This And That...

Thank you to all my sweet blogging friends for the birthday comments last week!  I had a very nice birthday and the weekend was great, too, in spite of the weather which was rather chilly and cloudy.  More rain came in yesterday.

My hubby and I hopped into the car Saturday for a day trip.  I had planned on a different drive, but because the light wasn't cooperating for any photo ops that I might encounter, we just drove to our nearest big city which is Columbia.  We ended up taking a slightly different route than we usually take.  As we were motoring along and talking, my eyes were always on the alert, of course.  Suddenly, I saw a very, very large bird atop a tree and we screeched to a halt, after a quick check in the rear view mirror.  Could it be?  I quickly zoomed in and saw that it was indeed a Bald Eagle!!  I was so excited that I could barely hold the camera still and it's not a very sharp photo since the zoom was extended as far as it would go and the light was poor.   Good shot, bad shot, it didn't matter...seeing this Bald Eagle made a great start to my day and I was glad that we had changed our plans after all!

One of our first stops was for lunch at the 63 Diner, a favorite of ours.  Elvis serenaded us, along with other artists from the 50's and 60's.  I always have to have an old-fashioned cherry coke with my meal. 

 

Next stop was at my favorite antique mall, Artichoke Annie's.  I think we must have spent 2 hours there!  We also stopped in for some browsing at The Veranda which is just down the Interstate from Annie's.  

 

I love roosters and chickens and quilts.  So when I spied this little cross-stitched number with all 3, I just couldn't resist taking it home.  It looks better in person than it does in this photo!  

I also love vintage linens and was happy to find this tablecloth in colors that I love.  It was in great condition without any tears or glaring stains that many seem to have.  It also came home with me along with a few old red and white crocheted pot holders of which I have a small collection. 

Before we headed home, we stopped in at Lowe's and browsed around.  We were surprised that they didn't have more items out in the garden center yet.  I know it's a bit early for many plants, but other gardening/yard items were a bit scarce, I thought.  Inside, I did find a new floor lamp that I wanted.  The photo above is not in my house, it's the front of the box.  I hope it works out for the spot I have in mind for it, I haven't put it together yet.  That's on the agenda today.  

Also on my agenda today is catching up with blog reading.  I miss blogging when I'm away for a few days and it takes a while to catch up, but I'll get there!  Did you have a good weekend?  And do you have anything special on your agenda for today?

Have a wonderful day!
Until next time...

Another Year Older Coming Up

This little girl was bright-eyed and full of wonder on her first day of school with her new satchel filled with a Big Chief tablet, a new box of crayons and a pencil box filled with brand new pencils.  She was so happy that when she was called with her class to sit at a table in front of the other students that she promptly started whistling.  Her mother hadn't explained to her that whistling wasn't allowed in school, but the teacher was happy to tell her.  Her enthusiasm was dampened a bit, but she soon knuckled down to the business of learning.  And did she have a lot to learn.  I'm sure you've guessed by now that the little girl in this photo is yours truly!   

I normally don't like to post photos of myself, or of my family for that matter, for privacy reasons.  However, since I have a birthday tomorrow and since I'm really scraping the bottom of the proverbial barrel to come up with a post idea, I decided to go digging into my old photos.

Fast forward around 11 or 12 years and here I am in my senior photo.  The years seemed to go too slowly for me once I entered the teen years.  I was so anxious to be "grown up" and on my own.  Isn't that the way it is for most young people?  We couldn't wait to be 13 and called a teenager, then the magic number 16 would be a Big Event because we could get our driver's license.  Then, just a couple of years after that we would Graduate!!  We thought we were so mature.    

Well, here I am about 50 years later and I finally know what being mature really is all about!  Don't they say that age is a state of mind?  In my mind, I'm just not as old as my birth certificate says I am.  I remember when my 80-something dad would refer to people younger than he was as "those old people".  He was young at heart almost right up to the end.  I plan to be, too.  





If you've added it all up, then you'll know I'm going to be 67 tomorrow.    Tomorrow morning, I'm picking up my aunt, also young at heart at age 86, who has a doctor appointment, and we will then go to lunch at our favorite place and then go by our favorite shop.  Hubby is taking me out to dinner over the weekend.  There will be some antiquing/flea marketing squeezed in there somewhere, too.   As I will be busy the next day or two, I'll not be blogging Thursday and possibly not until next week.  But, I'll be thinking of you all while I'm celebrating!  See you soon.

Until next time...  

Barn Charm

I love the old, rustic barns that dot the rural landscape, but you just can't escape the fact that the newer metal sided barns are popping up everywhere to take their place.  In fact, they've been around quite some time now.  So today's offering for Barn Charm is one of the better looking (to me) newer barns.  There is another identical barn nearby that you can just see a corner of on the right side of the photo.  This shot was a driveby taken between our two snow storms around the last week of Feb.

If you love barns like I do, you'll find some wonderful photos of them at Bluff Area Daily's
Barn Charm. 

Thanks for stopping by!
Until next time...

Hoping For A Better Week...

It was just one of those weeks.  First of all, the kitties were into everything.  There's Stormy trying to tell me that she didn't knock the towel off on the floor...that Peanut did it.  Yes, she talks to me and understands what I tell her.  Too bad that Peanut hasn't learned what "no" means yet. 

Peanut is also responsible for the throw rug in the kitchen being messed up.  Not Truman.  He's a pretty laid-back kinda guy and he doesn't bother much.  Peanut thinks anything that is not nailed down is there for her to play with.

See that poor plant above?  Peanut jumped up into the midst of photos and knickknacks to tackle the plant.  Which came tumbling down on the carpet below.  She loves to mess with my plants.

I'm glad the photo is a bit dark so you won't notice the dust.  On top of having so much fun picking up after Peanut, we had our water off for a good part of 2 days and were under a boil order for most of 4 days.  That was a good excuse for me not to clean house.

I have begun to think about gardening and planning some new flower beds, so I picked up a gardening book at a flea market that looked interesting.  Gladys Taber is a favorite author of mine.   I love how she tells about her life at Stillmeadow.  She loved nature, the country life, gardening and her pets.  She also loved to cook and often told how she made a particular dish.  

Being under the weather. with battling BPPV for several days. and under a boil order both gave me a good excuse to just relax in the recliner and read.  Except I really didn't feel like reading too much at a time. 

I'm still keeping an eye out for the birds, in particular the Red-Headed Woodpecker.  Here is another SOOC shot that I couldn't resist taking and showing.  Isn't he a pretty boy?  Looks like he got his feathers a little ruffled about something.  It was a bit windy.

The weather warmed up over the weekend and we had rain begin late Saturday night and into Sunday.  Our pond is as full as it can be with much water going out the spillway.  As you might expect, a lot of the snow is now gone.  I do hope that is the last of it, but there are still patches left and my dad always said that it was hanging around waiting for the next snow.  I hope not.  We're ready for Spring.   

Happy Monday to you!

Until next time...

My Friday Favorite...and a question

This tole-painted old bread box is a favorite that I've had for many, many years.  I love chickens and roosters and it fit into my kitchen color scheme back then when I was into my earth-tones phase.  Then, when I went through my country blue and mauve phase, it just didn't fit in so I put it in the closet where it made a good storage box for old letters and cards that I wanted to save.  A few years ago, I we painted our kitchen Barn Red and I thought it was time to bring out the bread box again.  It got a few dings and dents along the way, but I think it's held up fairly well for an oldie.  Kinda like it's owner.

Speaking of bread, I have a question.  Do you use a bread machine?  If so, would you happen to know anything about a Magic Chef machine?  I found one at a flea market the other day and it looked to be in perfect condition and the asking price was just under 20 dollars.  I really don't have room for one, but I've always wanted a bread machine as I never got the hang of making it the old-fashioned way.  If you think this is a good deal, let me know!  Of course, I realize it may not still be there when and if I go back to get it.

Enjoy your day and have a happy weekend!

Until next time...

What I've Been Watching...and Snapping

It's been so much fun backyard bird watching this winter.  I put this little collection of my photos from the past week in this collage.  In no particular order, there are 4 different woodpeckers...a Red-Headed Woodpecker, Red-bellied Woodpecker and a Downy Woodpecker (male and female).  Four different kinds of sparrows are in this group...a White-throated Sparrow, Dark-eyed Junco, White-crowned Sparrow and a sparrow I haven't been able to identify.  He's on the bottom row, second from the right, and is probably a Song Sparrow, but the solid dark head is odd.  I showed an American Tree Sparrow yesterday.  Also included, Cardinals (male and female), House Finch, Blue Jay, Mourning Dove, Gold Finch, White-breasted Nuthatch and a Starling.  I'm sure these birds will make an appearance again from time to time in my posts but one, or a few, at a time.

The photo on the left above was taken over the weekend.  The next photo taken this morning shows the snow is melting.  Yay!  Now I need to think about what I'm going to show for tomorrow's Friday Favorite.  Isn't this week going by fast?  Have a happy day!

Until next time...

Wordless Wednesday

 

~American Tree Sparrow~

Until next time...

Barn Charm

This red barn was snapped in between our 2 snow storms and the sky was 

overcast that day, so I brightened the photo a bit.  Below is the same

 barn from a little different angle.  

We still have plenty of snow on the ground, but it's

 beginning to melt with the warmer temps.

Be sure to visit Barn Charm

to see many different barns around the country.

Thanks for stopping by!

Until next time...

For The Birds

The weekend was pretty quiet for us.  Hubby was catching up on some much needed sleep after working such long hours helping to restore power in our county.  So, I chose a quiet activity by picking up my camera and heading to my window overlooking the back where I feed the birds. 

I had decided to quit putting out suet because it was just attracting the starlings like crazy, so I doubled up on cracked corn with some sunflower seeds mixed in.  The birds were really out in full force the last couple of days and I was delighted to see a couple of Red Headed Woodpeckers in the mix.  They are my very favorite woodpecker.  I love the bold red, white and black colors.  Did you know that they are also referred to as a "flying checkerboard"? 

It was cloudy for most of the shots above and my windows are still dirty, but I was thrilled to get a chance to snap this beauty. 

He seems to be looking right at me in this photo.  Actually he did fly away several times when he saw me get close to the window and I had to be as quick as I could with my slow camera to even get a shot.  Like most birds, he wouldn't sit still for long.  I call him "he" but he might be a "she" as they both look alike.  That was a little tidbit I learned when I bought my first bird book long ago.  

The Red Headed Woodpecker population has severely declined in the past half century due to habitat loss and changes in their food supply.  I will do what I can to keep food out for these little beauties and for all of my feathered friends, especially during the cold, winter months.  Hope your weekend was a good one.  Happy Monday to you!

Until next time...

Friday Favorites

It's Friday!  Did you ever listen to Paul Harvey on the radio?  I always loved hearing those words "Hello, Americans, it's Friday!" at the beginning of his Friday broadcasts.  He was my favorite newscaster and I listened to him for years.   

Today's Friday Favorite from the past  is the old copper boiler in the photo above.  Stormy had to get herself in the picture, but I think you can see enough of the boiler to tell what it looks like.  I had to dump the magazines out and move it to a spot where the light was good enough to get a shot.  The lighting in my house is never very good for photos.  

My dad gave me many things, but he was never one to go to a store to pick out a gift for any of us.  Many years ago, he came by my house and brought me the copper boiler that he had bought at a farm auction.  He loved to go to estate/farm sales and often found a very good bargain.  I was the very happy recipient of this bargain!  It's great to put magazines and books in and it's one of my favorite things that my dad gave me.  

Dad's birthday was on March 2 and he would have been 100 years old tomorrow, so I thought it was fitting to share a favorite treasure from the past that he had given me.  

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

The snow just can't seem to completely stop falling.  We have had a few flurries each day since the second 12 inch snow that fell Tuesday.  My lineman hubby has been working very long hours helping to restore power to the rural areas.  A couple of nights he got in around 2:30 am and was back to work at 7 am the next morning.  He actually got in at 11:30 last night and went in again at 7 this morning.  He told me that about all they had left to get hooked back up were some individual outages.

Most of the people are very grateful for all the hard work the lineman do in this bad weather.  But, there's always a few who have to get mad and say stupid things.  They just don't have any idea what these men have to do to get the job done and in difficult weather conditions and on very little sleep.  One man posted on Facebook that "if the linemen would quit sitting on their butts in their trucks and actually work, then maybe the power would get restored sooner."  

Well, fella, just in case that was my hubby you saw "sitting on his butt doing nothing", he didn't have his usual bucket truck but was in a lighter truck and had seen a downed wire that was also a hot wire, meaning energized, and was watching to make sure no one got into it and got electrocuted.  He was also waiting on a bucket truck to come so that particular line could get rehung.   I know all this because he took the opportunity while waiting to call me to check in and see how things were at home.  

Sorry, I had to get that off my chest.  As I said, most folks are grateful for the linemen who work long hours in less than ideal conditions to get power restored.  They know how badly people want power.  Some of the linemen live in the country themselves, so they know what it's like to not have power, too.  We have had other co-ops send crews to help out, it's been that bad.   

Hope your weekend is a good one.  I know someone who will probably want to sleep the entire weekend! 

Until next time...