Babe Ruth
Barksdale
Boom Boom
Butterfinger
Dumpling
Ernie Ferone
Sunday 4-2-2023
I’m trying to ‘gird my loins’ to help my husband change the tires on our truck today. We need to get the snow tires off and the regular tires on, aired up, etc.
When we first bought our truck, we bought an extra set of wheels so that we could have snow tires mounted on them. We store them in the back of the shop, along with the lug nuts that go with them, so that we are able to change to snow tires reasonably quickly, if needed.
This was in 2006, so that was awhile back when we weren’t as older-than-dirt as we are now, and at our mature age, 17 years makes a big difference.
I tried to convince my husband that I could take the truck, with the regular tires and lug nuts in the back, to the tire place and get this done tomorrow. I discovered that this is apparently now a thing of pride – that we are independent, capable, and NOT older than dirt – despite appearances.
So, we will try to get this done today.
Wish us luck?
Filed under Challenges, Changes
Ready!
I just came in from prepping the raised bed square foot garden for spring planting. My husband came out with a roll of wire and cutters, so we replaced the wires that were broken that criss-cross over the planter boxes, marking the ‘squares’ for planting. The irrigation system is ready to turn on and I’ll install the timer soon.
We’ll plan to go to town Monday to see what is available for planting. I would do it tomorrow, but my husband wants for us to change the snow tires on the truck for its regular ones tomorrow.
The weed barrier cloths cut to fit and held down in the corners with bricks are a definite success. They didn’t blow off. There was nothing to hold water, so we didn’t have to worry about “pools” in the center of each box. Nothing rotted or degraded. In fact, I folded up the cloths and put them in the shop so I can use them at the end of the season to winter over for next time.
All I needed to do today was use the small ‘fork’ to go back and forth over the surface of each planter, picking out the tufts of weeds. They were right at the surface, not “dug in. ” It was quick and easy. HOORAY! :0)
Filed under Gardening, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds
Nancy Winn Paper Art
Nancy Winn upcycles all kinds of paper, plastic, wire, etc. to create wonderful creatures that will grab your heart. Her great sense of humor is shown in some of the names of her creations. :0)
Blaze
Eudora
Ewephoria-Yolanda-Jocelyn
Fills the Bill
Frappacino
Filed under Nancy Winn Paper Mache' Art, paper art, paper mache
More Denise Fiedler
Filed under Denise Fiedler Collage, paper art
April Fool’s Day 2023
Hindustan Times
I’m feeling very lucky (NO foolin’) to have again dodged bad weather intact, as far as I know. So many people have been suffering lately and I can only hope things finally tame down and people can start to enjoy our brand new spring.
As soon as it gets a bit warmer here, I’m planning to head out to the garden. Because of the wonky weather and my general laziness, I kept delaying getting the garden boxes ready for planting. I’m hoping to see what plants are available in town on Monday.
My brain is starting to turn over some ideas to try in my art room. I’ll try to make some time to enjoy up there, too, this weekend.
At this time each year I remember a story my mom told me. My dad proposed to her in 1944. Having always had an irrepressible sense of humor, he wanted to get married on April Fool’s Day, thinking it would be a hoot. My mom, who appreciated MOST of his humor, made him delay the marriage until the 3rd of April, saying, “I’m not foolin'”
Women’s Health
A shout-out to Melissa – who was due to get SNOW last night. I’m trying to send a calm spring your way. :0)
I hope that you have a wonderful day today, safe and sound, warm and dry.
Filed under Thoughts on a ________
Denise Fiedler Pet Portraits
Filed under Denise Fiedler Collage, paper art
Lunch Bunch?
Forbes
It looks pretty ominous outside right now. We’re supposed to have thunderstorms this morning.
DIY Value Picture
We’re supposed to go to Lunch Bunch in about an hour and a half. I haven’t heard from anyone, so that USED to mean we were all planning to come. Since Kay and Linda aren’t good about carrying their phones, it’s like throwing a bottle in the ocean to reach them. I can leave a voice mail on Kay’s phone, but she says she doesn’t get it. The voice mail isn’t set up on Linda’s. I can’t text either of them. So we’re down to smoke signals. :0)
Happily, my husband’s attitude is that we can go anyway, even if we’re ‘stood up’ by the others, eat our lunch, and then run errands or come back home, so that’s what we’ll do.
We aren’t under imminent warnings at the moment, so I’ll just keep an eye on things and we’ll make our decision later.
Stay safe and dry if you can today.
Filed under Friendship
Poor Amber
Quite awhile back we bought a blue spotted pig for Amber. It “oinked” appropriately when squeezed (or bitten) and it was pleasantly fat, made of some type of rubber. We’ve bought scores of toys for Amber in the past 6 years, most of which last 30 seconds or less. Balls get popped, heads are chewed off, squeakers removed, the ‘toy’ becoming trash almost before the tags are off.
The blue pig was different. She loved it, of course, and attacked it with her usual enthusiasm. She would grab it, running around the living room, office, and foyer, biting it to make it squeak, shaking her head to break its neck, bringing it to us over and over to play tug of war (though she cheats, putting her whole body into it, then letting up just a little to see if we’ll relax and then ripping it out of our hands), retrieving it when thrown (though MANY times she doesn’t actually bring it to us and relinquish it, preferring to TEASE us with it, running away again.) It is her favorite.
She has been delighting when the TV is turned off for the night, bringing the pig, and a whole host of other toys that we keep in a basket on the floor beside her bed, to strew them all over the living room floor before she’s finished. She’s great at getting them out and playing with them and us, but she’s not at ALL good about putting the toys back in the basket.
This all came to an end a couple of nights ago when during the tug of war, the pig’s head was partially ripped off the rest of the body. Since Amber immediately started ripping the stuffing out and leaving it all over the floor, I declared “game over” and took the rest of the stuffing out and threw it away. Amber is still getting the pig out of the basket, but it’s not fat anymore (hey – maybe THAT’S the way I can get rid of some of my lard – have someone rip out my ‘stuffing’!) , and it doesn’t squeak anymore.
She is really upset, so I went online to Walmart’s website and searched. Happily, they are still offering these for sale, so I ordered two of them! I can’t wait to see how she reacts when she sees she has a new friend. :0)
Filed under Family
Bleary Thursday 3-30-2023
I went to bed sleepy last night, but lay there with my eyes closed instead of actually falling asleep. Couldn’t turn my brain off. I wish I could tell you I was bothered with productive thoughts but….
I was still doing that, intermittently dozing, I guess, at around 3am, when my husband started talking. I sat up and leaned over so I could hear him. He was talking about “Pointy scissors poking him.” When I asked him if it was happening NOW and where he was hurting, he was quiet for a minute and then said “no,” and mumbled. I realized he was talking in his sleep.
I tried to sleep again, but couldn’t, so I ended up downstairs reading until around 4:30. I was just dozing off around 5am when he started talking to me again. I determined he didn’t have anything of note to say this time, either, and I have to tell you I said pretty harshly for him to be quiet.
The next thing I knew my alarm was going off. He was downstairs asleep in his chair with a towel on his head. I didn’t feel bad about making a lot of noise in the kitchen. He remembered talking to me, but didn’t remember what he said. He told me he had finally stopped reading about 2am and came up to bed. I don’t know when he got up and came downstairs this morning.
This is one of the many ‘perks’ we have discovered as we age. I have to leave for a haircut this morning in a few minutes, but Michael will be kind if I fall asleep while he’s trying to work a miracle on me. I look like a dandelion gone to seed right now.
It’s a very good thing I don’t have a job now that requires an excess of alertness…
Filed under Thoughts on a ________
Premiere Pebble Artist
Filed under Erzsebet Szilajka, Stone/Pebble Art
Spelling
The mission to quit stuffing my face continues, some days more successful than others, trying to watch my portions really carefully.
I did an experiment a couple of nights ago. I started to bake some chicken breasts and discovered that the seasoning/coating I thought I had in the pantry wasn’t there. I didn’t want to just use flour, but I wanted to use something that would hold the juices in and give the breasts a bit of flavor, too. I did have some seasoning I use for pork chops. I went ahead and used that and my husband raved. :0) I had cooked two chicken breasts, cutting them in half lengthwise and serving each of us 1/2 breast, plus veggies for our dinner.
I used one of the remaining half-breasts for dinner last night. I cut it up and added chopped onion and chopped mushrooms, plus some cream of chicken/mushroom soup. I served this over rice and my husband complimented the dinner – twice.
I’ll cut up the remaining one tomorrow to make a big chef type salad.
Filed under DIET!
Discombobulated Wednesday 3-29-2023
AcidNow – Cheezburger
I’m feeling a bit “discombobulated” at the moment. I just wished a good friend, “Happy Passover” because my desk calendar was turned to the wrong page. Now that I have written and apologized for my stupidity, I’m wondering if I’ve already done anything ELSE wrong….
By the way, “discombobulated” may not be a real word, but it’s been used in my family ever since I can remember. (I just looked it up and it IS a real word – so is ‘cattywampus,’ if you’re wondering)
GrowaGoodLife.com
It’s forecast to get to 70 this afternoon here. It was too cool to be comfortable weeding yesterday, so my garden boxes remain untended. I’m hoping to rectify that today. I would love to have my garden started by the end of the weekend, assuming we aren’t blown off the Earth Friday with the forecast severe thunderstorms.
We don’t have errands today! I’m hoping to have several sessions outside during the afternoon when it warms up. I need to get the weeds out of my garden boxes plus repair some wire ‘separators’ that were broken during the last season. The irrigation system is already in good repair and just needs to be turned on and the timer installed.
I hope that wherever you are today that you are enjoying a beautiful, fun one.
Filed under Thoughts on a ________
More Calaca Ceramic Art
Filed under ceramics, Clay Art, Nastia Calaca Ceramic Art
Tuesday Thoughts 3-28-2023
Claudia Angle – Pinterest
It’s sunny today and is supposed to get to 61. I have an impressive list of things I would like to accomplish. Maybe I’ll actually DO some of them. :0)
First on the list is errand-type-stuff. We’re getting a haircut for my husband soon. We’ll get the mail and then put the hopefully-empty humongous trash can back at the pole, tethered to keep it from blowing away in the storms we’ve been having.
We’re due for more possible severe weather Friday, so Lunch Bunch will be in jeopardy once again. We’ll have to watch closely to see if we can risk getting out or not. I was looking at our local news and weather website and found that Sebastian County here in Arkansas has received 7.41 inches of rain this month. (Average is 1.7 inches) WOW.
I spent a bit of time outside yesterday, but decided it was too cool to try to get the garden weeded. I’ll see how it feels this afternoon. I don’t mind it being a little cool, but when my fingers are cold and my nose is running, I figure it’s Mother Nature telling me to go back inside.
I hope you have an enjoyable day.
Filed under Thoughts on a ________
Stunning Pebble Art
More pebble art from Erzsebet Szilajka – an artist I think does stunning work, combining the pebble art with painting beautiful backgrounds, telling a whole story, rather than ‘simply’ making a nice design.
Filed under Erzsebet Szilajka, Stone/Pebble Art
Delight on a Monday
I absolutely LOVE this photo and had to share it with you.
Yesterday I repaired or replaced the neon tape around the fencing of my square foot garden. I was going to get the planters weeded, but my husband decided to burn two piles of ‘stuff’ between the house and the shop that weren’t acceptable at the recycling center. We still have more to do here.
At my insistence, he hooked up the garden hose in case the fires got out of hand (I always insist, even though we’ve had over 7 inches of rain this month!) When he did that, the sprinklers on the garden boxes turned on and drenched the Mel’s Mix.
The mix in the boxes should be dry this afternoon and hopefully I can get the weeds out and get ready to plant.
This is tomato planter #1. As you can see, it needs weeding (and mowing and weed whacking around it), plus setting up of supports.
Tomato planter # 2 just needs a bit of weeding.
I have a quiet day planned – just gathering trash and putting it out for pickup, getting the mail, weeding the garden boxes and tomato planters, and depending on how long I’m outside, I’ll finish things up with a session of yoga stretching this afternoon.
Enjoy your Monday!
Filed under Thoughts on a ________
Celebrating Spring
joyfullearninginkc.blogspot.com
“It’s spring fever…. You don’t quite know what it is you DO want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so!” Mark Twain
“Be like the flower, turn your face to the sun.” — Kahlil Gibran
Filed under Favorite Pictures, Favorite Quotes, Seasons
Square Foot Garden – Step 1
All About Gardening
I’ve just come in from STEP 1 of prepping our square foot garden for planting.
This is the garden, minus the two brick planters on the other side of the house that we use for tomatoes. There are six 4′ x 4′ wooden planter boxes. You can see that the neon tape I strung to let the deer see there is fencing here need repair.
Here’s a view from one side.
This shows the weed barrier cloth I put in each planter box, held down by a brick in each corner. You can also see the irrigation system for these three boxes, with the pieces of hose strung together running along a piece of wood and the sprinkler in the center of each box. The six boxes are all irrigated with one timer on an agricultural faucet.
I removed the bricks and stored them in two corners of the garden, pulled the weed barrier cloths off, folded them up and stored them.
The results of the weed barrier cloth vary. This is the worst, but it’s still much better than if I hadn’t shielded the Mel’s Mix. As you can see, weeds love this soil alternative just as much, if not more, than the veggies I want to grow!
All the planter boxes were prepped the same way, and yet each is different on how many weeds were prevented.
I’m going to call this experiment a success because, though there are weeds, there aren’t NEAR as many as there were when I just left them from the fall to the spring uncovered.
My experiment with tarps wasn’t as good as this, either, because the tarps didn’t stand up well with the temperature differences, the wind, the snow and ice, etc. I had put buckets in the center of each box to try to keep water from pooling, but that had varying success. The tarps also tore and the bungee cords I used didn’t hold the tarps on as well as I had hoped.
I think that when we finish in the fall and are getting the boxes ready for the winter again, we’ll put TWO layers of the weed barrier cloth in each box.
Filed under Gardening, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds
Playing in the Dirt
This afternoon I’m planning (again) to uncover my gardening boxes in preparation for starting my spring garden. (I got snafued by the weather once and was just plain lazy after doing other things yesterday). I’m hoping that today is the day I can prep to get spring plants going. I just checked the forecast and it looks like we won’t have any freezes in the next 10 days, so maybe it’ll be safe to get things started.
I’m hoping to find several different types of lettuce, plus spinach, and sweet onions to start tomorrow. We’ll plant tomatoes, of course – in fact, we devote two brick planters to those. Otherwise, I’ll plant broccoli maybe, squash, and radish seeds. I’m thinking of playing with some herbs in the kitchen this year just for fun. I’ll plant celery bottoms from the ones I buy at the grocery store.
Everything will depend on what I can find, and I’m excited to get started now that the weather is getting more cooperative.
I’ll take some pictures to share with you.
Enjoy your day – play in the dirt!
Filed under Gardening, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds
A Small Pat on the Head
Giphy
I made it through the day yesterday without stuffing my face the way I have been. I’ll try to do it again today.
Another arrow in my quiver – I’m NOT going to loosen the fastening on my jeans to make myself more comfortable during the day. I’m going to keep them fastened, reminding myself that my overeating has CAUSED this discomfort, and that acting ‘maturely’ might relieve that if I keep it up.
I’m in this fight by myself, since my husband insisted we stock up on a bunch of assorted chips. Maybe a bit of frustration and anger will help me in my goal…
Each person makes a decision – or a series of them – when he or she wants to change, in the effort to STOP a bad habit or START a good one. I’m trying to look at all the excuses for what they are – smoke.
TODAY I will eat healthy meals and try not to eat anything in-between. I will drink a bottle of water if I get hungry, and I will do a good session of yoga this afternoon. Maybe I can earn another small pat. :0)
Tenor
Filed under Challenges, Changes, character-building exercises, DIET!
creativeartworksblog 