Weather for ducks.......literally.......

It rained pretty good here today and normally I would complain that it's raining on the weekend, but today I had a bunch of stuff to do errand and appointment wise, so I didn't care, plus I got to tool around in the new Prius!

At one point, Connor looked at the front window and said "Mom, Dad, there are ducks in our front yard". We live about a quarter mile to two ponds that lots of ducks and geese call home, but I've never seen them wander this far and this close to the house.





Those are Connor's feet in the background...lol


I think they got tired of having there photo taken, because soon after they took flight and went back toward the ponds.

Spring has sprung and other stuff

Haven't been too motivated to update my blog lately. Been too busy at work and then by the time I get home, I have enough energy to exercise, eat dinner, watch a bit of tv or read a bit of my countless books and magazines I have on hand and then hit the sack.

I think a bit of a black cloud has been following me around lately. Two weeks ago I had the emergency bloody nose which has resulted in me having to schedule some corrective surgery for next month and then last night when I was returning home from the gym on my bicycle, I had a spill. :(

I was make a turn, took it too sharp, hit the curb and down I went. My left elbow, arm and wrist took the brunt of the fall, my left leg has bruises from calf to thigh and I'm generally sore all over. Thank goodness I didn't break anything, but today I was so sore that I had to take a leftover pain pill. I'm glad I was working from home.

On to happier more positive things....

My spring flowers and bushes are in full bloom and I love looking out my windows to see this -


Lilacs - my favorite floral scent and I have two bushes on each side of the deck staircase, so when they are in bloom and we're hanging out on the deck, the smell is heavenly



Tulips - my favorite bulb flower hands down. I try and plant some each fall. I'm especially fond of pinks, white, rose and purple colors





Grape Hyacinth - such a sweet flower and they look great among the tulips


More tulips at the side of the gardening shed


Flowering Almond - my absolute favorite flowering shrub. It was also my mother's favorite. I will always have one of these in my yard


Flowering Almond blooms - they are incredibly beautiful


The weather has been so nice that I even got motivated to get some early vegetable seeds planted. I planted four kinds of lettuce; Romaine, Arugula, Butter Crunch and Spinach and three rows of red radishes and three rows of white icicle radishes.






Here's a view of the gardening shed we built last spring. I still love it and when Fred bought me the new chaise lounge for the deck, the wooden garden bench that was my mom's was moved from the deck to next to the shed. I think it looks good there.



Thanks for letting me share and have a good rest of the week!

Family of Cousins

Family of Cousins
Originally uploaded by bskts4ver

I took the photo of the kids last spring and just getting around to scrapping it. The layout is inspired by a PageMaps sketch.

Hmmm....I wonder how THIS happened?

or maybe the better question is "Which one?".....I *think* I may know who the culprit is, but when you look at him and he looks back at you all innocent with those huge eyes, you just can't imagine he would be so naughty, but you know better.

Cards, Cards, Cards

I'm really not a card maker. For some reason, card making throws me into a creative mental block. I think because of the small size. I enjoy making them, but I usually have to copy something that's already been done. I know some scrapbookers will knock out a couple of cards when working on pages with the leftovers that they have from the scrapbook page. I wish I could get into that mind set.

Last summer I bought Basic Grey's Lime Rickey card pack and a few weeks ago, I got it out and sat down and made all the cards while watching a movie. I was pretty proud of myself to get that project done.



Enjoy your day!

First Peek

Finally got outside today to do the spring cleaning of the yard. Raking, pulling debris from fall, picking up bits of trash, repairing anything that needed it because of the harsh winter we had. We were outside about 3 hours before we finished. All of bulbs are up and I was please to see my lilacs, flowering almond, rose of sharon and others budding out.

Here's some peeks I got today of things to come....

New tulip bulbs planted last fall


Peeking out from the corner


Grape Hyanciths in our front bed with our boxwoods


It really was a lovely day. First day in 5 that I didn't wake up with a sinus headache. I had a bad day on Saturday and barely got out of bed all day, but we had company coming over and I had to "suck it up" and deal. Once up, showered and downstairs, we had a good time with Joe and Vicky. Fred did an excellent job of grillmaster and the conservation was excellent.

Sleep really really well last night and didn't force myself to get out of bed this morning, but once up, Fred and I went and had breakfast at Hy-Vee and then my husband bought me a new chaise lounge chair for our deck, so I can hang out on it when the weather is nice, reading or napping or whatever I want to do. I love it!

The blue shallow pot next to the chaise is what I plant herbs in and my Longaberger wrought iron table is a perfect fit


Tomorrow is my Monday off and I'm planning on riding my bike to the gym, getting a work out in and then spending the day at home taking it easy and doing some scrapbooking. Have a great week!

Another mini album project to share

I actually finished this weeks ago, but between being busy and then my most recent health issue, I haven't had the time to post it. I started it at my good friend Cheri's monthly crop in March and had such fun with it that I finished it up the following week. I love using puff paint on my pages and projects and I think they were just the right touch for this.

The pictures I've saved since pre-school and I although I'm sure I have scrapbook pages for every one of them, I wanted a compilation mini album of all of them.

The cover (Cosmo Cricket Black Chipboard Album)

Embellishments are a bit of everything; Doodlebug, KI Memories, American Crafts and puff paints.



Preschool


K & 1st


2nd & 3rd


4th & 5th


6th & 7th


8th (photo is still in a frame in my office space, I'll add it next fall when I replace it with his 9th grade photo)


Thanks for letting me share my project!

April Fool's Day

With the temperature going to 86 degrees today, one would never think that today is only the 1st of April. It must be nature's idea of an April Fools Day joke. The last couple of days have been unusually warm. I'm not going to complain yet, but I don't like really warm weather so I hope things go back to a normal temperature. I don't want us to skip over spring.

With the weather as nice as it's been, I've been taking advantage of going for two walks while at work, a 15 minute walk in the morning and a 15 minute walk in the afternoon and I've been either at the gym or walking the trails after work. I'm happy to say that I'm done a few pounds more, but it is SLOW.

Last weekend I changed out the decor of the kitchen tree. It is now festooned for Easter.



Today I really pushed myself at the gym. Decided to stick with the treadmill for 40 minutes but continued to change up the incline from a starting position of 1% to 6% and then back down. I was sweating like a pig...lol

On the iPod playlist today in shuffle mode:

Space Truckin - Telsa
Second Chance - Shinedown
Second Hand - Bachman Turner Overdrive
This Ain't Goodbye - Train
Through Glass - Stone Sour
Get A Leg Up - John Mellencamp
Harder to Breathe - Maroon 5
Thorn in My Side - Bon Jovi
Sin with A Grin - Shinedown
No Souvenirs - Melissa Etheridge
Amazed - LoneStar

Really glad to see Friday...it's been a long and busy week!