lovin right now

Eek!! I love when it's not hard to come up with four or five things that I am "lovin right now"!  

For starters with this lovely list, I got the hankering for light blue toe nail polish.  I am usually a navy blue kind of gal... Russian Navy by O.P.I. to be exact, but a stop by Walgreens and a $1.99 bottle of polish was worth a try.  It turns out that I am fond of this color although it still surprises me when I look down.

Calamity Jane is a fantastic musical that has got me singing!  I especially love the part where Calamity and Katie fix up her cabin.  Such a super movie!

Glamping by MaryJane Butters has got me spinning and all geared up and inspired for our camping trip.  The more I look at this book the more I jot notes in my spiral on special touches and things to take.

Oh She Glows Glo Bars!  I checked out the Oh She Glows cookbook from the library a month or so ago and had to make these bars.  They are so simple and delicious.  I have made them a couple of different ways.  The only hard part was locating brown rice syrup.  I found it at out health food shop in White House.

And this song by Kacey Musgraves.

One of my favorite views of someone else's campy life.

Click the pic to see their trip.   Love it!

  Also views of our peace on earth that I am lovin right now.

The temperature change from up there to down here is fantastic.  

It can be hot as the devil at the house and cool as a cucumber at the creek.  

The sweet smell of honeysuckle is intoxicating right now!

This little blue gem with yellow petunias will be gracing the picnic table of our campsite!

Maybe the hens and chickens too!

I am loving Black Rose topless!  She so crazy!

days of our play care

I get a little cranky at masking tape that won't hold.  I come in to work with things lying on the floor where they've fallen off the wall over night from tons of tape that won't stick.  I seriously don't know what kind to buy anymore.  I have three rolls of not-so-good masking tape right now and here is what one of my friends and I decided to do with some of it to use it up. 

I think it's quite arty don't you?  He made a house and mine was just abstract lines.   

Hey... it kept us busy and quiet until the rest of the kids woke up from their naps.  

weekend shots

Well folks... on Saturday I took the plunge, looked up and found a "how to" on youtube and fixed my camera myself.  I am so tickled that it worked and feel the old flame of good pictures coming back.  I wanted to take shots after work yesterday because I was feeling art-y but my camera battery was dead.  Maybe the feeling will be back today.  Instead I moved my plants from inside the house to the outside for the summer, potted some yellow trailing petunias and moved some things around on the porch.  I am lucky to get to nest inside and outside of our home.  Speaking of nesting, the Phoebes have built a new nest already in the same place it was last year and away from being at the top of a pole, which I thought being in the corner was brilliant until the snake moved in.  And by the way, Shaun saw another snake, not as large as the first one, on his truck inside the shop on Sunday.  Must be the year of the slithery snake.  Didn't read that part of the yearly horoscope.  I've also been slowly putting things in the camper for our trip coming up that I am so excited about.  We bought new "put our feet up" chairs and a 12x12 canopy that I intend to string white Christmas tree lights under for illumination.  I can't wait.  This evening we plan on planting our garden at the house.  Since the disaster last year we decided to move the garden over to get more drainage and vowed to not have such a large garden.  Somehow, it looks like we just added more footage to the right so the garden is bigger than ever.  But, I plan on planting zinnias and calendula in the areas that tend to hold water.  That way even if we do get a lot of rain we hopefully won't lose any actual produce.  Fingers crossed.

First shot with my fixed camera.

It's a wonder I didn't drop it when I was jumping up and down because it worked!

My Granddaddy made this wishing well for me.  I didn't make a place for it in our yard but let my father-in-law rig it up over at the Sleepin' Bear.  He put a fountain in it and every thing!  I think Granddaddy would love it!

I helped at a beautiful wedding that was held there on Saturday.

A sleeping kitty.

Two of my nieces also graduated this past weekend.  So proud of you both!

Chives that came back this year at the DC.

Observing.

Enjoying the weather, the shade, watching kids play, a little reading and new toe nail polish.

be a happy camper

As I was making my list of things our little camper (me) needs or wants I felt I would share with you.  I am so excited to hit the road on our weekend get-a-ways this year in our Scotty.  Now that the new curtains are made and I found a clothespin bag that I made that just happens to match I feel I am closer to being ready to go.  Although there are these few things I will pick up before our trip.

1 ~ A dish drainer!  I am an outside dish washing gal and I really don't mind but a dish drainer would be nice.  Preferably metal since I have to carry the dishes back to the camper.  We have a kitchen sink but haven't worked out the kinks in the camper water system.  Truthfully I've never camped when I didn't have to wash dishes outside unless we were camping with someone else.  Oddly enough I kind of like it.

2 ~ A small cutting board to live in the camper.  I took along a flexible one from the kitchen and would like something a bit sturdier to take along.  A nice avocado green or harvest gold would blend in with our eighties camper decor.

3 ~ I need a new folding lounge chair.  I bought one from Granny's friend Dorthy's yard sale and used it for two whole summers until I backed over it with the Arctic Cat... woops.  But I do miss Shaun pulling in the driveway after work to find me laid back with a cold one in my hand and a chicken on my lap... that is what the rich folks do isn't it?  Besides, one is supposed to put their feet up on vacation right?!

4 & 5 ~ OK thanks to Mary Jane Butters and her Glamping book, I found out that they make toilet seats for 5 gallon buckets AND bags to go in them that are basically like going to a port-a-potty.  Not that I enjoy doing that, but like I said about the water... it includes the toilet that's in the camper.  So it's off to the bath house for us which I really don't mind until it's the middle of the night.  THEN these two items would come in very handy (outside of sneaking behind a tree).  Although I could just pack in one of my many enamelware shit buckets with the lid.  May be awkward to squat on though and I probably wouldn't feel the same about using it to tote beer in. 

6 ~ And finally I feel an oscillating fan is in order.  Especially since we have no air conditioning which will probably change this summer or before the next time we go camping after this time because it will be much hotter.  When I think of hot campers and fans I think about Sissy in Urban Cowboy waking up in Wes Hightower's camper, in Texas, in the summer, with no shade trees, no a/c and a small room fan blowing her hair.  Bless her heart.  If she can do it, I can do it... just not right next to a parking lot outside Gilley's in Texas.  

HERE's where we took our Scotty camping for the first time last fall.  

And P.S. the Vista Sophisticate will be sporting a new set of tires this time AND a new horn!  Look out!!!

what do you feed yourself?

When I ask you "what do you feed yourself?", I'm not just talking about food.  Sometimes, when we feel rotten, wore down and unhealthy, it is majority of what we are putting in that is giving us the bad outcome.  Not just what we eat, but what we watch, talk about, listen to, and even read.  I am sure, by society standards, that we feed ourselves plenty of bad things like news stories of violence and sickos, fast food, soft drinks, gossip, alcohol, processed foods, porn, or self-criticism.  If we keep putting bad in to our minds and bodies surely the outcome is not going to be good and stressing over things that we can't control will also run us down.

Why not make an effort to purposely feed ourselves with only what makes us feel good, be it healthy food, a favorite song on cd instead of the morning news, a glass of water instead of diet mountain dew, a walk around the block after a long day at work, yoga or a good stretch?  I feel like if we turned  off all the bad and turned on the good for a full week we would each begin to see a huge difference in our individual worlds.  It could actually change the way we eat, sleep and treat others.

Before all my diet changes, I had never really felt like I fed my body foods that made it feel good and refreshed.  Stopping to get a biscuit and an energy drink on the way to work was just the way it was.   But now I can truly tell a difference in the way that I feel.  Now if I can just make myself exercise!

Why not try it for one week?  Make a small list of just a few that make you feel "not-so-good" and replace them with something better, something that has a more positive twist on things.

days of our play care

So, when we were out at the dirt pile the other day, I noticed that there wasn't much mud leading up to the water and thought "we could actually get close enough to set some a-sail".  I almost couldn't wait for nap time to drag out my computer to see if I could find an easy origami boat tutorial.  I wound up finding a really good DIY and after nap time it was on.  The kids colored sheets of white copy paper and as they finished I neatly folded each one while I explained the rules of the pond.  

As we were lining up at the gate to head out the thought hit me.... "are you nuts woman?  You are taking these kids to water!  They could wind up wet.... muddy... wait and build something that can hold water in the yard or get a pool."  But if I listened to the sensible angel on my shoulder we wouldn't have had a ton of fun setting our paper boats in the water, with the wind blowing them just right, and having a terrific time.  We had to get our the black pipe we found at the dirt pile to help when one of them started to sink and all boats were retrieved with success except for the toppled one.  It was promptly crushed by it's owner.    

I wish the boats would have sailed all the way across the longer way of the pond but they chose to stay closer to the edge.  I did think ahead to warn the children that we may have to leave them in the water if we weren't able to get to them but luckily this wasn't the case.  When we got back to the DC we pinned them to the clothesline to dry.  I have a feeling this will not be the last boat race we will have!

HERE is the wonderful tutorial that I used to learn how to easily make paper boats that float!  Too cool!

bad news

Yesterday I came home and bee-bopped up the back steps after a happy jaunt into town to fill up Black Rose's gas tank not realizing I was being watched.  Shortly after I came home, Shaun went down the back steps to crank up the grill and saw something out of the corner of his eye.  A very large black snake had somehow slithered it's way up the 12-15 foot pole to the Eastern Phoebe nest where three fuzzy headed baby birds were.  I showed you all the pictures last week of feathered friend's nests around our home.  As I looked around to spy the mother and father Phoebes close by.  I felt their loss and fear of seeing that snake up there.  Shaun pulled it down with my sturdiest walking stick but for the babies it was too late.  How sad.  I have enjoyed watching the Phoebes feed their little nestlings and hurt thinking "now what will they do?"  The same thing I do I guess... move on.

Last year their first nest fell and tragedy for their babies struck as I came home and found their little bodies on the concrete.  Their second attempt at a nest and little ones proved wonderful.  So maybe their second set of eggs will be better than the first.  Nature can be unfair and hold brutal truth in life.  The snake is the only one who came away happy.  Shaun let him go.

I didn't even notice that you can see one of the parents back to the left on the fence.  Breaks my heart.
So help me if I find the snake visiting my hen house for eggs.  It will not be so lucky a second time.

potting sink redo

My ever fantastic potting sink just got a little sassier!  The sink came out of the same house that my claw foot tub came from... a house bought by my sister and her husband as rental property.  I originally wanted to put the sink in our spare bathroom but that idea got shot down so my loving Father built me a heavy duty stand to hold the heavy duty old sink.  Before now, it's never been painted or stained and I got a squirrely hair to paint it a sassy color and plant some trailing petunias in the sink.  My sister Mary Evelyn and I browsed through her spare paint and grabbed a color, came to my house and slapped it on.  I must admit it is pretty bright but for sure in a shabby chic kind of way!

We had to create a barrier with junk to keep Kate from being blue too!  She was in the mood to play.  She's staring at her frisbee willing it to move here.

I promise I helped.

The finished product!  I added one more petunia plant to thicken the pink color and also an asparagus fern potted in an old colander.