My yoga is helping me a bit – when I get off my duff and DO it. I noticed last night that when I got up from reading in my chair, I was stiff and sore until I had walked quite a bit. My husband remarked that I hadn’t been ‘yoging,’ which is true.
When even HE notices a difference, I need to get my rear in gear. This afternoon. No excuses.
Filed under exercise, taking care of yourself
Our snow has finally stopped, I think. We only have about 3 inches or so of snow and sleet with solid ice underneath. Needless to say, we’ll be staying in until further notice.
To the left of the firewood in this photo is the top of our driveway! What looks like snow here is mainly granular sleet. Even though the sun is shining, our thermometers are only showing 20 degrees, so not much melting happening. What DOES melt will refreeze overnight, so it’ll be some time before we can venture out.
My husband insisted we buy a frozen apple pie the last time we were out. He wanted me to bake it yesterday, so I did. He pronounced it, “Delicious!” and ate two pieces (that I know of) yesterday. It wouldn’t surprise me if he finishes it off today. It’s a very good thing I’m not a baker. Neither of us would be able to get through a doorway if I were. :0)
Our dog, Amber (a large yellow lab) has decided she loves the white stuff on the ground. She slipped and slid around at first, but the last time I saw her, she was running at full speed smiling. I’ll insist she come in and warm up in a few minutes.
Obviously, we aren’t meeting for Lunch Bunch today. I’ll call my friends in a bit to make sure they are all right.
We still have power, and have plenty of food and water, so we’ll enjoy being safe, warm and dry today.
I hope you are, too.
Filed under Mother Nature, Seasons
Filed under Carly Amanda Portait Art, drawings
I’m very lucky to be surrounded by books I want to read. I will never have enough time to spend with them. I’ve been bouncing back and forth from my computer to my recliner/book/throw/coffee lately, feeling very spoiled, indeed. I DO manage to get a few things checked off my to-do list each day, but a bit grudgingly. :0)
I found this recently and I WANT ONE! Such a clever idea. I’m trying to convince my husband to make us one. It makes me smile every time I see it. I’ll print the pic and keep moving it around under my husband’s nose. We might give him a hat to shield his eyes (and ours).
My husband and I both are voracious readers. He prefers his tablet, and I prefer real books. I really prefer hardback books, but have switched to paperbacks because of cost and storage space. There is something really satisfying to hold a book in your hands, turning pages, rather than swiping a screen. I do have a tablet, and take it when we go to sit in waiting rooms, but that’s the only time I use mine.
My favorite books are my art books. I have some that are how-to’s, trying to teach me watercolor techniques, for example, or how to draw feathers. (I haven’t mastered either of those things, but I LOVE to see what others have done and dream of one day getting closer to doing a bit of it myself.
I have a few books that are illustrated books – I guess for children – but they called to me. I love the creativity and the skill employed in these. They make the stories and characters come alive for children and adults, like me, alike.
My idea of a perfect ‘old-folks home’ is beds with large pillows in a library. Everyone would have headphones attached to their playlist of favorite music. Sweet animals of all kinds would visit the residents freely. Food and drink would be available, plus a playroom with art supplies. Residents who wanted to could help children find books that would delight them, or read to groups. Nice fantasy.
That’s quite an exaggeration, but Arkansas is not known for getting a lot of snow. We DID get .25″ of ice overnight plus about an inch of snow so far over the ice. .25″ is enough to cause significant damage to power lines, tree branches, etc. We still have power so far. We haven’t been out to the driveway to see if we’ll need to hack our way down to the street. We have evergreens along both sides of the driveway that tend to get heavy and hang down, cutting off passage. We’ll see the next time we try to get out, but it won’t be today!
It’s 13 degrees, F. here with a wind chill of -2. A GREAT day to stay inside. I let Amber out this morning. She skidded on the ice on the driveway pad, did her business and came back really quickly. I shut the garage door again to keep the cold wind out of the house as much as possible. We dripped water overnight from the utility room bathroom sink, and from the sink on my husband’s end of the lavatory area in our our master bath. No problems there, thank goodness.
We’re due to get another 3-5 inches of snow today, but it WILL get above freezing tomorrow, so hopefully things will start to thaw.
After I let Amber back in, I was carrying our frozen dinner in and found Amber with her head in our flip top trash can in the pantry. (This pic gives you an idea) I yelled at her. Her head came up abruptly, with the red flip top stuck on her head! She started to thrash around the pantry, causing havoc. I got her stopped, got he trash lid off her head, and I HIT her with our frozen dinner. It didn’t hurt her, but she seems to have gotten the message that she wasn’t supposed to help herself to whatever was in the trash. (Our dinner seems to have come through fine, too.) This is probably pet abuse, but when you’re dealing with a hard head like Amber, sterner measures must be taken. It took me almost half an hour to gather the trash she had strewn, plus pick up the things she knocked off the pantry shelves as she thrashed around with the trash lid. And all this was right before she KNEW I would feed her!
I’m doing lots of laundry today. I’ll change our sheets soon, too. There is no end to the excitement around here! Actually, I’m toying with the idea of trying to get started on something in my art room this afternoon. That IS exciting to me. I haven’t been up there in quite a while, so it would be fun to play a bit. I’ll think about it. :0)
I hope you are safe, warm, and dry where you are and that you have fun with your day.
Filed under Family, Mother Nature, Seasons
Filed under Stained Glass Art
Filed under ceramics, Clay Art, Douglas Fey Pottery
You already know I’m weird. I thought I would share how my weird mind works, particularly so early in the morning trying to be quiet and not having any coffee yet –
I started thinking that I didn’t know much, if anything, about Groundhogs. When I looked it up, I found that they are mainly found on the East coast, Canada, and Alaska. Another name for groundhog is woodchuck. And THAT brought me memories of tongue twisters I used to love as a child.
“How much wood would a woodchuck chuck
if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
He would chuck, he would, as much as he could,
and chuck as much wood as a woodchuck would
if a woodchuck could chuck wood.”Others I remember –
“She sells seashells by the seashore.”
“Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear. Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair. Fuzzy Wuzzy wasn’t fuzzy, was he?”
And THESE remind me of coming up with a song to teach my first grade students phonics years ago. I played my guitar and we danced around the room singing. And THAT reminds me that I was called into the principal’s office (really) and told “Ms. Lewis. This is NOT a music class.”
Oh, well.
I think this foray into my weird mine signals that I could really use a cup of coffee.
Filed under Attitude
It’s just drizzling here now, with a cold front due to come in around lunch time and things to deteriorate from there. Trouble is, once it starts, it looks like it will be a several-days’-long event, with rain, sleet, ice, snow and flying hairballs. We’re not supposed to get THAT much accumulation, but it starts with a solid layer of ice, causing possible power outages, damage to trees, etc. I really hope the weather people are wrong about this. We’re a little ‘long-in-the-tooth’ to be having to try to HACK our way down our driveway in a few days.
We’re having an unusual start to our day. I woke up alone. I came downstairs to find my husband reading in his chair. We are not usually functional at 6am, though we were for years and years with kids and work. He said he was fine, just wasn’t sleeping well, so came downstairs. By the time I got my shower, cleaned up upstairs, etc., the light was off down here and I could hear snoring….. I’m being as quiet as I am able, letting him sleep as much as he can.
I’m hoping this Groundhog Day is a quiet, mostly uneventful day.
Filed under Thoughts on a ________
Filed under Skeleton Art
Filed under Stained Glass Art
I just checked on my raised bed square foot garden planters. The tarps covering the six boxes, plus the bungie cords I used to secure them, are really brittle now. As soon as we get through this winter storm, we’ll go get replacement tarps and more cords to protect the planters as much as we can for the rest of the winter.
The forecast now is more ice than snow. We had a bad ice storm in 2000 (we think) that brought so much damage to the state it still hasn’t recovered. We stood on the porch and heard the branches cracking like gunshots as they broke off and fell. We were stuck up her with a China Diesel generator that overheated in the well house and blew the gasket on top. My husband and our son started shifts to make sure that a barrel we kept filling with water and snow kept the generator going, and we switched to well water. We were without public power and public water for 14 days, if I remember right. When we made it through that, we looked for a replacement for the generator and got really serious about keeping extra water and food on hand.
Our son now lives where there are two seasons: “extreme summer” and “wet summer”. He thinks it’s frigid if he has to wear shoes, jeans, and a hoodie. :0) My husband and I are on our own in this storm. The generator did its automatic test without incident last Thursday. Hopefully, it will do its job if we need it. It runs everything except heat or cool, and we have a fireplace backup and electric blankets. I got food after my haircut today, so we’re pretty much set.
Stay safe, warm, and dry!
Filed under Matt Dixon - Robot Art
The sun is shining at the moment. I’m about to leave for haircut and errands, so I’m really grateful.
A impactful mix of wintry weather is set to hit our area. Travel is likely to become difficult if not impossible late Wednesday into Thursday.”
Oh, good.
I’ll take the trash down as I leave, get the mail, and then grab some food before I come home. We’ll be snug as bugs in a run the rest of the week. If we’re stuck up on top of our ridge line, that’s okay. It’s a nice place to be. :0)
I had a nice chat with our son this morning, one of the nicest ways to start my day. He was checking on us. Honestly, I’m very happy that he considers us real people, not just parents, and seems to enjoy reaching out, bouncing ideas off us, sharing music we like, plans for the future, and more.
I hope that things are good where you are today, too. May February be a good month for all of us.
Filed under Thoughts on a ________
Filed under Matt Dixon - Robot Art
Excuses abound. THIS TIME it’s a combination: possibly getting snowed in and my husband wanting chili mac…
If there were a contest on best excuses for NOT staying on your diet, I would win hands down. No contest. I’ve brought it to an art form. I haven’t yet gotten to the point where I’m proud of my abilities here – I would MUCH rather be boasting about the poundage or inches I’ve lost.
It would also be good if I could brag about the fact that I can make things for my husband, and eat healthy stuff myself, but that’s probably for another lifetime –
Ray Villafane is known primarily for his incredible pumpkin carving. Apparently he can do his magic on anything. These potato faces made me smirk. :0)
It’s a gorgeous day in Arkansas – sunshiny and will be in the 60s today followed by rain turning to ice turning to snow much of the rest of the week. I’m going to try to get a haircut in tomorrow before we’re possibly stuck up here on top of our ridge line. Fingers (and all other appendages) are crossed that the weather has been too warm for things to get really bad, but we’ll see. Mother Nature definitely seems to be in a snit lately.
Our wonderful bug spray guy is due here around 2 pm. After that, we’ll probably go pick up our food order from REAL FOOD, plus maybe hit STU’S CLEAN COOKIN’ before we settle in again.
It’s hard to believe January is already gone this year. I’m still trying to get used to it being 2022!
Filed under Thoughts on a ________
Filed under Clay Art, Douglas Fey Pottery
Filed under Creativity, Skeleton Art
I love this drawing.
Good morning!
I’m grateful that we are enjoying sunshine and 40 degrees right now. Just beautiful for this time of year. I’m ‘enjoying-it-double’ because we’re due for a winter storm mid week…
We’ll put up our Snow-Goon mailbox decoration today.
We’ll get our mail and make a run for supplies to prepare for the mid week coming storm. We never know this time of year when we will be stuck at the top of our driveway. We might be able to get down (one way or another) but we have to wait until our snow tires are able to get us BACK UP our driveway before we venture out. We try to stay stocked up so we have all we need if we get an unwelcome surprise.
Right now it’s so pretty it’s hard to believe we might get snowed in. The sun is shining brightly and it’s already 40 degrees F.! It’s supposed to get into the 50’s today. I’ll take it. :0)
Although my energy level is still not what it should be, I’m feeling ‘fit as a fiddle, otherwise.’ It’s great to be back in the land of the living. I’m keeping fingers crossed that my husband and I won’t pass this back and forth again.
Other than changing the mailbox decoration, getting our mail, and shopping for supplies, I’ll finish the vacuuming of the house so the bug spray guy who is scheduled for tomorrow won’t be appalled. Even this time of year it’s hard to keep up with our dog and cat shedding all over the place.
I hope that you’re safe, dry, and smiling today.
“The other day when I was walking through the woods, I saw a rabbit standing in front of a candle making shadows of people on a tree.” – Steven Wright
“I’ll give you three guesses, Rabbit. Digging holes in the ground? Wrong. Leaping from branch to branch of a young oak tree? Wrong. Waiting for somebody to help me out of the river? Right. Give Rabbit time, and he’ll always get the answer.” – A. A. Milne, ‘The House At Pooh Corner’
Filed under Amazing Animals, sculpture
I’m enjoying feeling better. My snark bucket is filling and I’m finding myself smiling to myself more now – an ominous sign, according to my husband.
I come by it honestly. My dad used to say, when I came out, ready for a date, ‘Nice dress.’ I learned early on that his comment meant that he thought it was too short, too tight, too ‘something’ for me to get his approval. It took me a long time to stop looking myself over to find out what was wrong and simply accept a compliment that came my way when I grew to adulthood.
Being raised by my parents was a gift that keeps on giving even now. Being able to stand back and see the humor in any given situation is a lifesaver for me. Instead of building tension inside at all the things I find upsetting, I can say something sarcastic in the privacy of my own mind, making me smile, rather than losing it.
My mother taught me practicality and strength. Her favorite quote was, “It’s better to do any reasonable thing quickly, rather than search hesitantly for the ideal.” I loved it when she got angry at a situation. She could stand on her feet and say what she thought (the length of her words and sentences depended on the degree of her anger.) She could completely undermine someone with a few words while the smarter ones in the group appreciated it wholeheartedly and the less smart tried to figure out what she had said. :0) )
Coping mechanisms are crucially important in our world today. I hope you have a bucketful to help you, too.
Filed under Attitude, Challenges, Changes, coping mechanisms, Funny Signs - Humor, sass
Filed under Awe-Inspiring Photography
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