My First Grandbaby

is a female Chinese pug and lives with Jessi in North Dakota. Yes, I have a granddog.

She doesn't have an official name yet, and I don't know how old she is, but she's just a baby. Jessi's already spoiling her - wouldn't take her outside this morning until she went to PetSmart to buy the dog a sweater. It was "chilly". Okay. I'm more a cat person, but she is a little bit cute.

Better Morning

It's a better morning today. I don't like that Jessi moved to North Dakota, but at least I'm not crying about it anymore. She's excited to live in a city (about the size of Lincoln) that offers more opportunities than we have around here, and has a job interview this afternoon. We will miss her terribly, and I'm already looking forward to when she comes home in a few weeks to get more of her stuff. :o)
In the meantime, I had these guys here last night. We had spaghetti for supper, and played outside awhile. Wyatt watched "Spiderman" videos on YouTube for awhile before bed, and even shared the headphones with Garett without being asked. Bedtime went fine, and Garett slept all night, not waking and crying for his Dinoco cars until almost five this morning. They just came out of the bedroom, and are already going gangbusters. :o)
Gracie should be going into surgery right about now to have her tonsils removed.

Ah, and a special treat this morning. I opened the shades in the sunroom to see this girl in the cherry tree. (I know she's a female since she doesn't have the red on her throat.) This was a wonderful start to my day.

Wyatt just brought me some "tea" with coffee and chocolate chips. Hmmm - yum?

My Broken Heart

My daughter moved away today.
Not just out of the house, but far, far away.
She took part of my heart with her.
I know she'll be fine. I know she'll be back.
I know I'm going to ache with missing her.

Green Thumb Sunday

Woke up to a little frost on the grass this morning. Spring comes, Spring goes. Sigh. The magnolia tree I showed you last week is looking a little ragged. I swept up a blanket of blossoms from the porch floor earlier. The ornamental cherry tree slowly bloomed this week, though. A week ago it barely had buds. Now look:

These guys finally bloomed after our warm weekend last week. I had a hard time getting a good photo, what with the wind and all...

I'm still waiting to see how many mums I lost with the long cold winter we had, and I'm not finding my lily of the valley at all. Not happy about that, but it makes me appreciate that much more what is growing and blooming.

Going green, Baby!

Don't you hate when you go to the grocery store and they ask "paper or plastic"? I do. Neither is the better choice. I always just sigh and say it doesn't matter. And I usually am given plastic. Then they collect for months until I think to grab them on my way out the door and take them for recycling or donation.
No more.
I used this tutorial to sew up this re-usable shopping bag. It took a couple of hours, but only because I had to stop and fix supper in the middle, and the oven wouldn't light, and we messed around for a long time with that. (Yeah, I have to call a repairman tomorrow. Ugh.) I'm thinking the next few bags will whip up in no time.
I used fabric from my "stash" - some of Jessi's denim-like green, and a lightweight yellow cotton for the lining. I've never sewn anything lined before, and am quite happy with how this came out. The instructions and photos were clear and easy to follow. The only change I made was to make the handles a few inches longer, and I didn't put quilt batting in them. The next bags will be made about six inches wider so they'll hold a little more.
This is a small step toward living a "greener" lifestyle, but an important one, I think. Now I need to remember to take them into the store with me. :o)

Green Thumb Sunday

This is the magnolia tree that burst into bloom the past few days. Today is supposed to be pretty windy, so it'll look a bit worse for the wear tomorrow, I'm sure. (Photo taken yesterday, just before the Christmas lights came down.)

The flowers are fragrant, but you have to put your nose right up in them to smell it. Kind of a sweet soapy smell - just lovely. Go ahead, give it a good whiff. :o)

I think I've told you before that this tree was a birthday gift many years ago from Sara and Hannah - just a stick when I got it, and it has been one of the best presents ever. :o)

P.S.

(I found GTS on this gardening blog, and I wanted to join the blogroll, but so far haven't figured it out. So I'm just going ahead and posting plant photos on Sundays for my own little GTS party. :o) Yes, I borrowed the button, but I'm linking the blog so you can get the info for yourself if interested.)

The Un-decking of the Halls?

So with the PERFECT Spring afternoon happening on the Great Plains, it was time to get those aforementioned holiday lights taken off the roof.


Jessi was home today, and jumped at the chance to join Greg on top of the house to remove them. Getting up there was the easy part. She had some tense moments getting on the ladder to go back down. Her daddy was so patient and encouraging, talking to her calmly and keeping her from panic. Me, I was all with her and being afraid to get back on that ladder, and I did assure her it would be okay, but at the same time, I was snapping photos. :o)

Heading up top:

She made it up...

"Hi Mom!"

Yeah, it's HOT!

Here is the last strand...

Just give me a minute (as she takes a deep breath)

Whew! Coming down was harder than going up! Everyone got down safely and the holidays are put away so we can enjoy the Springtime now. The PERFECT Springtime!

Show and Tell Friday

I can't believe it's been so long since I did a "Show & Tell Friday" post!

Things have been so busy on recent Fridays, between my jobs, and moving Jessica back to our house (I'll explain in another post at another time), and it seemed like Fridays were over before I got to enjoy them.

Today was busy, too, but I promised myself to do a post, so here we are. If you want to see what everyone is showing & telling about, check out Kelli's blog here.

Awhile back I was reading a blog (sorry, don't remember which one) and the woman was talking about using typography and words in her decorating. I thought, "I do that, too!". I started looking around the house, and here is what I found: "imagine" is painted on the playroom wall, along with several other words like "discover", "build", "play", etc.

The "kitchen" sign is obviously in the kitchen. It's a tin sign I found at Hobby Lobby right about the time we painted the kitchen red.

"Joy comes in the Morning" is a Bible verse (Psalms 30:5), and that hangs in the main bathroom. The colorful Mary Engelbreit poster, "Books fall open, we fall in" is in the playroom. I think that makes reading sound so adventuresome!

Another sign from the kitchen reads "Be careful how you address the Queen". It was a gift to me from one of my Area Managers when I was Supervisor at Head Start. They used to call me the "Head Start Queen".

Lastly is a sweet little sign that Jessi gave me for Christmas, "The best things in life are not things...". That currently hangs in the living room.

I'd like to have more words around me in my home, and have a couple of things planned. Stop back in the next couple of weeks and see what I've added!

Finally

The magnolia tree is blooming. That means Spring is staying. Yes.

But wait. What is wrong with this picture?

Anyone? Anyone?

Yeah, we're still decorated for THE HOLIDAYS. Oh Gregory....!

A Great Way to Spend the Afternoon

It is a gray and chilly day, and the weather forecast is even more bleak. I think Max and Tucker have the right idea...Oops, sorry Tuck! Go on back to sleep and I'll put away the camera.

And that's what he did.