Even though our new cat looks miffed in this picture (she really didn’t like the flash I had to use) she has designated this shelf in our entertainment center in the living room as “her spot” thus far.
Amber is now behind the gate in the tiled areas of the house while the cat is free to roam. We’re letting her outside from time to time, and will CAREFULLY be trying to introduce these two several times today so they can learn to co-exist peacefully.
At lunch we’ll put the cat into the back bathroom where all her stuff is right now and let Amber be free in the house. We’re kind of walking on eggshells, trying to make sure we pay attention to details and make this day as calm as we can.
I’m leaning toward “Jet” as the cat’s name.
Mother Nature is not cooperating, so the work has not begun on repairing our driveway. The man said he would text me the night before they would be here. Since we’re still having possible severe storms this afternoon, the soonest now would be Monday.
I sold a package of hand-painted all occasion note cards on my Etsy site a couple of days ago. They were delivered yesterday. When I checked to make sure they arrived safely and the lady was pleased, she responded with a really nice note. I’ll be feeling ‘smile-y’ for several days now. :0)
I was disappointed yesterday to see my lettuce plants had bolted. Some were about 3 feet tall suddenly. It was clear that our season for fresh lettuce is over.
Our spinach is almost over. I’m going to get out again in a few minutes and harvest a bunch of it.
The happy thing for the day is that our tomatoes seem to be happy, and are producing lots of green tomatoes.
One of our favorite things in the world is ripe, fresh tomatoes sliced to eat with our lunches and dinners, not to mention cut up for salads. The only tomatoes I buy at the store anymore is cherry tomatoes, just for some color in our salads.
I love the fact that we can enjoy fresh spinach cut up in our salads.
We can also saute it as a side dish, or freeze it for cooking later.
This is just a bonus picture of my husband’s favorite flower, clematis. It’s blooming right behind the lettuce/spinach veggie planter, so I snapped a quick pic to share.
My husband and I do mailbox decorations using images we get from the net. My husband uses a program to convert the image to computer language and we take this out to the shop. We put this into a computer and watch as the program guides a laser torch that cuts the design out of sheet metal. We then weld the piece on an attachment arm for the mailbox. We use an overhead projector to mark the salient points of the design and then I paint both sides of the piece.
Ex –
The caterpillar from Alice in Wonderland
We add 3-D stuff, like the tubing above. My point is that although it’s a lot of work, we have borrowed the image, obviously, and then used a computer to cut it out for us. The only part done by hand is the welding and the painting.
These images are gorgeous. These are done by people using computers to create the images for them.
The images are incredible. The pieces are done very well, displayed well, and will look beautiful wherever displayed.
You can ask for custom designs from the artists, and they can create a piece using almost any image.
They are powerful.
I’m just a bit sad that people who actually carve images from wood MAY be at a disadvantage because their work cannot be as precise and detailed as these. It takes forever, essentially, to actually carve something, and they MIGHT be priced out of the market.
I’m glad that these are available because more people can enjoy beautiful things. I hope there are enough people with disposable income who can appreciate and buy the work of BOTH.
Good morning! It’s quite overcast here this morning with a chance of rain. The bigger chance of ‘heavy rain’ is tomorrow – when we were supposed to be getting our long-awaited driveway repair. Oh, well.
My lettuce bolted and I had to pull it out yesterday. I’m going to try to get out and harvest my spinach before it goes, too. Both are cool weather plants and it’s been getting up in the mid 80s in the afternoons lately. Our tomato plants are doing well, though, and I’ll try to share some pics with you in another post later.
Our yard is looking pretty good right now (for us.) My husband mowed again yesterday and he thanked me again for my weed whacking and KillzAll efforts, which have resulted in a quicker, easier job for him. It definitely looks like someone lives here now :0).
I would like to get out and buy some flowers to plant today. We’ll see if the weather cooperates and the stars align…
We have a quiet day on tap here. I’m planning to work some in our garden, continue painting the flying pig in the shop, balance checkbooks, and other exciting stuff.
I hope you enjoy your day, getting some nice hugs, belly laughs, and huge satisfaction.
Deborah is Deborah Jaroscak, and she has a nice shop on Etsy called Artworks by Deborah As you can see here, she creates beautiful pet portraits, plus other art. I think she’s amazing.
It’s quite overcast this morning, but it’s not raining. We have a bunch of errands to do today, so I’m hoping the weather holds.
I just looked at the weather forecast for the rest of the week. Friday, the day we’re supposed to get our long-anticipated driveway repair, looks like rain all day long. :0( I HOPE they’re wrong. The driveway guys have already given me Monday as an alternate date, so help is still on the way whenever Mother Nature will cooperate.
We celebrated the cooking of the turkey breast and the new meat slicer with turkey sandwiches last night for dinner. I made my husband’s with bread and mine with zero net carb Mission tortillas. I ALSO used some lettuce from our home-grown head lettuce! The sandwiches tasted really nice.
The refurbishment of the flying pig project (one of our metal critters we made long ago) is ongoing. My husband has agreed (thank goodness) that we can put him on a boulder at the side of the driveway at almost the top and he’ll look as if he’s about to fly off, rather than trying to stand on ladders and hang him from a tree branch again. I’m planning to wheelbarrow him out to the boulder so we can see if he’ll just stand there (he’s really heavy) or if we need to weld pads on the bottom of two of his feet to attach him to the boulder.
He’s been hanging from a really strong line from a tree branch over the driveway for several years. He finally came down in one of the severe storms we had and was lying in the driveway one morning. I’ve had to straighten some of the feathers of his ‘wings,’ pry off one discolored eye (the other one disappeared), wash all the dirt off of him, and am in the process of starting to repaint him. When that is finished, I’ll put new eyes on him.
Even if you’re not lucky enough to share your day with a flying pig, I hope you enjoy it.
I cooked a turkey breast this morning, then put it in the fridge to cool. I just finished cleaning up after using my new electric meat slicer for the first time.
I have to admit I was intimidated after reading the manual, which was mostly safety stuff warning me about cutting my arm off or electrocuting myself. It’s kind of amazing that anyone would try to USE this thing after all the warnings. (Kind of like the medicine advertisements that list all the side effects, including death).
Anyway, I was determined to use it, and do it safely. Here I am, typing away at my computer after using the new equipment, with arms and legs intact and not having been electrocuted, with the whole turkey breast neatly sliced and in a big bowl with a lid in the fridge.
Clean up was easy, as well. Mostly making sure I got all the little snibbles of turkey wiped off, then wiping it down with a soft, warm cloth. I took the blade off, too, to make sure there wasn’t anything caught behind it, and put it back on securely. (That’s done very well with the locking piece in the center. You turn it to unlock it with your fingers, hold onto the locking thing to move the blade, clean it, or whatever, and then use the holding thing to put it back on and turn the locking piece to secure it again. No touching the sharp part of the blade unless you want to.)
They warned not to use the slicer for over 10 minutes. I think I used it for 5 or less. It made quick work of the two halves of the turkey breast. There is a dial thingie to indicate how thick or thin you want the slices.
It’s all cleaned up and covered again. The sliced turkey is in the fridge. Instead of eating approximately 764 mgs of sodium with the deli turkey as a part of my lunch, I’ll be eating around 71 mgs. :0)
We just finished driving our trash down and getting our mail. It’s supposed to be quite rainy today, something that will probably put our driveway people behind one day in their work, meaning they will probably come next Monday, instead of this Friday. Maybe I’m wrong, and they can get their work done before the rain starts in earnest. Fingers crossed.
Scholastic Watch and Learn Library
I’m starting to make significant changes in my eating, trying to make substitutions that result in my eating MUCH less sodium every day. I’m hoping that these changes will improve my general health, decrease my tendency to retain water, show improvement in my blood tests in October, and help me lose the lard. Today I’m down 27 pounds.
I’m cooking some crock pot chicken for our dinner tonight, and just finished cooking a small turkey breast. I’m going to read the manual that came with my new electric slicer (which now has a nice cover and is sitting, ready to be used, on my counter in the kitchen) so that when the turkey breast is fully cool, I can slice some for lunches and snacks!
I hope the weather is good where you are and that you can get out and enjoy the day.
Happy Mother’s Day! Hats off to all of you ‘moms’ – a more-than-full-time, never-ending job chock full of all possible emotions and dedication. A testimony to survival of on-the-job training without a manual where you do the best you can with what you have at the time and hope for the best. May you be celebrated not only today, but EVERY day.
The image above for Mother’s Day was drawn by Hal Thomsen, one half of the husband and wife friends of our family as I was growing up. They both did art that sold commercially to make a living, but we had a whole wall of images Hal drew to commemorate events and milestones in our family. My parents devoted a whole wall in the living room to his beautiful images. Mary Ellen did sculpture and painted, as well as doing artwork that became iconic as beautiful artwork for a fashion store in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Hallmark Ideas
Mothers are never truly appreciated until we are adults. Maybe we’re lucky enough to be parents ourselves, trying to be everything to everyone day after day, well or sick, confident or flying by the seat of our pants. This is a role that brings forth every emotion known – some at the worst possible time, teaching us to be less selfish than we were, our hearts on our sleeves, our focus on something larger.
Erma Bombeck – Pure Wow
If we’re very lucky, our children grow up, liking and enjoying us as people, rather than ‘just mothers.’ :0)
Happy, happy day to you. I hope you’re surrounded by love and appreciation today.
This image gives you an ‘idea’ of our driveway, though this one only shows what amounts to 1/4 of the length and steepness of ours. Ours also doesn’t have any of the egg crate stuff shown here. Ours is STEEP, 650+ feet, gravel, rutted from all the rain, worse and worse as you get closer to the street, etc.
Last year we got an estimate for repair. We had a couple of people who worked together. The guy who would have done the work had his equipment burn up – down to the ground. So the project was essentially delayed until further notice. Well, further notice never happened, so we have started over.
At the beginning of the week a friend of ours recommended a guy and his dad. He said the younger man did the hauling of materials and his dad did the actual work. I called and left a message on his home phone – the only number I could find for him.
Today he called my cell and left a message that he had just gotten the message. I now have his cell phone number, the one he uses all the time. :0)
He and his dad – BOTH named Joe Comer (they are called “Joe” and “Little Joe” in Greenwood) texted me that they could come today. They have just left.
It looks like they can help us! We accepted the estimate for the materials and the work. They will try to be here next Friday, May 17th, (weather permitting) or the following Monday to do the work. HELP IS ON THE WAY!!!!!
I’m feeling really good this morning. It took me a while to wake up, but I’m feeling better and better as I do.
buzzfeed.com
I again hit the ’25-pounds-off-my-heaviest’ mark this morning, so that makes me feel as if the changes I’m making gradually are helping me get on a steady pathway now. I’m still eating from a package of deli turkey (the worst culprit on my ‘too-much-salt-included-in-my-food list’), and some salami, but I won’t buy more once I finish those. The low-carb Mexican chicken and veggies frozen dinner from Stu’s Clean Cookin’ was too ‘hot’ for me (I’m a wuss gastronomically) so I will choose something else next time. The young man who helped us with our purchases there is really nice. It’s so pleasant to find a person who takes pride in his job and makes shopping such a pleasure.
Good Parenting Brighter Children
SPRING YARD PROJECT – I think I finished the spring project of the main pruning and weeding of our brick planters around the yard – plus the pots on our deck – yesterday. I plan to concentrate on the veggie planters today, taking care of tomato plants, harvesting a bit more (my lettuce is starting to bolt with the high afternoon temperatures now). I sprinkled some zinnia seeds in a couple of planters yesterday. I’ll start buying some flowers next week. It looks like someone cares in our yard now. My husband was complimentary about my weed whacking efforts a couple of days ago, saying I had made it easier for him to mow, and, due to his good efforts, the yard is freshly mowed. :0)
PROJECT REFURB – Every couple of years I try to do some refurbishment of some of the yard critters we’ve made. Being outside is really tough on them. Cloth disintegrates, googly eyes fall off, the critters get dirty, sometimes moldy, paint fades or peels, etc. I either try to repaint them where they are in the yard or bring them one at a time into the shop, give them a makeover, and then put them back out.
This is a critter we made years ago. It seems especially apt these days, as pigs are flying all around, with things we never thought would happen in the world. We spent a long time suspending the flying pig from a big branch over the driveway several years ago. It did really well up there, but finally was down in the driveway one day as we were trying to leave for errands.
He needs a full makeover. I have him in the shop now, where he has been sitting on my work table for several months. I need to clean him up, unbend parts that were damaged when he fell, give him a total repaint, replace his eyes, etc. I’m planning to ask my husband to drill holes in a boulder beside the driveway toward the top where we can attach him to the boulder. He’ll look like he’s ready to take off, and we won’t have to stand on ladders trying to find a good strong branch and try to hang him from a line again. I’ll post pictures as I work on him.
Our weather here is beautiful now, with lots of sun and a bit less humidity. It’s a great day to be outside working in the yard or in the shop, working on the flying pig. Enjoy your day!
My new electric meat slicer was delivered yesterday. I reorganized part of my kitchen counter so the slicer is now on an easily moveable place mat so I can slide the slicer out a bit for use, with a NON-slide place mat on top of THAT so the slicer won’t slide when I’m using it. :0) I just ordered a cover that’s made for this particular slicer, rather than the towel I’m using now. I’ll read the manual for this later today.
Here’s the cover.
I’m set up now so I can cook and slice most any meat to eat for my lunches, taking the place of the deli turkey I THOUGHT was healthy, but turned out to be sky high in sodium. (Same with salami. )
I did find some lunch meat that’s half the sodium or less than what I’m finishing up now while I’m gearing up to do all my own.
I also found some low carb, much-lower-sodium frozen dinners at Stu’s Clean Cookin’ in Greenwood. I will try all of these, but some are higher sodium than I would like for the long run. It will depend on how the food changes come together (shown clearly on MyFitnessPal.com) before I make long term decisions.
Meanwhile, my doc has increased my thyroid hormone dosage, so that should help, as well, though it will probably take several 6-week trials before we zero in on my new good dosage.
I’m finally getting my act together on eating healthier, plus I’m working in the yard most every day and doing a session of yoga stretching in the afternoons at least 3 times a week if not every day. Hopefully, the lard will start coming off in a more steady manner and my next routine blood tests in October will show significant improvement. :0)
It looks like my lettuce is coming to an end. I’m seeing signs of bolting already, due to the temperature getting up into the 80s most afternoons now. Lettuce is a cool weather crop, and we have about 4 days of spring between too cold to plant with overnight freezes to too hot for lettuce…
I’m going to work in the veggies today, pruning, weeding, tweaking, and I’m hoping to finish the last two brick planters.
We have a stunningly beautiful morning here, and I’m looking forward to working outside for several sessions.
creativeartworksblog 