Scenes from the weekend

At the end of this Monday, I thought I’d unwind a bit by re-living some scenes from the weekend.

All of my weekends include thrifting, apparently it’s become a big part of my life. What once was something I indulged in once a month has become a once week occurance, sometimes more. I should never have introduced my Bubba to this addictive past time, he’s become much more into it that I ever was. Although, you’d think I was the thrifting nut judging by my newest hoard. I’ll tell you more about some of those finds in a later post. Or when the crew of Hoarders comes to pay me a visit.

Aside from indulging in some thrifting we also indulged in some fried goods, without a political agenda. Mmmmm….msg.

The dogs savored the fat and grease laden leftovers…also without a political agenda.

Then I ended the weekend with a quiet Sunday afternoon….

While Annie-dog creepily watched…

What did you do this weekend?

Stages of Rawhide Enjoyment

So, an unannounced two week blogging hiatus is not cool, I know and I’m sorry. I’ll do my best to keep you all up to date on useless news and the happenings of the dogs (which I’m sure you all sorely missed) from here on out. It occurred to me the other day that when I started this blog over two years ago, I didn’t start this blog to jabber on about useless (yet highly entertaining) pet stories or to share my latest junkin’ find (of which I recently have much to share) I started this blog to talk about the updates and improvements made to my little house. Recently, there haven’t been many of those updates, mainly because I’ve been too busy sitting on my bum watching the Olympics (it counts as exercise if I’m watching someone else push their body to the limit right?). But while pondering the reason why I started this blog, I came to appreciate what she has turned into. It’s a blog that I enjoy writing, yeah the jokes may only make sense to me and at times my mom might be the only one who reads my jabbering, but this blog is my happy place and if I want to share pictures of my dogs enjoying their most happy things in their happy place (that sounded dirty sorry) then that’s what I’ll blog about. So speaking of dogs, here is a series of my brats enjoying one of their most happy things in world, a rawhide. I know, it’s not exciting, but darn it, it’s my blog and if I want to share copious amounts of photos of my dogs eating a rawhide then that’s what I’m gonna do. Sit back and enjoy…

THE STAGES OF RAWHIDE ENJOYMENT

First Stage, choose the rawhide that is juuuussst right.

Second stage, find the perfect place for optimal rawhide enjoyment.

Ignore the unfinished floors, I do.

Stage three, make funny faces while chewing rawhide.

Stage four, all done, more please?

Yeah, more?

What have you been finding enjoyment out of lately? Silly pictures of a beloved pet? Finding treasures at your local thrift store?

A rawhide perhaps?

Summer Time

Summer time has got to be my most favorite time of year, along with spring, and fall. Honestly, I could do without winter, the short days of winter, and scraping ice off the windshield on cold mornings when I’m already late for work, and  all the extra layers you have to wear to keep from freezing ones bum off. Yeah, I could live without all of that, but those warmer seasons are bliss for me.  I love the warm weather, especially baking in my car after being in a frigid office all day, the long evenings spent sipping iced tea in the backyard, just perfection. Lately, I’ve been watching our apricot tree spit out fruit like a baseball player spits out to-baccy, not a pretty picture? Well, lets just say our apricot tree is being very productive this summer.

I’ve picked two of those so far, I know it’s not too impressive to some folks but it’s a big deal to this little desertrat.

Do you know how many Silvery Minnows we killed using up their water from the  to get these suckers to grow?

Aside from growing apricots, we’re also growing some water conscience yarrow.

And some Holly Hock weeds, well, they aren’t weeds but they grow like weeds in that they never grow where you want them too. But I’ll take it, they bring color to my barren yard.

I’m not really sure what this little green bush is called, his tag blew away over the winter. I currently have him growing in a pot until he’s big enough to not be rolled on, run over, or eaten by my brat dogs.

Oh yeah, and you may remember my grass fiasco from last year, which can be reviewed here, here, here, and here. Well, the drama continues this year. Although, I must say I am pretty impressed with how things have rebounded this spring. Maybe my grass drama is coming to a close. If only I could keep stinking brat dogs from digging ankle breaking holes in the middle of the yard. Let’s just say I don’t say many nice words when walking across the yard in the dark. I owe you a more complete post on the yard and the grass situation, and how we’ve tried to conserve more water and therefore save more Silvery Minnows that reside in the Rio Grande.

But for the time being, a shot I got of  a bare spot in the grass this year. Looking back at some of the grass posts from last year, makes me feel a little better about the state of things this year. But I am still battling the  stupid brat dogs who keep wrestling over my baby grass so I keep re-seeding in the hope that something will survive.

I complain about falling in dog holes, fighting with destructive wrestling dogs, and worry about the plight of the Silvery Minnow, but all in all, I really do enjoy our yard. And I love that it’s summer time so I can while away my evenings tinkering with grass, avoiding the canyons that my dog-brats have carved into my beloved backyard, and just enjoy the fact that I don’t have to scrape ice off my windshield the next day.

April’s photo dump

As I may have mentioned a time or two, I have a penchant for taking a ridiculous amount of photos, but sadly I don’t have the same penchant for blogging about them. So to remedy that problem, you have the honor of witnessing my first ever photo dump. Yeah, I’ve done monthly wrap ups, and I even did an entire blog recap when I hit 100 posts. But this time, I don’t really have a reason for sharing random photos, except just for the sheer joy of putting them out there. So, grab a tall glass of sweet tea and get comfy…

During the month of April I celebrated my 20+10+1 birthday. (I’ll let you do the math.)

Bubba makes a homemade birthday cake for me every year. And every year Annie-dog supervises.

Besides the delicious cake, I also received tulips for my birthday. Purple ones…

And white ones! Oh, and I finally got to use my owl vase!

The weekend before my birthday we took a little trip down to Las Cruces  where we viewed the raging Rio Grande River.

Visited with Bubba’s family…

Dined at one of our favorite Italian food establishments…

Then on our way home, saw many desolate areas…

After all the birthday celebrating had calmed down, it was time to celebrate Easter. One of my favorite holidays, not only is it a holiday filled with pretty pastels and Peeps (come on how could you not love sugar covered marshmallows?) it’s also a day to celebrate our Savior’s glorious resurrection.

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” 1 Peter 1:3

Apparently, this photo dump turned into a recap of April, and of course a recap of a national holiday, my birthday!!

Los Angeles: The Sights

Woo hoo! The final post of my Los Angeles shots, aren’t you excited to see all the sights that I deemed worthy to shoot, edit, and ultimately post on Casa de Yellow? I know, I can’t wait either…

So, where to start…how about with some random shots? Is that ok?? Well, since no one answered, I’ll start with some of my favorites.

I’m a sucker for interesting architecture, there were so many grogeous buildings downtown.

Aside from ooohing and aawwing over the architecture, I went on a few tours of the grand city. Mostly I got to ride by several interesting spots.

The Walt Disney Concert Hall

Capital Records

The hotel where Whitney Houston died.

An old coffee shop that I am told is used as set in many films and TV shows.

CBS, I was hoping to get a glimpse of Craig Ferguson, but no luck.

Sony Pictures, where our tour guide ran into Will Smith. They wouldn’t let me wait around for anther Will appearance, so instead I did a little shopping. Well, window shopping, and the window was on the bus as we were driving by at  50 mph.

This was as close to the beach I got on this trip. Darn those work trips that don’t allow much time for relaxation.

At one point we took a little 15 minute break at the Griffith Observatory.

Despite the crowds, the views were spectacular!

The next day I got to go on a tour to Disneyland! Yeah, I know totally sacrificing there, all for the price of professional development. It was actually pretty cool, they showed us how the park was planned and how it’s changed the city of Anaheim over the past 60 years. (Sorry, I got all Plannery on you, my 9 to 5 is in City Planning. Exciting stuff!)

“Someday I’ll be part of his world.” If she meant Mickey, then she is definitely in his world…or in this case land.

In between conferencing and touring, I had a little time do some sight seeing on my own.

Boats, actually in the water! This is not something you see too often in the southwest, considering all we have is sandy beach.

I loved the landscaping throughout, apparently since the weather is so mild those in LA can pretty much grow anything.

 

Then I got to do some window shopping outside of a tour bus.

Doesn’t this bed look like the bed from Mad Men that Don and Betty Draper share?

Who wants a horse head lamp?

How about the whole horse? Yeah, I didn’t think so.

And everyday that I was in LA I got to walk by the Staples Center, and everyday there was an event that would draw THOUSANDS of people. And those thousands would wander around the Nokia Center.

Which is across the street from the Staples Center. With loads of statues of sporting greats that I don’t really know. Except for Magic Johnson and Wayne Gretzky.

And that my friends, sums up my work trip to Los Angeles. Sorry for the 500 words and the 40 kazillion photos!

Have you ever been to the City of Angels? What was your favorite part? I have to admit, my fave place out of the entire trip, had to have been Bottega Louie. Which has to be pretty obvious since I dedicated an entire post to it!

2nd Blogiversary

Today marks my 2nd Blogiversary! I’ve posted 150 posts since this little blog that could was born, and many many more words and pictures, too many to count! My sweet Bubba is so glad that I started this blog, he claims it’s a good way for me to get all my words in without talking too much at home. Ha, proved him wrong, I still don’t get all my daily words in and still talk his ears off at the end of the day!

Anywho, I  just wanted to wish myself a happy blogiversary, and a happy day to you!

From me and the office ninjas…

The O in hOtel

Wow-wee, it’s been way too long since I last posted. I miss my little blog-y home, and all my readers (hi Mom!!).

As promised, I’ll be sharing some photos from my little work trip to Los Angeles. I will apologize in advance as I realize most of you will find fire escapes and yet another sky scraper quite boring. But for this girl from a town that has only one tall building, it was a pretty awesome sight!

Honestly, I’m not really sure how to organize these pictures into posts. When I forced you to see, when I shared with you my shots from our Charleston trip I broke those down into each day we were there. However, with these it’s a little more difficult, because some days I took loads of photos and others not so much. So, I’ll break them down into 3 categories: room, board, and sites.  I’ll try to make them into three posts, but we’ll see what happens, remember I have that itchy shutter finger, so I’ve got LOADS of shots I just can’t wait to share!

On with the room, we stayed at a boutique hotel called The O Hotel. I have no idea what the “O” stands for unless it stands for “O, this hotel is dang expensive!”. But I shouldn’t complain, the cost of lodging did not come out of my pocket, and it was pretty nice and more importantly clean.

The room itself was pretty basic, bed, desk, tv, bathroom.

Sorry for the fuzzy photos, it was pretty dark in there!

Aside from the small-ish but comfy bed, I had a great view!

Yup, that’s a block wall. Apparently in the big city you have to pay big bucks for a view. This was a hard pill for this southwestern girl to swallow, where views and wide open spaces are free to all.

Here’s the view when laying on the bed, it’s a little more interesting than what you get when standing in front of the window.

Yup a parking garage, while visiting the City of Angels I came to understand that Los Angeles residents really do love their cars. But since they all loved their cars so and insist on driving them everywhere, they must park them somewhere, hence the 50 million parking garages I counted while in downtown LA.

Aside from the great views, the hotel room offered storage for the weary travelers treasures.

Sorry for mess, I didn’t bother to pick things up. It was the last day and I had forgotten to take photos of the room before I messed it up.

They offered a luggage rack and a small closet, which was fine as I am not one to really unpack while traveling, I’m more of a throw it in a suit case and don’t worry about organizing it type of girl.

My favorite part of the entire hotel was probably all of the marble, I LOVE marble and would love to incorporate it somewhere in the yellow shoebox. But cost restraints and the high maintenance have been a slight marble deterrent to me.

Here’s the shower, I didn’t really care for the hand held only shower option, but the water was hot and the pressure was good.

Oh yeah, and the shower area didn’t completely close off, so if you weren’t careful you could easily flood the bathroom while singing “Oops I did it Again” during hair washing. They had tracks for a shower door, but no shower door. Hmm…very curious indeed.

Oh, and I should mention the shower gel/shampoo/conditioner holder. I loved this idea, I didn’t use any of the products due to my ridiculously sensitive skin, but it’s a great way to keep essentials handy without having them fall off shelves and bruise big toes. Not that I speak from experience or anything.

Remember when I mentioned the marble? Oh, the marble, it was deliciously creamy, light and bright. They had it everywhere, the vessel sink was even made of marble.

I learned that if I were to ever get a vessel sink, it would need to be slightly more rounded on the bottom. This one didn’t really drain all that well as there was frequently water standing in the bottom.

This may have been mentioned previously, but I loved all the creamy marble, but I didn’t love the slate flooring they paired it with. It seemed a little cold.

The room was small and stylish, but so was the lobby. It was cozy and quaint, but with a restaurant and bar it could get pretty loud and crowded on a Saturday night.  But on a Friday afternoon it was pretty quiet.

The fireplace was a little modern for my taste, but the brick work and lighting were very chic. And I would be remiss not to mention the high ceilings, they really do open up a small space.

Honestly, most of the hotel was a little too modern for my taste, but I guess I’m just an old lady who enjoys well worn, curvy vintage finds opposed to the sleek clean lines of the modern style. Thankfully though, I didn’t spend very much time hanging around the room or the hotel in general. There was way too many things to see, eat, and photograph. In the next couple of days I’ll show you what I saw and most importantly what I ate while visiting the fair city of LA.

Don’t be scared, I promise  I won’t rattle on as much next time!

Poke me with a stick, it’s Monday!

Shall we start the week off with a weekend recap? I hope you said yes, because that’s what you’re getting!

This weekend was marvelous! It started out with dinner at our favorite pizza joint, JJ’s, I’ll be doing a post about that soon. (JJ has the best pizza in all of the Duke City, if you ask me!) Then on Saturday, my sweet mom and I went to see a live performance of Anne of Green Gables, performed at the Albuquerque Little Theater. Honestly, it was one of the most enjoyable experiences I’ve had at a live performance. Then we had another yummy meal, this time it was at a chain, Taco Cabana. But still yummy. Sunday flew by, since we lost that hour. But that didn’t some me from trying a little project, I got ambitous and thought I’d clean out a spare room. The room where Bubba keeps his “gaming” equipment. This included 12 gaming systems, countless games, an excuriating amount of cables, and so many dust bunnies I’m still coughing them up.

It was a great weekend, and if I’d had half a brain there would be pictures to share with you. But alas, my half brain wasn’t working this weekend, so I have no pictures. Only the sweet memories of a great weekend.

I do however, have pictures from past weekends that pretty much sum up an average Saturday and Sunday in my life right now.

I usually try to cram in a chore or two, nothing too involved. That’s something I have to build up to. (Like cleaning out Bubba’s toys. Not that I don’t have any of my own.) A couple of weekends ago, I finally pulled out a new shop vaccuum that sweet mom bought us. It was time to vaccuum all the Goldie needles and Annie fuzz out of the car anyway. This would be a great test of how much this thing sucked.

I must say, I’m mighty pleased, and it even rolls now that I’ve installed the wheels! I’ll spare you the hairy before and afters though.

After cleaning the car out, it was time to take the girls somewhere so they could re-needle and re-fuzz up the car.

They only tolerate the camera when they know there is a car ride and eventual walk in it for them.

On this particular day, we went on a picnic to a quiet and empty elementary school. (Where dogs are allowed I might add.)

(Yummy red enchiladas! No wonder my jeans are in a constant state of panic.)

The girls wanted some, can you tell?

After lunch and begging it was time to run, and then eventually get poked with the ball thrower for not coming when called. Annie is the only shepherd dog I know that must be shepherded herself. She would never last on a ranch.

While Annie was getting herded I took a random shot of this school bell. There is something about the texture of the brick and the color of the bell. I love these old school buildings. It’s a shame they don’t build them like this anymore.

What did you do this weekend? Have a picnic? Poke your dog with a stick?

Quirk

I love quirk, it’s my friend and constant companion. Quirk is preferable to some of my other companions like guilt, anger, and that other not so pleasant tag-a-long, jealousy and his friend covetousness. But quirk, quirk I embrace, quirk is the type of friend you call up to see the latest chick flick with. The buddy who still wants to hang out with you, even if you snort-laugh in public. Quirk is the fun friend, but  guilt always brings ya down, anger is just too unpleasant, jealousy is too judgy and that other acquaintance covetousness always wants what it can’t have and makes everyone miserable because of it.

Since I’ve been hanging out with quirk more often, I’ve become more aware of her presence around my home. Like my budding interest in owls:

Or my new favorite old things, pineapple bookends. When I brought these home Bubba thought they were…interesting…and…pokey. I am hoping that one day we will share a love of pineapple bookends.

Right now these lovlies are living on the living room coffee table, hanging out with my small vintage camera collection.

I couldn’t bear to put my pineapples in the front room where we keep all of our books. (A place I usually avoid, since I haven’t allowed quirk in that space.)  I just had to have them front and center, where I spend most of my time, in the living room, sadly, in front of the TV.

Alongwith my owls and pineapples I’ve noticed that quirk is showing herself in my other newest interest, globes. I love the colors, and it’s really nice to have visual aids when it comes to learning that Africa is not a country, but a continent.

This isn’t quirk, but she’s one of my other favorite and nearly constant companions:

(Never mind the floating head, I’m still experimenting with bokeh. And yes, the dog does match the carpet, many a night has she been stepped on in a sleepy stumble to the kitchen for a drink. )

Goldie dog tags along with me throughout all of my adventures, at least in the adventures where dogs are allowed.

Quirk is showing her face in the fact that I can’t bring myself to letting my Valentine Tulips bite the dust. I change their water and trim their stems every day. Obsessive Complusive? Or quirky?

Have you found quirk in your home recently? Is quirk something you want to keep around, or the friend you choose to ignore?

P.S. I’m linking up to a linky party hosted by the Nester, we are all celebrating our imperfections. Whether those imperfections be in the home, personal, or found in our quirkiness.  Click the banner below to be directed over to Nester’s celebration of imperfections.

Doomsday Preppers and Tulips

Bubba and I keep it pretty low key for Valentine’s Day, we typically don’t fight the crowds at restaurants, or pay a ridiculous amounts of money on roses or chocolates.  He and I usually stay in, cook dinner and enjoy one another. Some years, I even talk him into watching a romantic comedy, this year was not one of those years. Instead we watched Doomsday Preppers on Nat Geo, I think it’s obvious who won out on the great remote battle that evening. Maybe I let him win because he surprised me with these:

Flowers actuallyon Valentine’s Day! Not the day after (which would have been fine since they are much cheaper then) and not the day before, but on the actual day. I was so proud of him, and so proud of myself for telling him what to buy. Not that I’m that kind of wife…who am I kidding…I so totally am that kind of wife!

What did you do for Valentine’s Day? Did your sweetie fake surprise you with something?