90:366 7days, day 7

Last remnants of Leia's muddy adventure yesterday.  This mess was loads easier to clean up.

She was jumping up to make noise to let us know she wants in.  Most of the time we just don't get to the door fast enough, she doesn't need to jump that high.  (She can get higher.)  Sometimes, she's not being allowed in yet - either I'm not playing the revolving door game or she's covered in mud.

7 days is a Flickr group of guys and gals that take on the challenge of taking a self-portrait once a day for 7 days.  Two days are theme days. There are four rounds a year.  We upload our photos to the group and then comment and joke on each others photos for at least 7 days. 

89:366 7days, day 6

The rain is kicking my butt this week. I've been fighting the doldrums of watching it rain and rain and rain and trying to think of all the good and all the sun we will get soon. (Hopefully soon)

And the puppy joined in.  She went out to potty and 15 minutes later she was asking to come back in.  Carus went to let her in, attempted to wipe the mud off her feet and gave up.  I thought she was being dramatic when she told me Leia was covered in mud.

She wasn't.

I don't think she was just digging. She had to have rolled. I no longer had a black lab - I had a mud lab. (She has been/was/is trying to dig a hole under the fence to go play with our neighbors three labs.)

Instead of standing out in the cold and hosing her (and, let's face it, me) off and have us both shivering the rest of the night I opted for having Robert carry her to the tub and bathing her there.

What you can't see is the 7 more muddy and/or soggy towels at my feet and the muddy water decorations she gifted me with.  About halfway through the bath, just as I got most of the big clumps of mud off and she was covered with the most amount of water, she escaped the tub and shook.  There was muddy water spatter over three of the four walls, the door, the counter, the sink, the mirror, and me.

She is so lucky she's cute.

(I remembered at the last second before clean up to get me into the shot. You get me pointing at the mess.)

88:366 7days, day 5

I went to the first of the three classes I have this week.  Since I usually work from home, I'm usually in my sweat pants and makeup free, so getting "dressed" and putting on makeup feels different.  And because I'm usually makeup free, I put my makeup on today during my lunch break so it was still FRESH when I left.

(Today 7days was a theme day, theme FRESH.)

87:366 7days, day 4

Dessert

It's the kids spring break and I still have to work, which I feel guilty about because we can't do anything fun.  They are having a grand time spending extra time in pajamas, staying up late, sleeping in, reading, watching TV,  playing video games (just Carus, Adam got himself grounded from video games), and playing board games and cards with each other.

Even with that I'm trying to do some spring break-y things with them.  Sunday we went to the movies, yesterday we went to the library, and today was supposed to be swimming or roller skating, but then the dog woke me an hour early and I ended up working some overtime and I'm beat. So tonight turned into ice cream night.

86:366 7 days, day 3

Playing fetch with Leia.

We got a ball that lights up to make it easier to see in the fog and gloom of "the rainy season".  It works great at night.  Leia loves it.

Menu 3-25-12 to 3-31-12

Sunday - Leftovers from turkey dinner
Monday - Make your own taco
Tuesday - Grilled chicken, macaroni salad
Wednesday - FFY
Thursday - Beef and broccoli
Friday - FFY (a second one in a week because I have to get up at like 4:30am this day and then I'm going to a camera launch party at 6:30pm until god knows when and I'm not going to worry my pretty little head about dinner)
Saturday - Undecided (maybe pizza, maybe we'll go out to eat)

Links to some recipes can be found here. 


If you see anything you want a recipe to and it's not listed on my recipe page, leave me a comment to let me know and I'll post the recipe.

85:366 7days, day 2

Just finished watching The Hunger Games.

I think they did a very good job of book to movie translation and enjoyed the movie.

Have you seen it?

84:366 7 days, day 1

I made waffles for breakfast and had strawberries to top them with.  This is when I whipped cream to go on top.  It's not the greatest catch of me, you can only make out a sliver of the color of shirt I was wearing.

I'm between the "h" and "e".


Oh, and this photo was not taken with my phone.  My camera is up and running and as good as new.

83:366

Robert's car has been in the shop for a couple of days getting something or other replaced.  It was replaced as part of a recall so it was free.  Since his car was in the shop he has been driving mine.  We went down after work today to pick up his car.  He also had them do an oil change, but there's some iffiness with that so he might have to take it back next week, though that probably won't be a drop off and pick up later thing.

Anyways, as we were driving towards the dealership we got to enjoy the lovely view of Mount Hood.

My phone's camera does not do the view justice.

The good news there is...

The new battery for my camera did arrive today and we put it in the camera and.....

MY CAMERA IS NOT DEAD!

Yay?

Haha, just kidding.  I'm very, very, very glad that it's not dead - just a little sad I have no excuse to upgrade right now.  I'll have to wait.  Maybe I'll get enough moola for my birthday in a couple months that I'll be able to upgrade then.

Also - ALSO! Spring run 7days starts tomorrow.  Get ready for a week of self portraits of me.  I don't know yet if Carus or Adam will be participating with me - we'll see.

82:366

Spring in Oregon - Snow in the morning (about 7 am) and sun in the afternoon (about 6 pm).

Put in a collage with an app on my phone (Photogram for Windows phone).

*I'm using my cell phone for taking pictures while my big camera is out of commission.  


**And with this post, I'm caught back up!  After posting the 366 for today (3/23/12) later on I will be back to one post per day.  Well, as long as I keep caught up I will.  

81:366

*I'm using my cell phone for taking pictures while my big camera is out of commission.  

80:366

Pansy in my yard.  Spring is trying to come to Oregon, though Oregon's weather isn't cooperating the best.

Edited with an app on the phone (Photogram for Windows phones).


*I'm using my cell phone for taking pictures while my big camera is out of commission.  

79:366

Daffodils in my yard.  Edited with an app on the phone (Photogram for Windows phones).


*I'm using my cell phone for taking pictures while my big camera is out of commission.  

78:366

I love this tree.  It's seen in the neighborhood below mine and seen often on dog walks.


*I'm using my cell phone for taking pictures while my big camera is out of commission.  

77:366

Happy St. Patty's Day!

The day my camera battery died.  Hopefully it's the battery.  We've ordered a new battery and as soon as it gets here we will find out for sure if it is the battery or if my entire camera is kaput.

I found out it died when I pulled it on the plane to try to get a quick shot of the mountain we were flying over.  It was an amazing sight!  But no.  Camera dead.  We were thinking it is Mount Hood.

Quickly I pulled out my phone and turned it back on (I had just turned it off per pilots instructions) and started the camera and just barely got the mountain.



It was much cooler when we were closer to it, but I still got it so I'm happy.

76:366

Uncle Peter and Adam


Uncle Charles and Carus


Me and my brothers and our mom

75:366

Gramps, Carus, Granny GG, and Adam.

74:366

Wednesday, we had to say good bye to the cousins. Sad face :(

But the good news was that we got Granny and Gramps all to ourselves.  Muaahaha (that's my evil villian laugh).

Granny took us to the Space Hall of Fame to get our edumacation on.  It was much cooler than I remember it, and I remembered it as pretty cool. I think the kids had a pretty good time and learned some things.  They seem to share mine and Robert's enjoyment in museums and monuments.



Outside the museum they have displays of decommissioned rockets, missles, and the like all relating to space exploration and military history.





As a kid, I beleived than Ham was buried there, but I was mistaken. He has a commemorative plaque there and he spent his retirement in a zoo in North Carolina.








Carus did really well on the flight simulator.  Better than Adam, on her first try, and she's not a big video game person.  If NASA was still sending astronauts into space, they might have earned another one.  She enjoyed teasing Adam with how well she did compared to him.




74/366 - Posing with Granny.

73:366

Later in the afternoon on Monday we left Roswell to head down to Tularosa to see my other grandparents, Granny and Gramps, as well as some cousins I hadn't seen in like 16+ years.  We got to see cousin Emma, her husband Cody, and daughter Reese (who is so stinking cute), and Laura and her baby bump.

I love Granny and Gramps's house. Lots of really good memories there.


Tuesday we hung out, laughing and chatting and drawing with chalk. 

Look, I drew Ariel.  I'm pretty proud of her. I didn't think I would be able to draw it well enough.



One game we always played every time we went to Granny's as a kid was bubbles.  Does that count as a game, or is it just an activity?  Granny would give us flyswatters (most likely they were clean ones) and pie tin full of bubble soap, and we would dip the flyswatters into the soap and then spin in circles making bubbles.  Or having 'sword' fights/bubble fights. Or run with the bubbles blowing out behind us.  Fun. :)

So of course the kids had to do bubbles! Granny didn't have a lot of bubble soap at hand but after a quick google search on my phone (what did we do before smartphones!) I mixed up a batch of bubble soap. I just eyeballed things and tested the bubble ability by putting my hands in the mixture then blowing a bubble between my cupped hands. I estimate what I used was a gallon of water, 1/4 cup corn syrup, and 1 cup dish soap.  Granny had Ivory dish soap and it smelled lovely.  Just stir until the syrup is dissolved and voila! 

72:366 - Grace, the puppy

My aunt and uncle have this adorable little puppy who came visiting with them.  We just fell in love with her, which didn't help with our missing our doggies.  She was so sweet and such a good puppy.

This is Grace.  It took me two days to get a picture of her looking at me without running towards me because in her little puppy mind when I called her it meant I wanted to see her and pet her and love on her, which I did but I also wanted to get a picture of her.  Silly thing.


While visiting Gramma and Poppy, we got to see baby chicks...


Climb...


Trees...


Play with doggies...

(Faith has Jake, Poppy's dog, and Carus has Grace, Faith's puppy.)

Catch up with family...

(Aunt Karen, Uncle Cody, and Faith)

And stand hidden in bushes for 10 minutes to catch one of the birds living in the Yucca.

71:366 - Smooches for Poppy

First stop on our week long visit is Roswell, NM for grandparents, brothers, mother, aunt and uncle, and an itty bitty cousin (Faith) I’d never met.

Poppy was just swinging with Carus (his great-granddaughter) and Faith (his granddaughter) on the swing, minding his own business when Faith snuck up on him and gave him a big sloppy smooch. 

You know what Roswell, New Mexico is famous for?  The UFO crash landing in 1947.

And so of course we had to visit the Roswell UFO Museum for a little history lesson.   

Slideshow – that isn’t that long because my camera battery died on me.*

If you want a sneak peak on all the photos from the trip go to the New Mexico 2012 folder on Flickr.  

If you want a sneak peak on the 366 photos from this week visit my 366 in 2012 folder on Flickr.

*The beginning of my camera battery dying on me.  Thankfully it made it until the plane ride home BUT STILL I'm going through withdrawals now.

70:366 - Flying

First glimpse of Albuquerque, taken with my phone and edited HDR (high dynamic range) with an app on my phone.

If you want a sneak peak on all the photos from the trip go to the New Mexico 2012 folder on Flickr.  

If you want a sneak peak on the 366 photos from this week visit my 366 in 2012 folder on Flickr.

69:366 - Nothing exciting

We had some down time after I finished packing and laundry and etc. etc. etc. for our trip.  We would be going Saturday to Saturday to visit my family in New Mexico.  So I painted mine and Carus’s nails.

I got this lovely sparkly polish.  It made me smile every time I saw it until it finally wore off completely about 4 days later.

OPI Muppets Collection - Rainbow Connection (Wow! That price went up since I bought it.)

If you want a sneak peak on all the photos from the trip go to the New Mexico 2012 folder on Flickr.  

If you want a sneak peak on the 366 photos from this week visit my 366 in 2012 folder on Flickr.

68:366 - Bye Bye Tree

We had the large fir tree in our yard cut down.  It was 30+ feet tall.  It looked fairly healthy, but it had a few weepy spots and the ground all around the base was extremely squishy.  It made nervous.  I could just see it falling and taking out at least mine and Robert’s bedroom, and though I was reassured that it wouldn't do enough damage to squish the kids (as well) I still feared it would.  A few weeks ago we had a pretty big storm and watching that tree sway as much as it did sealed its fate.  It was coming down.

Robert works next to the “headquarters” of a tree trimming and cutting service and he meandered next door one day and got them scheduled to come out the following Thursday for a great price. Significantly lower than we were expecting.  If anyone local to us is looking for some tree services, let us know and we’ll "hook you up". 

They showed up about 8 am.  After showing them which tree was to be cut down (doubt there was any confusion but anyways) I went back inside and got busy with work.  Okay, after I took the before photo… I knew I’d want a before & after shot.

I peaked on the progress after about 30 minutes and they had made quite a bit of progress.  I texted Robert to let him know and he called me wanting me to take a picture and send to him.  I also grabbed my camera.

It wasn’t much longer until I checked again and they were just cutting the rounds up into firewood lengths since we are keeping them to use in our fire pit. 

It took them just over an hour start to finish, including clean up, to cut down that tree. 

68:366 – Before & After

That phone pole really sticks out now, huh?

If you want a sneak peak on all the photos from the trip go to the New Mexico 2012 folder on Flickr.  

If you want a sneak peak on the 366 photos from this week visit my 366 in 2012 folder on Flickr.

Menu

For the week 3-18-12 to 3-24-12


Sunday - Beef stew
Monday - Chicken alfredo, steamed broccoli
Tuesday - FFY
Wednesday - Steak, shrimp, salad
Thursday - Burgers and tater tots
Friday - Yokisoba
Saturday - Turkey, mashed potatoes,

Links to some recipes can be found here. 


If you see anything you want a recipe to and it's not listed on my recipe page, leave me a comment to let me know and I'll post the recipe.

Catching up!

I got behind on my blog posts when in New Mexico and I’m going to be working on catching up this week, so I apologize in advance for overloading you on posts.

I wrote a few of the catch up posts on the plane somewhere between Albuquerque and Portland which I’ll be copying and pasting into blog posts throughout the week… and I don’t think I’ve ever had that much turbulence – aack…aack.

 

Phew – I think we got above whatever was causing that – probably some storms.  Looks like we are above the clouds while a moment ago I saw snow capped mountains.

Ooop, nope spoke to soon.  I'll echo what Carus is saying, “Oooh, I don’t like that.”

One last phew that's stopped and I’m going to shut up on the matter…

If you want a sneak peak on all the photos from the trip go to the New Mexico 2012 folder on Flickr.  

If you want a sneak peak on the 366 photos from this week visit my 366 in 2012 folder on Flickr.

67:366

I so love his wrinkly face.

I was going to write more, but I have nothing. My brain is drawing a blank.

Blankity blank blank. . .

I need a vacation. Good thing I have one coming up.

66:366

66:366

Orion.  Or at least, most of him.  I thought I got all of him and if I had known I missed some I would have stayed out and kept trying.  And probably would have frozen off a couple fingers in the process.

I'll try again and will get better.

At least I'm starting to know what I'm doing and don't have to fiddle with my camera settings too much before I get the results I want (or at least close to what I want).

Adam was pretty impressed that I got him.

I originally went out with the intent to get a shot of the big moon.  It was just so clear and bright and beautiful that I couldn't resist.

65:366

This is how Carus was doing her spelling work this morning.  Sitting on the dog bed, with Leia lying on the floor behind her, and Simba sleeping on her lap.



Today brought back the normal wet, windy, Oregon weather.  And tonight brings some cold cold air and we could have snow flurries tomorrow morning.

Snow.  Again.

I don't usually mind the snow.  In fact, I love the snow.  HOWEVER! I only love said snow in winter months, and, in my opinion, March in Oregon should not be a winter month.  It is a spring month and dammit, I want my spring!



There are tulips and daffodils and the like popping up.  I want to see more flowers.  The grass is getting greener and is starting to grow - and I really want it to do that more.  I have a section of the backyard that would be more aptly named the swamp its so soggy!

I want blue skies and bright sunshine.  I don't need high temps. I would love it if it would stay in the 70s with a few 80s from now until fall.  I do enjoy the cooler weather and all that it brings, I'm just ready for the warmer weather.

This afternoon, it did clear up though it didn't warm up really.  Robert and Adam were already outside doing some pickup in the yard and I took the dogs out to get some air and see what there was to see. It wasn't long before Leia started a game with Adam of try to catch me.  He came close a few times, but didn't catch her, especially when she jumped off the wall.

Super puppy!