Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Happy Leap Day!

I can only say "Happy Leap Day" every four years, so I figured I had better blog today just so I could say it.    Do you know anyone with a birthday on leap day?  I don't think I do.  Eric's cousin was married on leap day, I think that this is about their 5th anniversary after 20 years of marriage.

On to my post.  Another bunch of random daily photos.  This is Eric when he walked in the door after work.  Flash...hi honey, welcome home!  And yes, he's usually smiling.


Here's Penny looking at me through the window.  She wants to go out, she wants to come in, she wants to go out...you get the picture.  She's been much happier and more peppy after her round of antibiotics.  Silly old dog.


I love my male cardinals.  I saw a robin in the back yard last week.  Spring must be coming!  The rain and then snow we had last night might slow down it's arrival though.  Shucks.


We took a quick trip to the farm last week.  I got to hug my ponies for a few minutes...it was a good day.


It was snowing / raining here a little bit last week.  I hadn't gotten around to taking a photo until in the evening.  This is a pine branch at night with just the light from the garage door shining on it.  Uninspired, I know.


Hello Mr. Cardinal...you need to thank Eric for keeping your feeder full on all those days where I forget to fill it...that would be most of the time.


 The gold finches are starting to turn just a little bit yellow.  Another sign that spring might come.


I got to celebrate another five pounds lost with flowers.  I love these fragrant lilies almost as much as I love chocolate cake.  But no cake for me, so flowers it is.


White lilies and stargazers.  My house smells so nice.  And my jeans fit a lot better.  Win win.


Billy's basketball team wrapped up it's season last weekend.  The boys did well.  They won on Friday by one point with 4 seconds left.  They won another close one on Saturday to make it into the Sunday championship game.


They lost the Championship, but I'd say that 2nd place isn't half bad!  I took lots of pictures on Saturday and Sunday...and then posted them on Billy's facebook page for his teammates.  I love taking pictures, and like the sorting and editing...but man it takes a lot of time.


 By the time I was finished the last thing that I wanted to do was to take another picture!  So I didn't...until we got to the grocery store later that evening.  Cell phone photo...it counts.  Sometimes it seems like my cell phone camera does better with it's automatic settings in bad light than my good camera.  Anyway, grocery store flowers...what should I pick?


Tulips of course!  Purple and yellow.  Hello my pretties.  A touch of spring before the big storm hit.


First it rained.  Then it snowed.  It was heavy and wet.  A big branch from our willow tree fell right on our fence.  Luckily it didn't do much damage.  I got up early and went for a walk.  I was the first one to take the trail near our house.  A winter wonderland.  The road less traveled.  Something...it sure was pretty though.


And now that it's snowed, it can melt and spring can come.  I'm ready for it.  How about you?


Thursday, February 16, 2012

This and That

"I see the moon and the moon sees me and the moon sees the ones that I long to see."  Did you sing that little song when you were a kid?  The full moon always reminds me of that song and I'll say a little prayer asking that the people I'm missing will know that I care.


There won't be much substance to this post, mostly just pictures of tulips.


But how can you go wrong with tulips?


They remind me of spring, they keep growing after they are cut, they brighten the room.


They don't cost much and they last quite a few days.  How can you go wrong with tulips?


We had a fun weekend last week.  Brian took the train home from college on Friday night.  On Saturday morning Billy took the ACT test.  Late Saturday afternoon we got ourselves fixed up and ready to go for a special dinner.  Brian was running a little late, so Billy stepped in to help him with his tie.  Brian can tie his own tie, but Billy is faster so he went along with it.  I love the picture of the little brother helping the older brother.  I also love how they get along when Brian comes home.


Here's the final result.  I think that the boys clean up pretty well!  We went to Fogo De Chao.  It's a Brazillion steak house...known for it's amazing grilled meat.  All the meat you can eat is a good thing for growing boys.  Not so good for a mom that does not want to grow any more, but it's just one day so what the heck.  We had a lot of fun with our friend Bob...who was celebrating his birthday.  Just when you think that you couldn't eat another bite, they bring out the chocolaty  birthday dessert with extra spoons...and you realize that sure enough, you can eat another bite!  Yum!


 Back to the tulips...they are starting to fade but I still like them!


Other than the all the meat you can devour day, I have been trying to eat in a healthier way.  Strawberries were one of my snacks on Monday.  Not quite as tasty as meat, but I'm doing what I can.


I took myself to the zoo for Valentine's day, mostly to look at and smell the flowers in the conservatory, but I hiked around outside to see the animals too.  I know that they are well taken care of, but none of them looked very happy....it was sort of depressing.  I wanted to give this little kitty a nice big hug and scratch his belly...or not.


Billy's basketball season is almost over.  The regular season is done, they have one practice and then play-offs start.  His game last night was really fun to watch, well played, fast moving, and clean.  Finally.  The two games before were hard to watch.  One team that they played was all flying elbows and cheap shots...encouraged by their coach.  A bloody nose and a bloody lip for Billy's team mates said it all.


 The other game was filled with fouls...all against Billy's team.  He was called for fouls when he wasn't even touching the kid.  The most lop-sided reffing that I have ever seen.  The coach for the other team being up and screaming the whole time didn't help.  In-house basketball, it's supposed to be fun.  That dude is not fun.  So a nice clean game where both teams played hard and fair was a wonderful way to end the regular season.  It was too bad that either team had to lose.  It would have been worse if our team had lost.  :-)

Well, that's all I have.  I hope that your days are filled with flowers and good sports.  Thanks for stopping by!

February 16th, 2011: No Blog Post & Photo of the Day
February 16th, 2010: Throw Back Dew & Photo of the Day
February 16th, 2009: Their Anniversary & Photo of the Day

Monday, February 6, 2012

Catching Up

Who's in charge of this blog anyway?  How'd it get to be February?  Why can't I get all the things done that I want to in my days?  So many questions.  I don't like getting so far behind.  Catching up is a chore.  But here we go.  My pictures from January 19th.  Oye.

Lilies.  I love, love, love having fresh flowers in my house.


 I bought two bundles and combined them into one bouquet.  The one above was a really fragrant star gazer type lily.  The one below opened up beautifully, but wasn't as fragrant.  Still pretty though.


We took a quick trip to the farm to visit with my mom.  Her feeders are always full of birds.  This is a little chickadee on a cloudy day.


My mom has a huge variety of birds, but she rarely sees a cardinal there.  We get a lot of them in our backyard in the suburbs.  Such a wonderful splash of color to brighten the gray days.  I took this picture of the male cardinal while it was snowing.


The female was perched in the tree the next day, patiently waiting her turn at the feeder.


My lily bouquet, slowly opening up.


 Grocery store tulips, because they remind me that spring will be coming...no matter what the ground hog says.


I liked the way the light was shining through the tulips on a rare sunny day.  Our winter weather has been warmer than normal, but the sun likes to hide behind the clouds.


 The lilies, more than a week later.  Worth every penny.


Another trip to the farm.  A sweet little nut hatch.  When we were there the week before a nut hatch had gotten one of it's little feet caught in a slot in my mom's bird feeder.  He tried and tried but couldn't pull himself free.  I put on my gloves and went out to see what I could do.  After much flapping and chirping from the little bird, I finally was able to gently remove his foot from the feeder...and zoom...off he flew.  I was so relieved that I could help it fly free.  I'm pretending that this is that little bird, that it wasn't injured and is filling the woods with it's song.  A little pretending isn't a bad thing is it?


Billy playing hoops.  His team is in first place, and they are still having fun.  That's what matters the most.


Penny, after her morning roll in the snow.  Our poor old pup is at the veterinarian's office as I type, having a few things checked out.  We are hoping that it is something simple, but should have some answers by the end of the day.


On another note, I signed up for a class to help boost creativity.  One of the assignments was to take 6 pictures so show a typical day.  Three days of my week include volleyball, here's my shoes and volleyball.  Try to hold down your excitement.


I bought myself a bouquet of roses.  Roses to celebrate losing a few pounds.  I'd rather celebrate with cake, but that's part of the reasons that the pounds got there in the first place, so roses it is.


One of the assignments for my class was to shoot a picture into the light.  I'll post some of the things that I've been doing with the pictures on another day.


We went to the rodeo in St. Paul last week.  On our way there I read on the ticket that cameras weren't allowed.  Rats.  I had been saving my photo of the day for the rodeo!  But when we parked to go to dinner, I looked across the road and saw the St. Paul Cathedral light up against the dark blue sky...and decided that  it would do for my photo of the day.  When we got into the rodeo I saw a few people with cameras.  I re-read the ticket back and saw that what it actually said was that camera's may be prohibited.  Oh well.


Saturday must be washing day for the cat.  She interrupted her nap on Billy's bed for a good washing. Probably because I woke her up and rubbed her head.  She had to get that human scent off of her!


My yellow roses aren't opening up very nicely.  They are starting to look like withering buds about now.  Grocery store flowers, you win some, you lose some.  I still like to brighten my home with them.


Well, time for me to get back to work....or at least make my list so I know where to start.  Have a happy day. Thanks for stopping by!


February 6th, 2011: No Blog Post & Photo of the Day
February 6th, 2010: A Birthday BoyPhoto of the Day
February 6th, 2009:  SpringyPhoto of the Day