Happy New Year!

I can't believe 2009 is {almost} over! It's been a rough year in some ways and I'm looking forward to the possibilites 2010 holds!

So, as we end, here is a shot of the last full moon of 2009 and the last full moon of this decade. It's pretty special that a blue moon is occuring on New Year's Eve.

I wish you all the very best life has to offer! Happy New Year!

My favorite Christmas gift

Yes, these are native Americans and pilgrims made from construction paper and toilet paper tubes. They were made for me by my very sweet, very thoughtful, very wonderful daughters, Heather and Wendy.

Up until this past fall, I had others almost exactly like these freckle faced characters. Heather had made a couple of pilgrims in her Girl Scout troop in 1st or 2nd grade. Then, when Wendy was pre-school age, she and Heather crafted some more pilgrims and a pair of native Americans. I thought they were adorable and always set them out as part of my fall/Thanksgiving decorations.

Sadly, due to an unfortunate incident, I no longer have the originals. In October, when I opened the plastic tub of fall decorations, I discovered some of my miniature gourds had spoiled. Everything was damp and covered in mold! (I'm not sure what happened. I've stored real gourds before with no problems.) It was a horrible, stinky mess. I had to wear a mask and gloves to go through it all.

Only a couple of ceramic pumpkins were salvageable; everything else was totally ruined. I wasn't upset about losing the foam pumpkins or the silk leaf garlands or the candles. What upset me was losing the little hand print turkeys with the colorful craft store feathers and the scarecrow coloring pages and Wendy's family turkey project from kindergarten; all the girls' precious hand made things. Including the construction paper and toilet paper tube pilgrims and native Americans.

I cried as I sorted and threw things away. I cried as I called my mom and told her what had happened. I cried as I went to bed that night. I was heart broken.

Then, Christmas morning, I cried again as I opened the box and saw what my girls had made for me. I barely had the lid opened when I whispered "Oh, girls!" and the tears started to flow.

This is undoubtedly the sweetest, most thoughtful gift I have ever received. It took planning and time; not to mention secret stashing of toilet paper tubes. :)

a little bit of scrapbooking.

Today was trash day. It was a sad day. Why? Because the trash can under my desk was empty. Empty because I haven't been doing much scrapbooking or creating in general lately. And that makes me sad. (and sometimes grumpy!)

But, all of that is about to change. Tomorrow I'm once again participating in a LOAD (layout a day) challenge...31 layouts in 31 days. I almost didn't sign up, but I couldn't stop thinking about all the layouts I wouldn't get done if I didn't at least try. I couldn't stop thinking about all the inspiration I would be missing out on by perusing the Flickr LOAD gallery. I couldn't stop thinking about all the fun I would be missing out on by interacting with other scrapbookers/LOADsters. I just couldn't stop thinking about it period, so I signed up! This will be my fourth LOAD and I can't wait to get started.

It's not to late to join in. Go to ScrapHappy for all the details. There will be prizes! :)
You'll need to scroll down a bit for the info.

Looking forward to a full trash can for the next month!




You can see my layouts from two other LOAD challenges in my Flickr gallery.

A little bit of blog hopping...

I have my favorite blogs and don't think a day is complete without going the rounds, checking them all out.


Two of the regular blogs I visit are Yeah, Write (Angie Lucas) and ScrapHappy (Lain Ehmann). Angie and Lain have teamed up and started a new publishing company, Ella Publishing, producing scrapbook related e-books. This week is their grand opening cELLAbration so they are hostessing a blog hop, featuring prizes. Yeah, for prizes!


So, that's what I'm doing this evening, blog hopping and finding some new favorites.

Win a Lens!

MCP Actions is givng away a Tamron lens! Go HERE! Good luck!

Watering

It hasn't rained for a weeks, so watering the gardens every evening is an almost daily activity. By using the hose in the garage and standing on the deck, I can water the bird bath garden without having to walk around the house and down into the yard. I'm lazy like that. lol!

A little bit of supper

It was just Wendy and me for supper tonight so I kept it simple...PB & J, cinnamon applesauce and chocolate milk. We had a nice time chatting and laughing. Simple is good.

A little bit of a bumper crop

Our gardens are doing so well this year! Remember the lettuce and spinach I blogged about earlier this spring? I've harvested it three times already and may be able to get some more before the heat of summer comes. We'll have cucumbers and zucchini ready in the next few days and some tomatoes by the end of the month. Just 4 days ago, there were only a handful of sugar snap peas on the vine and they looked like this:

And this:

Tonight Wendy and Ernie picked some sugar snap peas.

These are only the beginning, there will be a lot more of these in a few days!

If I take pictures of peas, does that make me a pea shooter? =)

Thanks for stopping by!

First rose of the season

My sweet hubsand brought this in to me today. The first bloom from our climbing rose bush.





There are several more buds getting ready to burst forth. In the next few days, the vines will be covered. But, there's nothing like the first bloom.

Thanks for stopping by!

A little bit of a surprise

Hubby and I went to the Botanical Gardens today. It was overcast all morning, which was perfect. While we were walking out of one of the rose gardens, Ernie stops suddenly, in mid-step and said, "Look at this!" I look down and this is what he had almost stepped on.

The cutest baby turtle! Ernie said it's some kind of water turtle (webbed claws). We wonder how this tiny turtle ended up in the rose garden...there isn't a pond or any water in that area. It's amazing to think it crawled from wherever without getting stepped on or picked up by a bird. That's another theory...it may have been picked up by a bird and then dropped.

We relocated the little turtle to a wooded section of the Gardens, near a stream. I hope it's safe and sound.

A little bit of an awesome moment

The circus came to town Monday. I (and hubby and Wendy) got up early and headed down to the local ball field parking lot where the circus was setting up. We watched them unload a few animals, including the Belgian horses.
At one point during the morning, as we were watching the big top go up, we could see they had let the horses run loose in a field behind the ball fields.
We were stationed at one of the entrances, away from where the rest of the crowd was watching. (It was a better vantage point for pictures.) While I was shooting away, Ernie says, "Here come the horses." I turn around and see 4 Belgian horses galloping straight for us! First, I pulled Wendy up from where she was sitting in the grass, (didn't want her to get trampled!) then watched as the horses stopped for a bite of grass.

(I wonder what the people driving by were thinking!)

The horses stopped for just a minute though, I think they must have gotten spooked by either the cars on the bridge, or maybe it was me standing there with a strange object that made clicking noises pointed at them! :) Whatever is was, they turned and galloped off.

If we had stayed with the crowd, we would have missed this experience. I'm so thankful I was there to see these amazing, beautiful animals up close and in MOTION.

Thanks for stopping by!

A way to save energy...

The first sun tea of the season...

A little bit of fun in the park

It was an absolutely gorgeous evening. After supper the girls and I went to the park. The back field is covered in pretty purple clover...a perfect spot for some pictures. I wanted to try something different so I held my camera in one hand and had Wendy hold my free hand. Then we started spinning while I snapped shot after shot. Oh, my...so FUN! She laughed and squealed. We spun until we were dizzy. Heather wanted to try also, so I spun again. I was surprised that I got anything useable, some of the shots are blurry, but not terribly so, just enough to show movement. I'm calling them artistically blurred! ;) These two are my favorite. I love the backlighting on Heather.

(they look a little washed out...the background has a bit more contrast and color)

Thanks for stopping by!

A little bit of gardening...a way to save money & the Earth

We started our garden today. We planted radicchio lettuce, a lettuce mix, spinach and sugar snap peas. The zucchini & cucumber plants were put into bigger pots...it's too early yet to put them in the ground. The herb seedlings have just started to sprout in their little greenhouse as have the tomatoes and peppers. We still have carrots and bibb lettuce to put out.

Remember the Barbara Mandrell song, "I was Country when Country wasn't Cool"? That's how I feel about our gardening. We always had a garden, but it seems like in the past couple of years, more and more people are planting home gardens. With the whole "go green" movement and people looking for ways to save on their grocery bill, gardening is now chic.

I played around with the processing on these photos a bit. I was going for a 1930's-40's type of look. I'm not sure if that's what I acheived, but I like it anyway. :) Why that particular look? Because the resurgence in the popularity of gardening made me think of the Victory Gardens of WW II era. My mind works in weird ways sometimes...it's a scary place! lol!

I have a whole series of shots I plan on making a storyboard with.

Thanks for stopping by!

Discovery

So happy to go outside and shoot in the sunshine! While I was in the yard today, I saw a plant in the wildflower/butterfly garden that I've never seen before. Can anyone help me identify it?

I think I call it EggPlant! ;) Just a little April Fool's joke!

I have a new favorite Easter decoration. I found the basket at Goodwill and fell in love with it. It was just a bit too distressed and rusted, so I dabbed on white acrylic paint in a few spots. The eggs came from the Home & Garden show held in downtown St. Louis in early March. At the end of the show all the garden vendors sell their plants and flowers from their displays. We were buying some tulips from one of the vendors and he threw in the eggs for no charge. There were too many purple eggs, so I painted and speckled three of them. (the two yellow eggs and one of the blue eggs). I love acrylic paint...instant makeover! I filled the basket with green excelsior.

Just looking at this cheery basket makes me smile!

Completion of LOAD

Wow! February went by so quickly! I was so busy keeping up with the LOAD scrapbooking challenge, I didn't have time for too much extra. I had a blast...and I haven't stopped! 3 days into March and I'm still scrapping! Just wanted to show the rest of the layouts I did in February.

A little more scrapbooking

Actually a lot more. I have 7 days worth of layouts to share. I've been keeping up with LOAD and doing a layout a day. I've also been taking pictures just about every day for POTD, had plenty of shots for last weeks theme, just haven't found the time to post. (or I've been too tired in the evenings) Anyway, I'm babbling. On to the layouts:

Day 4:

Day 5:

Day 6:

Day 7:

Day 8:

Day 9: (this one is completely digital)

Day 10: (this one is a hybrid, a mix of digital and traditonal)

That's it! Thanks for stopping by!

A little bit of Scrapbooking

I'm participating in a scrapbooking challenge called LOAD (layout a day), through Lain Ehmann's website, ScrapHappy. I took and completed the challenge when she first did it in January 2008 and had a blast! The challenge is simple...a scrapbook layout a day for 28 days, the entire month of February. There's one other rule: NO WHINING! lol!

I'm posting my layouts on Flickr, but I'll be blogging them also, if you'd like to follow along.

Here are days 1-3:

One of my main goals for this challenge is to make a dent in my scrapbooking stash. The papers used on this layout are over 5 years old. The scroll die cut is almost a year old. The title was done in photoshop. I need to add the journaling...Wendy bought the skateboard at a yard sale for $1.

Very simple 2 page spread. I wanted to use all these photos and I didn't want to cut them, so this is what I came up with. The scallop borders are Just the Edges by Bazzil, the chipboard letters are Hedi Swapp. The photos are mine...all taken in my backyard. More stash busting...everything (except the photos) are a year old.

I literally threw this together, took less than a half and hour. It's not my favorite layout, but it's done! ;) The papers are new to me...but who knows how long my mom had them before giving them to me this weekend. lol!

Three days, three layouts....right on track! Thanks for stopping by!

A little bit of weather

Snow day today...school for tomorrow has already been cancelled and it's not looking promising for school on Thursday. Or, depending on one's perspective, it could be looking quite promising!

Today's photo was taken by my daughter, Heather. She wrote a little message in the snow. I didn't go out...I have a cold and didn't think it would be wise to be outside.

Thanks for stopping by. By the way, Rufus says thanks for all the cute kitty comments! :)

A little bit of...Rufus

Rufus is our 3 year old tabby. We adopted him from the Humane Society in 2005.

One of Rufus' favorite "hobbies" (besides trying to trip me when I'm doing the laundry!) is playing with straws. He has cat toys, but really prefers to play with, chew on, throw in the air, pounce on, carry around, straws. There are gnawed up straws strewn about my house. (eww! lol!)

We can throw the straw and Rufus will chase it, fetch it and bring it back. So dog-like...he has other dog like tendencies, too, but those are a whole 'nother post! Or we can drag a straw along the floor and he will stalk it and pounce. We can't leave a fast food or gas station cup sitting around with the straw in it or Rufus will steal it, spilling the drink in the process.

Rufus was batting the straws around when I snapped this shot.


In this shot, you can see Rufus' shaved belly from his ribbon removal surgery December 23rd. His hair is finally starting to grow back.

Thanks for stopping by!

A little bit of Technology

This is my Seagate external hard drive. My husband bought it for me for our anniversary last year. I know...so romantic! lol! It was something I needed and wanted, so the gift was well received. However, I didn't fully appreciate it until last night.

Last night I was organizing some recently downloaded pictures, deleting as I went along. I clicked on one image, hit delete, confirmed the action and next thing I knew my ENTIRE picture folder was being dumped! AAAAAAAAA! I hit cancel furtively (and in a slight panic), but it was too late. I'm not sure what happened. After a few seconds of shock, I thought, "I'll just go to the recycle bin, find the folder and do a restore. No problem." Yeah, right...no problems. Wrong!

At first I couldn't even find the folder, so I decided to do a restore all. It wouldn't work. It only restored a portion of the items in the recycle bin. Then I kept getting an error message and the "operation was aborted". I finally did find the picture folder, restored, but not everything came back. Some of the folders inside the picture folder are missing, and a few of the folders are missing pictures. (And some pictures are in the wrong folders)

This is where the EHD plays a vital role in my story. That's right....I'm backed up! Yeah!
There are only a few things that weren't backed up on the EHD, but I have them elsewhere, so all is good. Well, not entirely...I have lots of reorganizing to do, this little hiccup messed stuff up and since restoring practically my entire recycle bin, I have deleting (CAREFUL deleting) to do.

Things could have been worse...I could have lost everything (over 3000 images...basically all of 2008). Consider this your PSA for the day! ;)

Thanks for stopping by!

A little bit of knitting

Wow, where did the week go? It doesn't seem like I was too terribly busy...just the normal day to day stuff. I know there were a couple days I didn't take any pics at all. Then the days I did take pics, I didn't take the time to blog. I've been trying to be more "present" with my family instead of multi-tasking by being on the computer and watching t.v. together or playing Wii or whatever toys Wendy is playing with. So, that means no blogging.

Today's photos were actually taken last night. My knitting fits the theme of texture in a couple of ways. First, the yarn itself; it's an alpaca wool and silk blend...so soft and squishy! Then the pattern of the stitches adds texture of it's own. This particular piece will eventually be a scarf. The pattern is a free download at Knit Picks. The yarn is called Elegance.



I started knitting about 3 or so years ago. I love it! It's so relaxing. I do some of my best thinking as I move my hands in a rhythmic fashion, relishing the feel of the yarn as it slides through my fingers. When I became interested in learning photograpy, knitting (and every other hobby!) took a back seat. I've been feeling the urge to knit again. Maybe it's the cold weather.



I bought some new sock yarn the other day...looking at it inspires me. That could fueling my urge, too. I have three other projects "on the needles" right now, but that's okay. (the scarf pictured here, a pair of pink socks and a convertible mitten.) More than likely I won't finish any of these before starting socks with my new yarn! lol! Switching projects keeps the whole process fresh. Picking up a project that has been hiatus makes me fall in love with it all over again.

There's a little bit of knitting for you! Thanks for stopping by!

POTD-Texture

I found my texture at supper tonight.






















My cork trivet.


Thanks for stopping by!

You get a line and I'll get a pole and we'll go down to the fishing hole...

My dh loves fly fishing as much as I love anything crafty and creative. He's an avid fisherman anyway, but there is something about the challenge of fly fishing that excites him. He even ties his own flies, which is a whole craft in itself. Dh has all the gear, studies techniques, practices, and can't wait for the chance to go and do. (sounds a lot like me and whatever hobby I'm currently obsessed with!)


I fish with him, but have never tried fly fishing. It looks complicated and I'm afraid I'll get tangled up in the line. Dh has always wanted me to learn so I could join him; he wants me to share in his fun and passion. I promised him I would give it a try in 2009. So, he bought me a belated Christmas present. (meaning he saw it on sale while perusing Slick Deals after Christmas...lol!)


So, here I am, ready to go fly fishing.







It doesn't do a thing for my girl-ish figure, does it?! ha! ha!

Wendy came home from school today and said, "I'm going to get right down to doing my homework." She asked me for a glass of milk, I poured it and left the kitchen. When I came back, Wendy wasn't at the table, where she usually does her homework. I called out for her and she called back, "I'm in my room." Okay, I thought, that's different, but she has a desk, so, whatever.

I walked into her room, but she wasn't at her desk, she was sitting on her bed.

"Why aren't you using your desk," I asked. Then I look over at her desk.

Well, no wonder she can't use her desk!

What's for Dinner?

I love trying new recipes and visit several recipes sites looking for inspiration. I also like watching the Food Network...I'm addicted to watching the Food Network Challenges. The other day, they had a food stylist challenge, meaning the food had to photograph well. I was very interested in that one.

Now, I'm not a food stylist by any stretch of the imagination, but I do like to photograph my food. One of the first pictures I took and actually printed after getting my dslr was of a ham and swiss on rye sandwich. :)

More than once the family has had to ask, "Will you please stop taking pictures so we can eat supper!?" I made myself stop tonight before they had a chance to say anything...the chili smelled too good and I was hungry!

The chili is a Rachael Ray recipe, BBQ Beef and Baked Bean Chili. DH requested it, which made me feel good. Not all the new recipes I try are "keepers"...lol! I pretty much followed the recipe, except I didn't use ground sirloin (too much $$ for my budget), so I had to drain the extra fat. The recipe never says when to add in the bacon, but I add it in at the end, so it doesn't get soggy. I also don't do the biscuits on top; I bake them separately. (from scratch)

Do you follow the recipe? I usually do the first time around. On the recipe sites I visit, the recipes are reviewed. It cracks me up to read the negative reviews. They usually start out by saying how horrible the recipe is, then proceed to say what they changed about it. Usually they've changed so much, it's not even the same recipe. On the flip side, there are postive reviews where the reviewer did the same thing, changed just about everything there is to change, but rave about the recipe. Too funny!

Thanks for stopping by!




(quick question: are my images over-sharpened? They look ok to me in ps, but look a bit over-sharpened on here.)

POTD- January 6th- Ready to Sew

Not only is Heather a rocker, but she's also quite the designer. She's playing around with a design for a new dress. (It's just pinned together right now.) She called me into her room, saying, "Mom, you've got to take a picture of this...it's perfect!" I go into her room and the above is what I found. She said, "I didn't intentionally lay it all out like that, it just happened." I love it! The pink book under the fabric is her sketch book of designs. It's covered in pink duct tape. You can also see a bit of Roxie.

The swirl is part of an "H" pillow. Her carpet is actually black; it looks a little off in the pic. Thanks for stopping by!