Hearts

Kelly loves to make a heart with her hands. She will come up to me and say "Hearts!" . It's her way of saying "I love you." I think she got it from Taylor Swift.

A Winter's Eve

Took the pic late last night, it was snowing gently and the whole neighborhood just looked sepia toned.

Things seen & heard

First off I have to say that I kind of cheated today, I didn't take either of these pictures. But both of the pictures are of things I saw or heard today.

The first picture is of swarming starlings. We were driving to the base today on the way to school when I saw what I thought at first was smoke in the sky. It took another minute or two to realize what it really was. I got JR's attention (he LOVES birds) he thought it was awesome. Couldn't take a picture as I was driving. So I borrowed an image from the web.

The road I drive on the Army post to pick DS up after his vocational training job, runs along side Ft Sam Houston NAtional Cemetery . Today as I was passing I heard a 21 gun salute. Since it would have been incredibly tacky and disrespectful to stop and take a picture, I again stole a picture from the web.

What's that?

I had to drop off a cookbook and a pair of mini gloves at my cousin's house this afternoon and one of her cats wanted to be fed.  Of course I obliged but when I went to snap her picture she suddenly got very curious about the camera.  Talk about extreme close-up!

The Back Porch

I love our back porch. We spend a ton of time out here almost year round.

Sunday Dinner

Went out for an early dinner this evening and when the first choice restaurant wasn't open, we decided to go to Pizza Hut.  Surprise, surprise, we were the only diners.  You'd think that was the cue for great service but apparently the staff didn't get that memo.  LOL.  But hey the food was still good and there are even leftovers. Mmmmm!

Outdoor Music

The people that originally built and owned our house, prewired the back porch for outside speakers. We finally have a use for those Bose speakers we carted around for 25 years. Love working in the backyard with the music playing or sitting on porch watching the fire and listening to music.

Critter Control

This is the access to my attic conveniently located in my bathroom ceiling.  Darrell came over today to venture up there to repair the spot in the eaves where a raccoon is getting into the attic.  Then we followed the conservation dude's advice and spread out some mothballs, stuck an LED light up there and some speakers. Note the cord coming from the attic?  Its attached to my iPod which is hooked up to the speakers so there's music up there.  We've either created a great raccoon disco, or else they are going to be fooled into thinking someone human has moved in, and they'll wander off to another home somewhere  (that's my hope!) cause according to Mr. Conservation Dude that's the way to do it, works for raccoons in attics and foxes under decks. (thank goodness I don't have a deck!).  But hey, who else has a bathroom with piped in music and I definitely don't need an air freshener now that I have mothballs!

What a cuddle bunny.

ever since we got Midnight fixed, he has bent he sweetest kitty. When I let him in tonight he jumped up in my chair to sit by me. I love the way he sighs when he settles down.

Star Light, Star Bright

 Quick snap from the 7-11 parking lot.  I bought a lottery ticket for tonight's 50 million dollar jackpot.  Hopefully this is my lucky star tonight.  Cross your fingers!

It's a Texas Thang !

The only good thing about Jim being out of town............Whataburger for dinner !!!!!

Not Rain

Nope that's not rain on the windshield, the sky is bright blue.  But windshield wipers and windshield fluid were necessary today.  It was 36F and the roads turned into soup.  Ewwww, messy!

San Antonio Really needs to work on its drainage issues

What a morning ! We left the house on time (GASP ! ) because I figured with the storms last night traffic would be horrid. So we get thru the neighborhood, one low water crossing was flowing fast but thankfully the water had receded from the road. Interstate 35 was eerily empty. so we made great progress from New Braunfels to Randolph AFB. Dropped Kelly off about 7:40 which gave me 50 minutes to get JR to Fort Sam Houston. Easy Peasy. WRONG !

Started on our way. Ran into a traffic jam. Ah I know a shortcut. DAMN ! Forgot there is a low water crossing involved and it was closed, water flowing through it. So I turned around to go back. We sat there for 45 minutes !!!! I called JR's supervisor the first time and said we might have a chance to still make it, but after 30 minutes I called back and said no way.

So JR ended up going to bowling with me. Thank goodness for the Netflix app on my Nook. Dropped him off at school after bowling was over.

We sure needed the 3+ inches of rain we got but UGH those low water crossings need to go !!!!

Mid week blues

Yes I wanted to stay right here all day.  No I didn't.  But it was tempting!

Rain !

YAY ! It rained today and is supposed to REALLY rain over night into tomorrow. Fingers crossed.

Yummy!

Give me a glass of Pepsi with ice and I'm a happy girl!  Yeah, I know I could stand to lose the calories but I haven't found a worthy substitute yet.  In the meantime, I'll just continue to enjoy!

I swear I spend more time in here than anywhere else

With all the dropping off and picking up and dropping off and picking up and running errands etc, I spend most of the day in my truck.

Argh!

Meant to take a pic of the broom I used to sweep the stairs, and the kitchen and the hallway.  Meant to take the camera with me when I went to the grocery store and get some wildly creative shot down an aisle or two.  But ummmm, I forgot...

So today's pic of the day will have to be the result of my weekend.  Hey, at least I got something accomplished this weekend!  And yah, the pic is lousy cause I took it after it got dark by the light of a lamp, and yeah, I didn't bother ironing it first.  So ignore the yellowish tinge and the wrinkles all over the place.  I just didn't want to get out of the habit of posting a picture of the day this early in the year. LOL

Memories

I love to scrapbook. I love playing with the paper and the embellishments. It's a creative outlet. And it preserves the memories of me and my family. The bog moments and events along with the everyday ones.

Here's my latest layout.

Yawn

Its just been that kind of day today, I could have gladly just stayed in bed but instead I got up and planted myself in front of the computer and TV and cross stitched, played on the net and watched Barrett Jackson and playoff football.  There are worse ways to spend a Sunday, I suppose!

Lights

So Christmas has been over for a few weeks yet I've still got lights hanging in the upstairs hall.  Actually they stay up year round.  What can I say, they just make me happy and hey, plugging those in every evening rather than turning on the actual lights saves electricity.  Its a win-win situation.

P.S.   Pam, I can honestly say I didn't see your post about de-lighting your Christmas tree until I went to post this daily shot. Talk about a similar theme eh!

De-Lighting the tree

Our pre-lit tree decided to not be lit this year, so after Christmas was over Jim started cutting the lights off the tree.

TGIF!

Chili burger, fries and a pepsi = dinner on a Friday evening!  Spent most of the day in restaurants today starting with three hours at lunch at Olive Garden with my best bud from work.  Then it was on to Daly Burger for dinner.  Okay so the fries really weren't mine, the burger was more than enough to fill me up, but I borrowed the fries for the photo.

What happened to the rest of the Base?????

It was a tad bit foggy out this morning. You would normally be able to see the hospital and the runway from here. This morning............ not so much.

I didn't want to do it........

but I did go to the gym today. Walked for an hour, the last ten minutes of which were hard to get through. There was a group of wheelchair athletes playing basketball while I was there, Made me very thankful for my working legs, even if they were yelling at me to STOP ! LOL

You know this sent us on a fast spiral into the gutter....

Tricia and I picked Steph up from work while running errands today. We cut through the neighborhood to avoid stoplights, etc.  I don't recall ever seeing a sign for this before. There is a wikipedia page it seems and websites to purchase these. (You know I had to google when  I got home!!)

 so what is the difference between a hump and a bump?  "While similar to speed bumps, humps are less aggressive than speed bumps at low speeds and are used on actual streets, as opposed to bumps which are primarily placed in parking lots. While speed bumps generally slow cars to 5 – 10 mph (8 – 15 km/h), humps slow cars to 10 – 20 mph (15 – 30 km/h). The narrow nature of speed bumps often allows vehicles to pass over them at high speed while only perturbing the wheels and suspension, hardly affecting the vehicle cab and its occupants. The relatively long slopes of speed humps gradually accelerate the entire vehicle in vertical direction, causing the perturbation of the cab to become progressively more severe at higher speeds."

Now for the real conversation in the car...;)  We wondered 1. why anyone would advertize their shortcomings.  2. Was this a new form of speed dating (why waste money on dinner and drinks eh?) 3. Who we knew that qualified...4. And of course there were comments about the imposed speed limit :D   

All that led to much snorting, laughter, and general hilarity.  I really love silly moments!! 

Guilty Pleasure

One of my January musts is watching the Barrett Jackson Scottsdale auction.  My brother in law got me hooked on it a few Christmas' ago when he was watching repeats of it and now I can't imagine January without a chance to tune in.

I love a bargain !!

After bowling and lunch at the club, Diane, Susie and I went shopping at the BX. We found all kinds of stuff on sale. I got a pair of jeans that were originally $59 for $14.75. A 17.99 sweater for 4.50. And a plaid shirt originally 19.99 for 5.00 !!!!!

a day off to do nothing!!

i found this book at a used bookstore ages ago and between work and the pile of other unread books I am just now getting to it.   

My-Dream-You-Nuala-OFaolain 

I would love to go somewhere new and different where the normal distractions can't follow you and see what I could write.  its my huge what if scenario. What if I won the lottery and could do anything I wanted.... 

;)

for now I get 24 hours to immerse myself in this book.  I'll let ya know how it was!!

Brrrr!

Coldest day of winter so far, with the wind chill it was -35C most of the day and now there's a windchill warning.  But it does make for a pretty sunset. 

Here's the forecast for tonight and tomorrow:  Wind chill values near minus 40 over Southern Manitoba tonight and into Thursday morning. Cold Arctic air combined with northwesterly winds of 15 to 25 km/h will create wind chill values of minus 40 or lower tonight into Thursday morning. Wind chill values are expected to moderate slightly Thursday afternoon but then fall back into the minus forties over most of Southern Manitoba Thursday night. At these extreme wind chill values frostbite on exposed skin may occur in less than 10 minutes.

sometimes work is fun

There are days when work is a chore, and then there are days like today.  You find something and it just gets out of hand...or IN hand in this case. Of course all the horrid versions (some with the correct words even) of "He's Got The Whole World In His Hands" took up a lot of the rest of the day.

Back to the Kitties

JR is back to doing his vocational training at the San Antonio Humane Society. He LOVES it there.

Mmmmmm

mmm Yorkshire pudding with brisket and potatoes.  Okay so the brisket was overdone but the potatoes were perfectly glazed, amazing what Pepsi, brown sugar and garlic can do in the oven, and the Yorkshire puddings were good too.  First time trying frozen ones, instead of homemade.  Its a pain to make Yorkshire pudding so the idea of simply baking these at 400 for 4 mins was definitely appealing!  And the results were pretty tasty! I'll buy them again.

puppy love

There is nothing like the snuggle of a puppy (the only thing better is the unbridled laughter of a child.) We went over to Kathy and Ed's to see the puppies their dogs just had.  There are 12 of them!! (go ahead and read it again, I said, 12!!) We had a blast watching the little (well not so little they are Bloodhound/Mastiff/Labrador mixes)  guys, and girls, play.  I think we all have a favorite, which is bad, considering we are only taking one home in a few weeks. The pup on the bottom right, slept through it all, on his back, completely zonked.  Man I want to sleep like that tonight!

Busy Busy

Because it was MLK Day, Jim had the day off. We dropped his Cougar off at Goodyear to get the oil changed. Then took the CD player to Austin. Stopped at the Container store to get something to hang the clothes on that we don't want to dry in the dryer. Stopped in San Marcos at the McDonalds for drinks. After that we headed to the base for gas and the commissary. Picked the Cougar up at Goodyear. On the way home I stopped at Rudy's for brisket and Green Chile Stew to bring home for a late lunch.

Willpower?

I have absolutely no willpower when it comes to starting new projects.  Doesn't matter if I'm already working on a dozen, if something catches my eye, I'm bound to start it too.  This is a design from a British cross stitch magazine and I paid way too much for the magazine and then had to go out and buy a piece of blue fabric to do it on (the ones I had already were either the wrong shade of blue or not big enough).  But for the past few days this cross stitch has totally captured my attention and I've been working on it like crazy!

Tools of the Trade

Worked hard in the yard this weekend.

oh my!!

now I don't play guitar, but I love it and would really like to learn.  This is at the pawn shop next to Meg & Bobby's salon.  I made the mistake of looking at it too many times.  The shop guy offered me a deal...yeah even with the deal this baby is way out of my league. But what a reason to learn to play guitar!! Vintage!  (but for that price....I can get a stateroom with a veranda next January.

Snow Storm?

Looked outside this afternoon and realized it was snowing like crazy.  For about five minutes it looked like we were having a blizzard and then just like that, it completely fizzled out.  Love how this photo looks as though I took it in black and white.

Burn Baby Burn

Jim finally had a long weekend and the weather had co-operated earlier this month by giving us enough rain to keep the burn ban lifted. So we cut and burned.

I came this close....

to buying this sign! I laughed till my stomach hurt.  Now, I'm not singling out any one person, but we ALL know someone who this applies to at some point and time. Right? 

Done!

One benefit to a lousy night's sleep, I got the puzzle done!  I was up at 3 am patiently fitting piece after piece into the last few spots, looking for the right spot for them.  Thank goodness it was only a 500-piece puzzle.

No bad luck here

Jim came home early and asked if their was music at Gruene Hall that afternoon. If there was we would go have a couple drinks. Turns out there wasn't, only the ticketed show later that evening. so we went to the Gristmill for dinner instead.

Visiting Mom

This is the road to Mom's.  Well the "street" she lives on.  She's second from the end and it's amazingly quiet! This is only bad when it snows and trees fall. Some lazy "hunter" has a deer stand right on the road.  Yeah, that's real sportsman like, dork!  At night this makes me think of Sleepy Hollow and Ichabod. 

Another Day

I'm surprised at the amount of photos I have taken this year, I guess working on a cross stitch blog helps the effort even if shots like these aren't the most exciting for the non cross-stitchers out there.  I love that this photo actually shows the individual stitches off well.  That's one resolution for this year - working on taking better close up shots of my cross stitch.  Not sure if the problem is me or the cameras I have but hopefully I'll figure it out before the end of the year!