Animals, Inside and Out

No, I am not talking about children or men!

I am talking about the real deal.

Birds and dogs.

We seem to have many, and my husband enjoys

taking photos of the birds, and I take the photos

of the dogs, who are getting rather tired of being

my models, and that is apparent in these pictures.

Good thing I am going to Austin and will have beautiful children

and fantastic architecture to feast my camera on!

Well, the dogs will do for the moment

and the birds are only a few.

Susie, our female is becoming "over" the whole picture thing.

See!

 

Ernie is long past the picture "thing".

 

My husband caught this beautiful cardinal in our tree

the other day, the bright red is just stunning!

 

We have geese and ducks galore in the river,

I think they are the entertainment for the bald eagles!

 

Have an amazing day, and I hope that you will keep

me and my youngest in your prayers as we fly

out to New Orleans day after tomorrow.

Thank you!!!

 



Leaving.....Saaaweeeeet!!!

I am leaving.

Saturday to be exact.

Heading in to Chicago to spend the night.

Sunday (very early) I fly out of O'Hare

to New Orleans....meet up with my family

and then it is off to Austin Texas.

 

As you can imagine, my house is a flurry

of "get this ready, get that done" and it leaves

little time for projects or blogging.

 

However, I plan to blog ALOT on all that

I do in Austin, as it is my first time to ever visit

the great state of Texas. And I hear that Austin

is simply a beautiful city with lots to do and lots

to photograph.

 

But in the mean time, please be patient with me

and I will check in with you as the days fill with

hugs, kisses, cattle and city life.

I am quite excited!

 

 

Our Austin photo of the week: Frost Bank building
(Photo courtesy of ATXPetePhotography, Flickr: http://ht.ly/iZAph) 

Favorite Quotes

A favorite quote of the day:

A couple of things make me come alive!

Delighting myself in my Lord!

  Photography ranks high in my "come alive" tank

probably because I love the people and things that I

photograph so extremely.

 

So my challenge for you today is:

Do something that you are passionate about.

Make a difference in some one's life today!

Make a difference in YOUR life today!!



What Is Happening Around Here?!!!!?

As I was outside on Wednesday I noticed a few signs of spring. Buds on the trees,

 Snow and ice melting away,

 Flower pots begging to be filled,

 And Iris plants breaking through the soil and announcing their presence.

I cannot wait to be out there filling those flower pots,

cleaning up the Iris beds and feeling the warmth of

the sun on my bare arms.

And there will be back yard projects to blog about too!

The River...

is a risin'!

I snapped a couple of photos yesterday

If you look through the trees, all you can see is

 water.

So? What is the big deal?

Well, all that water is normally land.

Land NOT covered by water.

Now this is bottom land, the flat land at the bottom

of our bank but usable, picnic area land that

is lush and green in the spring and summer.

Maybe not this spring tho, as it will take a while

for the grass to fill in where the mud caked soil

will harden once the water recedes.

Good for our local farmers, not so good for picnics!

Random Thoughts

I am not sure how the girls in my life have so completely influenced me,

but it seems that I have

a pink phone cover...how has this girl who

has always been a sea blue or bright red kind of gal

gone to the pink side? Girls!

Our dogs. Susie is the one "looking" at me in the top photo,

Ernie is the one at the end of the sofa in the bottom photo.

I believe that they are pretty spoiled, considering that they require a pillow to sleep on while on the sofa. They will literally stare you down until you give in and place the pillow for their use! REALLY!!????

Sigh...really.

Again, we can blame this one on our children being the influences

that they were while living in our home.

I guess that is why we spoil our children,

so that they

can spoil their pets....or at least that is my story,

and I'm stickin to it!!

 

I have once again started playing with my camera on a more urgent basis.

I am heading to New Orleans and then on to Austin Texas at the end of the month

and I am going to take tons of pics while there...

so I am warming up now!

And We Have.....

A Mantle!!

Yes, we have a new (old) mantle.

The wood is old. Found in my Mother's storage area of her falling down garage.

Cleaned up, sealed with a couple of coats of

sprayed satin poly and the results are....well,

here! You can see for yourself!

 

I choose this type of bulky old wood mantle to be in

between the pristine white built-ins because

I love the jeux-a-position of the very old and rustic

with the new white painted wood.

 

I find it to be amazing!

Just Too Cute To Not Share!

It must be the color of the cork that makes

me like the gold. Maybe it's the "bubble" look.

Maybe I just like polka dots....

I think it is all of the above.

 

But I just had to share this link with you!

My Sister's Suitcase has taken something quite

simple to something quite amazing!

All info is at this link.

 

http://www.sisterssuitcaseblog.com/2013/03/diy-gold-confetti-cork-board.html



A Crazy Week

This has been a crazy week for me.

We had a snow storm (9 inches)

I got a stomach bug (24 hour)

I have a Dr. appt. on Friday

Took my Mom to the antique mall,

and the stomach bug reared itself again.

Mom's are soooooooooo understanding!

I did get to work a couple of days this week,

but things have gotten done.

Our son called and I am now driving their

moving truck from New Orleans to Austin TX

the last week of March...excitement!

I picked up a couple of things at the antique mall

They will be turned into something quite different

for our [one week late] Easter Dinner table.

Can you guess??!!



Please Tell Me You Do Too!

Tell me that I am not the only one who has one of "those" places,

that I clean and straighten and then over the weeks and months,

it just gets dumped on,

cluttered up and pretty much ignored.

I probably have more of those "places" than I care to admit, but the one that I look at day after day is my make-up table. I wish it were exclusively my make-up table, but it is not. My husband uses it for his "pocket cleaning" & alarm clock table.

We have our change jar on it also.

But it becomes sooooooooooooooo cluttered.

I decided to "get after it" and organize.

Here are a couple of before pictures....

 

 

And after.

 

I took an antique candy dish from my cupboard using it as my costume jewelry dish. I like it!

 

My necklaces are hung on the mirror.

 

I believe that it will be a much better morning tomorrow as I sit to put my make-up on!

 

 Don't you think!?!

Shelves In The Working

I am slowly working on adding decor to the

built-ins that we recently put in the living room.

I have a few vignettes,

 

    but still alot of empty space.

I do not want to just throw something up there

and then have to re-do everything later.

So slow and steady wins the race.

Or something like that?!!

 

Yesterday I covered a few books.

 

I had bought a book of scrapbooking paper for the

girls night a couple of weeks ago and

that night, used very little of it.

 

So I pulled it out of the cabinet andchoose a few fun papers!  Covering books that we will never read again

(yes, we all have books like that!) making them useful again by giving them a face lift with some cute paper!

 

It adds a pop of color to the book shelves

and I really like the ease and inexpensive way to

add such prettiness to our built ins.

With a couple of pieces of paper, some tape and

a pair of scissors, I turned some un-used books

into something wonderful!

 

And nothing is permanent. The paper is very

easily removed and all can be as it was before.

Color is a wonderful thing!