Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Annie continued…

I’ve been working on the portrait of Annie. It’s coming along fine. The actual drawing looks so much better than the picture I took of it. I really have to figure out how get my drawings to photograph well. Here is the continuation… 

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Sunday, November 14, 2010

Annie…

I started a portrait of my crazy collie, Annie Belle awhile ago, quite awhile ago actually, geez, Spring? I got a little busy with moving Andy and Kira way too many miles away from me, and then there was yard work and then a patio to finish. Now that we’ve had our first snow of the season, I’m done with the outdoor work and can start on the inside work. We’ll be kept busy all winter working on the basement, I’m sure. I can’t do anything in the basement until David gets the bathroom settled, then I will put up beadboard, tile the bath surround and the floor. In the meantime, I can do what ever I want!!! Yippee!!!!

I want to draw! Annie Belle is coming out from between the pages of my drawing pad, where she has been living for the past several months, and onto my drawing board. I’ll be watching ‘Fringe’ for the finishing of this portrait. Hopefully I won’t get too far into the season before I’m finished. This is my work in progress…  

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I have quite a bit more to do, but I think it’s coming along pretty well, and I’m happy with it so far.

ARC Value Village…

Anyone who would care to read this probably already knows that I shop at thrift stores, mainly ARC Value Village, although I have shopped at others. I was feeling a little on edge today, well it was a little more than ‘on edge’, more like irrationally nasty, and I just wanted to be away from David because I knew if I stayed at home, I would end up insulting him about something or other. Now this feeling usually has to do with chocolate, but I’m kind of thinking I may have to just go with sugar in general, or maybe it’s just all artificial sweeteners. I had 1/2 a can of Diet Rite cola, which has sucralose in it, before we went to the store, and 1/2 way through shopping, I just felt like ripping him apart. I can not tell you how much I HATE that feeling. I have absolutely no warning when it’s going to happen. I’m just fine one moment, and the next I feel like ripping something apart. I said ripping twice, but that really is the feeling I get, like if I had sharp claws, I would stick them in his chest and rip it apart. Thank God that I don’t have claws and that I am aware of my feelings enough that I would never really act on them, but nasty comments always slip out before I realize what’s happening. I can then control my mouth, but to do that, I have to distance myself from anyone I care about. So I now have 10 cans of Diet Rite cola sitting on my kitchen counter that I can not drink. :( sad   Every now and then a soda would just be the ticket but I’m stuck with water, lemon aide or juice. 

Anyway, we made it home in one piece and took Annie for a walk, not the walk we promised her which was going to be a long walk around Palmer Lake, because David got a call from work and had to be near his computer, so we took a short one,which was enough to satisfy us all. I was feeling better just getting some fresh air and exercise, but I still didn’t want to be at home, so I went to my second favorite store, ARC Value Village.  I got some pretty good deals, a corduroy jacket, a sweater, 2 wine glasses and a down jacket all for $34.00. David wanted me to look for some gloves, but unless they are new, gloves and mittens usually wear out before they would be donated. I swear some people buy clothes, decide they don’t want them and instead of returning them, they just keep them until they decide it’s time to clean out their closet and donate to ARC or GoodWill, or some other organization. Well, that’s just fine with me, because I’ve gotten some very nice things at a ridiculously low price. Take a look at today’s deals…

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The colors are a little different than what the camera and my fixing show, but they are close. This down jacket has zip-off sleeves and hood and nothing else wrong! It’s from New York & Company, so I know it had to be a little pricey and I got it for a whopping $12.99. My children can tease me all they want and I could not care, because now I can afford to go to my first favorite store…HomeGoods!!!!! I will laugh and laugh and laugh all the way home!

Saturday, November 13, 2010

November 13…

We have had a superb 2 months, wonderful weather, sunny skies, no rain, perfect weather to finish off the patio. The evening of November 12th, we were wheelbarrowing woodchips to the side yard by the fence and the walkway I just finished. We were scurrying because a winter storm was expected to start sometime during the night.

In the morning of November 13, I was lying in bed and I always try to guess what time it is, providing I haven’t set the alarm to actually wake me up. I guessed about 7:30, which was just about right, and as I lay there, I realized the sound from outside sounded very muffled. If you pay attention, you can always tell when snow has fallen during the night, because any sound coming from outside sounds like it is covered by blankets.

I got out of bed, looked out the window and wow! there was snow, big, fat flakes falling down, and blowing sideways and twirling around. It snowed quite hard until about 2:30, then it just sort of spit a little, leaving us with about 10 inches of snow.  The temperature was high enough that when we got around to shoveling off the deck and driveway, I just wore a sweater and a furry lined sweatshirt. It was so warm that I was sweating while shoveling. I was working on the driveway when Ethan came home from working at Target, and he said Target had completely sold out of all shovels and icemelt. I’ll also bet most of their mittens, hats, kids boots, jackets and sleds were gone. It was just the most perfect snow to make snowmen and snowballs out of, and you know that snow has to be wet to make good snowmen and snowballs, so that means that this wet snow was really, really heavy. I could barely lift a shovel full of snow, it was like too firm slush. Poor Annie had snow clumps in her leg fir that I couldn’t even pull off, it had to melt off. 

The bad part of this day was losing power. It went off about 12:30 and came on while Ethan and David were out picking up a few things from Cub, and our pizza dinner from Scoreboard which was about 5:15. I was finding candles and lighting them in each room, making sure I had ones in jars or out of the way so the cats wouldn’t start the house on fire. I was upstairs lighting the last few when I heard a noise, sound in the house…power had been restored. Man, are we ever spoiled by power. No TV, no radio, no internet, no computer. I could have had computer, but my laptop is so big that the battery tends to peter out pretty quickly. My iPOD was just about dead, and so was my phone, and with no power, I couldn’t charge them. I had done some cleaning and dusting, and I though I would sit down a read a bit, but it was getting too dark. I had wanted to take some pictures of the first snow, but the battery for my camera was dead too. I tell you, when it rains it pours!! So I think I will try to take a few first thing in the morning before church. I did get one with the camera on my phone that I sent to both Kira and Andy. They were both going to be enjoying temperatures in the 70 – 80’s and I just thought they needed a little fresh snow in their lives.P1010871 P1010873

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Polar Bears…

The other day, Monday November 1, 2010 actually, I decided to give myself a day off from patio/yard work and instead, go wander around my favorite store, HomeGoods. I just LOVE that store, except now it reminds me of Andy and Kira and I get mopey. Ah well. So, the HomeGoods I go to is in Roseville and while I was driving, I remembered the Polar Bears at Como Zoo, and how I haven’t seen their new exhibit yet. I kind of had to talk myself in to going to Como, because I was a little afraid that once I got there, I would wander around there and not make it shopping. One of me won the argument to drive on past HomeGoods and see the Polar Bears. Walking up to the entrance, I started thinking of the last time I was there, with Kira of course, and it made me sad. Strangely enough, Autumn and Winter are the most nostalgic months of the year for me. Summer?! Spring?! Who cares, but I’m getting off track…back to Como. I walk in, pay double the suggested donation, which is a whopping $2.00 and walk right out the other door on to the Polar Bears. Back before the new exhibit was even thought of, the bears were rarely out at the same time, and they would either pace back and forth and back and forth, or swim back and forth and back and forth. It was really quite sad to watch. So now with the new huge exhibit, I expected to see them lying in the grass, or playing, or swimming in their new pool. But NO!! What was he doing???? Pacing! I could hardly believe it, so I called Kira! Figures, huh? She said that trait is so ingrained in them that they will always do it. While we were talking, I was watching him pace, when a big, dark shadow looked as if it fell into the exhibit. What really fell was what looked to be a tire (maybe plastic, but I think they would chew that up too quickly) and it was filled with treats. The bear stopped his pacing when he heard the thump the tire made hitting the ground, and looked up. He didn’t see anything, so he turned a little and looked up again, finally the zookeeper yelled at him to get his attention. He then walked a few steps, stopped and craned his head up to where the zookeeper was standing (way up on top of a tall wall/mountain in the exhibit). She yelled at him and motioned for him to turn around because she just threw him a treat. It looked so comical, the way he stopped and slowly looked around as if to say, “Huh? What was that?” Once he saw he had a treat, he trotted on over and began to enjoy himself. I’m assuming food is used in their training because when he was done eating, he walked right over to the doorway of his training cage. I was still outside, but I’m again assuming he walked in, noticed that he wasn’t needed and then walked back out. What did he do then???? He resumed his pacing. I didn’t even know there was an inside building, so when I walked in, I was shocked at the size of it. There is a whole other side to the exhibit, with a building inside with a training cage and information, and windows to see underwater and hear talks by the keepers. All this time I was thinking the other bear was locked up somewhere, when here he comes, from the other outdoor area, into the training cage and lays down. He was so cute and so incredibly huge. These polar bears are waaaayyyyy bigger than the brown bears (grizzlies) at the MN Zoo. Kira and I were still talking and she got on the internet and found out that all of those big huge brown bears are just that…brown bears, but to be a Grizzly or Kodiak, etc. they have to come from a certain part of the world, so all Grizzlies are Brown Bears, but not all Brown Bears are Grizzlies. Lesson for today!!

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