two over the counter meds on the shopping list for this coming Sunday. In going through things yesterday, I found we didn’t need to buy them – we already HAD them!)
Another example of my lack of organization was that I keep buying another package of clothespins, which we use around here for all sorts of things other than hanging laundry. I had them ALL OVER different parts of the non-food side of the pantry. I’ll probably never need to buy another one, along with good bottles of shampoo…
I went through both of these bins, throwing away expired meds for both humans and animals and reorganizing the rest and labeling them.
At least you can see that some of the shelves are cleaned out. I’m heading back in there in a few minutes to continue my slow, but steady work.
I hope that YOUR day is more exciting than ours….
amazinganimalstories.com
I did three sessions on my cleaning out the pantry project. So far, it looks worse.
I’ve thrown away a bunch of stuff, started gathering stuff to donate, and have reorganized some things in bins, but there is ‘stuff’ still on the dining area table and unless you know where to look, you wouldn’t know anything had been done in there. WHEW!
One good thing – I certainly got my exercise today.
This is one of those projects where it only looks better when an area is completely redone. That won’t come for at least another day or so. I’m concentrating on the non-food part of the pantry first. There is a LOT to go through, so I may not be posting any pics soon – at LEAST until I get the non-food part cleaned and reorganized.
I’m trying to keep the kitchen so we can still cook, make hot drinks, feed animals, etc., with an area clear for doing each activity. It seems impossible right now, but little by little, I’ll get it done.
Quora – (sorry, I can’t make out the signature – maybe Mazheri?)
Filed under Creativity, drawings
“Tower-of-the-Church-in-Ialomicioarei-Cave” – Paul Militaru Photography
Filed under Paul Militaru Photography
When we built this house 30+ years ago, we wanted to be SURE we had two things: plenty of closet space and a big pantry. We have walk-in closets in all the bedrooms plus the front hall closet and cleaning closet you visited in other recent purge projects. We have a room off the kitchen for the pantry. Not just a few nice shelves, but an entire room. Ahhhh! I’ve cleaned this out before, but it was before we changed to a low carb lifestyle. I’ve also stashed things in here because we had the room. Now, of course, like so many of my other purge projects, it is overflowing with goodies.
As you can see, we have heavy shelving that goes all the way around the room and a fridge in-between. We have ceiling-to-floor ‘stuff’ that has gotten totally out of hand.
My plan is to get rid of most of the things we’re not supposed to be eating now – donating it to one of the various food pantries in Greenwood, and there are some things I can donate to the Veterans Thrift Store. I want to organize the food that is left so I can find things more easily. I’ll move some of the things in here elsewhere and I’ll throw out a lot of stuff.
I also have small appliances, like a toaster, an instant pot, etc., that I want to be able to get easily off the shelf.
This will be a several-day project. I think I’ll start removing the obvious things that shouldn’t be here first. I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed right now, but I’ll just do a session at a time and just keep on keepin’ on.
I’ve just finished re-reading all the books by Robert B. Parker – there are 40+ books in the Spenser series, plus the Sunny Randall series, the Jesse Stone series, a couple of books for youth, and then the “western” series of 3 books. I’ve had a wonderful time immersing myself in his world for the past few weeks and now – I have to admit – I’m feeling a bit bereft. I love his world, no matter the series or characters.
I’m reading an interesting book now called, “The Residence – Inside the Private World of the White House “- covering the Kennedys through the Obamas through the memories of the huge staff that not only works there, but feel an intense loyalty to whomever is living there, as well as the house itself, and all it stands for. The book is by Kate Andersen Brower.
The next thing I’m going to dive into is a re-reading of all of the Lee Child books in the “Jack Reacher ” series. He has created a fascinating, smart character confronting complex issues.
My husband and I laughed when the first movie made from the series starred Tom Cruise. Jack Reacher is supposed to be 6’4″ and lanky, kind of scruffy looking. And then there’s Tom Cruise. I have to admit that once we got over the appearance of the character we had in our heads, Tom Cruise did a good job of playing him in the movie.
I’m looking forward to re-reading the Lee Child books. It has been several years, and he has one that we just bought in paperback to add to the list!
Filed under Favorite Authors & Books, Hobbies, Reading is FUNdamental
I let Amber and Molly in this morning and discovered a trail of drinking water bottles and labels all over the front yard. Amber had only been able to open one of them and get the label off another, but I cleaned up the yard and put the rest of the bottles that were in the open plastic wrapping into the garage fridge.
I talked to my husband about our closing the garage door to discourage her from rummaging around in there, but he rightly pointed out that she’ll go through the cat door when the door is closed…
Our front yard has become ‘discovery land’ since we adopted Amber last May. So far, I’ve gone out to find –
I THINK that’s the list so far. She’s very inventive and seems to be tireless in her efforts to collect things in the front yard. If she continues, my cleaning up after her may be the only form of exercise I need!
Filed under Amazing Animals, Challenges, Family
saga
I’ve been a slug today. I guess I wore myself out yesterday, feeling 110+ years old when I woke up today, joints creaking, muscles aching. We did errands, but that was it for the day. I had a nice nap under my throw in my recliner this afternoon.
One thing I forgot to tell you that I did yesterday was finish the repainting of the Jack-O-Lantern Pumpkin mailbox decoration for October.
I don’t think he’ll glow in the dark, but he’s the very brightest orange I could find, and I think he’ll light up well when headlights shine on him.
He looked okay on the mailbox last October, but I was hoping for a Day-Glo type look, if not glowing in the dark. I used a paint called, Neon Orange. The only actual glow-in-the-dark paint I could find was in a spray can, which I couldn’t use on the piece.
This is the front.
And this is the back. We hung him up on the proper hook in the shop, waiting for next October.
Next, I’ll be doing a refurbishing on our ‘box turtle’ who has an eye falling off and paint pealing off his ‘shell.’
We’re on the edge of the map as to whether we’ll get a wintry mix this evening into tomorrow morning. We’re thankful to have a warm, dry home with our animals close around us.
I hope you’ve had a happy day, too.
Filed under Lewis Art, Lewis Mailbox Decorations, Lewis projects, metal art
“Coming on to pitch is Mike Moore, who is six-foot-one and 212 years old.”
– Herb Score, Sportscaster
“We’re going to move left and right at the same time.”
– Jerry Brown, Governor of California
“I have a God-given talent. I got it from my dad.”
– Julian Wakefield, Missouri basketball player
“He’s a guy who gets up at six o’clock in the morning regardless of what time it is.”
– Lou Duva, veteran boxing trainer, on the Spartan training regime of heavyweight Andrew Golota.
“The largest crowd ever in the state of Las Vegas.”
– Mark Jones, TV Broadcaster
Filed under Favorite Quotes, Funny Signs - Humor
Doug Landis-Izismile.com
Hermann Ittermann-Germany
Filed under Creativity, drawings
“Portrait of a Lady” – Paul Militaru Photography
Filed under Paul Militaru Photography
funnypicture.org
You KNOW I’m weird – who else do you know who made ‘throwing-out-an-extra-bag-of-trash-each-week’ a New Year’s Resolution? I also made resolutions to make donations each month to our local library in Greenwood for their fundraising sales and to the Veterans Thrift Store in Fort Smith because we have too much ‘stuff’ around here and the people running the store are good people who take pride in a job well done.
Under the category
taolife.com
I’m trying to go through our 30+-year-old home room by room, closet by closet, shelf by shelf – as my word for this year is ‘LESS.’ As I purge (either donating things that are still good or throwing away things that should have been discarded long ago, and then cleaning and reorganizing what is left, I feel better. Somehow I feel I’m taking control of my life. I’m keeping everything we really use or need, plus everything that gives me pleasure, but the rest is going. I’m beginning to see a difference! :0) (There will always be the funny thing where I can see all the things we could get rid of that are my husband’s – and vice versa – but that’s the subject for another day.)
I also want for there to be less of ME. To this end I’ve redoubled my efforts to find really good low carb recipes so that both my husband and I will lose much of the lard and feel as good as possible. So far I’ve lost 20 lbs and 15 inches. We have our next quarterly appointment with our primary doctor May 2nd. I would like for both of us to have lost more poundage and for our blood tests at that time to show good improvement.
So far, I’m hanging in….
Filed under Acting Like a Grownup, Attitude, Challenges, Encouragement
http://www.belcastroagency.com via books rock my world via cathy ruggiero
Filed under Hobbies, Reading is FUNdamental
Freude
We had a really productive day! We
Tonight we’re bowling with good friends, catching up with what’s been happening since last week, and enjoying ice cream.
A great day!
mycoolpix.com
photorealisticpencilsketches-MakeitCG.com
Filed under Creativity, drawings
“The streets are safe in Philadelphia. It’s only the people who make them unsafe.”
– Frank Rizzo, ex-police chief and mayor of Philadelphia.
“It is white.”
– George W. Bush, when asked what the White house was like by a student in East London
“If it weren’t for electricity we’d all be watching television by candlelight.”
– George Gobel
“I cannot tell you how grateful I am — I am filled with humidity.”
– Gib Lewis, speaker of the Texas House
“Does the album have any songs you like that aren’t on it?
– Harry News, music reviewer
Filed under Favorite Quotes, Funny Signs - Humor
Karly, of BunsInMyOven.com has provided us with a really goood breakfast casserole. Since I’m too sleepy and cranky to do much cooking in the morning and love breakfast for dinner, anyway, I made it for us a couple of nights ago. It’s delicious, got a thumb’s up from my husband, and will be put in our ‘over-and-over-again’ rotation. If you were having guests for breakfast, you could also make it ahead and take it from refrigerator to oven. My own personal note would be that it would be really good with spinach added or cut up broccoli.
________________
“Make Ahead Breakfast Casserole – Karly – BunsInMyOven.com
Low Carb Breakfast Casserole
Prep Time 20 minutes Cook Time 35 minutes Total Time 55 mins
Serves 12 adjust servings
This low carb breakfast casserole is hearty and filling, because it’s packed full of protein from the sausage, bacon, and eggs. Add in any vegetables or meat you like!
Ingredients
1 pound sausage
1 pound bacon
1 dozen eggs
1/2 cup milk
2 cups grated cheddar
1/2 sweet onion, diced
1 bell pepper, diced
1 tablespoon Frank’s red hot
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
Instructions
Brown the sausage in a large skillet, crumbling as it cooks. Drain grease and set aside.
Dice the bacon into bite-sized chunks and cook in a large skillet, stirring often, until crisp. Drain the grease and set aside.
Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees. Spray a 9×13 baking dish with non-stick spray.
Crack the eggs into a large mixing bowl and add the milk. Whisk together until well combined.
Stir in the sausage, bacon, cheddar, onion, pepper, hot sauce, salt, and pepper. Stir until well combined.
Pour the mixture into the prepared baking dish and bake for 35-40 minutes or until eggs are set and edges are golden brown.
Let cool 5 minutes before slicing and serving.
Recipe Notes
To keep this a bit lower in carbs, swap in 1/4 cup of heavy cream + 1/4 cup of water for the milk. Serve with a dollop of sour cream and sprinkle with chives, as desired.
Disclaimer: The nutrition information presented below is not guaranteed to be accurate.
Serving Size 1 square
Amount Per Serving As Served
Calories 418 cal Calories from fat 317
% Daily Value
Total Fat 35g
Saturated Fat 13g
Cholesterol 232mg
Sodium 718mg
Carbohydrate 4g
Dietary Fiber 0g
Sugars 3g
Protein 21g
Filed under Cooking/Recipes/Low Carb Lifestyle, DIET!, Healthy Eating
One of a kind, hand-painted “Valentine Candy” basket.
“Valentine Candy” is a one-of-a-kind hand painted wooden basket by Linda Lewis. The oval basket is 11″ long x 9.5″ wide x 7 ” tall. (The basket is about 13.5″ tall with the handle extended straight up.) The dimensions of the inner basket at the base are approximately 8″ x 6″.
The “squares” created by the weaving are painted either a rich red or with a clear glitter paint. Then 3-dimensional glitter paint is used to draw either red or silver hearts in the squares. Sayings from the traditional heart candy treats are printed on the larger squares all around the basket. Glitter hearts decorate the handle of the basket as well.
Give this to the one you love as is, or fill it with goodies. Either way, she’ll remember your love long after Valentine’s Day is over!
$29.99 plus free shipping to the contiguous United States.
Please order right away to be sure it will be delivered before Valentine’s Day.
Filed under holidays
Amber is shedding like it’s spring around here. I’m vacuuming EVERY day now – an un-heard-of thing for me – and it’s not enough. We STILL have piles of white dog hair sailing around in the breezes all over everything. UGH.
We got out the “FURminator deShedding Tool for Dogs” today ( I call it the DE-furminator) and it took both of us to use it on her – one to hold her collar after we got her to sit on the proper side, and the other to use the tool, and both of us trying to corral the hair as it came off. We spent about 10 minutes today, getting a large pile of white dog hair off, but it seems to be something to which you can devote your life. There is always more! She’s a hair growing machine. We’re now thinking about gathering it up and making sweaters out of it – something we can sell on the Internet….
We’ve decided that we’ll do more every time we both have a minute and can gang up on her and see if we can get ahead of this. I refuse to vacuum more than once a day!
Filed under Amazing Animals, Family
image-joke
And my FAVORITE –
1027kord.com
Creativity – ingenuity – entrepreneurial attitude! :0)
Filed under Creativity, snow people
My husband and I are not football people. We catch bits and pieces of games now and then, but mostly because we want to see “60 Minutes” which is often delayed by football games. We almost always watch the Superbowl, though, because we figure it’s THE game of the season – the best vs the best. I’m glad we watch it by ourselves in our own home because I would probably be killed otherwise. I like a good, hard-fought, close game when you don’t know who the winner will be until the last seconds. Therefore, I keep switching sides, rooting for whoever is the underdog at the moment. I know that people who are really fans of particular teams would happily squash me like a bug because they found me absolutely so annoying they couldn’t stand it.
I also love to watch the commercials during the Superbowl, knowing that advertising agencies really worked hard to come up with the most entertaining or special commercials they could create, hoping that people will play them over and over, talk about them and the products – as they should, in that Superbowl commercials cost a gazillion dollars or so for 30 seconds now.
I love all the half time ceremonies and performances, whether we particularly like the performers or not. The ‘show’ is usually over the top. My husband and I dropped our teeth when we heard Lady GaGa sing the national anthem awhile back. My husband taped it so he can hear it again and again on his computer. He cries it’s so beautiful.
We’re breaking our low carb diet for dinner today – enjoying a big bowl of frito chili pie – a long favorite comfort food we almost never have anymore. We’ll have it all ready – the chili in a huge bowl ready to be nuked back to temperature in the microwave, the onions cut up, the shredded cheese ready to sprinkle, the bowls and spoons out. We’ll leap up at some point of the game and put it all together quickly and gorge ourselves on a true low-carb no-no. Ahhhhhh!
I hope the game today is really the best of the best – a nail-biter to the closing seconds.
Filed under Favorite Things
I finished the purging and reorganization of the guest room closet this afternoon. I have 8 large leaf bags to take to the Veterans Thrift Store on Monday.
Other than my out-of-season clothes and our luggage, the only other things are spare sheets for the bed, a spare comforter and pillows for the bed, a velour blanket. I tried to leave a big space for hang up things – long and short, for our guests, plus hangers, plus lots of shelf space.
I cleaned all the shelves, rods and carpet, so everything is nice and clean and much better organized now.
This is the guest room book shelf I went through the other day.
The only thing left having to do with the guest room is the guest room bathroom. Maybe that’ll be my project for Monday. I’ll list the stuff for the Monday donation tomorrow. Right now, I’ve earned a nice cup of coffee and the chance to put my feet up for awhile. :0)
I finished the front side of the Jack-O-Lantern mailbox decoration. As soon as it dries, I’ll turn it over and work on brightening up the back.
This is a “box turtle” we made from metal scraps. As you can see, being outside in the weather has taken its toll on the poor guy. He’ll be my next project.
The top of his ‘shell’ has peeled off in several places.
His face looks like he was in a fight and lost.
Nino Chaketadze-Zen to Zany via Cathy Ruggiero
Filed under Attitude, Dreams, Encouragement, Favorite Quotes
creativeartworksblog 