so...

how do you keep your hands clean while baking?

apparently, i use my pants.

monday

it's monday and i don't care. i am still feeling the after glow. son jason & his girlfriend lauren came up for the weekend. lauren has wanted to go to fossil rim and this was her first weekend off from work. i found out thursday (with a btw text), and cleaned the house like a mad woman so everything would be ready for friday night when they came in. i thought they were going to go off to the rim, by themselves, but they invited us and we had the best time.

most of the animals came up to the car to be fed their special food pellets. as always, we looked for the elusive prairie chickens, only to find out that they are kept in a separate area away from the driving path. every time we've gone, we have looked for them and never read that they are kept in an intensive management area. even so, i kept my eyes peeled. we also enjoyed rehashing all the good times we have had in the past there.
like the time my mom was panicking and screaming when the ostrich came close to the window on her side of the car. my mom is terrified of birds...all birds and we all know that. my sister, who was in control of the windows, locked my mother's window so she couldn't roll it up and mom started screaming (we are so mean...never let us know your weakness cuz we will pounce). niece eva was a very little girl at the time, and so she started crying which made my sister unlock the window so our mom could roll up her window. son jason still remembers this and that eva had said, "that is a very bad bird." and my mom said, "yes, eva, a very bad bird." i wonder what mom would have said to this...

also, lauren was so excited about the giraffes and we couldn't get the giraffes to come over, but then...

and the next day we went to the aia tour of homes. i LOVE going inside other people's houses so much! anyone's home...it doesn't matter. and these homes were spectacular. no photos because it wasn't allowed. i thought about sneaking, but since my son was there, i felt the need to lead by example and follow the rules.

then...

i caught up on my blogs that i hadn't read since thursday (because i was madly cleaning) and saw that a chow life linked me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i nearly dropped my ipad.

why does this make me so happy? i don't know why, but i was super psyched!

so even though i have this...

that is an allergy blister in my eye. a blister!! it looks way better in the photo than it really is... really.

does that mean my skin and eyebrows look equally worser (i know that worser is not a word) in real life? i hope not (sigh)


still happy though...still feeling the after glow.

weekend

i had a great weekend. mothers with their children at home, cherish them. when i have one or both at home, it's better than christmas. son jason came home for the weekend. we went out to dinner and a movie on saturday night. this morning we woke up to a thunderstorm, but by the time church was over, it was cool and partly sunny, so we spent the rest of our time outside:

hey. we live in texas after all...

then jason went back to his home.

and, we had sandwiches for dinner...

cubano sandwiches (mmmmmmmmmmmmm)

and we enjoyed a little music from our neighbor's yard, not their stereo system, but something much nicer...

wish son jason was still here, and daughter michelle, and son-in-law dru.

blogs

one of my many weaknesses is reading blogs. there are so many out there. today, posted on it's her minutiae, this video:

i cannot believe she is only a sophomore. she is an amazing person!

that's all.

super jealous.

back

just got back from arkansas. i moved the last bit of daughter michelle and son-in-law dru's stuff out of our garage and into their home. i love visiting them, and i had them all to myself. they just moved back to arkansas and are living in a government provided home. it's pretty nice. there are a few drawbacks, but the setting is on the edge of the state park, since dru is now working for an arkansas state park, and it is beautiful and so very green. i should have taken a photo, but didn't. i don't know why i didn't. i guess it is because i was more thinking this post would be about something else.

it's hard, sometimes, to live in a home that is not yours. it's like renting a house or an apartment. you don't really want to invest too much in it to make it really how you would like it to be. with dru's job, they will be residing in state park homes, for a while. and it dawned on me that husband scott and i did the same thing for the almost 9 years we lived overseas. the three locations we had were an apartment, a house, and a furnished apartment with a garden that the company paid for while we were temporarily overseas. like, michelle and dru, it was not bad housing, but i longed and yearned for a home where i could do things they way i wanted. in my mind, i would say i would paint the wall this color or i would buy this light fixture or wallpaper...of course, in reality, when we moved into our home (16 years ago), i still didn't get my perfect home. i am still trying to get it just right. i am at fault a lot with this in that i cannot make up my mind what i want or what i want is ridiculously expensive. i procrastinate...a lot...a whole lot.

when i went to arkansas, michelle put me in her guest bedroom that was painted like this, by the previous residents:

michelle had only an air mattress and i brought my own pillow and yet, here is what i found in my room:

lights and artwork that made the pink so much better. the quilt was a nice juxtaposition to artwork and the stainless steel lamp.

on the other side of the bed was a pretty pink dianthus on top a stack of books on a chair.

she always thinks that she doesn't know how to do anything and she is so wrong. this and other vignettes in her house, that she had arranged, could be posted as any of the sneak peeks found design sponge.

this whole room made me smile. it was so simple, yet beautifully done with hardly any fancy stuff.

considering that michelle is hoping to order some dark charcoal and cream colored paint for some of the rooms, she made the pink room so nice with just an air mattress, a light from target, a chair from ikea, books and a potted plant. all this, except the plant, she pulled from her belongings (all their belonging fit in 16 foot u-haul truck, btw).

she is amazing! of course, i have always known that and it also shows in her photography, too.



now, i need to spring clean my house and start fixin' up my house, too!

okie doke

i just read the best blog post ever:
http://mountcustard.blogspot.com/2012/03/its-not-easy-being-green.html

that's all.

weird stuff happens when you least expect it

i was going to do a post on austin because i just came back from there last weekend and i took a lot of photos to remember all the fun stuff and places i went.

i was.

until i was interrupted from my work. i was working away when husband scott said 'come here' and we followed him into brother-in-law mark's office (why yes, i do work with my husband and brother-in-law and we get along splendidly). anyway, we look from his office window and the others are saying 'what?' and then all of sudden, i notice there is a naked man lying in the street.

wha'??!!!

of course, i googled later...much later and found this and this. this is NOT enough information.

i also got this photo

blurry, yes, but remember i have a point and shoot and it was taken from our office's 10th floor and down the block.

i just wonder what caused this man to do this. is he just crazy or did he take something with something else and it just didn't agree with him or was he just having a bad day?

mother lode

so...i open my mailbox and what do i see? this massive book from restoration hardware. it's ridiculously huge, like vogue's september issue.

i don't know why i got it. i don't shop there very often. it's been totally revamped. i don't really like the type of furniture it carries. it's huge massive slabby stuff. it's really over the top and overly expensive.
but then, i flip through it...

i want this...

and this...











and a couple of more things that are beyond my budget. when i came across this...

a very pixilated leather sofa from restoration hardware (sorry for the pixilation...the photo was teeny tiny). i also went to ikea over the weekend and saw this...

now, granted, side by side comparisons show that they are not even close, but the look is similar enough for me to go 'hmmmmmmmm'. i don't need to tell you that the ikea one is waaaaaaaaaay cheaper or that it's not even close to the same quality of leather, probably...most likely. but, when i sat in the ikea one...it wasn't bad for $399...not bad at all.



any way...





wait...what's this, hiding underneath the behemoth?

yea! i hit the mother lode, today! and it's not pixilated (heh heh).

so excited

i will be seeing 'hunger games' today.
i read the books (i know...dweeb. i mean, after all, i'm going to be 55). then, i saw the trailer:

and,

here is how i felt:

monday, monday

today really started out as a true monday, beginning with the fact that i forgot my password for my computer at work. i totally blanked out. here is a piece of advice: don't EVER change your password on a friday. and, here is another really good piece of advice: always write it down. don't EVER think that it was an easy one to remember because it never is...ever. most people use the same password over and over again and just change the last bit like ann1 to ann2. not me. i like to make it fun. one time, my password was expiring just before christmas, so i changed it to bejolly1 and it was denied because it had part of my name in it. and no, my name is not holly. my new password begins with moron.

also, we have been having overcast muggy humid weather for more than a week with off and on rain during the night. i like overcast weather, but not forever, and especially not on a monday morning when we have changed to daylight saving time, which means i am getting up in the dark at 7:00am! it's not like i am getting at 5:00am or anything.

but then, late this afternoon, a thunderstorm was brewing and that changed everything. there was a chance for hail, so i kept going out on the back patio to check it out. it started getting really dark (not because the sun was setting) and it got that weird green-y yellow color, which could mean hail or a tornado. it had been windy earlier and then it got still.

then it got that really good rain smell.

then it started raining, gently at first, then lightning and thundering and then came the deluge.

no hail...no tornado.

so, i sat outside and enjoyed it. it was more enjoyable than before this time because we, now, have an overhead ceiling and a pergola over the patio. i've ordered furniture and it is coming along.

i got a meyer lemon tree and a mexican lime tree for the patio. they smell soooooooooooooo good.

i tried to take a photo of the rain, but it isn't really visible with a camera. the live oak looks sparse because it shedding its leaves for new ones.

here, you can sorta' see the rainfall. the bunny looks really mad...i've never seen it from this angle. i have planted some stuff in the raised bed and still have to get some asparagus crowns. i planted dahlias and am really hoping it sprouts and blooms (do bulbs 'sprout'?). i am also getting some river rock for the muddy area. i was worried about the succulents i planted at the base of the raised bed because there is no sprinkler that will hit it (thus the reason for planting succulents), but now, i fear they are going to drown.

here is where i sat listening to the thunderstorm.

ahhhhhhhh...this was a nice way to end a real monday. and yea, tomorrow is tuesday! what is so special about tuesday? it's not monday (durh).