Expecting a Storm

I heard we are in for a severe thunder storm, and I guess it's true, since I hear some rumblings outside.  That's ok, I really like the sound of storms.  I just love rain, period.  After spending 17 years in San Diego, where we just didn't get much rain at all - average rainfall was 10 inches, and many times we didn't get that much all year - I'm in heaven here in Maryland where we get lots of rain and some snow (although this year we had a lot - 81 inches!)

The day we moved into our house here 7 years ago, the movers were unloading our boxes and furniture, and my husband and I stood at our front door and watched as sheets of heavy rain moved across the valley and toward our house, sending the movers scattering to haul things into the garage so keep them from getting wet.  I'll never forget that sight, and feeling so excited and thrilled at all that rain.  I have to say, I just love it here.  Hubby really hates the humidity in summer, and I have to say I'm not too thrilled with it either, but I gladly put up with it so that we can fully experience all four seasons.  San Diego's four seasons were just Early Summer, Summer, Late Summer, and Next Summer.

This photo is of our red maple tree next to the patio, just after a rain last week.

Time Share Tales

Today was really hot and humid, but I stayed inside, and it was very comfortable.  Got a lot of laundry done, cleaned the fridge, and spent hours trying to make vacation plans for us for our time share weeks, 2 use-it-or-lose-it weeks that will be gone if we don't use them by this October.  Sigh ... and of course, there's nowhere that both of us really want to go that is available - Ireland, England, Italy, France, Greece - the list goes on and on.  That's the problem with time shares.  Unless you make arrangements 2 years in advance, you are at their mercy.  And that's not how we live our lives.  We don't make vacation plans way far in advance.  You never know what may come up and prevent you from following through.  As example, we made plans to use a week in St. Martin in 2007, and had made our plans months in advance.  Bought the airline tickets and booked the week, and I was diagnosed with breast cancer.  All is well now, but at the time I was just beginning chemotherapy, and my oncologist said I couldn't go because my immune system was compromised.  We managed to get our airline tickets refunded, but we lost the week and the deposit on the time share, and it was unable to be compensated.  I was very sad about that - I knew I was in for a long haul, and this was going to be our last vacation before all the medical trauma ahead.

So for now, we may settle on Argentina, the only place where we could find 2 consecutive weeks.  I'm sure it will be fine once we get there, but I really don't have much enthusiasm yet.  We've sold the time share, so other than one more week that will expire in 2011, we won't have any more weeks.  Worst investments we ever made.  At one point we had 2 of them, now we don't have any.

Ming Poo is moving very slowly today.  I did a better job this morning with her pain injection and her antibiotic by mouth.  She's been quiet and off sleeping most of the day.  The vet called around 1:00 to check on her, which I thought was very nice.  She's on my lap now as I'm typing, using my arm as her pillow.  I've had many corrections to make as I type!


P.S.  Forget Argentina - Hubby looked up air fare for 2 to Argentina, and it's $11,157.00 round trip.  No, that's not a typo!!

Ming Poo is Home

She's home, and although going slowly, seems to be feeling ok.  I had to give her an injection for pain and a dropper of antibiotics.  Neither one went in completely - I will be better tomorrow, I hope.

Here is the needle and a photo of Ming resting after she got home.

Ming Poo's Ordeal

Our little Tonkinese cat, Ming Poo, has gotten herself in big trouble.  Yesterday she found one of my threaded needles on my magnetic pincushion.  She started trying to eat the thread.  When I saw her she had the thread and needle hanging out of her mouth with about 5 inches of thread attached.  The more I tried to catch her, the more she kept swallowing and the needle got closer and closer to her mouth.  She ran down the stairs, around the furniture, and I grabbed at her a few times, only to have her slip out of my grasp.  On the final grasp, the needle went down her throat.  I opened her mouth to see if I could see it, but it was gone.

I called the vet this morning and he told me to bring her right in.  He did an X-ray, and there it was, in her abdomen, assumedly in her intestine.  No choice, she had to have surgery.  He spent some time with me informing me of the various scenarios that might take place, but having the needle come out on its own wasn't a likely scenario.  I felt awful.  I tried advising him to keep her at his office and take another X-ray later on to see how it was progressing, but he said that wouldn't work, and if it perforated her intestines and a few days later she still had to have surgery, he'd send me to a specialist because it would involve lots of other issues.

He just called me, she's out of surgery and starting to wake up.  He located the needle in the intestine, but it wouldn't have made it to the next corner turn without becoming stuck.  It was turned with the pointed end facing out.  The needle was found without the thread, which may or may not cause another problem.  He will keep her for the afternoon and at 6:45 I have to go back and have her transferred next door to the Emergency 24-hour clinic for them to watch her overnight to see that she gets her pain medication, hydration, and see that she doesn't get tangled up in the tubing.

I feel really bad.  She's my little baby, even though she's 5 years old and 7.2 pounds.  Of all the cats, she's the one who doesn't go outside, for fear she would be eaten up or stolen.  She'll go up to anyone.  Needless to say, the vet bill is enormous.  I won't be asking to go on vacation this summer.

Red Hat Lunch

Today was a luncheon with my Red Hat friends.  There are 20 women in our chapter, and we've been meeting every month for the past 6+ years.  It's a really nice group, and I enjoy the get-togethers, but I have to say - I really hate the dressing-in-red-and-purple-with-red-hats part of it.  As my friend Sharon and I have said, we feel like Senior Hookers.  Very embarrassing walking down the street.  Another thing I really don't like is the "hat hair" we inevitably end up with after the hat comes off - flat and squashed.

I remember one time when we went to a garden/nursery called Surreybrooke for lunch and a tour.  It was in summer, and the temperature was in the high 80's, with humidity to match.  Sharon was wearing a hat that she had spray painted with red paint, and she was afraid to remove her hat for fear her blond hair would be streaked with red.  So even though we were all sweltering and sweating and had taken our own hats off, Sharon kept hers on.  When she got home and took off her hat, she was right - her hair was red!

This photo was taken last October, and everyone was supposed to dress in costume.  Sharon dressed as Maxine, with a cigarette holder and Margarita glass, and I wore my red silky pajamas and a red and purple night cap.  And we went this way to a restaurant in broad daylight!  

Red Bud Tree in bloom- PS'd

Another beautiful day here, and the temperature was perfect.  I asked Hubby to get out my small rototiller so that I could dig up my garden patch, and I'm happy to say it's now all planted.  It's an 8' x 10' space at the front of the garage next to the lawn.  In previous years, I've planted tomatoes, cucumbers, summer squash, and a few flowers and herbs.  This year I planted sunflowers against the garage and a Songbird Flower Mix in the rest of the space.  We'll see.  It should be colorful.  I may put a tomato plant in a container on the patio this year.  I'm stiff this evening after using the rototiller, but not too bad.  It's a small gas-powered engine, and it's not heavy, but there's a certain amount of wrestling it about and controlling it.  Not something I'm used to at all.

I started reading my Photoshop Elements manual(s) tonight.  My friend Cathy loaned me two, and I had already bought one myself.  She made a great suggestion.  She said to pick one topic and read that topic in each manual to see which one works best for me.  I thought that was a great idea.  It seems to me that the manual that I prefer is the one I bought myself, so that's a good thing.  Boy, there's a ton of stuff to learn.  You see here the photo I took this spring, and the photoshopped copy made to look like a watercolor painting.  The jpeg format needed to put it on the web has made the image look somewhat washed out.  Much better before I put it on the web.

Weekend Events

Wow, what a beautiful day.  Great for yardsailing.  I picked up a few treasures, some great ribbon I can use for crafting, some matting for framing, a double frame, some cat earrings I can take apart and use in assemblages, a sweet mini teapot, a small birdhouse, and a zippered file.  The latter can be used for sorted coupons.

We got a call this evening from Hubby's 70-year old brother, Alan.  He climbed up on a stepladder to look for a shutter in the eves of the garage, lost his footing, and came crashing down with the ladder on top of him.  The result was that he dislocated his right shoulder and broke the right humorous bone in his arm.  He's in considerable pain, because there was no one at the hospital until Monday to take care of the problem.  All that was done today was X-rays and a sling and some pain killers.  I feel so badly for him.  I've had a few broken bones in my life, and it's very painful.  Now, unless he finds someone who can take care of it before Monday, he'll be immobile in a recliner chair with an ice pack and pain killers.  Poor guy!   This was his right arm, and of course, he's right-handed, so he'll be incapacitated well into the summer.

Introduction to Photoshop Elements

My friend Cathy is a Photoshop instructor, and today she came to my house and spent a couple of hours with me giving me my first lesson.  I received a copy of Photoshop Elements for my birthday, and after a difficult time loading the software, it's off and running.  Cathy showed me a lot of information today, until my poor brain was fried, but tonight I started playing with it.  After playing around with various photos, here is one I made to look like an old photograph.  It's a photo I took outside a cafe in Venice, and one of my favorites.

Where've I Been?

This is the first post I've made all week.  I've been really busy at home and with my volunteering jobs, and I'm just plain pooped.  When I got home this afternoon, Hubby and I decided to go out for Mexican food, and it was delicious.  We used to live in San Diego, and Mexican food was a given anywhere.  Here in Maryland, it's a lot more scarce.  We have a place called El Azteca that we have gone to a few times, although it's more than a 30 minute drive from here in Clarksville.  However, it was well worth the drive - for the Margarita alone!  Both of us ended up with leftovers to bring home, so that's always good to look forward to.  Besides, I try to cut back on the calories by only eating about half of what I order in restaurants and having the leftovers the next day or so for lunch.

One of the projects I worked on all week was reorganizing my craft room cabinets.  I had already redone the rest of the room, but wanted to pull out all the things that were in the wall cabinets to fit them better and to sort out what was in them.  (I also went through the desk drawer and reorganized it as well.)  It was really a big task, but I have to say I'm thrilled with the end result.  Now I know exactly what I have on hand and can find everything very easily.  In the process I put together a large bag of donations for Goodwill and threw away other things I didn't need.  Now I'm all excited about doing some projects.  I have some sewing I want to do, also some mending, and plan to start working on some assemblages this weekend.

One thing I've been neglecting lately is my reading.  Book Club is this coming Monday, and I haven't even started the book!  I feel badly about it, but I usually read when I go to bed, and I've been so tired lately that I haven't been reading at all.  Now I feel guilty.

This picture is of 2 of our great-grandchildren, Kayla and her new baby brother Gabriel Brendan, who was born a week ago.  They are in Connecticut.  We haven't seen him yet, but this is a photo from the family's Facebook page.   We have 9 great-grandchildren now, and the 10th will be here in about 6 months or less.

Saturday

Today was yard sailing day.  We were supposed to have rain, but it never materialized.  However, it was really windy all day.  And the "haul" was wonderful.  Three round tables and a great cart that will live on the patio.  Also, a brand new birdhouse lamp.  Very nice, and I needed one to replace the table lamp in my craft room that was broken.  Sharon scored an adorable FREE 2-piece rabbit adorned concrete fountain.  The woman who gave it to her said she had had it for about 10 years, and was getting a larger one tomorrow, perhaps as a Mother's Day gift.  When we got to Sharon's house, she put the bowl piece in the flower garden and will put a flower pot inside, and the top with the rabbits is now a garden ornament.

I picked up a number of smaller things that I will be able to use in making crafts, and a great top in my size for 50 cents.  How cool is that?  Tomorrow I want to work outside on the patio and in the flower garden to take care of the weeds.  I also want to rototill the patch of garden next to the garage where I usually plant tomatoes.  This year I have sunflower seeds and other flower seeds that will go in their place.

Happy Mother's Day, all you mothers out there in cyberspace.  I hope you have a wonderful day.

Jury Duty

I've been on jury duty all week.  The judge told us today that the closing arguments will occur tomorrow morning, we will be brought in lunch, and after lunch we will begin our deliberations.  All I can say is that it's a case in Federal Court.  I've been concentrating so hard all week on everything that is being said that I found I was exhausted when I got home this afternoon and immediately took a long nap.  I'm glad for the opportunity to serve on a jury and I take it very seriously.  Once the trial is finished, I'll write about it, but not now.

This is the second time I've served as a juror.  The other time was perhaps 10-12 years ago in San Diego, on a DUI case that took a full 5 days.  Although we were not told why, I'm sure it was because the woman's license would be pulled because of prior offenses, and possibly she was facing jail time or a heavy fine for repeat offenses.  She challenged the arrest.  Unfortunately for her, the verdict was guilty.

The most remarkable thing to me about the case was that the prosecutor was totally blind, yet he had total command of all the facts and figures, and there were a number of charts and graphs.  After the trial was over he spoke with a few of the jurors who remained behind to talk to him.  We learned that he began losing his sight while he was in law school, and had to learn to function in a blind world.  He had a computer that he could access in the courtroom that had a head set attached, and he could locate what he wanted to review in his files, and have it spoken back to him via the head phones.  He rarely used it.  I admired him immensely.

Craft Room Unveil

It's not 100% complete, but here's my craft room redo. The first photo shows my box organization system, tucked into every available nook and cranny, as you can see.  My craft room also houses my tread mill, on the right. On the left is a beautiful knitting bag, and trays I haven't figured out how to use yet.  Click on the photos to enlarge them.

The second photo shows the top of the wall cabinets.  I use the top of the cabinets to display my much loved decor pieces.  Storage of fabric, sewing materials, rubber stamping materials, and polymer clay materials inside the cabinets.

This is the desk.  Not used as a desk, but as a book case and display piece.  The cat boxes fit into a shelf.  The one on the left is a hand painted box.  I love those two!

The top of the desk, with more display pieces and bottles I plan to alter.  On the left is a birdhouse I made with a book as the roof.  The figure in front of the green bottle is my chemo angel.  I'll post about that at another time.

Tucked between the desk and bookcase - more storage boxes.  The whole book case is devoted to craft books.  In front, the tread mill again.

Love those teddy bears on top of the bookcase.  We have Sherlock Holmes with his pipe and Dr. Watson sporting a monocle and holding an umbrella.  They're adorable. 

Here we have another bookcase, with fiction books.  Display on top.  I love this glider and ottoman.  So comfy!

My garage sale plastic storage boxes on top, and the plastic drawers on wheels next to my work table.  Still haven't filled all the boxes yet, but they will be soon!  Cigar boxes under table were 25 cents each at a yard sale!

My bulletin board, work table, and sewing machine.

Entry door on the left side, with my toy chest filled with yarn and housing some beads on top.

Close up of the storage boxes underneath the TV cabinet.

More storage box containers under the desk.

I love these boxes!

Hope you liked the pictures.  I'm very happy with how it looks now, and it will function beautifully!

Friday Yard Sailing

Today was beautiful.  Warm, sunny, just the kind of day it should be on the last of April.  It's hard to believe that May will begin tomorrow and the year is speeding by.  Spent the day with my gal pals for yard sailing and lunch.  Today's treasures were quite a few - including a plastic storage drawer cabinet made for crafts.  The big price was $3.00, but I'll have to spend quite a bit of time cleaning it up.  It's full of spider webs and dirt - obviously it languished for a long time in someone's garage.  The dirt is all on the surface, however, and will easily come off.  I was hoping it would fit underneath my craft table, but realized that the table leg cross bars angle down underneath and won't allow the cabinet to fit.  That's not a problem - I'll probably put it next to the table instead.  It has wheels and moves easily.  The top has indentations to hold small pieces that would otherwise roll off.  It's good.

I found several other craft room storage things that will come in handy.  Plastic boxes with many compartments and secure lids.  Several bottles for altered bottle art pieces,  a lap tray with folding legs that can be used in a chair or in bed.  I can't remember what else I picked up - things are still in my car.  Better go unload and wash the storage cabinet.

Generous Donors

I'm a pooped puppy tonight.  I went to the library today (where I volunteer weekly for the book sale) and could hardly believe the huge number of crates and boxes that had been donated and needed to be processed.  Holy cow!  Seemed like hundreds of books, and remarkably, they had most all been brought in by one patron, and were nearly all brand new or in nearly new condition.  Both hard back and paper back books, mostly fiction, along with a couple of boxes of VHS tapes.  Amazing.  I think sometimes people can't pass up buying new books the way I can't pass up a yard sale.  I dove into them and before I left, it was all put away and processed, date stamped, categorized, and alphabetized out on the sale shelves.  Many of the new books were held back to replace the library's copies when they get ratty, and it will save a lot of money in purchases.

In addition to paperbacks and hard backs, people donate VHS tapes, video DVD's, music CD's, magazines, and audio books - often times still unopened.  Even current software CD's.  All in all, it's good for the community to be able to get inexpensive library materials in hard times, it's recycling and good for the planet, and it brings in extra money to the library.  Everybody wins!

Back to Craft Room Arranging

It's quiet in the house, and I'm going to write this post and then it's off to bed with "Girl with a Dragon Tattoo".  I spent the evening in the craft room rearranging storage boxes into a new arrangement to make the most use of space.  Recently I've been getting these storage boxes at Michael's.  They were all on sale, and they are really pretty.  I also received some from a friend for my birthday.  Some are pretty large.  I have them all set up and will put some outside labels on them so that I can store like things together.  This may take some time, but I think it will end up being a good system in the end.  Of course, I'm watching TV while doing this task, so it takes twice as long as it should.

I've decided that some stuff is going back down to the basement in tubs - specifically a large box full of yarn for starters.  I have some large plastic tubs that are great for storage, and we have a good, dry basement that will work out just fine 'til I want the yarn again.  I realized there is no reason I need to keep all my books, yarn, fabric, painting supplies, polymer clay, paper crafts, beading supplies, stamping, etc. all in the craft room if I'm not working with it at the moment.  I tend to go through cycles, just like the seasons, and everything will be there and easy to get to when I next want it.  That way I wont feel so crowded and overwhelmed in the craft room.   I'm liking this idea more and more as I think of what I can take downstairs.


Ming Poo was being mischievous tonight and jumped up onto our dish cabinet.  Once she gets up there she starts looking around to see if she can get to the next level up, and the only other thing was the nearby ceiling light fixture.  I grabbed my camera and got a couple of pictures before I reached up and lowered her down.  What a little hellion she is!  The last photo is another time when she jumped up on the mantle.  She's so adorable I can't stand it.  Don't you love the tongue sticking out in the first one?

Soggy Monday

Yes, it was pretty soggy after last night's tremendous thunderstorm, and it rained off and on through the day today.  We should be all caught up with any lagging behind in rainfall by now.

Today was Book Club lunch at Betty's house.  She put on a really nice lunch for all of us - appetizers, wine, French onion soup, ham and cheese sandwiches, chips, and a dessert to die for - brownies a la mode with chocolate sauce and walnut sauce.  Wow!  As usual, we had a wonderful time.  It was so good to see everyone, since during the time since last month's Book Club, 2 of our members had some extremely serious family health issues - a heart attack for a son and a lung operation that nearly cost his life for a husband.  Both are recovering very well, and we are so glad!

Betty has a new dog - a chihuahua named Peek-a-Boo. She's going to be a real handful, I can tell.  Betty has another dog, a dachshund named Hans.   Heidi, the other old dachshund, died a couple of months ago, and poor little Hans misses her so much.  She's buried in the back of the yard, and somehow he knows that, even though he was nowhere around when she was buried.  But he goes up to her grave and sits there.  This little pip squeak is no Heidi, and he isn't at all pleased.  He's such a sweetie.  Tried to take these photos from across the room with my iPhone, so they're pretty bad, but you get the idea.  Peak-a-Boo has her own chair, as you see.  Betty is holding her in the first photo.

Tea in a Thunderstorm

This was a good day.  To start, today is my birthday, and I have been celebrating for several days now.  My gifts from my hubby were a Photoshop Elements 8 software program and a Canon photo printer.  Hooray!   I'm a little disappointed because I wasn't able to load the disc today - some glitch with either the program or my computer, but I will be able to resolve it tomorrow on the phone with the tech support person.  I've wanted to get involved with Photoshop for several years, but just haven't until now.  My friend Cathy is a professional with Photoshop - she teaches it at the local college and has been after me to learn for a long time.  It will be a lot of fun, I'm sure, and she is a terrific instructor.  I know a tiny bit about it already, but there is so much to learn...

There is a deluge happening as we speak.  And just as I started this blog, there was a loud crack and lightening strike out in front.  It may have hit one of the trees in our yard.  Too dark to be able to see right now.  I really hope not.  We have some wonderful large trees in front of our house.

I'm drinking some delicious tea right now.  It's called Buccaneer SerendipiTea, and I was able to order it from Amazon.com.  It's a favorite of mine and Sharon. The Buccaneer blend contains Fair Trade certified organic black tea, chocolate, coconut, vanilla and rooibos.  The toasted coconut is wonderful and the vanilla and chocolate flavors are delicious.  I'm having some Bolero Lemon Wafer Sticks with the tea - perfect!

Here's my dear friend Sharon having a cup of our favorite:

If It's Saturday, There Must Be Yard Sales

True enough, there were plenty, and the biggest was a flea market at Baugher's lot, where there were probably 75 vendors.  My friends and I arrived early, and shopped 'til we dropped.  Everyone always has something different in mind to look for, which is a good thing.  That way we aren't coveting each other's finds.  I find it hard when faced with tons of miscellaneous stuff to remember different "quests" and things I'm interested in finding.  Today I was looking for old vintage paper stuff  (found a deck of hand painted old style playing cards - the kind without the numbers for 50 cents), and things I can use in assemblage art  (found 2 shadow boxes, 2 cigar tins for 50 cents each and 4 clay molded "buttons" for $1.00.)   Two unopened boxes of 18 Christmas cards for 25 cents each will come in handy next year.  Didn't have any left after this Christmas.  A whole bunch of brass butterflies I can cut up for assemblages, $l.00.  A hand painted gardening bucket, gift for a gardening friend, for $5.00.  Jim's favorite thing, an 8-quart enamel porcelain painted pot.  Brand new in the box, $8.00.  A couple of small old pictures in frames for 50 cents each, a torch-cut metal bird for $1.00, and a cast iron letter opener for 25 cents.  Perhaps the most practical find today was a Totes umbrella for $1.00 that I planned to keep in my car, but which came in handy when it started to rain.  Quite a haul!

This is the 25 cent cast iron letter opener.  Intricate, isn't it?  Has a lot of heft.

These are the clay buttons I bought.  Not sure how I will use them, but they are really delicate and pretty.

Here's the enameled pot I bought. My husband loves it.  I think I will probably put it on the top of the cabinets, but will decide that tomorrow.  Hubby wants to use it for cooking.

It took me a long while to get into yard sailing, but after several years, I'm hooked!