Geek Surgeon Takes Flight

Spring is flying by down here in the once again windy state of Texas.  Mother Nature is emptying her powerful lungs across our metropolitan area.  (I wish she'd been a smoker...) Tree branches are falling causing power outages and my recently bloomed roses are raining their petals all over the weeds freshly manicured lawn.

Sheesh.   ENOUGH ALREADY!

In other news, Mom has no damage to her eye from her fall.  Yippee!  She is ready to consider her shoulder surgery.  Evil Twin and I have been practicing for the big day:

Scapel.

Oh sorry.

Anethesia.

Now we're good.

A friend of mine took me on one of her favorite running courses.  She's lucky I still call her "friend".  This course is all steep hills (Yes, we have hills in Texas) and I was sure I would need climbing gear to make it up the last hill.   I kept hoping the ice cream truck would show up and distract my friend or maybe I could ride in the back while she finished the course.

No such luck.  We only encountered a city employee knee deep in someone's muddy yard and a redneck with his barking dog in his pickup.  Twice.  We jumped out of our skin when the beast spoke to us. Twice.  We didn't learn.

Hubby installed baseboards in our upstairs hallway last weekend so the least I could do this week was get them painted.   I spackled and painted and painted and painted, working up quite a thirst. I asked Cat for a tall glass of cold tea but he brought me a pile of dirt and some dead bugs. 

Speaking of Cat, he is currently stalking a silly cardinal that built her nest in a shrub about four feet off the ground.  I don't think the pathetic creature gets any rest. The bird; not the cat.  

Now, where is that cat?  I need a pillow.

Photo credit:  Operation game:  Cyndie@smilebig!'s on flickr.com, Creative Common license (see sidebar).

Kissed by a Frog, Foiled by an Armadillo, Ruled by the Ants

I have been attempting to turn my thumb green and become one with nature this week.  I've uncovered several of our earth's smallest creatures.

Dirty Little Frog:  Yes, such an original name for the tiny thing that was hiding in the dirt where I wanted to place my plant.  He was about the size of my thumbnail and covered in dirt.

A friend asked me if I'd ever seen a clean frog.  I told her that of course I had,  because they usually come out in the rain, freshly showered.  Sheesh. 

See? This one has obviously lathered, rinsed, and repeated:

I also disturbed several small garden snakes. I will spare you the photos.

I've mentioned armadillos before.  

 Pretty?  Not so much.

I think there is a multi-family household under my shed.  They are overdue on the rent:

It's either that or Evil Twin's first attempt at making us a tornado shelter.  

It is most likely an armadillo. These "beastards" like grub worms and will stick their pointy noises in your yard to get them.  Unfortunately, they also uproot your grass, don't fill their holes after they're done, and probably make several dirty little frogs homeless.  Or maybe they eat the juicy little things. Those pointy little feet don't bode well for your lawn, either.

Dinner is served.

I've also discovered that it isn't cats or dolphins that rule the world.  It's ants.  That's right.  A N T S !!!!  They are everywhere, even in my mailbox.  ICK!  Just this morning, I saw an army of them trying to carry Cat to their mound.  They kept dropping the 14-pound beast, losing a third of their army each time.  I finally heard the queen say "Give up the fat whining furball.  Go see what's under that outbuilding."

Have a great weekend!

Photo credits:  tiny frog: yumievriwan on flickr.com, armadillo: sunchild_dd, flickr.com,  pie: jannabeth, flickr.com,  Creative Commons license (see sidebar), tunnel entrance:  Reffie

Geek to Prune in Only Three Days!

Oh my oh my.  I must learn to be careful what I say on Facebook.  I teased Mother Nature and once again she spat upon me.

No really.  She did.  All I did was notice the lack of wet cats and dogs pouring out of the sky with a relatively humorous post on Facebook:

"I want to know if you've ever seen the rain, I want to know if you've ever seen the rain, coming down on a sunny day." Hum.....how about "I want to know if you can send me some rain, I want to know if you can send me some rain, let it rain for awhile today." Please?

This post yielded the following comment and video link:

"LOL. I just viewed this video clip yesterday and sent it to some friends....check it out...."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHIop4mhRro

I know that ALL of you looked at the video, right?

Then, the following day, Mother Nature opens a cloud and lets me have it.  She kept this up all weekend.  Rain, rain, freakin' rain.  That WITCH!

Actually, I was glad to see it.....for awhile.

The folks out at the Texas Motor Speedway weren't too happy, though.  The big race, scheduled for Sunday, was postponed due to the uncalled for emptying of Mother Nature's stomach contents.  The event is re-scheduled for this afternoon.

Later this afternoon, I will step outside and listen for the horses circling the track.

Sorry.  I mean race cars.  That's horse power, right?

Lucky me.  I'm only a few miles, as the crow flies, from the racetrack. 

I was at a swim clinic this weekend. I spent four hours shivering in the pool Saturday and another three with chattering teeth on Sunday.  I feel like a dried plum, a perfect prune marinated with chlorine, served with an essence of oak pollen. 

My instructor was a fun guy and I laughed at a few of the phrases he used often during our workshop:

Arm next to your ear hole!

   Excuso?  The WHAT hole?

(Oh.  I get it. Arm next to your ear. Hee hee.)

Looking at bandaids and hairballs!

Ew.

(In other words,  head should be down, in line with the spine, looking at the bottom of the pool, or even towards your belly, instead of up or at an angle.)

I want to see butt cheek and upper thigh.

Sheesh. What a pervert.  

(No.  Not really. He was looking for balance and proper rotation during a skating drill.)

It was a great workshop. There were only five of us so we got plenty of attention.  The instructor filmed multiple videos of us swimming both days so you really got to see what you were doing/not doing.  I made some progress and I have things to focus on at the pool. 

Earlier in the week, I went out in the yard to take a few more photos.

My columbine is already blooming! 

If you click to enlarge, you may see the second columbine trying to push its way through.

I'm proud of these white irises for brightening up the yard once the oak trees came out and hogged the sunshine:

Enjoy!

Blog Funny Business

Yeah, it's time to take care of some business around here.  

Will it be funny?

I hope so.

Over the last several months, I've had the good fortune of winning a couple of blog give-aways.  As to why I didn't take my winning streak to Vegas, well, I'd guess I'd have to like to gamble.

AnyHorten_Hears_a_Who,  over at The Constant Complainer,  my lucky number got me an American Express Gift Card.  It came to me wrapped up in this shirt:

Doesn't everyone have roses coming out of their head? 

Yes, I'm looking at the sun and squinting!

But wait.  There's more:

Evil Twin prefers this side of me.

If you haven't checked out The Constant Complainer, please do.   The rants can lead to some lively discussions.

Next, my number came up over at Decisionally Challenged.  That's right.  Georgie, an Okie from Muskogee,  presented me with a promotion code for a free ammunition.

No, that's not right.

It was 8x8 digital photo album from Seehere.com.  It took me awhile to put the album together but I finally did and here it is:

 That's one of my favorite shots.  

Hubby took it on our whale watching cruise.

Thank you, Georgie, who may not really be from Muskogee, but she is from Oklahoma, and I'm happy she's keeps most of the snow north of the Red River.

Check out her blog.  Send her chocolate.  She has teenagers. 

Finally, I received blog bling from that sweetheart Collette over at My Babcia's Babushka.  She gave me this "Feels Like Home" award:

I'm glad she feels at home over here.  I hope she doesn't mind doing a few chores while she's here.

Collette not only writes a great blog but she is an awesome follower. Her witty comments are full of love and support and her HUGS can't be missed.

As for passing this on, I have selected the following welcoming bloggers:

Ziva's Inferno - Free cookies for all

MrsBlogAlot.com  - She's my kind of crazy.

Momma Mia, Mea Culpa  -   She's trying to do things differently and is brave enough to write about it.

Me-Me at Mad, Mad Margo - Another great writer and follower with a fun weekly caption contest.

Have a great week!

Photo credits:  Hubby took the photos of me.  Exploit them.  I'll be flattered.  No, wait.

Of Winds and Wings and Bluebonnets!

This week the winds of March have not only arrived but settled in nicely.  DANG IT!  Why can't they get the month right?  I go out for a run and come back in covered in dirt.  A squirrel tried to bury nuts in me.

Ew.  That sounded awful, didn't it?

Don't answer that.

Earlier in the week, Evil Twin handed me some wings and was trying to teach me to fly.  She told me I was a kite.

I couldn't quite get the hang of running and flapping and I kept kissing the ground causing Evil Twin to break out in uncontrollable spurts of laughter.  Sheesh!  It wasn't THAT funny.

To distract her, I let her play with the garden tools in the shed while I got some yard work done.

If it's April, it must be time for bluebonnets.   South Texas wins again this year for bluebonnet beauty but D/FW is starting to show some color.  Personally,  I think our seeds blew down south last fall, or maybe it was the migrating gnomes that pooped them out on their way to Mexico.

I'm happy I have a few a diva that somehow managed to survive over the winter.  I found this little guy trying to nap (or hide from Cat) in my pretty blue Lupinis texensis (click to enlarge and get the full benefit of Reffie aiming the camera).

Then I walked out to my shade bed in the back where I'm trying some new ground cover and look what I found:

OK.  I'm impressed.  Not only is it alive, it bloomed. 

 

Best of all, it's baseball season!  That's right.  Another season of Hubby cursing at the TV when our local team pitches batting practice for the other team during the game.   

I think the Texas Rangers are currently in last place.

Sigh.

Have a bloomin' good weekend!

Photo meme - Canuck, Canuck

Awhile back, the Catless CatLady tagged me with a photo meme.  I'm always looking for an easy post, so why not?

The instructions (yes, I do follow them occasionally) indicated to pick the tenth photo in your first photo folder and post it.

My computer is full of photos of Cat and Evil Twin (and a few of Hubby) so imagine my surprise when I encountered this photo:

This gem is from our trip to the Maine coast last fall.  We took an excursion across the drink to Yarmouth, Nova Scotia.  The only form of transportation we had once the ferry dropped us off was our own two feet.  We picked up a map for a walking tour and hit the pavement.

There were numerous older homes that had received facelifts (and hopefully new innards) and were restored to period architecture.  The variety of "periods" represented was amazing.  The influence is traced back to sea captains that settled in Yarmouth after traveling all over the world.

This one reminded me of Hansel and Gretel for some reason. I also thought it belonged in the board game CandyLand.

Tag, your it (no obligation, of course)!

Prezzies, Plots, and Puns

Hubby was good to me.  I got a new kitty for my birthday!

He looks a bit cold.  That snow and ice won't be good for snuggling against me on the couch.

What?  I'm NOT getting a snow leopard?

Oh.  SoftWARE not soft animal.

SHEESH!

I also got a new iPod.  My old shuffle has been wet too many times and doesn't like to hold a charge.  It also expects me to guess when it will play and it when it won't.  Perhaps it also has an evil twin.  This new one has the controls on the ear buds so I can no longer wear the cord under my shirt when I'm running.  I think I may end up like this:

Poor "feller". RIP Fido.  He wasn't much of a running partner anyway, always expecting to be carried.

HUMPH!

Yes, we had a great time on my birthday.  We went out for Japanese Hibachi and contrary to popular belief I DID NOT dance on the table and the chef DID NOT sever (or serve) any limbs or digits even though he was being a little too playful with his sharp knives.   Evil Twin was beside herself during dinner, obviously over-excited watching the cutting and slicing.

I had Green Tea Ice Cream for dessert.  YUM!

I can't believe Easter is upon us.  What happened to winter?

Surely, I didn't just say that.

My mom gave me that orchid for my birthday and one of my yoga students gave me the rose.   You can see the orchid better in this shot:

As you can barely see, I also have a few Easter decorations....and a bad habit of keeping all my eggs in one basket.

Yeah, that was bad.  Sorry.

SNORT!

Evil Twin and I are excited about the expected visit of the Easter Bunny on Sunday.  I have asked for more Green Tea Ice Cream.  Evil Twin has asked for a knife sharpener.

I think Evil Twin and Cat are secretly conspiring to capture this elusive hopping beast that is somehow able to deliver goodies.  They have been up at all hours having what they think are secret meetings.  Also, Evil Twin keeps trying to tell me that there really isn't such a thing as an Easter Bunny. 

Um....she's just messing with me, right?

RIGHT?

Hum....

Then again, if THIS is the Easter Bunny that will be visiting, I will let him have my ice cream and Evil Twin and Cat can execute their plan that I'm not supposed to know about.

Have a great weekend and if you celebrate Easter, HAPPY EASTER!

Photo credits:  Snow kitty:  Apple, psycho bunny:  some email, all others:  Reffie