Stanley Horowitz – Country Living
Fall in Vermont – Crowley Photos – pinterest.com
And a Miracle Occurred!
This photo was taken in July, when Molly (left) and Amber (right) first got on the living room dog bed together. Before that, Molly’s sole wish was to disappear or escape. This is no surprise, since Amber is big, doofus, and relentlessly over-friendly, trying to ‘herd’ Molly, always having her huge face right in Molly’s. Molly is 12 – a venerable old lady, with little sense of humor about these things.
About 4 nights ago, we brought Amber’s stuff inside, put her crate and some toys in the utility room where there is another bed like the one you see in the photo above. It’s getting much cooler at night now, and we wanted this to be routine by the time really cold weather gets here. The animals have shown very little problem (other than Amber chewing on the baseboards – more Louisiana Hot Sauce applied), though Molly seems to require more nap time during the day to rest up from a night with Amber.
Just a few minutes ago a miracle occurred – Molly and Amber were PLAYING together!
There was a lot of moving around, growling, etc. When I got up to check on them, there was a “fierce” battle going on, and both dogs were loving it. :0) I can’t tell you how relieved I am in this breakthrough. Molly is standing up for herself, snapping when Amber gets on her nerves too much, but she’s also relaxing and ACCEPTING, and – for at least a little while this afternoon – ENJOYING.
Filed under Amazing Animals, Attitude, Family
Beautiful Birds
“Black Swan” – Paul Militaru Photography
“On Lake” – Paul Militaru Photography
Filed under Paul Militaru Photography
Stunningly Beautiful Photograph
Steven Worth via Kimberly Maus, Fox12 Oregon via Doreen Adamson-Liber
Filed under Awe-Inspiring Photography
Snarky :0)
CoolFunnyQuotes.com
Snarky, sarcastic, snide – I love all of these. They make me smile, smirk, snort, or laugh out loud. I would never actually SAY these to anyone, but sometimes I would like to…
thegirlcreative-pinterest.com
CoolFunnyQuotes.com
IAmBored.com via Desiree Angelique Hackett
Filed under Attitude, Funny Signs - Humor
Answer to a Craving
We’ve been eating low carb for several years now. Mostly we do well, but every once in a while, we get a craving for something we should be avoiding.
Lately it’s been bread and waffles.
Happily, I found something that will help us a LOT.
Bob’s Red Mill Low Carb Bread Mix
allows me to enjoy a sandwich – a real treat. I can roll up a slice around a hot dog, or cut a slice in two and toast some for garlic bread. 5 net grams per slice. 130 calories. 0 sugar.
My dog also endorses it highly, having sneaked into the kitchen and grabbed it off the counter one time and the very back of the stove top the second before we installed a walk-through gate that bars him from the kitchen.
and Bob’s Red Mill Low Carb Baking Mix.
The baking mix can be used for muffins, pancakes, waffles, and more. Last night I made waffles for the first time in almost 3 three years. (It took me half an hour searching the pantry before I finally found our waffle iron!) I had to add a bit more cream than the recipe called for to get a good consistency for waffles. Even my husband said they were good.
- 8 net grams carbohydrates for 1/2 cup.
- 120 calories
- 1 gram sugar
On the waffles we used Maple Grove Farms Low Calorie, Sugar-Free Maple Flavored Syrup. For a 1/4 cup serving, it was
- 6 grams carbohydrates
- 5 grams sugar alcohol
- 15 calories
It’s nice to be able to ‘splurge’ without having to feel guilty. :0)
Filed under Uncategorized
Fun in My Art Room
Yesterday afternoon I finished digging out the iris from the backyard planter. (I still need to make sure the planter is completely cleaned out, add more potting mix and replant some of the iris, but I declared victory for the day.)
I rewarded myself with some time in my art room.
I’m working on some Christmas presents for my good friends from Lunch Bunch. (Shhhhh! It’s a secret!) The time flies by while I’m up there, thinking of my friends and trying to make something I hope they’ll enjoy. I have quite a few things to make, so I’m hoping I can sneak up there a lot in the coming weeks.
I also have some refurbishing to do on some of our yard art. Our ‘box turtle”
needs an eye re-glued, plus some touch up on peeling pain on his back.
I found some orange “neon” paint. I repaint the orange on both sides of the jack-o-lantern, hoping the paint will make him pop when headlights hit him next year.
We have an 8 foot tall (with stem and leaves) metal flower attached to a power pole in the back yard. Some wasps figured out a way to get between the metal of the flower and the plastic saucer type thing we glued to the center and covered with glass beads. We think our spraying has finally at least caused the wasps to relocate, if not die outright – so we’ll bring this into the shop. I’ll remove the center piece, clean everything up, caulk the center back on and replace the glass pieces that have fallen off.
I’ll work my way around the yard, repairing things as best I can. We’re also looking to repair some other critters still in the shop so that we can attach them to the ham radio tower extra length part we stood in concrete recently.
We have a few things in the shop that need to be repaired or finished that we can hang on here, plus critters we make in the future. This will be our “Critter Tree.” :0)
Happy Halloween – Take 31
snappypixels.com
Louisiana Hot Sauce – Take 2
jasoninhollywood.blogspot.com
This isn’t Amber, but it could be.
We’ve shifted Amber’s crate and some chew toys into the utility room inside the house so that she doesn’t have to suffer rain, wind, and the coming winter out on the back porch. There is a huge dog bed in there, and Molly and Bambi (our pit) used to sleep on it together. We’re hoping that Amber will use her crate, if she likes, or sleep on the bed with Molly.
Last night was Night 4 of the new regime. My husband was up in the middle of the night, having trouble sleeping, and he heard ”chewing” but hoped she was chewing on one of the several chew toys we make sure are in there at night.
I discovered this morning she was chewing on the baseboard.
When she was on the porch, she started chewing the wood on one end of the porch. I tried all kinds of home remedies and commercial preparations, finally brushing on Louisiana Hot Sauce. That seemed to have worked. I say it this way because we also were bringing her in the house with us a lot more, and the ‘cure’ might have just been a happy coincidence.
This morning I painted a generous amount of Louisiana Hot Sauce on the baseboard where she has been chewing, and along the rest of it, while I was at it. I’m hopeful that our dog is as much of a wuss as her owners about eating hot things….
Filed under Amazing Animals, Family
A Rare Treat
Can you hear me smacking my lips from where you are?
My husband and I love waffles and/or pancakes. Since we went low carb several years ago, we haven’t even entertained the notion of actually ever eating one again.
Bob’s Red Mill makes low carb bread mix that I’m loving and also makes a low carb baking mix. I just got some of the baking mix. We looked really hard and finally found a sugar free maple syrup. My husband tried a bit of it – because there wasn’t any point to making waffles or pancakes if the syrup wasn’t good. He pronounced it good!
Tonight, if I haven’t killed myself digging out the iris, I’m going to fix us a batch of waffles. I had to look in the pantry for half an hour to find the waffle iron. :0)
We are really looking forward to biting these.
Digging Up Iris Project – Take 2
I’m going to try to finish digging out my iris plants today.
We devoted a square brick planter in the back yard for new iris, with the plan to redistribute them all over the yard when it was time to divide them. We made this bird to “fly” over the planter.
This is the actual planter. You can see that this has really gone nuts in the past two years. I have dug out approximately half of the rhizomes now. I plan to get out there in a few minutes and see if I can finish getting the plants dug out, and the excess roots and leaves cut off. I have one plastic basket in the garage already of the half I dug out recently. I’ll plant some back in this planter, but most of them will go in spots up and down the driveway, out to the shop, and in groupings here and there around the yard.
I started with 15 plants in this planter which is almost 4 feet on each side. I can’t believe how many plants I have now, or how difficult it is to get them out carefully. I have 5 different colors – a bright yellow, a yellow with a brown striped ‘beard,’ a pretty blue, some small purple, and I THINK a fuchsia, though I’m not sure.
I have a really nice day to work outside, so please wish me luck on finishing up the digging out today.
Filed under Arkansas, Gardening, Greenwood, Mother Nature
I Love Fall – Take 5
Lauren DeStefano via Country Living
“Fall” – Paul Militaru Photography
Filed under Favorite Quotes, Paul Militaru Photography
Animal Paintings – Take 4
Lesley Harrison-www.tuttart
Marcie Baldwin-forum.xcitefun.net
Filed under animal paintings, Creativity
Fall Garden Pictures – October 2017
Here are 2 celery bottoms, one of which has sprouted a bit, and a core of head lettuce, which is also sprouting. I’ll move them to the garden soon.
Bibb lettuce, started from seed. I can start harvesting some of the leaves for salad soon.
Carrots. I need to read my square foot gardening book to figure out what to expect here and when.
celery plants. I’m harvesting separate stalks, since I didn’t tie them together as I was supposed to do.
Newish celery plants.
Radishes ready to harvest.
Simpson lettuce. Some is ready to start using.
My sole spinach plant. I don’t know what happened that the other seeds didn’t make. I keep meaning to plant more, but the days get away from me.
Filed under Arkansas, DIET!, Gardening, Greenwood, Healthy Eating, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds
Fall Square Foot Gardening
Everything is coming along in the fall garden. I have several celery plants, with two more, plus one head lettuce plant, almost ready to go out to the garden. The radishes may be ready to harvest. Two types of lettuce, Bibb and Simpson, are almost ready to start harvesting for salads. Carrot tops are getting taller.
Meanwhile, I just ordered a book that I hope will answer my never-ending questions about how to get started in my new greenhouse.
We visited with our friends, the Taylors, last night while bowling – and eating ice cream afterwards – and I found out that I’m supposed to wait until the elephant ear leaves die, then cut them off and dig up the bulb, putting it in a pot of peat moss and storing it in the garage. Same with the pretty purple plant she gave me. I’m watching the lows on the weather forecast, planning to bring the two fall tomato plants into the greenhouse to put in large pots of Mel’s Mix. I have no idea if they’ll make it over the winter or not, but it’ll be fun to try.
Otherwise, I’ll wait to get my greenhouse book, then prep my seed starter trays, some with Mel’s Mix and some with peat pellets to see if there are different results. I’ll try to plant seeds of all the things I want in my spring garden.
I’ll try to get some pics of the fall garden and post them soon.
Happy Halloween – Take 29
easycoupleshalloweencostumes.wordpress.com
hative.com
Lewis Halloween Mailbox Decoration # 2
We took the Jack-O-Lantern down this morning and took it back to the shop. I’ll clean it carefully and then use some really bright, neon orange paint to see if I can get it to show up better at night when car lights hit it.
We put our ghost up for the rest of the month. This is the back of the piece.
This is the front. It’s funny, but this is one of our most simple pieces. It shows up at night better than anything we’ve made before or since. I love his happy expression. I hope he brings a smile or two.
Filed under holidays, Lewis Art, Lewis Mailbox Decorations, metal art
“The Game of Light”
“The Game of Light” – Paul Militaru Photography
Filed under Paul Militaru Photography
Better Safe…
fivethingsblog.wordpress.com
What should have been a simple thing turned into a 45-minute, really annoying chore.
We received our new Humana ID cards in the mail today. As I got ready to put them in my purse, I noticed that the doctor’s name was incorrect on the back of both cards. I thought it probably didn’t matter, but then I decided to call and make sure.
It DID matter.
First, I had called on my cell phone and they didn’t have a record of that. I got so teed off I hung up and called on the phone beside my computer, also a cell phone, but on a base with a different phone number. I had to go through the phone tree again – ONE OF MY FAVORITE THINGS! – and this time, they accepted the phone number from which I was calling with no problem.
I talked to a very nice man, but it was a long, drawn-out process to finally change the doctor’s name on the back of my card. Then I said, “I need to do the same change on my husband’s card.” Even though we have gone so far as to write a LETTER to put in my husband’s file saying that I have the power to handle any and all things for him, since he HATES bureaucracy of any kind and has the patience of a fruit fly, the man insisted that my husband get on the phone and tell him that it was okay that I handle this change for him. By the time I got back on the phone, the man had at least one fewer layers of skin.
THEN, at the end of what should have been a quick change on our computer records, he tried to get me to schedule my wellness check, my mammogram, and my colonoscopy. Do I need to tell you that his efforts in this regard were totally unappreciated? I gritted my teeth when I told him that those things were between me and my physician, whose name would finally be on my card, if he handled my request.
The end result was that they are sending us new cards, but we had three teed-off people by the end of the conversation.
Filed under Attitude, Pet Peeves
Towel Critter Art – Take 12
Filed under Creativity, Towel Critter Art
creativeartworksblog 