Sniffles, Sneezes and Hanging out With John Cusack

It should have been a great weekend being a holiday weekend and all (Labor Day) and having Monday off, but really, how great can it be when you spend the whole time sick with a nasty cold? I started with a sore throat late Friday night and by Monday night felt like I'd been ran over by a truck and had wool shoved up my nose. Then during the night I alternated between chills and sweats, so I knew I wouldn't be going into work on Tuesday. I didn't do much, didn't feel like doing much: read most of the weekend but by Monday afternoon my eyes hurt too bad from sinus pressure. Instead, I caught up on DVR stuff and watched movies and Netflix. It became a John Cusack marathon - I watched America's Sweethearts, Must Love Dogs, The Raven, The Factory, and Gross Pointe Blank. I love John Cusack! I love that dark hair and eyes and quirky smile - he is just all kinds of good :) I have to say though, that while The Factory was a good movie, I once again got hold of a movie with a less than satisfying ending. Excellent movie right up until the end. Now most people would probably like the ending because it was a totally unexpected twist, but (SPOILER ALERT!!!)..... it completely sucked that Cusack's character, Mike Fletcher, died at the end and one of the bad guys got away the way that they did. It made Mike's death in vain and left me without closure  :( As I have mentioned before, I hate when the main character dies. Now, having said that, I did really like The Raven, but I knew in advance that the story was loosely based on the unexplained missing hours prior to Edgar Allen Poe's death, so that probably made a difference. 

My very favorite John Cusack movie is Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil with Kevin Spacey and a very young-looking Jude Law. Excellent movie - it has a little of everything, drama, mystery, comedy, and some spooky, too! Fantastic performances by all. Hmmm...I think I'm going to have to watch that this weekend. It's kind a long movie and I ran out of time yesterday. I have it on DVD, and the main reason I didn't watch it Tuesday was because I had zero energy and I didn't want to get up to hunt through the DVD's. Everything I watched was on the DVR, TV, or NetFlix. I know, right? But I was sick, so it's okay. And if you gotta be sick, well, at least hanging out with John Cusack is pretty sweet, yeah? 

Work today was kind of tough, but at least it wasn't a super demanding day. I used my nasal decongestant spray this morning and did pretty good. The extreme congestion is what makes me feel so crummy. When I can breathe, I feel much better, even with the sneezing and coughing. The only problem was that it didn't last the full 12 hours today. I used it last night before bedtime around 10pm and didn't use it again until about 11am today. But by about 4pm today, My nose was getting pretty stuffy. I'll hold out as long as I can before using the spray again because I can't sleep with my nose all stuffed up - it's miserable!

I leave you with a cheery photo of a pretty flower taken after a recent rain shower. It's almost the weekend again - yay! I finish up with my Concept Development class this Friday and then I start Digital Imaging on Monday, so I have an exciting week coming up. 

A Quiet Week

School has started back up here and it's been a quiet week - well, except for the crazy lady jacked up on something unidentifiable who was out in our garden at work picking flowers and plants. Apparently business had been good because she was carrying around a disposable aluminum roasting pan full of plant parts and someone's small empty flower pot. She had crashed through the plants to reach the large hibiscus-type flowers in the corner, so there was a lot of breakage. Then she was pulling up parts of ground cover plants - roots and all! At first I thought she was from the radio station and was taking the weather measurements. When I realized she was the same crazy woman that had come to church and acted like she was possessed, I went outside and ran her off.

At this point, I guess I should backtrack and explain the weather measurements and the incident at church. Many years ago, the then-owner of the funeral home established an official weather station out in our garden. We used to have to take measurements of the precipitation in the container twice a day and whoever closed at night had to reset the machine that recorded temps, get the numbers and call it into the National Weather Service in Springfield, Missouri. Several years ago we turned it over to the local radio station which is our neighbor to the east, but the measurement recording equipment is still located in our garden. Someone comes over from the radio station everyday to record the rain/snow levels, so we see them out there in the garden. The equipment out there is kind of ugly, so we try to camouflage it with plants.

As for the incident at church, well, my husband, being a law enforcement officer in this community for 30 years, knows just about everyone. So when I noticed this woman at church behaving slightly odd during worship and praise time, I naturally asked him who she was. As soon as he got a look at her, he instantly recognized her as TROUBLE (all caps!) and explained she had been arrested many times on drug charges and also spent time in the state mental facility, but was sent back. (More than likely because she isn't crazy enough to keep - they do that a lot because of money). According to my boss, she was recently seen outside on the roof of her house dancing with her sundress over her head. What kind of "odd" behavior was she displaying at church? Well, nothing like dancing with her dress over head, but more like clutching herself in various places and swaying, then abruptly sitting down and rocking her head side to side, then jumping back up do some more swaying and clutching. I was afraid we'd have some hysterics during the altar call, but she slipped out and left.

Similar to flowers that got picked

Hibiscus, similar flowers that got picked

So...when I went outside to the garden after realizing who she was to run her off, I asked her to please stop pulling up the plants. Her response was "Should I stop?" Okay..."Yes. Yes, you should definitely stop that and go on!" Then she proceeded to chatter a mile a minute about how she loved flowers and weren't flowers pretty, and how she was planting a garden and how MUCH she loved flowers...the whole time swaying her dress a la "I Feel Pretty", and swinging her roasting pan as if it was a basket full of beautiful cut flowers rather than the mess of flowers, roots, plants, and dirt that it was. Soon after she left, Lou from the flower shop popped in with a plant and I told her about the encounter. She said it sounded like the person she had heard on the police scanner that was seen pulling up flowers all through downtown the day before. I told her if she wanted a gander at her, she just left thattaway (pointed to the back of the building). Shortly after that, my boss came in and after telling him about it he told me it sounded like the same woman he'd seen up on her roof down the street from him, and if she comes back to call the police. Then Hubby stopped by and after relating the story to him, he said the same thing about calling the station instead of engaging her directly. Noted!

And if that isn't small-town crazy enough for you, here is another example of how things get done around here. On the corner across from the back side of our building, city crews just finished weeks of work tearing out the old curbing and putting in the brand new curbing all the way down the block to the south. This morning I had to detour around because they are now tearing up not only weeks of work on the curbing but the street as well. So now they are going to put down new asphalt and then new curbing - again! There's no doubt that section of road needed to be re-done, but unless they just needed to waste time and money, I think someone made a big mistake tearing up that new curbing. Or possibly they made a mistake in the curbing and it all has to be redone. Who knows? One thing that can be agreed on is that a mistake has been made somewhere, and I will tell you right now that is typical for around here. Nothing gets done without at least one major flaw. So does that classify as crazy or just plain stupid?

So that's the news from my dusty little corner of Kansas. I leave you with a pretty close-up shot of the Crepe Myrtle in our backyard. I took this Saturday while pulling nails and staples out of the clapboard siding on our house. The siding that is what I would call Goldenrod or maybe 70's Harvest Gold. Remember when everything from appliances to carpeting was green (avocado),  brick red, orange, yellow and brown? Ugh! Even though I was a small child, I remember it very well and hated every moment of it. It was everywhere! And so was plaid! And if it wasn't plaid, it was big ugly flowers or stripes. And all in those obnoxious colors - on furniture, walls, and yes, even on me! It's no wonder that I love blues, pinks, and purples. I do like greens also, just not that nasty color the 70's called Avocado - it didn't look like the inside of any avocado I'd ever seen. Yikes!

Where's Noah When You Need Him?

Well, it's been a wet and wild couple of weeks. I would have to check the statistics (but I'm lazy that way, so I won't) but I think this is the wettest August ever for our area. We had so much rain and had been under flood watch and warning so long it was becoming a way of life. For the first time in three or four years, water came in our garage. Our new neighbors across the street were quite shocked to see that much water. Apparently no one mentioned it to them. Our neighbors to the north were quite surprised as well. In fact when I went outside to take pictures, Mr. Neighbor was outside on his front porch looking at his new lakefront property. He asked me what was going on and I told him it used to do this all of the time, but since we had two years in a row of actual drought conditions, the ground absorbs most of what rain we get. Not this time - we're saturated. 

The front (looking west)

Looking southwest

These pictures to the immediate right are all of the front yard on just one day. This day, the water didn't get into the garage but came up to within two feet of the door. The two times it came into the garage, it happened overnight so there aren't any pictures. We prepared for it the best we could by getting things up off of the floor and moving important things towards the back of the garage, but you can only do so much. My neighbors to the north, us, and my neighbors to the south all have it the worst. We are all at the lowest point on the street, with our house the lowest, plus there is a run-off channel between our house and my southern neighbor. All of the rain from the western neighborhoods which are on a slope feeds down to us and is directed through that short channel. The problem is that the channel feeds into an old small sewer pipe which can't handle all of that water, so it backs up. And then you get idiots who try to drive through it and cause ginormous waves to crash up onto your front porch. All of the mulch we spread a few weeks ago is washed away, as well as a good bit of our gravel drive in the back of the house under the carport.

Looking due south

If we have a lake out front, then we have a river out back that feeds into another lake. At times the water was rushing so fast between my southern neighbor's house and my house that you could almost grab a kayak and do some paddling. My dogs sure didn't like going out to do their business in all of that, but unfortunately they haven't learned how to use the indoor facilities.

Looking north

The river out back looking to the south

So all of this water has played havoc on electronic equipment. Phones, cable, and internet have been going out sporadically all over town. We've also lost power a few times all over the city at random. Our internet was out at our house at various times last week and over at my dad's house it was out for like four days. But, I feel blessed because we are okay, and others have not come through this weather okay. Some folks out in the county got hit with a small tornado - a 2.5 on the Fujita scale is what I read in the paper. Apparently it picked up a house and rotated it on its foundation by about six feet. And then there are those who live near the river and have had it come into their houses, and the farmers who have lost crops to the flooding. It's not been very fun this summer.

The river feeding into...

And talk about hot! It has been so hot and humid that even if it wasn't raining, you wouldn't know it for all the moisture in the air. And throughout all of this, pieces of my house were still coming off and floating around. Thankfully, though, the tear-off process has finally started as of yesterday - YAY! So now I get to look at the nasty 70's Goldenrod color on my house. Yeehaw! About half of it is off and what's underneath is in pretty good shape. We just have to pull nails and patch holes and pick out paint. Of course agreeing on the color is an issue, but hopefully since the whole Greenbay Packer fanclub thing we had going on last year in the kitchen, we've learned a few things and can avoid any potential paint disasters.

...the lake out back

I am thankful that our roofers did a good job because with all of this rain, a lot of people who just got new roofs on their houses are finding that they now have leaks. I can only imagine how peeved I would be if that happened at our house. In fact, I'm pretty sure "peeved" wouldn't quite cover it. Not even a little bit.

Stormy Weather, New Attitudes, and A Surprise Visitor

It has been WAY too hot and humid to do much of anything outside, so we spent the weekend mostly indoors. Saturday afternoon we had a nice little storm roll through that took down several limbs from our northern neighbor's tree in their front yard and a good deal of the foam board that was underneath the old siding (which was removed last week only to find that the correct new siding wasn't what they had to put back up). The storm blew it all over the neighborhood in such a way as to make one think a mini tornado had hit somewhere. What lies underneath is truly ugly. I thought the yellow was bad! 

Strangely, though, the condition of the wood siding seems good, so we're thinking that the vinyl siding was put up by elderly people who didn't want to paint, understandably. We are now wondering if it might be worth just tearing off all the old siding and painting instead of fooling with putting up new siding that we are going to just paint over anyway.

The storm also blew over my very small terracotta pot with a flower just starting to bloom and broke it all over the deck, so I had to quickly find another container to put it in. I ran out and grabbed it while the storm was still in full-rage mode and got soaked. Right now my little flower (I think it is a Marigold) is in a small glass candy dish, but will be transferred tonight when my dad brings me a larger clay pot. This little plant has been babied from a seedling that my youngest brought home from school, so I couldn't let it get pummeled by the storm :)

After gathering up pieces of styrofoam we all went back into the house and I went back to food preparation. I made Civeche and a Quinoa salad and hubby was also cutting up vegetables and chicken for meals over the next week. Hubby had a less than stellar doctor's report last week; his cholesterol was up and his blood sugar came back high so he has been put on a low cholesterol, pre-diabetic diet. The only thing that came back good this time was his blood pressure. Normally it's on the high side. So, we went through our cupboards and got rid of all canned vegetables that were high in sodium, all processed packaged foods that were high in sugar and carbs and took them to the local food pantry. We went to the store and bought fresh produce that we could make a variety of dishes with as well as whole wheat bread and flatbreads. He is a meat-and-potatoes kind of guy, and this is not going to be easy on him, so I'll be doing this with him. To that end, I am trying out some new healthy recipes. 

The Civeche is really versatile as is the Quinoa (pronounced keen-wah). My niece gave me her Civeche (civ-ee-chay) recipe which is cucumbers, tomatoes, onion (my addition), cooked shrimp (small or cut up) and fresh parsley or cilantro, depending on your taste preferences, and 8 to 10 limes, salt, pepper, and hot sauce to taste. Cut it all up small and soak and mix together with the juice of the fresh limes. Don't use the lime juice in a bottle because it will taste nasty - just tough it out and use real limes if at all possible, trust me! It can be served with tortilla chips or pita chips and is super yummy. 

The Quinoa salad has a lot of options too as I discovered. I made a zesty style salad with tomatoes, onion, parsley, and black beans. I omitted corn because, well, hubby can't have corn, but it would have been included otherwise. It also had red pepper flakes and the juice from two limes, plus salt and pepper to taste. I topped mine with chunked up avocado and mozzarella cheese - yum! Quinoa looks like bird seed, and in fact it is more of a seed than a grain, but super healthy and packed with protein. It's teeny tiny and believe me just one cup makes a lot more than you would think. there are lots of good versions of both recipes on the web, so definitely have a look. I'll be trying a Mediterranean version of the Quinoa salad later in the week that includes Kalamata olives, tomatoes, and Feta cheese.

Dinner was pretty good - we had the Ceviche as an appetizer, and grilled chicken and salad greens in a whole wheat pita pockets with the Quinoa salad on the side. My boys, of course, would only try the Ceviche because of the tortilla chips. I don't think they are too fond of the new approach to meals, lol. After dinner, I took Toby outside and had my eyes on the Eastern sky because it was very dark over that way and we were supposed to get more storms. I walked through the carport alongside the truck and got to about the passenger side door and saw what I thought was a somewhat curled strip of tar paper in the grass, something I had been seeing around town for weeks. I took about two more steps and realized it was a Black Snake! I ran inside and told Hubby and grabbed my camera. I only got one shot of him, though, because by this time, Toby had discovered him, and Hubby was trying to herd him away from going under the truck, the direction he was heading. In trying to keep Toby from trying to grab the snake if it decided to head through the fence, I was at the gate trying to get Toby's attention away from the snake and so missed getting any more photos.

He was about 5 feet long and although he is not poisonous, nobody wants to get bit, so I stayed back. Hubby doesn't like snakes. At all. All he could think of was getting it as far away as possible, and since it most likely came from our Wilderness Woman neighbor's house behind us, he guided it that direction until it disappeared into one of her numerous clumps of unmowed grass around a tree. If I hadn't looked down when I first went outside, I might have stepped on him. As it was, I got within three feet of him before I realized what he was. Now, every time we go outside, we are on the lookout for him. Toby never did bark at him, being more curious than anything else, but now he looks for him too when he goes outside. I'm assuming the storm is what brought him out, more than likely looking for any eggs that may have fallen out of nests. Black Snakes love eggs.

We are starting to see the empty locust shells now around in the yard. I saw one on the side of the foundation of the house in the back yard on Sunday, and last night I saw three lying in the gravel by the stairs to the back deck. I leave you of a shot of the one I saw Sunday. It makes you wonder how something twice that size came out of there! Kind of like giving birth, no?

Ventilating and Teeny Tiny Faerie Furnishings

I am perturbed. As the 4 of you who read my blog (lol) might remember, I related my wish of getting our whole house sided by mistake. Well, that wish partially came true yesterday, but then it fell flat. The workers showed up to side our house and started tearing off our old siding, but not the old insulating foam board underneath. That was the first clue something was wrong. The next came when we discovered that the new siding wasn't the right color.  It wasn't the "Industry Favorite for over 30 years" Colonial Yellow (ack!), it was Country Cream. We liked it better, but since they started tearing off on the correct sides of the house we decided we'd better say something. Especially since they were going to use the old foam board and not fresh stuff. (Had they started on the wrong sides we would have just kept quiet, lol) So we called, they came out, and it was determined that a mistake had been made (duh!) and they would get our correct material out to us as soon as possible. Serious eye-rolling happening here!

Since I'm on a roll, here: have I mentioned how much I hate FedEx? And I really hate FedEx SmartPost. Smartpost is where FedEx picks up the shipment and delivers it to the closest designated US Postal Service hub to the recipient's city. I think the US Postal Service hates FedEx too and I think that they unload and distribute those pallets last! That's my theory anyway. Why else would a package sit at the post office for 3 days before it goes out for delivery? I currently have Shipment 2 of 2 of art supplies sitting at the post office (since yesterday morning!) and won't be delivered until tomorrow. I received shipment 1 the day before yesterday and they were both shipped the same day, about 4 hours apart. That's just poor time management and bad organizational skills, that is! Shipping is the only negative I have regarding the online store where I get my art supplies (dickblick.com).

Speaking of art supplies, there is this cool program called ArtSnacks which for $20 a month or $200 a year they will send you a box filled with different art supplies each month. How cool is that? I haven't signed up yet, but I think I will. I just have to wait until September because we have vehicle tags at the end of this month  (July), and my husband's and soon-to-be 13 year old's birthdays in the first part of August and then school starts back up towards the end of August. 

Because I have already established a platform for gripes and complaints (my son calls it "ventilating" - I think he means "venting, lol), I am going to finish up with my thoughts on the backward way they do vehicle registration around here. First let me say that back in the town I am from, and for that matter most cities and towns in California, when you bring your paperwork in to register a vehicle, from that point going forward is when your yearly registration fees are due. If you purchase a used car, the license plate stays with the car unless it is a personalized plate, or you just want it, and then that car gets registered in the new owners name under that vehicle's VIN and plate numbers. Makes sense, right? Right, which is why we don't do it that way around here, because doing things sensibly or the way the rest of the civilized world does it would just be silly. What happens here is you pay taxes on the car you just purchased, and you gain a 30 day tag. When you are ready to register it, you pay a pro-rated amount on your registration because (and here's the really stupid part, so pay attention) the first letter of your last name determines what month your yearly registration and taxes are due. And yes, we have to continue paying taxes on that vehicle every year - personal property tax. So, we are J's and we pay in July. Friends of ours are M's so they pay in August. I feel sorry for the A's (January) and the folks at the end of the alphabet because theirs are due in December. Also, your license plate goes with you when you sell your car and buy a new one unless you want a new plate, which I think they charge you additional for that. Now this business of taking your plate with you to your next vehicle causes all kinds of trouble because sometimes the state of Kansas doesn't get transfers right (gasp!) and occasionally (meaning frequently) when law enforcement runs the plate it shows a completely different vehicle. Confusion ensues for the driver and everyone involved. This practice also makes it easier to steal and switch plates form one car to another, for oh say, when your tag is expired and you don't want to get a ticket? This will buy you some time, and people do it around here a lot! Okay, so maybe it's not all that stupid compared to some things, and it might even be better than somewhere else's system. It's just one of those little reminders that I live in a small, quirky town.

See them?

Okay enough grumping (ventilating)! I'm leaving you with a snap of two tiny toadstools I discovered in my potted flowers yesterday morning. Aren't they precious? Can you imagine the smallness of the faerie who sits on these or uses them as an umbrella when it rains? All that's missing is for them to be red with little white polka dots :)

A little bit closer

Four-Way Stops and...Something Else

I may have mentioned this before, but people in this town really have no idea regarding the etiquette of a four-way stop. On the way to work this morning, I had to detour around some road work that put me in the path of two 4-way stops. At each one there was nearly two accidents because nobody knows what they're doing and they all think it is their turn at the same time. Clearly, everyone missed that question (repeatedly) on the driver's test, but received enough points to still gain a license. Something else about this town: 90% of the elderly women in this town can't see over the steering wheel - they are looking under it in the little space between the bottom side of the wheel and the top of the dashboard. I know this for a fact because my mother-in-law was one of them. Hubby's mother refused to sit on a cushion because she "could see the road just fine, thankyouverymuch!" Hmmm...then why is it that she repeatedly misjudged the distance from the front of the car to the garage door. Was it perhaps because she couldn't actually see the front end of the car?? So what does this have to do with four-way stops? Nothing...

Another something else that has nothing to do with four-way stops is our siding. Apparently the company who made the old nasty yellow siding on our house is still in business making said yellow, nasty siding. Colonial Yellow is what it is called and they are so proud of it: "An industry favorite for over 30 years..." What company doesn't update their products and colors for 30 years?? So even though I have a lot of opinions and comments about that stupid company, none of it matters because the insurance company will not pay for the whole house to be sided because a match is available. They also don't care that with weathering for over 17 years, the colors between the new and the old really won't match. So, because the world is what you make of it and if it doesn't fit, you make alterations, we have decided to paint our nasty, yellow, vile, vinyl siding, having found a good paint from Sherwin Williams especially formulated for it. The hard part is deciding on a color that will match our brownish brick facade that we both like. Of course we could say to heck with it like whoever who chose yellow all those years ago and just pick any color we want. We looked at a dark taupe brown, dark charcoal gray, and a dark teal in the store and brought home paint chips. As soon as we took them outside to look at the colors, the teal turned to a blue-gray (that neither of us liked) instead of teal. So we might have to look at a different shade of teal or just forget it altogether. I don't want this to be the kitchen paint all over again, so I will need prayers for strength and wisdom and for a helping of the power of persuasion over my hubby.

I am at the beginning of week 4 of my Life Drawing class, so I just have two more to go - well technically 1 full week and 3 days of another. Week 6 is always just 3 days long and usually consists of submitting your final project and a critique, etc. It has not turned out as bad as I expected, however I don't think I've done anything I wish to show off. Some of this class has been really difficult and I feel like the expectations for a beginning class are kind of high. The instructor is great and a wonderful artist herself. She is very encouraging even though some of our drawings resemble Sasquatch. I'm not sparing myself from this criticism at all. One of my standing male drawings looked suspiciously like the third guy from the right side on those Evolution charts purporting to show us the progression of "early man". My female had the shoulders of a linebacker and the head of a 12 year old girl until I fixed them. We are supposed to use live models, not photographs, and they must be of adults. And we don't have to draw them nude, however they should be wearing minimal clothing so as to show as much of the form as possible. Right...well, I can tell you right now that I could not get one person who was comfortable modeling and that I would be willing to stare at for hours, so I'm using photographs of stock poses on Deviantart. I have looked at so many boobs and penises (there is no filter for minimal clothing) that I am completely desensitized, and in fact hope to never have to look at either ever again. That information does not bode well for hubby, LOL. But I guess it's not really required that I look at it, and he probably doesn't care about that so much anyway, LOL. By the way, if I use a pose that happens to have a nude model, I am drawing undergarments over them: underwear for both and tank tops or bathing suits for the females. This week we'll be doing sitting poses, which will be better because most of the those tend to cover downstairs areas - yay! Some of my braver fellow students have actually drawn themselves - nude. One of them has drawn herself topless but mercifully spared us the southern view by drawing panties on herself. Have you ever seen cartoon drawings of breasts where they are very round, like circles that just miss meeting all the way at the top? Kind of like they are mashed up with an invisible push up bra. Well, that is how she has drawn hers and then she made a comment that just floored me. She said she had a freakishly long torso (hadn't really noticed that being true) and that she was sure everyone would think she had done her breasts wrong, but that is how they look...??? Really? If true, then I think I would be concerned, however, then again, maybe they will hold up better to gravity than us normal folk.

It's a Clone ambush!

So now in an attempt to get those mental images out of your heads, I leave you with a shot of what I come home to in the evenings: My youngest likes to set up battle scenes with his Army guys and Clones. This one was waiting around the corner of the Keurig.

Sniper!

But the sniper on top of the Keurig is lying in wait for them...darn those sneaky G.I. Joes!

Moonshine, Tattoos and Bad Endings

Felt pretty crummy this past Saturday, not really flu or virus, but generally yucky in tummy, so I didn't accomplish much. I mostly read until afternoon and then felt a bit better so went and tried to mend my friend's computer, which, sadly, seemed to be a worthless endeavor. I think it's time for a new one - it's 6 years old and it's running Vista... 'nuff said! I got to play with their new kitten, Tessa who is an absolute doll! She has rather larger ears than normal and they are very hairy with long wisps of hair at the ends as well as at the openings. These aren't very good photos - rather blurry, as my phone's camera was set on night portrait for some reason. I'm not positive that's the reason, but it's since I've never used that setting, it's a logical conclusion - works for me.

Tessa is a sweetie and seemed to like me as she stuck her nose in my face and bumped her little nose all over my mouth and eyes and then placed her little paws on the sides of my face and stared intently at me as if searching me for something. Looking for signs of intelligence, maybe? Ha!

Saturday night I watched Lawless starring Tom Hardy, Shia LaBeouf, Gary Oldman, Jessica Chastain and others. The cinematography was absolutely stunning and the acting was superb. It was violent, yes, but then that time in U.S. history was. The story is set in depression and prohibition era Virginia and is based on the Bondurant family, a real family who made and sold moonshine. Matt Bondurant wrote the novel that the movie is based on and I don't think it is intended to be a strictly historical work, but rather a re-telling of the family and local stories of some rather notorious ancestors. This isn't really a "movie review" so I'm not going to go into the story line, etc. and potentially ruin it for you. I'm a big fan of Shia's as well as Tom Hardy's work, and to have them in a movie together was really fantastic all on its own, but as it is, the movie itself was really well-done and the story was gripping and engaging, so it was a huge thumbs up for me. It's rated R, so be warned it is bloody and violent, and has some language, however it is not gratuitous, and there is some female nudity, one very brief, which is in context also. So, it is not for children or the faint-hearted ;).

I also watched most of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, having missed the first twenty minutes or so. It was a quite gripping story, but I was thankful that I had paused it to let the dogs out so that I was able to fast-forward through two (to my mind) less-than-tasteful sex scenes, although the tattoo work was quite impressive. Still, the story was interesting and suspenseful, but I hated the ending. I haven't read the books, but I know a little of the female lead character's backstory, and it is disturbing to say the least. Because I haven't read the book, I don't know if the ending in the movie is the same as in the book, but I thought it was a big letdown. A crappy ending really ruins a movie for me, and the same goes for books. I am compelled to finish a book once started, even if it's horrible. I may rush through it and I may do a lot of skimming, but I do finish it, so if a terrible book has a satisfying ending it sort of redeems  the book and makes my time less of a waste. But the worst is a wonderful book with a horrible ending - there is just no coming back from that one. It forces me to write my own ending that is more satisfying. Having said all of that begs the question why bother with a bad book? Well, there is the hope that at any moment it could get better and then I would have missed it. I must finish the book! Totally OCD, I know.

While I'm on the subject of bad endings, I recently watched the movie Seeking a Friend for the End of the World starring Keira Knightley and Steve Carrell. The premise is that a huge asteroid is heading for the earth and no matter where it hits, everything will be destroyed. Yeah, I should have had a clue, but I kept thinking that at the last minute it would divert course or something. The movie was great - sad moments, funny moments, lovely moments - I loved it! Right up until the end...I'm sure there were many people who thought "Awww...*sniff* How sweet that they died together! *sniff*" Not this girl, no. This girl thought it was totally depressing and it was a hope-sucker - sucked the hope for happy endings right out of me. The acting was fantastic and all, but wow! What a downer! I couldn't even cry because I was flat shocked. I looked over at hubby and he pretty much had the same expression on his face. He said, "What the heck was that?" and I responded with "Awful, is what that was!" So, as you can see, hubby and I are well over 90% compatible in the movie category  :)

Projects and the Need for a Hole In the Head

I have three projects on my table, so to speak, that I am really excited about. Project No.1: While in Hobby Lobby with my dad a couple of months ago, we spotted something that we just have to try: a table with mosaic tile inlay! It looks pretty simple to do, and since my dad is very handy I think it will come out great. We are on the lookout for a suitable rummage-sale-type table for the project, but haven't found one yet, so there's no big hurry. Here is a photo of the table we spotted to the right. I'm thinking I want to paint ours a distressed black with dark gray grout because I want it to go under a piece of ironwork I have on my entry wall (also to the right). It looks a bit bare, but I'm being picky about what I put up on the new walls as I don't want to have to put a bunch of holes in and then patch them up and repaint. Also it looks like it is small, but I'm standing quite a distance away - it's actually about 3 feet square.

Joseph Cox, Men and Nets, 1955

Project #2: When the in-laws were packing up and moving out, they, as I noted previously, threw out or gave away many things. I snatched up an art print that no one wanted and would have been thrown out. It is entitled "Men and Nets" and was created as an entry to a competition sponsored by the Atlanta Paper Company in 1955 by Joseph Cox. The winning entry was printed and sent out as Christmas gifts to valued clients, etc. My husband's mother's father owned a Coca-Cola plant in Atlanta and was a client of the paper company and they have had the print in it's original Christmas card-type envelope and packaging ever since - it was never framed or displayed at all. I find it lovely and the colors work nicely with my living room, so I am going to have it framed with a double mat. 

...the other side

One side...

Project #3: This project is for my dining room wall, which is also newly painted (relatively) and is bare due to the same reasons as most of my living room walls. I got this lovely old window with old wavy glass in it from a friend of mine in exchange for some computer-straightening-out work for her. I haven't entirely decided exactly what I'm going to do with it yet, but the general idea is a french cafe-themed print of some kind behind the glass, and possibly hot glue or staple some fake ivy along two sides and maybe even some geranium-type silk flowers. I'm open to suggestions on the actual how, at this point, because I'm not sure of the best way to hang it that will be secure. Since my wall is rather large, I want to use the window with the long side horizontal. 

So I have these projects, but none of them are good to go yet, which is fine I guess since I need a project like I need a hole in my head. I'm busy enough that I don't really need more things to keep me occupied. But on the other hand it is good to be creative, and I think it is important to stretch the artistic muscles, so to speak, regularly. And other than classwork drawings which are required and I'm not really enjoying because I stink at figure drawing, I'm not currently doing anything creative. I'm taking pictures when I can, but not really doing anything with them. So I guess my plan of action is to start on whichever project I can find material for first. That would mean the art print will be first since I just have to take it in and pick out framing and matting. The only problem is custom framing can be expensive. I know this because I used to do it, and it's possible to rack up quite the bill depending on materials chosen, etc. Okay, it's decided: since a trip to Hobby Lobby in Joplin is in order for the other two projects, I will take my print in to my old boss next week and see what the damage will be to have it framed. Who knows? Maybe he will give me a discount ;)

#josephcox #menandnets

Weeds, Wildflowers and the Joys of Simple Entertainment

Work and school has been so busy that I haven't had a chance to write. Independence Day was really nice - not too hot, which was highly unusual. My niece and her two children are visiting so we all went out to the parking lot out back and north of our house which belongs to a small neighborhood church set off our fireworks. I was too busy lighting sparklers and what all for the kids to take any pictures, but my niece took some so I might see what she has. The fireflies were out in force and my niece's children were more interested in their magical presence than the fireworks being that they have never seen them before. I have to confess that I found my attention wandering their direction, becoming mesmerized by their dance as well. 

It's a simple form of entertainment, sitting and contemplating the little blinking lights while listening to the crickets and other night insects who sing. The down side of course, is the presence of mosquitoes. You have to be sure to douse yourself good with bug repellent to be out there or be prepared to suffer the consequences. A citronella candle works nicely for repelling mosquitoes, but it isn't a good idea while watching lightning bugs because the light interferes with them and their purpose of attracting a mate. The smoke from fireworks usually works for mosquitoes, but this time they were particularly persistent. Most of us came home with several welts on our arms and legs. Luckily, there weren't any injuries to mar the fun, but then we're pretty careful. Although, sometimes unforeseen incidents occur like last year when a small night work fell over and shot a few times with us running and jumping out of the way. The last shot went into the dry grass, and we had to scramble to put out the beginnings of a small grass fire. Nobody was hurt and no damage was done. It certainly could have been worse - last year someone across town set a tree on fire shooting fireworks too close to houses and vegetation and when the fire department showed up they needed access to the hydrant which was blocked by a vehicle. When the vehicle was moved, the driver, in his haste to get out of the way, drove into a gas meter and broke the line, which then had to be repaired and people were without gas for 3 days. So yeah, it could have been worse.

Friday was the day from Hell and then I had a rather intense assignment for Life Drawing which took me all evening. Saturday was rainy so nothing got done outside, but we needed the rain, so I'm not complaining. Instead we worked inside and later I made some cookies and for dinner we grilled brats when the rain cleared off. Sunday we spread mulch around the plants out front and hubby mowed and after we ran to Wal Mart and bought those .97 cent Westinghouse garden lights to fill up the gaps we had in our current lighting set-up. Later on hubby and I went for a ride on the motorcycle. It was just a quick ride, so I didn't bring my camera. Plus, it was too hot to stop and take photos - better to keep moving! I did enjoy the wildflowers along the side of the roads though, and wished it was cooler and I had brought the camera. Hubby calls them weeds, but I prefer the up-scaled version that our state tourism office calls them: Kansas Wildflowers. I don't know the names of them, but they are quite pretty. I'm sure some of them really are considered weeds, but they give the roadsides some character, I think.

Riding the motorcycle around the countryside is another simple form of entertainment for me. We saw a young doe trying to cross the road and we stopped for her and she went bounding across the road and over a fence, we saw rabbits,squirrels and birds and sometimes we see snakes. I can feel temperature changes in the wind while riding, and smell the different forms of vegetation as we ride a long. It's nice because hubby and I can think our own thoughts and still be together and occasionally our thoughts run along the same lines. 

Before it became a salad

I'm leaving you with a sort of before-and-after photo of my lunch; a shot of the avocado (before) and a shot of my salad with the avocado in it (after).

After it became lunch

I love avocados, but unfortunately they are so expensive...and much smaller than the ones available in California. I think we are getting the rejects here in Kansas. I remember growing up in SoCal with orange groves on one side of us and avocados on the other, and later when we didn't live with them right outside the back door, I could buy 4 for a dollar at the store - and they were huge! Now, I have to pay well over a dollar for an itty-bitty wanna-be avocado. It's just sad :(

Here's an avocado tip  for getting that pit out (just one of many): take your knife and thunk it into the pit and then twist - voila! the pit comes out and you can knock it off into the trash can. Also, to feel for ripeness don't use your fingertips - this will cause bruises. Instead, place the avocado in your palm and gently squeeze with the pads of your palm. If you don't feel any give, then it's not ready yet. To get your avocado ready sooner, you can place it in a paper bag in a dark drawer. If you don't have a paper bag, you still put it in the drawer, it just might take a day longer. There might be other tips, or even better tips, but these are the ones I used growing up and they always worked for me ;)

Finally!

The weekend was pretty nice - we had a little break from the heat Saturday and Sunday. I got the Hummingbird feeder cleaned up and filled on Saturday and then I gave Skittles (the Bearded Dragon) a bath and cleaned up his basking log, etc. and took him outside so he could enjoy the sun and nice weather, which he did. He eyeballed the various flying insects landing on the flowers or flying overhead and puffed himself up several times to show how impressive he is and then raised his head to the sun and closed his eyes in order to fully experience the sunshine. Every time he heard a bird he would cock his head, and sometimes open one eye. Saturday evening I heard the first locusts, finally! I tried to record them, but mostly all you could hear was the wind blowing in my phone. I'm going to try again another night because Sunday night it was cooler and they were quiet after about 10pm. But Saturday evening I sat out listening to them and watching the fireflies. Every couple of days I see a few more. Eventually there will be a good number out, but right now its spotty.

On Sunday I got a few up-close-and-personal snaps of the flowers which came out nice, a nice shot of Toby, and one of Hubby coming home from work. I also noticed something strange had developed overnight on my Hummingbird feeder. At first I thought it was a patch where the coloring of the glass had come off or maybe some bird had decided to use it as target practice, but upon closer inspection it turned out to be eggs. Something had lain its eggs on the glass feeder sometime either overnight or early morning.

I will be watching to see what these turn out to be, because I have no idea what they are and I'm now very curious. It's kind of an odd place to lay eggs, to my thinking - not very well hidden, at all. 

Mr. Skittles

The rest of the day and evening was spent cleaning up things that I missed the day before and trying to catch up on laundry. I say trying but it's a futile attempt really, because it's a never ending thing - just like washing dishes. You can wash every dish, cup, spoon and bowl in the house and just like toadstools, while your back is turned, more magically appear.

Later on Sunday evening we went to the in-laws house to check on things, and darn it if that stupid water line wasn't still leaking even with the water turned off! It once again had overflowed the jug and spilled onto the kitchen floor. We had to go back and get the carpet shampooer to suck out the water that had flowed onto the front room's carpet and I spent an hour sucking water up and out of the carpet with the machine. I emptied it 4 times! Instead of leaving a jug for the waterline, we just put the line into the sink. I say I hope that she appreciates what I'm doing for her even though she has been perfectly horrid to me all these years, but I know differently. *big eye-roll happening*

Okay, so I shall leave you with some of the photos I took over the weekend :)

Hubby

Toby

Mowing in the Dark

I may have mentioned before that my neighbor behind us and to the south is...odd. She is the one who had raccoons living in her house when she was in the house next door to us (to the north). She wouldn't close up the corner hole in her roof under the eave because birds and squirrels made their homes in there. She wouldn't let us trim the viney stuff that climbed from her tree across the fence and onto our deck. That's not to say we didn't do it anyway, but she threw a fit about it afterwards. Same as when we tried to trim the low-hanging limbs from her trees hanging over our house....you get the idea. We aren't "tree-killers" or against nature or anything like that, but we also don't want nature crashing down on us or living in our attic. That makes us bad people in her eyes. Generally, people know that most trees and bushes need a bit of trimming in order to grow and remain healthy...except for her, of course. She likes to keep things in their natural state. To this end, she doesn't trim any of the vegetation and when she mows she doesn't also weed eat, she just mows around everything so there are patches of tall grass all over the place. She also doesn't move tables, chairs, bikes, or the pieces of whatever thing has broken and been thrown outside - she just mows around it. Of course when the grass gets tall enough it kind of hides the junk, so I guess it's working for her. She's a bit of a hippie, and the neighbors who were around then tell us that she let her children play outside naked well up into elementary school and they didn't stay in their own yard with their nakedness, either. (Apparently the neighbors frown on this type of behavior...Good to know ;) LOL.) The front porch of her house she's living in now is some kind of greenhouse - it's been glassed in and there are grow lights and it is lit up all night with that purplish glow. I know, it looks really suspicious, but I'm pretty sure she isn't growing weed in there...

So anyhoo, the weather has been really hot here lately and very humid. It's normal for folks to either mow very early before it gets hot or in the evening when it cools off some, right? I think we can agree that mowing after dark without a light of some kind is not only difficult, but potentially hazardous. This woman only mows at night. I kid you not - we have never seen her mow during the daylight hours. We have occasionally seen her begin to mow at twilight, but mostly we go out late at night to let the dogs out and she is out there mowing...in the dark. We honestly don't know how she's doing it without a light. A lot of times, we go to bed and her yard is un-mowed. When we get up, it's been mowed - almost like the yard fairies came out and did it while everyone was sleeping. Hubby gets up really early to go to work and it's mowed. That means sometime during the hours after 11:00pm and before 5:00am she has mowed. Last night she was out there in the dark, no flashlight, and no headlight on the riding lawnmower. How does she do it? Why? I don't think she mows naked or anything, so why only mow at night when it's dark and nobody can see anything, including yourself? Weird, right?

Magicicada www.magicicada.org

Annual or Dog Day Cicada www.marietta.edu

I still haven't seen many fireflies out - just one or two at a time, really. Not enough to put in a jar and admire, certainly. Usually by now they are thick! Locusts (cicadas, really, but remember that people here call them locusts) will be thick by August and they are loud! Apparently there are two kinds of cicadas: periodicals and annuals. Periodicals, or Magicicadas, are the ones that stay underground for 13 to 17 years and emerge in late May to early June on a schedule in large numbers. These are somewhat smaller than the annual or "dog day" cicadas that emerge every year here in midsummer, and they look a little different, as you can see by the photos. If you're interested, you can read an article about an anomaly that occurred in Kansas a couple of years ago with the periodical cicadas emergence. It said that those that were due to emerge in 2011 didn't show and there is supposed to be an emergence of periodical's this year (2013) as well. It doesn't say, but it seems to this average Joe that there's something wrong this year as well, because I haven't seen or heard any at all, and according to the article's information, I should be hearing them. At the bottom of that article is a link to a chart about cicadas, their brood numbers and locations, etc. Also, since I'm tossing out links, http://www.firefly.org/ is a good place for info on those magical little creatures.

I'm leaving you with a shot looking out over Kansas farmland taken from the back of the motorcycle a while back. You can see a long way into the distance as there are no mountains that interrupt the view. In this section of Kansas we have low rolling hills, so we aren't as flat as Western Kansas. I'm from California originally and we spent a lot of time camping in the mountains, so I miss them a lot, but an unending view of the prairie is quite lovely too.