Good Housekeeping
We have two cats who own us.
Yesterday Abby –
Abby
sat in the exact middle of our dog Amber’s –
Amber
bed. Not only would she NOT allow Amber to share the bed, she rubbed it in, stretching and flaunting her position while Amber looked unhappily on.
Another example of our cats owning us –
I sit at my computer answering email, researching things, writing blog posts, etc. Smoke –
Plops herself down in the middle of my area, keyboard, or work, the fact that she is interrupting meaning nothing to her.
Filed under Amazing Animals, Family
Our good plumber is supposed to come today to help us figure out why the hot water in our shower is cutting off mid-shower.
We have a tankless water heater. This allows us to have all the hot water we need, regardless of how many things we run during the day or even at the same time. We are getting all the hot water we want downstairs, and in the sinks upstairs – but not the shower.
With the pandemic – plus the hot weather and working outside , we are taking even more showers than our usual one a day. My husband thinks we need a new water pressure tank in our well house. The job is too large for the two of us, so we have called our wonderful plumber to come take a look and see what he thinks will solve the problem.
I’m hoping that tonight I will be able to take a nice shower with hot water to rinse with, rather than cold… Fingers crossed!
“Hair” – Yuanxing Liang – Colossal Art & Design
Jooinn
“The_Fisherman’s Daughter” – Phillipe Faraut
Yuanxing – Liang- MyModernMet
Filed under sculpture
Pooh and Piglet, Winnie the Pooh, A.A. Milne, via PictureQuotes.com
Filed under Attitude, Favorite Authors & Books
Australia Firefighters Calendar 2020
Brendan and Hatch of the Australian Firefighters Calendar help us welcome the month of July.
I have really enjoyed welcoming each month this year. This is such a great idea for a fundraiser and a win/win for everyone. I hope they have sold out and have all the money needed to protect their beautiful country.
I want you to know that I – in a character-building exercise – have NOT looked ahead in any month so far. :0)
PictureQuotes.com via THEMETAPICTURE.COM
One of my favorite things these days while we’re home so much more due to COVID-19 is listening to some of my favorite tunes on YouTube. I have kind of a mini-concert centering on the best songs of one of my favorite artists, or create my own concert, switching from one wonderful song to another from multiple artists. It really lifts my spirits.
I have long thought that music is a kind of magic.
No words are needed – languages aren’t important – age and gender are not important factors – when we hear music, it speaks to us. It fills us up, affects us emotionally, transports us to another part of our life, makes current troubles fade into the background for awhile. It makes us relax, or want to leap up and dance. It makes us nostalgic or brings huge grins to our faces. Years fall off. Aches and pains are soothed or even forgotten.
I absolutely LOVE putting on my earphones while I’m here at the computer, choosing what songs I would like to listen to, and spending the next half hour or so caught up in the treasure of music!
Filed under music
The Express
“A wise old owl sat on an oak; The more he saw the less he spoke; The less he spoke the more he heard; Why aren’t we like that wise old bird?” ~ Unknown
Alan Walker – Getty Images – Discover Wildlife
Owl
Wiser than can be
Seeing great at night
Flying quieter over the sea
Making hope shine bright ~ Unknown
BrightSide
“He respects Owl, because you can’t help respecting anybody who can spell TUESDAY, even if he doesn’t spell it right.” A.A. Milne
Discovery Place Nature
“Alone and warming his five wits, the white owl in the belfry sits.” Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Eagle Mountain Utah News
“I rejoice that there are owls…. They represent the stark twilight and unsatisfied thoughts which all have.” – Henry David Thoreau
Earth.com
“I think I’m a tiny bit like Harry ‘cos I’d like to have an owl. Yeah, that’s the tiny bit, actually.” ~ Daniel Radcliffe
The Spruce Pets
“The owl,” he was saying, “is one of the most curious creatures. A bird that stays awake when the rest of the world sleeps. They can see in the dark. I find that so interesting, to be mired in reality when the rest of the world is dreaming. What does he see and what does he know that the rest of the world is missing?” ~ M.J. Rose
Source Unknown
“Owls seem to have always been a bird that sparks the creative imagination. They have been seen as symbols of victory, wisdom, or solitude. In more recent decades, owls have also been associated with Halloween.” – Rebecca Ludens
Source Unknown
“Old being, old thing,
so stout and wise.
You look down from the tree,
Knowing that I am here.
You stare long
You stare hard
And never look away.
You remember don’t you.
Peer at something else and
This spirit you see standing,
May well disappear.”
________________________________________
Two feathery tufts rise off a building
Next to an open park.
Powerful large eyes sight-fully gliding
Over the grass and dark.
These striking yellows gaze,
This view they take.
Dusk has left its haze.
It is good to be awake.
Filed under Amazing Animals, Favorite Things
Amazon.com
Anna Sergeeva-Saatchi Art
“Autumn Woods” – Vernet Christian – Allartclassic
Leonid Afremov – Punta Allen-Tulum-Mexico
Filed under Oil Paintings I Love
123RF.com
And NOOOOOO! I’m NOT pregnant. I’m 73 years old, and even with our modern medicine, I don’t think they can pull THAT off – AND wouldn’t want to!!!!
The thing I really don’t like about cooking is figuring out what to cook.
I was like this when I was young, too. When my friends wanted to go out to eat, we would try to figure out what we were hungry for. THEN we would try a process of elimination, trying to name things we DIDN’T want…
I was trying to figure out what to fix for dinner tonight, deciding I didn’t want to be cooking at 7:30 or 8 when I’m tired. Suddenly, beef stew popped into my head.
This is really weird because I consider beef stew a winter comfort food. The heat index today, after the rain, is supposed to get to 105. We still have doors open, but will close up soon, since the humidity is at 95%.
I love microwaves. I was able to get out a package of stew meat from the freezer, defrost it, and then brown it while getting the rest of the ingredients together in the slow cooker.
Now, dinner prep for tonight is done and the dishwasher is running! AHHHHH!
Filed under Attitude, THINGS I HATE!, Thoughts on a ________
Getting wooden earring blanks is like a crap shoot – sometimes you get a product that is exciting and even better than you thought it would be – like these 3-D type earrings above. They are good quality, very smooth, and a little over 1 inch in diameter. I cannot find them again, though I am still searching.
In an effort to get larger round earrings for a possible order, I ordered these recently and received them today. They were advertised to be 2″ in diameter. As you can see here, they are actually 1-1/2″ in diameter – not large enough for the possible order. I have now found another source which is advertising 2″ and 3″ in diameter round earrings. I’ve ordered with fingers crossed.
In the meantime, while I was searching for the 2″ in diameter earrings, I found some other interesting things. I haven’t received all I ordered yet, but I’m hopeful I will get some things that are wonderful.
These are 2″ on the longest edge. I like the shape of these and am looking forward to playing with them.
This is 1-3/8″ in diameter. I like the two holes. I have tried taking some shapes out to our shop to drill a first or second hole, but it’s difficult to drill a hole without splitting the shape. These will allow me to do some things that might be a lot of fun. I can feel my juices flowing!
Filed under playing in my art room
Today there are two people I know having birthdays –
Linda is one of my Lunch Bunch buddies. We celebrated her birthday last Friday, but her actual birthday is today. Happy Birthday, Linda!!!!!!!!
Meade Dennis Adams is the daughter of my beautiful friend/cousin-by-marriage, Murray in Thibodaux, LA. Happy Birthday, Meade!!!!!!!
Filed under Family, Friendship
Storyteller Travel
I LOVE the look of humor and character on Shoebill Storks.
We are having a super humid day today. It’s like pea soup outside. The humidity is 92% right now. UGH. That said, at least the sun is not a killer, so I’ve just come in from pruning our roses bushes and cutting things back a bit. We have a super good chance of rain today. It is cloudy and looks like it could rain any time now.
We are waiting for our plumber to come. We have a tankless water heater that gives us lots and lots of hot water. We haven’t had to worry about running out for years. Until lately. You have to have full water pressure to get the hot water, and it takes a bit of time for that to happen. We get it when we first step into the shower upstairs, then halfway through our shower, we get cold water, like we used to have when the tank emptied. My husband thinks we may have to get a new water pressure tank for the well house. Hopefully, we can get what we need to get our wonderful hot showers again soon. Fingers crossed.
I hope that you have a good day.
Gardening Know How
My friend Laufrain gave me TWO elephant ear plants last fall. I babied them through the winter in our dining area, since that was a place they would get good sun. I decided to put them on our front porch this spring because they would be out of the worst of the wind we have from time to time, and wouldn’t be in the direct sun on the north side of our house. They did fine there until it got hot.
Today I decided I would relocate them, planting them in one of the brick planters we rebuilt. I laboriously dug a hole and just was getting the first one into the planter when all of a sudden we had a HARD rain. By the time I made it into the garage, I was dripping. I toweled off, got a cup of coffee, and decided I would catch up on email. Like a faucet had been turned off, the rain stopped as suddenly as it started.
I have just come in from planting the second plant. I fertilized and gave them a bit of water. Tonight at 7:30 the irrigation system will water them for 10 minutes. Time will tell if they are happy in the new location. Fingers crossed. Pictures later.
Filed under Gardening, Mother Nature
More Fruits from my art room –
I love making these signs. They are 6″x8″ hard wrapped canvas boards. I have fun with my Unicorn Spit paint, let them dry, spray them with fixative. Let them dry again. Then I print the saying on them. I’m going to take these to Rags & Roses Collective in Greenwood to put in the booth I share with my good friend, Carla.
“Attitude”
“Attitude to Spare”
“Not Lazy”
“Sarcasm”
“Nicer Person”
Filed under Funny Signs - Humor, Lewis Art, playing in my art room, sass
Patrick Saunders- “Back from the Bazaar”
Patrick Saunders- landscape – “A Window Onto Bentley’s Backyard”
Patrick Saunders-pet-portrait- “Kobe”
Patrick Saunders-portrait-animal- “Awaiting”
See more at Patrick’s website
Filed under paintings I love
I had fun in my art room yesterday. I painted this group of post earrings in a floral theme. The earrings are half an inch in diameter.
I will add them to my earrings website EyecatchingEarrings on Etsy, as soon as possible.
Filed under playing in my art room
Frans Lanting Photography-John Steed via Gitta Newman via Penny Yaffee Krakow
During the pandemic my husband and I have gotten lax about our keto eating plan. We are eating mostly that, but OTHER things come home in the grocery bags that “I” didn’t put in the cart. I’ve been cooking healthy, but have little will power when it comes to listening to my husband crunch fritos, Doritos, or potato chips, bagels, no sugar added cookies, etc. I also get cravings for starches – particularly rice. My husband won’t eat any of the substitutes, and usually that is fine. I have mine frozen in portion sizes and can just pull one out – except that I haven’t been. Excuses abound and the pounds gradually return…
On June 22nd we decided to get more serious before things got totally out of hand. Needing something to really get our attention, we ordered the South Beach diet program of prepared meals and eating plan. Our intention is to do this for two months. They include DIY breakfast, lunch and dinner two days per week, so I will still be cooking keto style, but hopefully, we will re-learn portion sizes, good practices, plus hopefully a recipe or six that we like. I am hoping that at the end of the two months we will be back on track for losing the lard.
Our problem NOW is that because of Covid 19, their staff is cut and they are behind on orders. We ordered on the 22nd and according to their website, our first order has not been shipped yet. I’m hoping the first month’s food will be shipping in the coming week.
A funny thing, though –
Since we made the decision, both of us have eaten more carefully – I guess in preparation for starting the actual program. I’ve lost 3 pounds and my husband has lost more than that. My opinion is ‘whatever works,’ but it’s funny – and GREAT – that the lard is starting to come off again.
Filed under DIET!, getting the lard off, Healthy Eating
picturequotes.com
I am re-reading book # 28 in the “In Death” series by J.D. Robb (Nora Roberts), “Promises in Death.” This is book 28 of the 51 in the series now. Book 50 comes out in paperback in July. I have ordered it, and am re-reading all the ones that come before before I allow myself to enjoy the newest one, “Golden in Death.” #51 comes out in paperback at the end of December. “Shadows in Death.”
This quote is certainly true for me. I can’t read just one.
When the world around you is not only challenging, but also scary. the ability to dive into books with characters you love, escaping from all else, is priceless.
Filed under Favorite Authors & Books, Reading is FUNdamental
days of the year
I’ve been good, working in the house and out in the yard.
I’ve been sick – so two days were lost and best forgotten.
Today I feel GOOD and I’m officially on strike.
I am going to spend time in my art room today, PLAYING.
I received an order of these wooden post/stud earrings yesterday. They are half an inch in diameter with the findings already attached. I’m going to have fun seeing how I can paint these. The earrings this size I have done previously were flat. I like the fact these are thicker and have a rim. Lots of possibilities here.
I have a couple of tees on which I spilled something and the stains are still showing after washing. (Imagine that!) I’m thinking about how I want to paint them to give them new life.
I have some ideas for small, sassy signs for my booth in Rags & Roses Collective in Greenwood. I can get started on those.
We will have leftover bacon-wrapped hamburger patties, salad, and fresh sliced tomatoes from the garden tonight for dinner, so very little prep work is needed. Everyone seems calm and happy here.
This is my idea of a perfect day!!!!!
Filed under playing in my art room
Template.net
“Watcher” -Colossal Art and Design
Filed under Watercolors I Love
creativeartworksblog 