Thursday

I think we're having a heat wave.  My outdoor thermometer says it's 10°, but who knows?  The computer says it's 16° below at the airport, and Mavis says it's 1°.  Whatever.  I'm still staying holed up by the heat today.

I almost killed my basil the other day.  I forgot to take it off the windowsill at night, and left the poor stuff sitting against the window with the drapes pulled.  Too cold! It looked pretty sick the next morning, but seems to have recovered.


 

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Roger made a joke about my new kitchen gadget.  No, it's not supposed to slice my hand, although that's a possibility.  By "hand slicer", it means it's not electric.  Good one, Roger!

 

 

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This oil painting is down by the Heritage Room kind of back in a corner.  It's by Oliver Parsons, from Idaho, I think.  He has spent time in Pinedale and I have taken a couple of classes from him.  He son taught art in Pinedale for one year.

 

 

I have been organizing some art supplies, and this is what I found in the closet.









Wednesday

I've had all the fun I can stand today, and am seriously missing my garage.  It was 20° below zero when I went out to start my truck to go to art group at Rendezvous Pointe.  The pickup started right up, but the broom to sweep it off is laying on the bottom of the bed, covered with snow and frozen down.  And both windshield scrapers are missing.  I warmed it up enough to more or less clear the windshield, but it was hard to see over the hump of snow on the hood. 

It's now 2:00 PM, and Mavis, the telephone time and temperature girl, says it is 1°.  I think I'll just stay home, bake a loaf of bread, and read.

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 I got the new kitchen gadget, a Genius hand slicer, today.  Now I have to figure out how to use it. 

 

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I started a new colored pencil portrait in art group today.  Maybe the pencils will get me enthused.

Tuesday

 

Yep!

 

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When I woke up this morning, I lay in bed a while and painted a picture in my mind.  Then I got up,  poured a cup of coffee, turned on the computer, and that's as far as I've made it.  I have almost finished putting fresh paint in the newly cleaned palette, so I guess I'll finish that. 

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I was sociable for a while yesterday.  I walked down to get my mail, and two other women were there, so I sat down and visited with them a while.  I get a kick out of Mary.  (Blind Mary). The other Mary from across the hall from me, is now in the nursing unit.  Mary said the only thing that is wrong with her is she worries about her age and talks about it all the time.  Blind Mary says "I tell everyone I'm 37, and that's that!"

 

 

 This awesome photo from the Stage Stop Sled Dog Race was posted on line the other day. It was taken somewhere near West Yellowstone.  I believe the mushers will be racing at Lander today, and will be at the Upper Green tomorrow.  Blayne Streeper, from Canada has a good lead, which is no surprise.

 

 

 

Monday

It started with the first play of the game and never got any better.  It was kind of painful to watch. Sad day for Denver, and the Seahawks were awesome.

As expected, most of the ads didn't impress me much.  Of course I loved the Clydesdale and puppy, and Coke had some good ads.  Tim Tebow in the T Mobile ad was interesting.

One of the Coke ads has stirred up some controversy.  It featured the song "America the Beautiful" sung in different languages by diverse races.  It shows two dads rollerskating with their daughter. This was the first Super Bowl ad to feature a gay family.

The inclusion of different languages sparked comments on Coke's Facebook page,calling the ad a disgrace and unpatriotic."Speak English or go home," said one commenter on the page. Another commented, "Screwed up a beautiful song. No Coke for my family."

Get a life, people.  It was a beautiful ad.

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I think I have posted this before, but will do it again.  It shows the layout of the new apartments.  There are four studio apartments, four two-bedroom apartments, and twenty one-bedroom apartments. 

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I should get this sign for my place. It is the name of one of my favorite Chris LeDoux songs.  I already have a wooden sign that says "Thou Shalt Not Whine".

Saturday

I just was reading about Demaryius Thomas, a receiver for the Broncos.  Both his mother and grandmother are in prison for drug charges.  When interviewed, he said he knew they would be able to see the game on TV in prison, and he was glad they would be watching him play.  What a class act!  I'm rooting for you, Demaryius!

I have to agree with Maxine.  The new commercial, featuring a cute puppy, has gone viral and is all over the Internet.

I am in the process of putting fresh paint in the palette I cleaned up earlier this week.  In spite of the fact I have hundreds of tubes of watercolor paint, I seem to be missing some favorite colors.  Maybe I'll just have to learn to get along without them. 

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The new apartments are looking good.  I think they are doing a lot of work on the inside now.

 

 

In the center of this photo is a gigantic icicle where it has formed in a corner of the building.  It looks like it has reached the ground, and is bigger around than the quakie tree in the foreground.  The sun shines on the roof there, but does not reach into that northeast corner.

 

  





Friday

I feel sometimes I am living in an alien environment.  About half the people I see around here are wearing masks ---- residents, visitors, housekeepers and nurses.  My next door neighbor just got home from the hospital in Jackson this afternoon after a bout with the flu and pneumonia, and wearing a mask.  It reminds me of Steven King's book "The Stand".

When I was teaching kindergarten, every year about in February, I would clean out whatever we had in the sand table, and fill it with water.  I added a lot of Dawn detergent and glycerin, and the kids used whatever we could find to make bubbles.  My classroom maybe had the messiest floor in school, but my kids had the cleanest hands in school.  I'm quite sure that helped prevent sickness.  I remember a few fathers who used to come early to pick up their kids so they could play in the bubble table

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Back to cooking school, I guess.  I ate one bowl of the soup I made today, and threw the rest of it out.  Nasty stuff!  I'm thinking along the lines of a peanut butter sandwich.

 

 

 

Yes, I love beer jokes.

 

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I have a love/hate relationship with computers.  I was through with Microsoft when they came out with Windows 8.  Now Yahoo is screwing around with me.  I had Yahoo set up as  my home page, with everything I wanted right there in front of me - the news sources I like, the weather in places I chose, the scores I wanted to see, etc.  Now Yahoo has a "new and improved page" and if I continue to use it, I will have to start from scratch.  It thinks I live in Kalispell,  and you know what?  I don't give a hoot what the weather is in Kalispell!



Thursday

Xiau Ling cleaned my apartment this morning with no cat problems.  I guess the cat stayed behind the couch.  She brought her vacuum in right away, just in case she needed to terrorize Kat.

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It looks like a winter wonderland here this morning.  We got at least six inches last night, maybe more.  Want to see pictures? I didn't think so.  Ken came to get my keys so he could move my truck to plow the parking lot.  When he brought the keys back, I told him where my little magnetic box is with the spare key.  There's no need for him to have to stop work to come get my key and then bring it back. 

I harvested some fresh basil from my windowsill garden this morning.  Not very much, but at least I got some.  It occurred to me I don't have the faintest idea how to use fresh basil, so I googled it.  I am making a pot of tomato soup with macaroni and hot dogs, and will chop this up and put in it.  I use this little board and ulu knife for so many things!

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Lenore ordered some DVDs on watercolor for our art group, and they are excellent.  Conley has watched them, and I brought some home yesterday.  The lessons are from a guy named Bob Davies, from Great Britain. There are a total of eight DVDs.  I have never heard of the artist before, but he is a great instructor.

Wednesday

A couple of the MIA painters showed up for art group today.  Both Linda and Les were there!  Nice to see them.

I started a new watercolor of an old rusty car, one of my favorite things to paint.

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There was a residents meeting this afternoon.  I'm not even sure what all was discussed -  nothing new or earthshaking. They talked about the cocktail party (I've only attended one), the schedule for bingo and ice cream (neither one of which I have done) and whether or not we get a choice of location of our new apartment when we move.  The dividers between living room and kitchen seem to be a point of contention for some residents, even after they were told the dividers could be put in or taken out. The people here only hear about one-third of what is said.  And I seem to be the only one with hearing aids, and I wasn't wearing them!

 

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I found another addictive Internet site.  Jeff Foxworthy has a Facebook page for all his redneck fans.  Here are a couple of photographs from there.

 

 

 

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There was a new UPS delivery guy this afternoon, and the poor guy has obviously never been here and doesn't know anything about the place.  He just opened my door and stepped in.  Then he stopped and said "Is this a residence?"  He thought he was delivering to a business.  He was so embarrassed and apologized for not knocking.





Tuesday

Such disturbing news from across the pond!  The Royal Family is down to its last $1.6 million, and has overspent the budget.  And the queen is in trouble with PETA for racing pigeons!

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A great man has died, at least I thought he was.  Peter Seeger died at 94.  I loved that guy's music. 

 

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I have definitely spent too much time on the Internet today.  I just read an article about an opera singer who lost her job because she farts when she sings high notes.  She is suing someone for botching some surgery.

 

And in Germany,  methane gas from 90 flatulent cows exploded in a  farm shed on Monday, damaging the roof and injuring one of the animals. 

 

 

This is not a good thing.  I spent a lot of time yesterday cleaning up one of my watercolor palettes.  It's not going to be easy to fill it with paint and start messing it up.  I may never paint again!!

Monday

Beautiful bright world this morning.  We got about an inch of fresh snow and everything looks new and clean.  About a dozen men are on the roof of the new apartments sweeping off the snow.

Fremont Lake froze over clear, but I suppose this snow has messed that up.  People have been up there skating and watching the fish below.

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I baked a loaf of bread yesterday and made dough for two pizza crusts.  Ambitious!

 

 

The kitchen gadget gremlin has snuck up and bit me on the butt again.  I just ordered this little hand slicer.  I used to  have one of these years ago, and really liked it.  But it was made of cheap plastic and wore out.  The guy who demonstrates this on TV makes it look like the best thing since sliced bread.  But then, he has practiced using it for many hours and probably went through a ton of food to make it look so easy. 

 

 





Here is another "gadget" I used recently to roll out and cut fresh pasta.  Supposedly, old Italian grandmothers have used these a hundred years.  My grandmother (and mother) made fresh pasta, but they used a rolling pin.  This machine is also used by artists to roll out slabs of clay.