2017 Project 365 – Week Seventeen

This week is all about baby birds. I can’t believe we just saw our Eastern Phoebes for the first time last Friday & now they’ve already fledged & gone. But don’t worry – we got plenty of photos of them.

Sunday, April 23^rd

Sunday was a miserable day – it poured BUCKETS all day & I was out & about for most of it. On my way home from church I saw this vanity plate. I asked my Facebook people if they thought that it referred to the weather or the person driving the truck.

Later that day I went to a concert. My dad & Sue belong to a community chorus & they had the first of several performances today. They did great – and looked great!

Monday, April 24^th            

The aforementioned buckets of rain caused the South Fork River to run over its banks.

Tuesday, April 25^th                              

Babies!

Wednesday, April 26^th                    

Our white oak tree out back. We love this tree.

Something I read on someone’s blog caused me to take pictures of our refrigerator. It’s rather busy.

Thursday, April 27^th                      

This was the only picture I took this day – to remind me of what size air filter to get at the store. Ha!

Friday, April 28^th        

We have Indigo Buntings hanging out at our feeder! We’re pretty excited.

More babies…

Saturday, April 29^th           

The State of the Bug - I finished the project that I made with the yarn that followed me home a couple of weeks ago. I really like it – but didn’t realize at the time that the yarn is 20% wool, so now I need to make another one out of a NON-wool yarn to wear this summer. (Pattern is here for crochet folk who are interested - it's pretty easy.)

And this is the picture that caps off the week. Baby birds are just so hilarious to me.

That was my week – how was yours?

Blink Blink Like a Skink

It's all Catalyst's fault. He sent this video to Dr. M the other week & we can't get it out of our heads. I'm warning you, if you want to remain earworm free, do NOT watch it!

Actually, do go ahead & watch it - it's hilarious. 

Anyway, we've been making up our own lyrics to it, and now skinks have entered the picture.

Blink Blink like a Skink!

We might get over it someday, but I don't think it will be soon!

2017 Project 365 – Week Sixteen

I accomplished a major goal yesterday – I excavated the piano so that I could actually sit down and play the unfamiliar hymn that we were going to sing at the nursing home today. I was pretty pleased with myself. Of course, some of the excavating was just taking boxes and putting them under chairs, so I do still have to empty them. However, my post this week isn’t really about any of that.

Sunday, April 16^th         

Easter! I enjoyed singing the good old Easter hymns at the nursing home & then singing some new ones at the church I’ve been attending. Then I went to lunch at my uncle & aunt’s house. One of my great joys in moving back to NC is getting to spend time with my cousin Kim. We basically grew up together, went to college together, went to seminary – she introduced me to Dr. M. She will probably kill me for posting this, but it shows her personality pretty well. 

(Note: the video works on my computer, but not my mobile devices, so here is a picture of the end of her twirl.) 

Here is the whole crew. My uncle & aunt had three girls, and there are seven grandchildren. And their yard is full of gorgeous azaleas right now!

Monday, April 17^th            

The other thing I excavated was my gazelle! Before we moved I had been talking about graduating to a treadmill, which would give more of a workout. But the move was hard on my hip, and I haven’t been walking regularly, so I’m back to basics again for a while. I’m happy to report that I actually got more than 10,000 steps on two days.

Tuesday, April 18^th                              

Sunday & Monday were warmer than it has been, so it was my first opportunity to use the color for the 70s temperature range in my scarf. Oh man – that green was hurting my eyes! It just seemed so jarring & not in keeping with the rest of the color palette. So I switched it out. Not sure I like the new color very much either, but it’s at least a little less shocking.

Wednesday, April 19^th                    

Dinner. (That’s Dr. M’s plate – I don’t do coleslaw.)

Charlie Horse – he’s living in front of the fireplace for the summer. We had to replace his Santa hat with something a little more seasonable. (You might recall that Dr. M's father made him.)

Thursday, April 20^th                      

Dr. M looked out today & saw a squirrel on the suet feeder. What the heck little dude – I don’t think you can actually get any food out of there!

I mowed the yard & had been inside for about 10 minutes when the deluge struck. This is the season of afternoon rainstorms – I was lucky to get the yard mowed at all!

Friday, April 21^st       

Squee! We have baby birds! Our Eastern Phoebes have hatched. Also, we have a lot of these guys hanging around – five lined skinks!

We went to BurgerFi again tonight. I got the veggie burger again. I love those things. Dr. M got the Conflicted Burger – it has a veggie patty & a regular hamburger patty on it. He also ordered the Cry & Fry, which came with these huge onion rings! I only ate one of them – that was practically a meal all on its own. So, the State of the Bug – about to eat an onion ring (almost) as big as my head.

Saturday, April 22^nd          

Flowers in the yard.

During the aforementioned piano excavation, I found this! I had totally forgotten about it. It was a gift from Dr. M’s mom. You know, she also gave us a couple of collectable dolls – I need to set up a tea party. Ha!

I can’t believe it’s Sunday evening & that another work week is about to start. My commute is a killer – shuffling through the living room back to my office.  Do you have any big plans this week?

2017 Project 365 – Week fifteen

I am SO SLEEPY right now that I cannot guarantee that the following post will make any sense. We spent today roaming around the mountains like we used to do back in the day, and as usually happens when I spend any time in a warm moving car on a sunshiny day, I got so sleepy. I was foiled in my attempt to nap on the way home by the fact that I was driving. Humph!

Sunday, April 9^th         

Let’s start the week off with the State of the Bug. Which is… I’m not actually sure what’s going on here. Dressed up for church? Checking for stray chin hair? Who knows!

Monday, April 10^th            

I thought the little tomatoes I got at the grocery store were so pretty that I had to take a picture.

I mowed after work. I decided that the front yard exercise route looked like a woman with wild red hair wearing a mask & eating a grape. Ha! That evening I used the giant tub for the first (and possibly last?) time. It ran out of hot water before it was half full. I did enjoy my soak though.

Tuesday, April 11^th                              

The moon! By the way, the Moon Man has a new post over on his blog. Check it out!

Wednesday, April 12^th                    

I went to get a library card today & was tickled to see Hog Hill Pottery in the display case in the lobby! My cousin Scottie & her husband John do such good work.

Thursday, April 13^th                      

Date night on a Thursday – watched Iron Man. Robert Downey Jr. is hilarious in this movie.

Friday, April 14^th      

OK, we had date night again on Friday. Went out to get a burger (BurgerFi veggie burger – so good!), picked up a few things at Target, then I ran into Michael’s to get some yarn for a baby shower gift. Somehow I ended up bringing this yarn home too. I don’t know how it happened, because I wasn’t supposed to be buying new yarn, right?

Saturday, April 15^th         

As mentioned previously, we rambled in the mountains today, driving up to Mt. Mitchell. I was laughing at the road we were on – Holy Hairpin Batman! It was a lovely day.

We stopped for dinner on the way home. I had seaweed salad, sushi, and sugar donuts (yes, three out of these four pictures were MY food). I didn’t actually eat it all.

Now I’m watching Braves baseball & contemplating the leftover donuts in the fridge. How was your week?

2017 Project 365 – Week fourteen

I think that we’ve finally gotten into the swing of taking pictures around here (except for a couple of days), which means that once again, this weekly post will be ridiculous.

Sunday, April 2^nd        

Speaking of ridiculous, I FINALLY got pictures of the completed Temperature Monster. Sheesh.

Meanwhile, we’ve got an Eastern Phoebe nesting on the security light in our carport!

Plus, this. It was a banner day at The Bug Homestead.

Monday, April 3^rd           

Rainy Monday, unsuccessful trip to get the Bugly’s NC license plate, but these guys make us laugh every time we pass them. Goats are hilarious.

After my grandmother died I said that I wanted her china (oldest granddaughter’s prerogative), but I didn’t have anywhere for it to live. I finally got it from my dad’s house, washed it, and decided that my next cousin in line should have it. She probably wishes I had made that decision years ago! Isn’t it pretty though?

Tuesday, April 4^th                              

I FORGOT TO TAKE A PICTURE!! So, you get this screen shot of my word game. Can you guess what the remaining two words are? Note: You can’t actually make the two words with this configuration – I had to restart the game & pick the letters for the other words in a different way to make it work, which is why I did the screen shot in case I forgot the words I had already found.

Wednesday, April 5^th                    

I almost didn’t have a picture for this day either, but fortunately someone posted on Facebook about how gnomes make her think of me, and so I had to take a picture of our current gnome.

Thursday, April 6^th                      

One of my cousins brought her two girls for a visit – so sweet! The older one is SO SMART – it’s kind of scary. Ha!

I decided to reinstitute my State of the Bug feature that I had going a while back. So, the State of the Bug: Thinking that Christmas jammies in April didn’t seem as big a deal in Ohio. And apparently unable to shut up talking about it long enough to take a picture.

Friday, April 7^th      

The usual scene the back yard. Also, you’ll be glad to know that at long last, the Bugly is a NC resident.

Saturday, April 8^th         

We went to spend some time with Dr. M’s dad. His azalea bush is gorgeous! Taller than I am! And he has a lovely dogwood in the back yard. I do believe I really am in NC now.

Ohio has license plates in the front and back of cars, but NC only has the back ones. Daisy felt nekkid, so I got her a fashion accessory. Ha!

Yesterday was my sister-in-law’s birthday & she had to celebrate alone with a sick teenager (my brother did send her flowers, so he’s somewhat redeemed – he was out of town). I felt bad, so I brought her some make-up cupcakes. The 9 is because my phone told me she was 9 (I apparently entered her birthday in 2008). See that empty space? That’s where the cupcake was that I ate on the way to her house – a Cadbury Egg Cupcake. O. M. G.

And while I was out gallivanting, Dr. M got to see bunnies in the back yard!

How was your week?

The Bug Estate

The other day I walked around the house & took pictures of all the areas where I want to plant things. They're rather scruffy right now - we thought we'd see what (if anything) comes up before we plant anything & apparently what comes up are weeds. I thought it would be really cool to show you all of our weedy potential flower beds.

 Around back, we do have something coming up. We're just not sure what it is yet.

Any suggestions on what to plant? All of these areas get full sun for most of the day. Do you think, if I work very hard (not likely), I can make my yard look like this?

One of my recent jigsaw puzzles

I also thought it would be fun to compare where we used to live to where we live now - big difference! Although, to be fair, just outside of Xenia, our area of Ohio looked very similar to that picture on the right.

(Note: have you guys noticed that I've been trying to respond to your comments? I know, I've tried before, but maybe this time I'll actually keep it up.)