Wednesday

I'm sitting here watching it snow and wondering which drawing to work on.  I have three started, and they are all kind of at the "stuck" stage.  I worked on a pencil drawing of a moose at art group this morning.

There were only four of us at art group.  The snow birds should be returning shortly. 

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This describes my method of doing laundry perfectly.  I used to put it on the bed,  but now I leave it in the basket.  Makes the bed easier to make.  I also have another basket where I throw the dirty clothes.

 





Monday

I think I've screwed up my whole day already, and it's only 9:30.  To begin with, I went to bed too early last night, so I woke up too early.  Now I know why some retired people get bored and think they don't have enough to do.  They need to change their sleep habits.  They need to stay up late so they sleep late the next morning.  Then they wake  up with the feeling the day has slipped by and they need to hurry and get things done.  Works for me.

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I'm not going to make you look at another picture of a dead mouse, but there was one on the bathroom floor again this morning.  Some fat old mother mouse must had had a litter and they are exploring the house at night.  I threw this one out the window to the rock walk.  Chloe and the black cat are both around, and I see the mouse is already gone.

 

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I have several friends on Facebook who do this.  They want a new profile picture, and it is so obvious they are posing in front of a mirror. 

 

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I now have three drawings started, and nothing finished.  Maybe it would be a good idea for me to spend some time drawing today.

 





Sunday

This is the sight that greeted me as soon as I got up this morning.  Kat wanted to make sure I found it, so she left it where I would be sure to see it, right in front of the toilet stool.

Then when I started downstairs to get a cup of coffee, there was another dead mouse on the top step.  Kat certainly earned her keep yesterday.  I was afraid the one she had in the bathroom a couple days ago had crawled back somewhere and died.  I'm so lucky she doesn't hide them from me.

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The vote is in on the new  kitchen toys I got yesterday.  The cheese knife is nice, the chop and stir thingie is okay, and the egg poacher worked fine.  I had two poached eggs and a piece of toast made from the All Bran bread I made yesterday.  

 



There were seven of these in my back yard yesterday.  They are looking good.

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Why Don't Blind People Like To Sky Dive?
Because It Scares The Dog.

Two Reasons Why It's So Hard To Solve A Redneck
Murder
1. All the DNA is the same.
2. There are no dental records.

How Do You Get Holy Water?
You Boil The Hell Out Of It.



Saturday

Some days I actually accomplish something, and this is one of those days!  I baked a sausage/grit casserole for brunch, and it is good.

I am making a loaf of All-Bran bread, and sticking to my word.  It is ready to take out of the bread machine and bake in the oven.  It makes such a big difference (for me, anyway) to bake it in the oven instead of letting the machine do it.

I grated a couple extra cups of Cheddar cheese to have on hand. Barrie likes to have some pre-grated, and I always use the food processor.

I bought a long, skinny roll of pepperoni from Amazon.  This morning, I got my food slicer out and sliced it all up, super thin pieces,  all ready to bake some pizza, or whatever else.

 

 

I am such a sucker for kitchen gadgets.  The knife is Judi's fault.  She got one, and I thought it looked like a good tool to have.  The other thing was mentioned in a recipe on Pinterest.  It's a Pampered Chef's tool to break up hamburger and sausage as you fry it.  Way too expensive, but I found a bargain on EBay.

And my fingers slipped a little on the keyboard and I ordered a microwave egg poacher.  I love poached eggs, and I know you don't have to have a special pan to make them.  But like I said, my fingers just slipped a little.

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Kasey had her dance photos taken a few days ago.  I know it's illegal to use them on my blog, but Barrie will be buying some.  Photo credit to Tara Bolgiano of Blushing Crew Studio.

 





Full Moon

This is what the moon looked like at 6:00 this morning.  What's that you ask?  What was I doing up at 6:00 AM?  I was wondering that myself.  Maybe the moon was shining in my eyes.  No problem, I went right back to sleep and didn't stir until 9:00.

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I finished the book "Ash Fall" last night, but it didn't feel finished.  The author just kind of got tired of writing, and left everything hanging.

 

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 Kat brought a mouse upstairs last night, and took it in the bathroom.  It hid, and Kat probably spent all night waiting for it to come out.  This morning she was still in the bathroom, sniffing at the cupboard doors under the sink, so I opened them and left them open.  Pretty soon, I heard Kat scrambling around, and sure enough, she had the mouse, but it hid again.  That cat can sure make her toys last a long time.

 

 



Thursday

This is the cat that has been sneaking onto the front porch to clean up any food left by Chloe.  Extremely wild and shy.  Yesterday it was on the front porch and ran down to the driveway when Barrie backed out of the carport.  But instead of going into the willows, it lay down on the edge of the driveway and watched me take pictures of it out the upstairs window.

It could be a nice looking cat if someone could groom it.  Interesting markings, four white feet, bright yellow eyes, and extreme white whiskers!  It's not a bobtail, but it looks like its tail is shorter than normal.

I hope it's not a girl cat and gives us a gift of a litter of kittens in the carport. 

This big guy was napping in the back yard across the street this morning. It's the first moose I've seen in my part of town all winter.  From the looks of the new antlers beginning to grow, he is going to have a big rack. 

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Tracy told me about  a book she is reading, "Ash Fall".  So I got it for the Kindle.  It's about Yellowstone erupting.  I'm on about chapter 32.  I'm kind of glad I live so close to Yellowstone.  Wouldn't want to try to struggle through what this author is writing about!  When I asked Tracy if any people in the book survived, she said, "Well, you're dead."

 

She wasn't finished with the book yet, so she didn't know if anyone survived.

Tuesday

I almost got my spice cabinet organized.  Still have five or six little jars of something on the counter.  Maybe I'll just throw them away and be done with it.  Why do I have a little tin of Mace?  I looked it up and Google says it is similar to nutmeg.  I'm certain I never bought it so it must be more than 40 years old.

I looked on eBay for antique spice tins.  Some of those old tin spice containers are worth a little bit of money, or least they are trying to sell them on eBay.  I don't think I'll bother.

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We got close to 12 inches of snow yesterday, and it was 10° this morning.  The sun is shining so brightly now that it hurts my eyes to look out at the snow.

 

 

I took this picture yesterday of a Downy Woodpecker taking a nap? in my back yard.  He hung on the side of this post for a long time.  Maybe he's sick. Or maybe he's praying for spring.

 





Monday

 

Oh yeah!  When it's springtime in Wyoming.

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Tracy called yesterday.  She has been a frequent visitor to Lowe's recently, and has finalized the order for their kitchen remodeling project.  They are getting new cupboards and  new granite counter top.  The cupboards will be deeper than her old ones, and she'll have a lot more cupboard space.  She's also getting a new gas cookstove.  She has wanted a gas stove for years.

 

She promised to take lots of pictures.

 

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And here is my kitchen remodeling project. I have a corner cupboard with a lazy susan (two shelves) for my spices.  Through the years, I seem to have acquired three partially filled jars of Italian seasoning, a couple of garlic powder, several of cloves, etc.   By the time I am through, I should have twice as much space on those shelves.  I even found a tiny bottle of Peppermint Schnaps in there, the kind they used to serve on airplanes.

 

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Tracy is PIO for the Summit County Sheriff's Office, and yesterday, they lost five snowboarders in an avalanche on Loveland Pass.  Colorado just had a fatality on Vail two days earlier.

 



 

 

 



Sunday

The iPod won out over XM radio this morning, and am enjoying the playlist of my top rated songs.

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Total waste of time spent on the computer and the iPad this morning.  I was actually beginning to think I was enjoying the iPad, but I have deleted and reinstalled the Amazon Instant Videos app several times.  Sometimes the iPad will show my complete video library, but more often it just shows blank boxes for many of them. 

 

Then I decided I would use the USB cable to view photos on the memery card of my camera instead of taking the card out and inserting it in the card reader on the computer.  I had to install a viewer program from the CD, and when I looked at the photos on the screen, more than half of them had a big question mark instead of a thumbnail of the image.   So much for that bright idea. I'll uninstall the programs I installed, and continue to  insert the memory card in the card reader on the computer.

 

And to punish myself even more, I decided to try to get Adobe Bridge to work.  It is the program that comes with Photoshop to browse images.  The program shows it is there, but nothing happens when I try to start it.  It shows up in File Manager, with a slew of extensions, etc.  I got disgusted - don't need to use it anyway, and decided to uninstall it.  Imagine my surprise when the control panel doesn't even list it on the list of installed programs.

 

Time to quit messing with computers.

 

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The baked beans I made yesterday were delicious, and the biscuits I made were the best I've ever made, I think. 

 

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