August 28, 2013

  • Gray Kitty

    Here’s another done on my iPad. It takes me three times longer to do them on the iPad, but at least I’ll be able to do them when we go on vacation.

August 26, 2013

  • A New Toy

    I belong to a group of people called Digital Nuts. We manipulate digital photos so that they look like paintings. I do mine on my computer, but this fall when I go on vacation I won’t have my desktop with me, so I’ve been “playing” with different apps available for iPads so I can still post while gone on vacation. This picture is one of my first attempts on the iPad.

September 25, 2012

  • The summers in Oklahoma can be quite brutal, and spending 4 or 5 hours a day tending to the flowers is just not sustainable. Because of that I decided about a month and a half ago to downsize my gardens. I’m happy to report that I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. I’ve given away about 30% of my day lilies and have closed down several beds. One is now a sidewalk, one huge one is now a river rock bed, one is half the size it used to be and another now has only ONE row of day lilies where it used to have three rows. The plan is that next year I will be able to tend all my day lilies from my little gardening stool by simply moving it around the border of the beds. No more standing on my head to tend to the day lilies in the back rows. Every one will be in a front row or at least very accessible. I just have to plant 9 more shrubs, eight of which are on back order and should be in next week.

August 4, 2010

  • Well I declare . . .

    I can hardly believe it’s been so long since I last posted.  Unfortunately I can’t concentrate on more than one thing at a time and I’ve been learning Facebook and now I’m learning how to use my iPhone.  I’m not really a “natural” technoid so I have to read the manual pages over and over for stuff to sink in.  I’m less than 1/5 th of the way thru the manual. There is sooooooo much to learn.

February 3, 2010

  • Picture me shaking my head in disbelief . . .

    Alice and I frequently go out to lunch on Wednesdays and today we went to Chili’s because they have a relatively new soup on their menu and I wanted to try it out. It’s Green Chili Chicken Soup with rice, cilantro and avocados and a touch of lime juice. It comes with a very nice salad and a bowl of chips and salsa. We sat down and placed the order for our drinks (water with lemon) and the Green Chili Chicken Bottomless Soup and Salad.  I think our waiter was fairly new on the job, because we had to ask a second time for our lemons.  The good news is that the soup was delicious, so much so that we both requested a second bowl. It took a while to get it, and when it came . . . it had no cilantro AND it was luke warm.  He did bring us some cilantro, but eating luke warm soup just ruins the meal.  I know . . . we should have sent the soup back to be heated up, but we didn’t.  We DID however decide that we would NEVER accept another bowl of luke warm soup from a restaurant.  There’s just no excuse for serving tepid soup.  I’d wager that by this time our waiter was thinking his tip was shrinking drastically. 

    We finished our meal and each paid our tickets with twenty dollar bills.  When our change came back he gave me two $5 bills and a bunch of ones . . . I say “bunch” because it looked like more than the three ones I was expecting, so I counted my change . . . $20.72.  That’s right! I could have left with 72 more cents than I had when I entered the restaurant.   I called the young man over to our table and explained that I had paid with a twenty and had received $20.72 back in change.   He said, “Oh, I’m sorry.”  And then incredulously he added, “Would you like some chips to go?”   He’s going to have to sharpen his skills or look for another line of work.

January 31, 2010

  • Things were just BEGINNING to thaw out today . . . before night time returned so now it’s back to freezing temps. In fact I’m not really sure that the temperature actually got above freezing today, but at least there was a little sunshine and a tiny bit of melting did occur. I loved the way the ice was starting to pull away from the fence this morning . . . and as usually happens . . . I ran to get my camera.

    Snow Ice Storm Jan 2010 No62-9x12  

January 30, 2010

  • WOW !! It’s been a LONG time since I posted.

     I can’t believe how long it’s been since I posted on XANGA. I’m trying to learn how to get around in Facebook, and evidently I can’t concentrate on more than one thing at a time.

    I just thought I’d share some pictures of our latest snow storm. First we had freezing rain (1/4″) followed by sleet, and finally by 5″ of snow.

    X-StormJan2010-No70 
    This is the front of my house this afternoon.

    X-StormJan2010-No79
    And this is the view of my patio. You can only tell where the edge of the patio is by the pots setting along the edge.

    X-StormJan2010-No81 
    This is another view of my patio all covered in snow.

    X-StormJan2010-No89
    Somewhere under all that snow is the brick sidewalk. It has stones lining the sides, so you should be able to see at least the outline, but I can’t see it.

    X-StormJan2010-No98-Bird Feeder X-StormJan2010-No98-WindSock
    And if you look closely you can see how much ice is on the fence, the bird feeder and even the wind sock.

    Church services have been canceled for tomorrow . . . you see we have quite a few elderly folks in our congregation and we’d sure hate for any of them to have an accident or slip and fall. I know from personal experience how long it takes to rebound from a nasty fall. It’s been 2 years since I fell and I’m still not totally back to normal.



October 7, 2009

  • This is the view out my home office window. I love it when the birds congregate at the water fountain and all take turns taking baths. I wish I had taken a longer video, but the door bell rang, and then I just didn’t get back to the birds in time.  They evidently all finished their baths and went out hunting for food, because when I got back to the window they were all gone. I’ll try again the next “nice” day we have.  At the present it’s rather chilly and raining off and on, and it’s supposed to rain for several days.

October 2, 2009

  • x-0990-Bryce Canyon - Sunset Pt

    I’ve been watching the PBS programs all week on our National Parks.  It’s a wonderful series chronicling how the National Parks came into existence and all the struggles that many of the parks’ champions went through to get them designated as National Parks. It’s a film by Ken Burns and it is something that every American could learn from.

    The above photo is of Sunset Point in Bryce Canyon, which is located in southwestern Utah.   

September 23, 2009

  • X-1350- Arches National Park

    This is another shot from Arches National Park and I’m showing this to you so you can get a sense for just how large these arches are.  Can you guess how many humans are in this photo?  

    X-1350CC- Arches National Park

    Check out this close up; by my count there are 26 people.  Look particularly at the fellow in the light pants, blue shirt and white hat standing under the arch and the 4 people just to the right of the arch.   This shows you just how HUGE this arch is. It dwarfs the people.