How about a Wordless Wednesday?

How about a Wordless Wednesday.  Then I don't need to think of something clever to say.

Moss covered rocks

We have a retaining wall in the backyard that is becoming quite green.  It's no surprise that moss grows so well with all of our rain.  I think it looks great, like they're in a forest from a fairy tale.  It's bugging Robert though, and I think he might remove the moss this spring/summer.  I hope not.  It's more mossy then it was last year and I'm curious to how mossy it will get next year.

If I'm stuck with the rain and wet, I'm going to make the best of it.

January blues

Raindrops through the car window.



I think January might be the hardest month for me. I always feel quite sad in January.  The weather is usually the worst (in that it is ALWAYS raining).  I feel like I will never see the sun again (though we did have a bit more than a full week of sun) and that it will rain forever. I'm missing some of my family because I didn't get to see them, yet again, for the holidays (we can't travel to them and they can't/won't travel to me). It's a new year, but I didn't get to a whole bunch of stuff I wanted to do the year before and now it's gone...

BLAH!

So yeah, we had about a week of sun with a few sprinkles here and there, nothing really.  On Saturday, the rains returned.  The rain allows Oregon to be so very green and the springs to be very lovely, and keeps the summer drought off much longer than many other parts of the country, but it can be hard to handle.  Sometimes I blame it on being from New Mexico, but New Mexico is no longer my home and I've lived in Oregon longer than I lived there, so it doesn't feel right to blame it on that.  Where we are in Oregon rarely feels like my home either, even though I live here, and I'm not sure why.  Nor do I know where my home is. I don't mean home where I live with my family, but a home where my family and I live that feels right.  A place where it feels like we fully belong.  Does that make sense?  This town and/or house is close, I think, but it's not quite there...

I don't know.  January's make me sad and weird weirder.

Do you feel like you're home?

Saturday errands

Carus helped me with grocery shopping with me today.  I used coupons of sorts (wherein I usually don't) and went to 3 stores to get the best deals/be able to use the coupons (instead of the usual two) and only saved about $15....not sure if it was worth it.

For Carus's help with the shopping, I treated her to lunch at Costco then took her with me for a pedicure.

Not only is our salon great, they took us when we showed up within 10 minutes of their closing time AND did pretty designs on for free.  Carus chose my color -- orange -- and I chose hers -- a light green, that looks a bit yellowish.

Unimpressed pug

Unimpressed pug is unimpressed.

Or maybe, Pug is not amused.



Adam has spent his Christmas break grounded from video games, and doing chores. He was in trouble for saying he didn't have homework when he actually did.  This is a repeating problem for him it seems.  He gets in trouble, is grounded for ages, and then claims to have learnt his lesson and does better.  For awhile... usually until the next school year.

He was caught in the lie two days before Christmas break, and we spent two days deciding fully what his punishment(s) would be.  We were not happy that he wouldn't get to do any of the fun things that he wanted to do for his break, not to mention about half of his gifts wouldn't get to be touched. But, we are VERY firm believers in following through with threats/consequences/punishments and so we had to do it.

I asked on Facebook "what would you do?" and received some suggestions for having him do extra chores.  I then asked "What is your most disliked chore?" and Adam pretty much did them all -- dusting, vacuuming, helping with laundry (which he does anyways), dishes (which it was his month to help anyways), doggy duty pick-up like every other day, cleaning the cat box (I enjoyed the break from that chore SO MUCH), raking leaves, storm debris clean-up, taking out the garbage and recycling (which he does anyways), sweeping and moping, cleaning bathrooms (which he helps with anyways).

And all was accompanied by many many discussions about why he needs to do his homework even if he doesn't like it and why he is to never lie to us. Especially, that he is to never lie to us.

We let him off grounding two days ago and he is enjoying a couple new video games.



I think he was playing Halo 3 - which apparently needs a serious concentration face.

Hello 2013

The first day of 2013 was just as lovely as the last of 2012.  Sunny and blue skies.  Robert went off to hang out with friends and I was going to do some yard work, but the soft, warm bed distracted me.  The clear skies and sun are nice especially when it's been raining a lot, but clear skies in the winter mean there are no clouds to hold the heat in and it gets cold.  I did get back up out of bed, but still didn't go outside to do yard work.  A quick text to Jessica to what she was up to and we were sewing away.  And I finished my mystery quilt top.  Now just to sandwich it, quilt it, and bind it.  Hopefully, doing that won't take me all year.

1:365


The sun was out again today. I opened all the blinds to let the sun in, which of course brings the pets out to sunbathe.

Wilbur was very tired from all that sunbathing he had to do.

2:365


So, I've heard from one person that I should do another 365 this year.

And, thinking about it, I've decided I like the discipline it takes to do this.  I do want to do a few things differently.  For one, I want to really try to take all of the photos with my camera, and I do want to do a theme one day each month or so.  

And on that note - what should January's theme be?

Good-bye 2012

367:366

We had a few snow flurries throughout the day, but unfortunately it didn't stick.  One of the flurries was during my lunch break so I went out and tried to get a few macro shots of the snow flakes.  Unfortunately they were NOTHING like my inspiration photos by Russian photographer Andrew Osokin which I read about on PetaPixel.  Though, he does have a really nice macro lens and I just have a little macro attachment for my lens.



If we get any more snow, I'll try again.

I was hoping to go to bed and wake up to a few feet of snow, but that didn't happen.

We spent the evening playing Pictionary with the kids and then pulling the Christmas decorations down and putting them away.  Leia didn't handle the fireworks and gun shots too well, but they weren't as bad as we were expecting...so there's that.

I'll write about today later when I decide what I'm doing.

Did you stay up to ring in the New Year?