So Quiet

What a Quiet Day! All the Company Has Gone Home

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This is "Laura Bear", a funny looking little crocheted bear my mother made years ago for Tracy. She has funny moving eyes and is cross eyed - one eye ended up higher than the other. She has traveled many miles, was left in a cafe in Casper once, and has spent several years on the top shelf of my closet. My family was remembering her, I took her out of the closet, and Kasey took her and loved her. I guess Laura Bear is out in the world again.



This little buck, along with several other deer, spent the afternoon napping in my yard today. He makes me laugh. Those are the cutest little antlers, and he was hanging out with the other bucks.

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Tracy called this afternoon. They had a nice Thanksgiving. She sent me a couple of great sounding recipes. One is for turkey/broccoli quiche and one for kahlua pumpkin pie. They both sound sinfully good!

Alice read all the comments left on the photos of her gourds yesterday, and was very pleased. Also, Lynn, we wish we would have had time to come visit you and see your new house.

Leftovers

Well, Thnksgiving is over, and now we have an abundance of leftovers - turkey, ham, and pies, mostly. Everyone eats leftovers for lunch, and pick at them all day, but there is so much left! Barrie made chicken enchiladas Friday. They were deliciious! I had a pan of frozen lasagna in the freezer, and we had that today. And of course there are leftovers from them too.

Mike and Barb and Braxton went home today. It was so great to see them, they helped make the holiday special. Braxton has changed so much since the last time I saw him. I guess that's the nature of children!

Mike took Braxton for a walk up on the ditchbank, and he came home with a deer skull and some bones. He was pretty excited. The next day, he found an antler up there.

Barrie and Kasey were both still a little under the weather, but they are better. Kasey. of course. totally charmed everyone.

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Alice has been doing a lot of work with gourds, and brought about 20 of her pieces over for me to photograph. We set up the backdrop and card table upstairs today, put the camera on the tripod - and I started taking pictures. She has some really neat ones! I am posting just a couple of my favorites here. The gourds photograph well, but she had one bronze of a cow and calf that just doesn't. Bronzes are so hard for me to photograph. I have a small light box, and we are going to try the bronze again tomorrow in the box.

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I did a terrible job taking pictures. The only pictures I have are two that Barrie took with my camera. Braxton has parted with some of his old books, and they also brought a wooden alphabet puzzle for Kasey. Here is my niece Barb, working on the puzzle with Kasey.

Day Before Thanksgiving

Yesterday I made the Chex Party Mix and made two loaves of banana bread. Today I am baking pies and "thinking" about dressing. I found Stovetop Stuffing in the cupboard, but also have some seasoned bread cubes I made myself some time ago, thinking I would use it to make stuffing. It's amazing what I can find on the top shelf of my pantry when I get the little ladder so I can see up there. I also have some chicken broth I made in the freezer, and I have celery and onions. So I might make the stuffing myself. I also found some napkins way in the back on the top shelf. Napkins are something I never think about until we sit down at the table.

Today I am doing laundry to get the uptsairs bed ready for Mike and Barb (and Braxton). The king sized bed is big enough if Braxton ends up sleeping with them.

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Several years ago, Barrie and I were arrowhead hunting on the Mesa when a sage hen flew up, and when we checked, we found this nest. I didn't even have my camera with me, but left a "marker" so I could find it, and came back the next day. I took some photos of her on the nest with my telephoto lens, but she was so camouflaged it was hard to see her, even when you knew she was there. I felt guilty disturbing her again, so I took a few pictures and quickly left.

We used to go the Mesa a lot, hunting arrowheads and antlers, and generally just wandering around. I haven't even been out there since the gas rigs moved in.

When I first got my 200mm lens, I took this photo out the upstairs window. Boy, was I impressed with the sharpness of the lens. Then I found with experience, that not all the photos were this sharp. It's hard to hold a long lens perfectly steady, so I consider this to be a lucky shot.

Barrie, probably two years old, absorbed in reading about Bambi.

Tuesday

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Kasey watching TV with Mom and Nester.

I never realized this cat had such blue eyes! I thought they were either blue or green, but I never got close enough to tell for sure. My chickadees were out of food and were picking up food off the ground in the back yard. This cat was there, hoping to catch one. I took a picture out the window with a 300 mm lens, and saw these eyes clearly for the first time. It looks like I enhanced this photo on the computer, but this is exactly what came out of the camera. He/She looks cross eyed.

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Barrie got sent home from work today because she is still coughing badly, and one other person in her office is sick. Her boss decided they would all start over again after Thanksgiving, and all be healthy!

Kasey seems to be feeling much better, and me? I am stuffy, but mostly just lazy.

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Last time I tried to use my little compact camera, it gave me the message that the card was locked. I do have another card for it, so I got some pictures. Later, I looked through the camera's menu, and got the manual out and could find nothing about a locked card. So I got on the internet and googled "locked SD card", and immediately found what I needed to know in a forum discussion. It seems the little SD cards have a little white tab on the side that will slide up and down. Down, it is locked, and if you slide it up it unlocks it. A small victory, and something I never knew before.

Monday

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I found this little pencil drawing of a pinecone in a drawer yesterday. It is only about three inches square.

Kasey, reading "The Gingerbread Man". I don't like using the flash, but it is necessary sometimes. I also like to try to catch "candid moments", when she is not looking at the camera.

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Barrie brought diaper rash ointment, children's tylenol, and Triaminic cold and cough medice for Kasey this morning. She said Kasey coughed last night and wouldn't eat breakfast. She puttered around here, played with the kitten and with some toys, and looked at her books. I fixed her some lunch, and she ate like a horse. But she had started coughing again. I checked out the cough medicine, and have never seen anything like it before! It looks like a bandaide for a Barbie Doll, and is supposed to dissolve instantly on the tongue. I think Barrie just hands it to her and tells her to eat it. But I hid it under some spagetti-O's, and she ate it. When I put her in her bed for a nap, she went to sleep almost immiately.

I took some old black ugly bananas out of the freezer this morning, and hope to get a loaf of banana bread made today.

Barrie took the glass dishes off the top open shelf in the kitchen for me, and I have them in the dishwasher. They were SO BAD. Dust and grime!

When I was a kid and had allergy attacks, I remember how tired it made me. After my dust yesterday, I am looking at my recliner chair longingly. Would be nice to take a nap.

Cleaning House

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Snow on the old pump I have in my front yard.

A squirrel I fed peanuts to in my yard.

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Spent the day dusting, straightening, washing, and putting away. Barrie came in the afternoon and vacuumed for me. Good God! She even does the edges and corners! How nice. I got the downstairs bathroom clean to within an inch of its life.

I definitely breathed in too much dust. Sneezing and coughing all night. Or maybe I am coming down with something. Anyway, I looked for sinus/cold tablets and found that they all expired as least three years ago. I took two anyway.

I am worn out. Barrie is too, because before she came to my house, she shampooed the carpet at their house. She rented the sampooer from Ridley's and did not have pleasant dealings with them. They tried to charge her for two days when she had used it for five hours. And she found that they gave her the large one without even asking, which is $5 more. Neither of us is impressed with Ridley's.

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Tracy sent me pictures of the new kitten they got from the shelter in Denver. He is black. So far, Rowdy, the other cat, is ignoring him and pouting. Even if he doesn' t really like the kitten, it will keep his mind off pulling out his hair, hopefully. But I bet they will become friends.

Dry Weather

I wonder if we will EVER get snow! This has the makings of a bad winter - It will probably get cold and not snow.

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I'm starting to see some bucks around. This one was sleeping on the south side of my house yesterday. He and a doe were there most of the day.

Here is a picture of Kasey taken when she was about 7 months old.

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Kasey was sick last night, and by the time I got up (late) this morning, she had been to the doctor, and was taking a nap downstairs - and Barrie was gone to take care of her dogs. She slept until almost noon, and Barrie was back about the time she woke up - jusst in time to miss changing the dirty diaper! We fixed lunch and Kasey acts like she will take another nap.

I got my new VCR/DVD recorder yesterday, and hooked it up. It didn't work. I really hate the TV I have upstairs. It is too small for this room, and is hard to see it, especially read anything on the screen. Barrie, with her younger eyes, says it is hard for her to read too. I ended up ordering a new 32"flat screen TV from WalMart. The price keeps getting lower on them. This morning Barrie pushed some buttons on the top of the TV, and the VCR we had in started playing. So everything is working. But I am looking forward to a larger screen.

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Peep was here

"Peep" was a big hit!

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I tried to run the "Peep and the Big Wide World" video on my desktop computer this morning, and it worked perfectly. I have no idea why it wouldn't work before. Anyway, Kasey loved it, and we had to watch it twice. Thanks for telling me about this, Judi.

Another beautiful sunset from a couple days ago, taken out my window. The colors lasted such a short time, and the sky was brilliant for just a minute or so.

The cat starting to work on the phone cord. You notice nothing else is on the table. I keep a spray bottle downstairs filled with water for times like this. Kasey carries the spray bottle around, points it at the cat, and says "psth". Don't know how I should spell that, but you get the idea.

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Tracy and Paul are planning on coming here for Christmas this year. They are worried about their cat. He stays alone too much. And since his friend Bogie (the dog) is gone, he has problems. He pulls his hair out. I told Tracy to bring him here for Christmas. I think he will travel just fine, and they can see how he would react to another cat. If he kills our kitten, I guess we will know it wasn't a good idea.

Kasey starts going to Julie Belton next Monday. I'm glad Julie was able to take her. She used to bring all her kids to kindergarten once in a while to pick someone up, and I was always so impressed with her crew. She had a waiting list, but she left Barrie voice mail yesterday telling her Kasey can start Monday.

Yes, I will miss having her, but I'm too old and slow to be a full-time baby sitter.

No pink ruffles here

Happy Birthday, Lynn!

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I guess Grandmas are supposed to buy cute little ruffly dresses for their grandaughters. But I bought my grandaughter a new flannel shirt and a pair of blue jeans. This is her "lumberjack" look. I wonder what she would look like in a little frilly dress?

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We downloaded all the pictures from Barrie's camera's card onto my hard drive. Here is one she took from the sled, with an 8 dog team. Imagine what it would be like with 16 dogs up there!


This is a photo I took a couple years ago on the stretch of road between Ethete and Kinnear in Fremont County. The sun was just going down, and was shining on these buttes off to the north.

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My nephew, Mike, called last night, and we had a nice visit. They are going to try to come on Wednesday night, but if not, they will drive over early Thanksgiving morning. It's about a 3 hour drive for them, and it looks like the weather will probably be good. While he was talking to me, he said "just a minute" and this voice said "Does Kasey like books?" It was their son, Braxton - and he sounded about 21 years old!! He is 5 I still think of him as a little toddler, but it has been over a year since I have seen him. He was talking like an adult then. He is probably shaving by now! Braxton is going to bring Kasey some of his old books.

Painting for Practice

This painting is not a keeper. I will put it on the shower floor, turn the strongest spray setting on it to wash off what I can. Then I can tape it to a board and paint something on the back

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The top photo shows what I brought home from paining group today. It was supposed to be a snow scene, but that failed. So I tried turning it into water, and that didn't turn out great either. After I got it home, and tried painting a foreground and some closer trees.

I got a lot of miles out of this one piece of paper! I did like the effect of the trees in the distance, so it was not a total waste of time. I think the painting would have worked better if I had painted a soft, loose foreground and left out the dark colored trees.

Back to the small studies again - snow and water.

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Conley got the mysterious mat cutter out today and cut a mat for his new painting of a salmon. He better not get good at it!! We will all be asking him to cut mats for us. We have some nice mats in the art room, but we always seem to forget to paint something that will fit in the mats we have.

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Barrie and Kasey came in just before I left. Barrie's dad was taking them to lunch at the senior center.