Tag Archives: photography

Weekend Happenings: Randomness

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Happy Tuesday all! I trust you all had a great weekend, and an easy Monday. On this Tuesday, I don’t have many words, but I have lots of pictures. So pull up a comfy chair pour yourself a tall glass of sweet tea and enjoy.

This weekend, I realized I would never make it as a 50’s housewife. I took it upon myself to make Bubba his favorite fried eggs, everything went smoothly until I had to turn them over. It was at this point I turned the spatuala over to the cook of the house before more disaster ensued.

So, we often feed our dogs morsels from the table while we eat. Therefore, this one sees fit to beg at every meal. Does this make us bad pet parents? And does calling myself a pet parent make me crazy?

With that in mind, I spied this mug at a thrift store. This is the first side.

And this is the other side. For some reason it reminded me of Annie-Dog.

Which brings to mind this other thrifty find. I know this is how Annie feels about her kibbles, makes me feel a little guilty.

Then I remember the evening pulls I get taken on every evening.

I’d say the evening pulls are worth it though, since it makes my puppies tired. And I get to take cute doggie butt pictures afterwards.

And I get to spend time outside, while they all wait for me to take pictures of a weed.

This weekend I also got to spend time with my mom. Isn’t she pretty?

We went shopping for craft supplies while she was visiting. She’s starting a new hobby of quilting.

While I’ve taken on the hobby of crochet. I’ll talk more about it later, if I remember, no promises of consistency around here.

We ended the weekend at Goodwill, that is next door to a rug store with questionable architecture.

The sunset was breathtaking though.

What did you do this weekend?

Thrifting Thursday: Christmas Mouse

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I know, it’s Friday and not Thursday, but I didn’t want to gip you out of this weekly gem. Since I have put myself on the great buying-of-old-stuff restriction of 2012, I won’t be showing any new loot, in fact I’ll be sharing some really really old loot today. As in, something I’ve had since childhood sort of loot, and I wouldn’t really call it loot, I would call it more of a token.

My mouse ornament, my sweet mom bought her for me when I was 4 or 5 years old. I remember going to a local craft store with my mom and big sister one year after Christmas. I carried this little ornament through the whole store, and incessantly begged my mom to buy it for me, there may have been a few tears shed and some pouting. In the end I had to leave her behind, maybe it was the tears and the pouting that prevented me from taking her home, or maybe it was the choice my mother had to make between buying another little trinket for her whining 4 year old or feeding her. Either way, I remember having to set my Christmas mouse back on the shelf and say goodbye (dramatic much?). 

One day, my mother surprised me with this little token, I don’t remember how all of it went down, but I do know that every year since  this little mouse was on our Christmas tree. And when I grew up, Mom gave me my little mouse to adorn my own Christmas tree, and every year since then she can been seen amongst the fake branches of my hypoallergenic tree. Until one year I was taking all the Christmas decorations down, but this one little mouse caught my eye. For some reason, I couldn’t bare to put her away with the other Christmas mementos, she needed to be out all year. I wanted to be able to look at her not only at Christmas time, but anytime even in the middle of September.

You see, this little mouse represents not only that one time when I was 4 and wanted something new, it represents the love my mom had/has for me. She went back to that store to surprise me with something she knew I didn’t need. It may have been something small, but at the time it was a sacrifice to buy extra things that we didn’t need. I realize that now as an adult, and can greater appreciate the sacrifices that were made for my benefit. As a kid I was just thrilled to have that mouse that I wanted, but now I cherish that mouse because of what it represents.

Are there things from your childhood that you’ve held onto, a token perhaps? Do they hold great memories?

Do they represent something special for you?

Weekend Happenings: Labor Day

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Alright, so Labor Day is officially behind us, in fact it’s two weeks behind us at this point. But I never got to share what we did on Labor Day, which apparently after looking at the photos really wasn’t that much aside from eating and riding in a car. Speaking of riding in a car, my Bubba and I decided to take a teeny tine little non-overnight road trip to Madrid NM. And it’s not pronounced MUH-drid it is clearly MAD-rid, ask any of the locals they would be happy to clarify that for you.

Most of the trip looked a little like this, especially once we got to Madrid. Note to anyone who is thinking of visiting this quaint little town over a long weekend, it’s gonna be crowded and parking will be at a premium. Which is why we didn’t stop, we drove through it and made a vow to return when things weren’t quite as busy.

But all was not lost, I did get a glimpse of the diner that was featured in the movie Wild Hogs.

Along the way we did see some pretty New Mexican scenery.

Then we tried our hand at homemade chili rellenos (ray-en-oh). If you are unfamiliar with this spicy delicacy, it is a green chili stuffed with monterrey jack cheese battered and deep fried. Delicious, and oh so fattening, but come on, it’s stuffed with cheese breaded and deep fried, how can a girl pass that up?

Tuseday brought with it the return to work, but also a little surprise:

My very own  Swingline stapler thanks to our sweet office manager. Let’s hope they don’t move me down to the basement stop giving me a pay check and ask me to kill roaches, a la Office Space.

How was your weekend? Deep fry anything interesting?

Thrifting Thursday: Shopping the Squeakel

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Wow wee has this week gone by fast! It’s already Thrifting Thursday! I can’t believe it’s nearly the end of the week and this is the first post on the ole blog this week. I owe you guys some posts, particularly a Weekend Happenings post. Since it was a nice long three day weekend, I have lots and lots of photos to share, aren’t you excited?? So stay tuned for that very informative and useful post.

 So, here we go, I need to mention I’m playing around with some artsy-ness and a watermark, so if they bother you let me know and I’ll go back to my plain jane editing.

This blonde buffet had me at 1/2 price, but alas, our casa is much too small for him. Can’t you imagine all of my treasured milk glass stored in this beauty though?

How about a shrimp on a stick? I don’t really care for shrimp, but I thought this set of appetizer plates were pretty adorable.

I love old chairs with an interesting shape.

Imagine them reupholstered in a more modern fabric, and refinished with a paint treatment or even just polishing up the original wood. Is it just me, or do you have a tinge of guilt about painting over perfectly good wood pieces? Don’t get me wrong, I love the way painted furniture looks, but something deep down inside me tells me that it’s wrong. Maybe it’s Bubba, who is adamantly opposed to painted furniture. I am too when it comes to a valuable antique, but when something is obviously not worth that much I still find myself hesitating.

On a lighter note, how about this monkey lamp? He wasn’t really my style, but he made me smile. Here’s a close up..

I guess he’s asking for more monkey chow.

What have you found recently? A shrimp on a plate? Maybe a monkey lamp? How do you feel about painted furniture

Thrifting Thursday: Something Smells Fowl

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Yay, it’s Friday Eve!! And depending on where you are in the world ,you are either very near the end of Friday Eve or actually celebrating Friday. I am nearing the end of my Friday Eve and very much looking forward to the actual Friday, then finally the weekend. And not just any weekend a THREE day weekend. I cannot tell you how excited I am at the prospect of spending an extra day eating waffles and avoiding chores.  Maybe I’ll throw some window shopping and dog walks into the mix, but I plan on laying low. Listen to me, it’s only Thursday or rather Friday Eve and I’m already talking about the weekend, guess whose already checked out for the work week!

Anywho, we’re supposed to be talking about thrifting aren’t we? Hence the title of this weekly series, Thrifting Thursday! So, here goes…

Since, I am trying to cut back on my junk buying, I spend a lot of time either avoiding stores that contain bounds of hidden vintage goodness, or trying with all my will to fight the urge to bring home yet another owl. This week, I have failed miserably in both respects.

See him there sitting unassumingly between yellow cow and an empty jar? So cute and small and again, unassuming. That’s how I talked myself into adopting him and bringing him home. One little teeny tiny owl couldn’t hurt, and he was gold, I don’t have a gold owl! Besides, I like golden yellow things, particularly yellow dogs that glow in the sun.

So, I failed at the whole not buying anything-thing, but it was not all for naught, we did find this cute lil chicken for my momma.

The top doesn’t match the bottom, but it’s close enough and my mom was thrilled (or at least feigned thrilled-ness). You know how mom’s are, “Oh, you bought it with your own money and picked it out all by yourself?! I love it and will treasure it forever!” Don’t ya just love mom’s?

With that sweet thought about mom’s, I’ll leave you to enjoy the rest of your Friday Eve!

Weekend Happenings

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With the end of Monday near (Thank goodness! Survival was questionable there in the beginning.) I’ve been playing the weekends events over in my little head, it helps to escape the stress of coming back to work ya know.

Pardon my grainy phone pictures, I finally remembered to bring my camera, but lo and behold, the stinkin’ battery died on me. Between Bubba and I  we’ve got a handful of point and shoots and two SLR’s in our house, but did we bring a back-up camera? Nope. So, I had to resort to my camera phone, I was actually surprised at how well some of these came out.

Saturday didn’t entail too much aside from doing the normal weekend chores, but on Sunday we took a little drive out to Edgewood. It’s a little town about 40 minutes from Albuquerque, a nice little drive especially if you’re ready to see something new.

Like a pay phone, I hadn’t seen one of these in years! Since everyone has a cell phone now payphones aren’t very common. Or maybe I haven’t noticed them much, since I am part of the cell phone carting masses. But I was pretty excited to see this one and his buddy outside.

After admiring the historic pay phones and receiving odd looks from the locals we indulged in a road trip classic, dipped cones from

Dairy Queen.  Mine was butterscotch, much to the dismay of my jeans, thank goodness for spandex riddled denim!

After a nice fattening ice cream break it was time to see the sites:

That there’s a meadow, with the stinkin’ camera phone I couldn’t quite capture the colors and the “lifeness” of it all.

Also….there were sunflowers.

Then it started to rain, we took that as a sign it was time to head back home.

Our casa is just on the other side of that mountain. I love summer rain storms in New Mexico, they smell so fresh and the air has an energy to it. But notice that patch of blue sky? Yeah, I theorize that’s exactly where our house is, because it was bone dry when we got home. No glorious summer rain storm for us that day.

With it still being dry and hot at the house, we decided to take a little trip to a local thrift store, just for grins and giggles, we didn’t buy anything. I don’t want my own episode of Hoarders thankyouverymuch. Here’s what I found:

These embroidery hoops are great for wall hangings, just group a bunch of them together with a graphic fabric or even paint them a cool color for some drama.

Sorta like this scene from Apartment Therapy:

Something similar could be done with these guys to add a little more texture to a room. They are meant to be used as paper plate holders, but I think they would be awesome clustered together for a focal wall.

But I don’t think this guy really liked that idea, either that or he was ready to get out of the bag. He kinda scared me…

What happenings from the weekend have you been revisiting to get through this Monday? Is there ice cream? Or a scary tribesman staring back at you from a plastic bag?

Scenes from the weekend

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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

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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?

Pigs and Owls! Oh my!

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Going with the train of thought from an earlier post about finding happiness in the silly and obscure things. Even though, I’m not sure that I touched on that aspect of the post, I may have focused more on dogs eating rawhides. But anyway, here’s another post on all things weird, fun, and pride inducing : pigs ,owls, and Ole Glory. Not meaning any disrespect by putting our beautiful flag in the mix with a pig. Just to keep things clear here, we’re not talking about an actual bacon producing pig, but more the white ceramic animal head variety, I call him Sir Hamster the III.

As you can see I couldn’t be bothered with removing the 3.99 price tag before taking a shot of  his royal pigness. In fact, I haven’t been bothered to even hang him on the wall yet. When that happens I’ll be sure to share.

One of my not so recent acquisitions, a set of beautiful ironwood owls from my sweet uncle.

That little guy I already had, but he matched so well with the two big guys I just had to put them together to make an owl family. Thanks Unc. D for sending these guys my way!!

And finally, something that makes my heart swell with pride…

Our beautiful flag, it not only looks nice proudly rippling in the wind, but it also represents all those brave men and women that fight for our freedom everyday.

And with that I leave you with an obliatory dog picture, what post would be complete without one?

Holy Yellow Cow!

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Apparently, I’m becoming one of those once a week bloggers. It was never my intent, I’ve always wanted to be a once a day blogger, gladly gabbing on about the newest happenings at my nest, or sharing that cute picture that I just shot of my puppies or sweet Hubba Bubba.  But alas, I’m lucky if I can scramble on here and quickly type up a post with some pictures thrown in. Actually, that’s not quite true, my posts take thought and time, I edit every single photo you see on this blog and try to be careful with those things called words. Maybe that’s why I’ve turned into a once a week blogger, it’s the time that it takes to put these posts together. Maybe I could become an everyday blogger if I were to include fewer word circles and start eating more potassium to prevent word diarrhea. (Yeah I went there)

Anywho, I’m not really sure how to transition from word diarrhea to how I prettied up my living room, so I won’t. Let’s jump right into the visuals shall we?

Ignore the ugly leashes that are so glaringly obvious in photos, but apparently are completely ignored while living in this space.

So, remember in my last post I finally got to reveal something finished on the ole blog, my oh so beautiful new floors? Well, I didn’t get to talk about how I prettied it up. With the living room having to be completely dismantled to install the flooring, it gave me a chance to finally work with a blank slate. This was a foreign concept to this pack rat, an empty room? With open, flat surfaces? Where does the clutter go?!  Well, the clutter hasn’t gone anywhere it’s just being stored in boxes in the sun room until I can figure out what I want to get rid of and what I want to keep. I am hoping to shake my pack ratty-ness and give away or sell most of the items that don’t have sentimental value to me. There’s just too many things to spray paint in this world for me to be wasting time dusting yet another thrift store knick-knack.

After putting all the furniture back in the room, and enjoying a completely clutter free space for a few days, I was ready to play around with some new accessories. I wanted color, lots of color, it’s summer after all. So, I started out with my new favorite yellow cow.

Yes, I know she’s a creamer, but the Bubba and I aren’t coffee drinkers, and I couldn’t bear the thought of putting Rillo away in a cabinet.(That’s what I’ve named her, short of Amarillo, which means yellow in Spanish. From what I’ve been told.) The flowers I clipped from my now dry and crunchy front flower bed.

Working with Rillo as my inspiration, I pulled items from around the house that would coordinate with her yellow glory. I found that my small collection of globes and a vintage children’s book brought the perfect mix of bright and fun to the room. Perfect for a summer setting on the ole coffee table.

Apparently, I easily fall victim to trends, notice the other globe on the end table in the foreground? Oh, and I can’t forget these guys:

Yeah, I totally went with the  owl craze too, but I never follow a crazy trend  I’m not completely in love with. Those owls and my globes are some of my favorite things in the room. Here are a few others.

C.S. Lewis is awesome, that’s all I’m sayin’.

Monograms are almost as awesome as C.S. Lewis. But the only monograms I  seem to find more readily are A’s. Oh, well, I’ll just be a self centered little A and only have my monogram selfishly displayed.

What changes have you made to make your home more summery?