Holiday photo shoot

Last week, we took time to have a little

holiday photo shoot at our home.

Hope you are able to take time and enjoy

the friends and family in your life.

This cracks me up!

Goofballs

Do you have a friend that you can just be your

goofball self around?

That would be myself and Sheri last night at

TJ Maxx in Branson trying on winter hats….

I actually bought the one I had on, plus one more.

We shut down TJ Maxx at 10pm and then headed

to Target to get Kenny more Christmas lights that they

are out of at our Target store. (We shut down Target

at 11pm)

We both laughed that it was the latest either of us

had stayed out in quite a while.

I LOVE hats, and even after going through my

winter hat collection the other night, I thought I

had room for a few more……yes, last night,

2 hats AND a furry headband! Can’t wait for the

weather to get a little chillier so I can start wearing them!

Here is another “goofball” picture.

Me and “the boys”….they were both piled on

my lap and this is the best picture I could get.

My arms just aren’t long enough to get all

of us in the picture any better than that!

So what were we doing in Branson? I mean, we have

our own TJMaxx right here in Springfield?!

It was the “Farmgirl Sisters Cottage Christmas” sale.

This is the first time we’d been.  They have a sale 3 times a year.

Wow, was it fun!

I’m still in “liquidation” mode, but I did pick up some embroidered

flour sack towels to use around the kitchen.

Sheri made a much larger haul than I did!

Stamps, spice rack, easel, and I can’t remember

what else!

Love the old lampshade with the paper butterflies!

I have been hooking, just a teeny bit, but recently

I’ve found myself pulled in different directions.

A few things that have my attention right now…

Opened up an account so I can “play” the stock

market…..haven’t made any purchases, but have

had fun researching different companies.  This is

something that I’ve wanted to do for a long time

and I’m loving the “learning” side of it.

I’ve really let my healthy eating slide over the past

few months and I felt like I needed to do something

“different” to shake things up, so I signed up for

“Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle” a few days ago.

I’m still working on reading through the plan and working

on my own plan…..made up my meal plan this morning

and will head to the gym in just a bit.

Hate going, but like it once I get there!

I’ve also been looking at cars….Volkswagen

Eos hardtop convertible is at the top of my list.

Looking for a used one at a good price.

Wouldn’t the hounds be “stylin” with their

ears flapping in the breeze next to me?!

Everyday life

Brrrrr….it’s chilly here this morning, but even with the

chilliness, Kenny’s camellia in the backyard has bloomed…

and he was afraid it wouldn’t bloom here in Missouri,

since it is more of a southern plant.  So nice to have

a bright surprise in the backyard!

I got up this morning to take Buzzbee to the vet

to have his ears checked out….yet again….

He has had treatment for yeast ear infection 3 times

since we’ve adopted him….it’s been hard to get rid of.

So I got Lonnie and Buzzbee all loaded up in the car

this morning…

(Lonnie LOVES to go to the vet and doesn’t like to

be left behind) and pulled out of the garage and

thought to myself “something doesn’t feel right”….

well, I got out and I was right…..

flat tire…..ah man!

I proceeded to unload the dogs one at a time and get

them loaded into the pick-up truck and off we went.

Buzzbee still had a few yeast buds in his ears, but

he’s now on a weekly ear treatment, to hopefully

keep it under control.

All of these pictures of the dogs were taken

the day after Thanksgiving. I was tooling around the

house, doing laundry, taking down decorations,

and so forth.

I noticed that the dogs had been really quiet….

sure enough…they were passed out.

Lonnie prefers to sleep on my side of the bed in

the sunbeam where he can look out the windows.

Buzzbee had dug the blankets back to try and bury

his new favorite toy, “The Beaver”

Hey Buzzbee, we can still see him!

I should totally document all of the places where he

has tried to hide “The Beaver”….it reminds me of this

commercial.

A plate full

This year for Thanksgiving, everyone got to have their

own turkey platter to eat from.

It was fun to see what everyone picked.

Did they pick by design?

Or by how big they thought their appetite was?

 

I never could get cousin Marcus to pick a plate…

he just stopped by to say hi, meet Buzzbee

and have a little libation.

Such a fun day spent with friends and family.

Of course we had way too much food!

However, we all had such a great time together.

The dogs loved all of the attention

they got all day.

Can dogs go into a turkey coma like people do?

Lonnie says YES!

They were certainly sad to see everyone go.

Hope you had a full plate for your Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving

 

This is my mantra for today….

I have so many things coming in and out of

the oven at different times, that I have a chart.

So thankful for this bounty I have to juggle,

as I know there are many who are not as

fortunate.

Facelift

I guess it was over a month ago, that Dulcy and I went to the

FM Store to look at fabric

for me to slipcover a computer chair in our

spare room.  The chair was functional, but the upholstery had gotten grimy

and no amount of cleaning seemed to help.

I’ve had the fabric lying around in my hooking room and I’d just been

waiting for a weekend where I had the time and inclination

to get started on the project…..inclination, being the key word here.

I’m not a sewer by nature, but I’m always up to a challenge.

After all, I did make these slipcovers for our barstools this summer….

Those were challenging because of the curved backs….

now on the office chair I have arms to contend with.

I started off with the easy part….the front and back….

so far so good!

Can’t wait to show you the finished chair…..

stay tuned!

It’s Saturday!

I’ve sooooo been looking forward to the weekend…..

I have nothing planned and nothing that I HAVE to

do.

I’m hoping to work on another slipcover project that

I keep putting off…..I’d like to have it finished

BEFORE Thanksgiving, so I guess that means I’d best

get with it THIS weekend…..looking forward to it!

It’s here!

Look what came in

the mail this weekend….

I think I’ll let the dogs entertain themselves,

while I look through it!

 

In this video, you can see the boys

playing with their new raccoon toy that

Sheri brought over.  It’s still intact!

Fun while it lasted

Thursday night, Sheri brought Lonnie and Buzzbee

new toys.  A cute bear that had a plastic water bottle

inside that made a great crunching sound when they

played with it and a raccoon that has a squeaker.

Well, they love….or should I say, loved, their new toys.

The bear only lasted a day….this is what it looked like

when I got home from work on Friday…..

decapitated…..

oh well, it was fun while it lasted.

Reminder

You Don’t Own Me

"You Don't Own Me" PSA from You Don't Own Me on Vimeo.

 

Are your birth control rights really endangered?

By Gretchen Voss

You're probably one of the 99 percenters. Meaning, one of the 99 percent of American women who are or have been sexually active and have used some sort of birth control.

Maybe it's daily pills or monthly shots or some other form of pregnancy prevention. Maybe you already have all the kids you want, or you're waiting until you're ready to have a baby, or you've decided you'll never be ready. And perhaps your contraceptive of choice also eases a medical problem—whether it's painful endometriosis or scary ovarian cysts or disabling pelvic cramps—or helps stave off a new one, such as ovarian or uterine cancer. When it comes to controlling your reproductive health and destiny, birth control has always been there for you and always will be, right?

In a word, no. Because today, there's a national discourse raging around access to birth control—40 years after the Supreme Court legalized contraception for all women, irrespective of marital status, and five decades after the birth-control pill's introduction. And while fringy far-right extremists have always blasted away at contraceptive use, they have now infiltrated the mainstream—in the form of Tea Party Republicans and GOP presidential candidates. "It is shocking to see the vehemence of the attacks on contraception that we are facing these days," says Marcia Greenberger, copresident of the National Women's Law Center.

All of this has left young women around the country fretting about what a conservative-crafted future would mean for them. Take Chris Mascaro, a 29-year-old graphic designer in Rockford, Michigan, who earns $35,000 a year working for an employer who doesn't offer health coverage. Rent, student loans, groceries . . . they gobble up her paycheck, leaving nothing—certainly not the more than $150 she would need to pay a private ob-gyn for a Depo-Provera shot, which she has used in the past not only to help her put off having kids until she can afford them but also to treat her debilitating and painful endometriosis. Thankfully, she had access to a Planned Parenthood clinic, where she paid $59 to cover this basic health need. But she worries, constantly, that women's health programs will lose their funding and shut down.

Her fear is well founded. Some of the recent attacks launched by staunch conservatives are chillingly retro and misogynistic: Rick Santorum's financial backer pining for the days when a woman stuck an aspirin between her knees to avoid pregnancy; a GOP legislator in New Hampshire, Lynne Blankenbeker, proposing that married—married!—couples could practice abstinence unless they want to conceive; a panel of all-male House Republican legislators and religious leaders debating contraceptive coverage at a House Committee meeting; conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh going on a three-day on-air tirade against law student Sandra Fluke, calling her a slut and a prostitute for speaking up in favor of birth-control coverage. And, particularly scary for Chris, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney pledging to defund Planned Parenthood if elected. Also out of luck if Romney wins: the one in five women in the U.S. who have received basic health care and disease screenings at one of Planned Parenthood's more than 800 clinics.

(This is a 5 page article….to read more, follow the link below)

Read more at Women's Health: http://www.womenshealthmag.com/health/birth-control-rights#ixzz2BRn0uRIw

Another kind of beautiful

It’s quite easy to go outside and get beautiful

pictures from the garden when everything

is blooming and the colors are vivid and rich.

 

I walked around and around with my camera, trying

to decide what to capture and share with you.

I swear, there is NOTHING blooming in the garden

right now! Nothing!

Trying to capture the beauty of the garden

in the fall is much more challenging.

I found myself searching for texture more than color.

This Japanese maple is one of the more beautiful

trees in the garden at the moment. It’s thread-like

leaves painted various colors of green, yellow,

and shades of red.

The weathered wood of the butterfly house…

The lumpy, bumpy hedge apples on the bird/squirrel

feeder….

Stacks of clay pots and rusty garden tools…

Fenway Park ivy climbing up the stone chimney…

Yes, fall is beautiful, just another kind of beautiful.