Monthly Archives: January 2011

Perfect Imperfection…

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This is what I’ve been coming home to the past few evenings, but in much better focus.

Goldie’s  ginormous “condo” and various doggie entertainment spread throughout the living areas.

Not to mention the dust brought in from our furry friends…

Can you believe I dusted everything the night before?

Oh yeah, and being the bad “pet parents” that we are, Bubba and I allow Annie on the furniture. A decision I have regretted many times over…

Dust-gusting isn’t it? (Sorry, I can’t resist a good pun). All the leather cleaner in the world cannot keep that couch clean. I should know, within the past week I’ve cleaned it 4 times, and it’s only Thursday!

The coming home routine has turned into a cycle: dust the dogs, dust the house, dust me. We go through about 4 baby wipes per dog every night, not to mention the leather cleaner and dust rags I’ve been having to use nightly.

But enough of my whining, all this dusting has made me realize we need to make some changes in the backyard to keep the dust settled. Right now we have a “xeroscaped” backyard. Meaning we’ve got dirt and rocks, and what used to be trees and bushes.

Our yard before the new windows and before the dogs. Sometimes I miss those days, when the yard was ours, and there were plants to enjoy. But I digress.

Some changes need to be made to the yard to maintain my sanity and keep my allergies in check.  First, some sort of ground covering to keep the dust levels down. Maybe woodchips, maybe some sweet smelling mulch (I love the way good dirt smells), maybe a little of both. And of course, I’ve got to find a spot to put Goldie’s pad. As much as I love being greeted by two wagging tails when I come home, I really don’t love seeing a huge kennel.

We’ll see what transpires this weekend. But in the mean time, all I can do is enjoy my dusty, imperfect home. And remember, that all the imperfections is what makes my house my home. (Aww…how corny, someone should sew that on a pillow.)

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Dog Gone It…

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This weekend held many activities, thrifting, shooting birds (with a camera), dog getting. Yup, we got another dog, on a trial basis mind you. And if she keeps barking all night and all day it will be a trial. She can look cute when her doggie mouth is closed though.

Her name is Goldie, for obvious reasons, she’s a lab mix, about 9 months old. My mother inadvertently took in two puppies this past fall. I say inadvertently, because she really didn’t mean to take them in, they just seemed to just show up in her yard. Goldie being one of them, and her brother Blackie (yup, you guessed, he’s on the darker spectrum of dogdom) being the other. They were playing with my mom’s other dog, Callie through the fence.

Here’s Callie…

Being the kind hearted woman she is, my mother took them. Hoping to find homes for the two little furry siblings. However, no one wanted them. So for the past 7 months now, mom has been fostering two dogs in addition to Callie. That’s three dogs in one little house, way too much for my sweet mother to handle if you ask me. So, we decided to take one of her furry fosters out for a test drive.

Annie was less than thrilled with this decision…

She now must share her window with a barking dog. Which totally gives away their location to unsuspecting neighbors.

Time will only tell what will happen with our new little golden guest. So far, Annie has been the perfect hostess, letting her new friend chew up her favorite outside toys. I didn’t get a picture of this sign of goodwill, since there was nothing left of said toys but a few shards of fluff.

With all the doggie goings on, I haven’t really had a chance to conquer some of my New Years projects. Such as:

1. Paint the kitchen cabinets

(the colors look less mud like in person)

2. Make the bedroom less headache inducing and more sleep inducing. Much like this blog post.

3. Take better pictures

4. Organize, organize and organize

5. Stop recycling photos previously used in the same blog post.

(Just keepin’ ya on your toes)

Well, I’m off to clean the house that most likely has a fine dusting of black and yellow fur.

Annie Wisdom

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A few wise words from Annie dog today…

Always play well with others…

Exercise daily…

Be patient when posing for the paparazzi…

Be on constant watch for good healthy food…

And above all, take time to relax and watch the world go by.

Zoom Zoom…

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Remember those old Mazada commercials from the late 90’s or early 2000’s? If you don’t here’s the YouTube video, so the title of this post will make more sense.

The Sweets (aka Bubba and Booger) and I have been saying that a lot lately, as we use our new zoom lens! Look what she can do!!

I’ve found with a zoom lens, it’s much easier to take pictures of my camera shy pooch.  This picture was taken from across the room. (Just between you and me, I think she knew I was taking her picture. )

Since Bubba dropped the camera off with me at the office, I got the opportunity to get artistic at work. (After the boss man left, and of course, after all important business had been taken care of. And near going home time.) Here’s the office water cooler at sunset. I’m sure it would have been more appreciated had I replaced the empty bottle with a new one, but I think the picture was worth it.

There are tons of pigeons around the old building that currently houses my office. Using the zoom lens I was able to zoom in on one of these little rats with feathers, and the nasty windows.

And just for fun, here are some shots of Bubba cooking dinner.

We had steak…

And veggies…

Annie helped…

All this kitchen talk has reminded me of my most recent DIY endeavor.

Yep, I’m gonna paint the kitchen cabinets. After cleaning the “poochies” off of the floor of course.

The lighter color is Ashwood, by Bher. And the darker color, I’m not really clear on what color that’s supposed to be. It was on the reject shelf at Home Depot. But for a $5 can of Bher paint, I’m not complaining. It’s even specially formulated for kitchens and bathrooms, and it’s got the primer already in it. Although, once I got it on my cabinets, I realized it may be too dark. So, I’ll be experimenting with lightning up the green with a little bit of white. I’m hoping to get the color close to Ashwood.

Well, I’m off for now. Maybe I’ll actually help my Bubba fix dinner tonight!

Take a picture, it lasts longer…

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I’ve been doing a lot of that recently, since I got this for Christmas…

The Sweets got me, or rather us a Canon EOS Digital Rebel XT. She’s an older model, from 2005, but works really well for a starter DSLR. Ebay has so many treasures to offer!!

In case my picture was too dark, here’s one I borrowed from an online store. My camera is silver, like the one on the left.

Here are some experimental shots I’ve taken recently.

I love cows, they are always so happy to oblige when they realize you aren’t there to eat them.

A cattle guard, these are all over the place in the backwoods around here. A little side note, this is not the above cows, guard. They have their own bouncer , named Bruno, elsewhere. (Yeah, I know, that was a horrible and cheap joke.)

A fancy bike trail in the middle of nowhere.

An old rustic house in one of the historic areas of town. I loved the trees against the blue skies.

And of course this beauty does some awesome close-ups of our winter weeds.

And she makes the winter river mud look pretty! You can almost count all the crane and geese that have stopped here.

I had to take some pictures of the sweets and Annie in their natural habitats. They aren’t quite as nervous as the cows were. Here’s the Sweetie doing his thing in the kitchen, by the way, he’s making brownies…. FROM SCRATCH. I knew there was a reason I married him. I mean other than the whole love thing. (Oh, and if you look in the bottom right corner, you’ll see a glimpse of a home project surprise.)

Annie loves her dirt.

Oh yes, and her begging.

And I thought I would mention, we’re still married after two weeks. Maybe it’s the pretty shiny prizes that keep us together.

Or it could be the cool certificate you get in the mail a week later!

There’s some projects brewing at the yellow casa. So, once I’m done playing with my new toy, I’ll have to set aside some time to get them done. I can’t wait to take pictures of the process with the new addition to our little camera family!

New Digs!!

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Actually, they aren’t my new digs, but the Sweetie and I rented them to house our out of town guests for our wedding. Yes, I can call it a wedding now, since it’s over and done with. *Enter relieved and exhausted sigh here*

Anywho, here are some very blurry shots I took as we all hurriedly gathered our things to leave our little mansion away from home.

I loved the stained concrete driveway. And of course the grand entry way, in fact, there were two of them!! See?

The front door was ginormous!!

And the grandness continues once you come inside….

See those pretty wooden pretties? (Yes, I just used “pretty” twice in one sentence.) Those were all over the house.

And the kitchen was spectacular! Just hanging out in that thing I felt like I should start calling myself Tipper (or another rich person name, that would otherwise have gone to a fluffy white poodle).

The counter tops were pretty, a little dark for my taste, but still picture worthy.

And the pantry was ginormous! I know I’ve used different variations of that word in this post. But everything in this house, just seemed HUGE! Especially compared to my sweet 1200 sq ft abode.

The main island and the smaller island in the foreground were tiled in a pretty green tile. Oh, and did you catch that? This baby had TWO islands!!

And if you can’t tell, this house was ROUND. The living room was round, the kitchen was round, even the fireplace was round.

And if I had my other camera, I could show you the round windows that encircled the living room. Instead, I’ll show you the round windows in the master bedroom.

Which probably would have been more dramatic had I taken the time to open all the blinds. Anywho, the master was HUGE. And I don’t mean, Oh, it’s slightly larger than my closet huge. I mean huge as in I could fit my casa in this thing huge. And that’s just the master bedroom and bath.

It even had it’s own grand entrance.

The master bath, had to have been my favorite. This was taken from the bedroom looking into the bathroom. There were TWO walk-in closets, a HUGE jetted tub, a walk-in shower with a “seating area”, and of course a water closet (I love saying that, I guess it’s the Tipper in me coming out again.)

And when we first saw the master bath, they had folded a towel in the shape of a swan by the tub, just like those fancy schamncy hotels.  Wish I had taken a picture of it before it got used!

I know a double sink wouldn’t seem like a big deal to most folks, but after sharing a sink with the sweetie for a while now. I can definitely appreciate a luxury such as this.

A bit blurry and dark, but the shower just seemed so fancy to me, I had to include a shot of it.

The sweets and I have considered renting the house again so that we can enjoy it more. With the wedding and all that had to get done, we really didn’t get a chance to scope it out. I didn’t even get to take a bath in the big pool of a tub!

This house was beautiful, but honestly, I couldn’t have been happier to come home to our sweet little casa. There’s something about coming home to your home. Especially when it’s so small you don’t have to get up to talk to your husband who is in the back of the house while you are in the living room. There’s something to be said for slothfulness.

Mawage…

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“19 We love because He first loved us.”

1 John 4:19 (NIV)

 

My new husband and I in all our greasy goodness after the festivities. (Boy, I wish I’d found my powder compact before we took this picture!!) We’re so blessed, thrilled and exhausted. Who knew there would be so many preparations the week before and the week of the event. But it was so worth it to celebrate with our family, the Lord truly has blessed me with a loving family and now a beautiful and loving husband.