Christmas 2016

Munchkin & Tomcat

Sherman's Lagoon - December 25 2016

Christmas Cookie Party 2016

I hosted the Cookie Party for the first time ever today. I was trying to figure it out exactly, we've been meeting for over 20 years - probably closer to 25. January will be 30 years since I moved to Bellingham.

Today was kind of perfect because it was snowing almost the whole time, it was so pretty. I moved in here April 1st, and I like it a lot - my little house feels like a cabin in the woods. Good times. Good times.

Claymation Short Film by Alexander Unger

Saw this on This is Colossal.com yesterday, enjoy!

Happy Thanksgiving 2016

Just a short post to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving on this blustery day here in the great Pacific Northwest ☺ I have been invited to dinner at my friend Marisa's home with her husband Dominic and assorted friends and family members. Mom's pumpkin pie is ready to go.

I took the video of Boo yesterday, the cats are doing well, and I am trying to slowly gear up for Christmas. I am hosting the Cookie Party for the first time this year, and I want it to be nice.

This Mutts comic strip is the story of my life ☺

Mutts - November 22 2016

Happy Thanksgiving!

#He's Not My President

Mike Luckovich - November 4, 2016

Needless to say anyone that knows me, knows that I did not vote for the #orangepresident - and I am now feeling alienated from those that did, because I am left with no other conclusion than that they have just as much hate in their hearts as he does.

I had originally meant to write a post before the election, not that I thought I would change anyone's mind. Writing it now is because I am part of the over half of the country that voted for Hillary Clinton because she was the best candidate for the job. I didn't cry on election night, but I did have to turn off the TV because I could see she was losing, and it was a gut punch and surreal.

There was a very good opinion piece on The Detroit Free Press today from Brian Dickerson that hit on several things that I have felt this past week. One is that I feel like I'm going to be in mourning for the next four years. The second was that I could not understand how the same people that voted for Trump would not want him at their dinner table. But that was my problem, I kept trying to use logic through this whole election, and unfortunately his supporters weren't, and still aren't.

Every horrible thing that came out of his mouth couldn't sway his fans, while it disgusted the rest of us. Trump is mocking the 'elite' press, but I understand why they predicted that his campaign would fail the same way I did - it was because of how repulsive he is as a person. We all assumed at some point all of his crap would catch up to him and it never did.

One of the saddest things I read yesterday was the percentage of people that disliked him and still voted for him anyway.  I have a message for everyone that voted for him, voted for a third party candidate, or didn't vote at all - I hope you can live with your conscience with what is to come.

Tonight I was further disgusted by his campaign manager expecting Barack Obama & Hillary Clinton to make more of an effort to unite America. Are you kidding me!?! Honey, you backed the wrong horse. The one person who should be making the effort to heal the wound in America is the same person that ripped us apart in the first place, and obviously he is not capable of either seeing this, or doing anything about it because he is not a leader. How ironic that she was calling on two people that actually are to do the job.

There's so much more that I was originally going to say, but I don't have it in me right now. I just hope that there is still an America left in 4 years for us to get a real president and get back on track.

Mount Baker

Mount Baker from a few nights ago (above) and from this morning (below). 

Catching Up

Boo & Munchkin

Boo

Munchkin

Here are some recent pictures of the cats and a squirrel at the back stoop from this evening. We have had some pretty sunshine this week. 

Tomcat & Boo

Catching Up

We had the Around the Corner picnic at Hovander earlier this month and the weather was good. It's been hot lately, but today was cool with crazy wind  - totally blew my plan to keep digging out the new flower bed.

I have Delphiniums and a few roses to plant,  and have more roses and some tulips on order from Zulily. The soil out here is really nice,  but I'm encountering rocks and other stuff that is slowing down the process. Apparently people buried and or burned and buried their garbage in the yard in the good old days. I've found broken glass, chunks of charcoal wood and even a whole brick! So I'm sifting as I go  (Hi Hoe, Hi Hoe).

Here are some pictures from this month.

Lazy Sunday

Here are some more pics from recent days/weeks around the new place. I'm really enjoying it since we finally have some fairly consistent warm weather around here. The cats are really having a lazy Sunday today. 

Tomcat

Tomcat & Boo

Boo

Yeah. I'm Still Here

So my last post was three months ago, and I just re-read it, and I said something about not posting for a month (at that time) and how I hoped it wouldn't be that long in between again. Obviously I did not meet that goal.

So lots of changes since that last post. I moved out of my brother's old house, where I had lived for almost 18 years. The open house and all of that happened after I left. I'm sure that it sold, but I don't know any of the details. I know that I made a big mistake letting my curiosity get the better of me, and looking at the pictures of the house when it listed. Either my former sister in law, or the horrible real estate agent, made the decision to paint all of the beautiful natural wood cabinets and window trim in the kitchen, that I so loved, and by the way, my brother picked out, WHITE! I wanted to cry and throw up simultaneously when I saw it.

My new home has lots of wood, in fact the entire interior is real wood paneling. "Wood Jerry. Wood". (Channeling a little Seinfeld there). I was able to dig up a few clumps of Day Lilies and my Hydrangea from the house before I left. I am really bumped that I just didn't have the time and energy to dig up the rose bush in the back or the Lilac that I had planted over 10 years ago.

The backyard and some Poor Man's Orchids

 The day lilies transplanted well, and even though I didn't have any expectations for blooms this year, they did, and were beautiful! The hydrangea too. I also was gifted some Crocosmia Lucifer from Jo out of her garden, along with some Astrantia. The Astrantia is blooming right now. I also bought a few more Crocosmia at Kent's across the street and one from Haggen that is blooming right now. I was pretty excited two nights ago, because there was a Humming Bird around the Crocosmia in the evening.


I didn't let the cats out for the entire first month, and they tolerated that a lot better than I thought they might. They have since gone out supervised and done pretty well. I still have things that are not in their final place because I need to figure out some additional shelving in the living room to get stuff up and off the floor. I decided not to give myself some grace time on that, but my goal is to have it together by Christmas because I would like to host the Cookie Party here with the gang if I can swing it.























I still go on Colossal.com all the time, and today there was a post that I highly encourage you to check out if you like Van Gogh. Someone on Reddit that has the user name Melonshade has uploaded digital images of Some of Van Gogh's paintings into Photoshop and then altered them to look like Tilt-Shift photos and they are so cool! Check it out.

Happy Easter 2016

Happy Easter!

Of course I saw this video on Colossal.com, where I find everything cool. The video is from Jiri Zemanek, check it out, it's a lot of fun!

Egg courtesy of Babs

So this month has been a bit crazy, and I realized just how crazy when I looked and saw that my last post was over a month ago. By this time next week I will be in a new home. Still renting; the house is not new, but it's new to me.

My sister in law messaged me on a Tuesday asking if I could be home to show the house to three realtors on Saturday, and it's been a whirlwind ever since. It's been a bumpy ride, and I was originally under the gun to get things ready for an open house on the 26th, but thankfully due to circumstances with things that had to be repaired before it could be shown, all of that will be happening in April.

The biggest surprise was that I was able to find a place to move to fairly quickly, and I can have the cats. HUGE thanks go to my boss Kelly for helping me find it. It was probably a good thing that I made a big push at the beginning of the month to get things packed and into a storage unit and out of the house so I am not doing all of it at once.

I am doing better than I thought at looking forward and not looking back too much. For as many things that frustrated me here over the years, there are still things I liked about this house. There are pros and cons to everything it seems like, but I am going to make the best of it.

I am going to miss the hens from next door. It was really funny - Friday when I came home from work I found an egg on the front porch. I took it over to Teggart and we were pretty sure it was from Babs, the little Bantam, and my favorite. He gave me an egg from one of the other hens, and I made an omelette for breakfast yesterday. Then in the afternoon she laid another one on my porch! It was just as perfect and small as the first one, so I knew for sure it was her.

Breakfast!

The other funny thing from this weekend was yesterday morning when my friend Jo and I came back from taking a load out to the new place and saw this garage sale sign taped to the light post across from Haggen on Meridian. It reads "Our crap, could be your crap!" Jo spotted it first, and we both cracked up! Big thanks go to Jo for emailing me two Saturday's in a row asking if I wanted some help, because I still feel too guilty and awkward asking for it.

Our crap, could be your crap!

I always knew I had a lot of stuff, but having to pack it up and move it just confirms it! So this next week is going to be crazy, and by the end of the day next Sunday I should be completely out of the house on Queen St. and into the new place. Hopefully it won't be another month before I post again, but I know I will be busy unpacking and figuring out where everything goes!

Ice Stacking on Lake Superior

This is mesmerizing. It was filmed along the shores of Lake Superior near Duluth Minnesota by Dawn M. La Pointe, Radiant Spirit Gallery. 

Real Estate

So this week everything just got real. Tuesday my sister in law Cindy messaged me that she wanted to know when I would be available for a few realtors to walk through the house.

Yesterday morning realtors from three different agencies came to the house. I was reminded of the experience of buying a car for the first time with my dad guiding me. He taught me how to tell who wants to work with you and who doesn't. It turns out the husband and wife that first arrived were the ones that Cindy has chosen or vice versa, because I honestly don't know exactly how that goes. But they asked the most questions and to me that's a sign of interest.

At the end of their visit I realized this whole situation is going to be more involved than I thought - and I really wish I had found a new place to live already so I don't have to deal with it. I have zero desire or intention to let people enter my home while I'm away at work. It's a scary prospect for the safety of my cats and my privacy.

I'm also facing a rental market and system for finding a place that is vastly different than it was 20 years ago. The last time I had to look for a place was that long ago, when I moved to the apartment in Ferndale. I was there two years I think,  when my brother Mark asked me to move into his house. He and Cindy were finally moving in together in Seattle, and he didn't want to sell his house.

Back then everything was in the newspaper, now most of it is online - but not all of it. I'm unfortunately finding that the small apartment units that are rented by the owner are not online, not even on Craigslist. Pretty much all of the larger rental companies have a two pet limit - so I'm screwed. I don't even have a car to live out of. ...

So hey, let me know if you see anything!

The Color of Winter

I have exactly two blooms on my red Christmas Cactus - love that little extra this time of year. My pink Geranium is also blooming; I can't remember if it's the first or second year that I've wintered this particular plant inside.

The Girls

I've been meaning to write a post about my neighbors chickens ever since last summer; it only took me 7 months.......

My late neighbor Dave's house was bought by a young guy named Teggart in the summer of 2014, and his girlfriend Morgan moved in within 6 months, and they became urban farmers. They originally had over a dozen chickens, and that included what turned out to be two roosters. One of the roosters was a big fellow, who as the summer progressed, found his voice. Now I didn't actually mind too much, I do however acknowledge that I might have felt differently if he had been doing his thing from the start of the summer and I woke up to that before my alarm clock every day. Apparently there were some neighbors who didn't appreciate it, and eventually they were forced by animal control to find both roosters a new home.

Babs

So since late September, it's just been The Girls. I've named some of them after one of my favorite movies, Chicken Run (from the makers of Wallace & Gromit). Even though she technically doesn't look like the chicken Babs from the movie, I've named the little Bantam Babs; she is my absolute favorite. 

There are three yellow hens, and I call them The Three Gingers, or Tres Gingers, because I'm not that creative, and they are all ginger colored. I've covered my bases with that one. They also remind me of the main character Ginger in the movie, because she was always trying to escape, and two of the three gingers are the first ones to get out of their pen every day.

The Three Gingers or Tres Gingers

There is one I want to call Rocky, even though in the movie Rocky was a rooster (voiced by Mel Gibson), because she will fly over their fence to get out. I have yet to capture this on video, but she cracks me up every time. Most of them are actually pretty entertaining to see how the both get in and out of the pen. To get out they will scramble up the side of the coop and then fly out. To get in at night, they will get on the edge of Teggart & Morgan's front porch and fly into the pen and land on the top of the coop. The last stage will be a short flight down to the ground.

My cats don't bother them, most of the time they are curious, but keep their distance. The girls also like to come up on my porch too, and thankfully have not left too much of a mess in their wake. I am definitely going to miss them when I have to move. They are starting to respond to my voice and will come running when I am putting food out in the bird feeder and I will toss some on the ground just for them. They were also treated to some of the apples and Italian Plums from the trees in the backyard last summer. So there we are, a short story about my neighbors free range chickens. 

Babs & Munchkin

Banangrams

 The new year is off to a bumpy start with my having caught a cold that kicked me in the butt. I caught it at the end of my first week back at work - illness was going around the office as usual. I stayed home a couple of days last week which is kind of a big deal for me. I usually want to plow through it, but I knew that I should stay home and rest if I wanted to get better. I'm basically over the cold, but this past week I was still sleeping a lot and my voice is very hoarse. I call it my phone-sex voice; it was always very popular when I was a waitress.

And because I spent virtually every evening and the last two weekends sleeping all the time, I am behind in posting on the blog, Instagram, and pretty much all other communications for that matter. My post today is featuring some of my solo Bananagrams. I got the game a month or so ago as a way to have some fun and try and keep my mind sharp.

I used to do the crossword puzzle everyday for fun when I subscribed to the local newspaper. Because I'm no longer doing that to give my brain a work out, I am playing at least one game of Banangrams every day, usually when I sit down to eat lunch or dinner. One goal is that I wanted to force myself to think creatively. What I mean by that is that I will keep going until I come up with words that use all the letters. I tend to be absolute in my thinking, and I am having to let go of that, and will re-arrange or even start over completely if I have to so that I can play a complete game.

I am also getting better at not going 'Ugh!" when I pull letters like V, Z and Q; although I fully admit I need to increase my vocabulary for words with the letter Q - but thank goodness the Chinese came up with two spellings for the word life-force! Qi has become my saving grace on more than one occasion.