Just Fiddling Around

I decided it was high time that I put some of my favourite website links on the sidebar. Had I known how involved it was going to be, I would have promptly knocked that decision unconscious and just gone for a nap. For the most part it was quite easy, but there were a few links that became very involved, as Blogger didn't like the URLs for some odd reason. Most sane people would have simply opted to leave them out and get on with life, but in my heat-induced delirium, I had to get all stubborn and determined to get them to work.

I did get them to work. Except for one, which I finally gave up on. In spite of the fact that it took a very long time to figure out which bits Blogger didn't like on a couple of the links, I am quite pleased that I persisted. I don't like to let machines get the best of me, so it's always a lovely feeling of accomplishment (and smugness!) when I figure the problems out.

The first set of links is a random collection of some of my favourites, in no particular order. The other links are organized into categories. The links are only a handful of the ones I have in my Favourites - I couldn't even begin to guess how many are in there. I had to categorize my Favourites folder as I had way too many links saved. I have about 30 sub-folders in there, many of which contain a large number of links. I thought that the ones I posted here might be of interest to some of you. There are a few I'd like to share my thoughts on.

I stumbled across the Essex Mountain Sanatorium website by accident one day, and I was immediately hooked. I've never figured out why, but there is something about the place that draws me. It's unfortunate that it was demolished, as I would have loved to have visited there some day. I love abandoned sites, especially sanatoriums, hospitals, and prisons. There are a few links on abandoned sites and urban exploration in my list, but Essex Mountain Sanatorium will always be my favourite.

The Asylum Eclectica is another site that I can't get enough of. It's full of all things morbid, and I will freely admit that I love looking into morbid things. The webmistress has a wicked sense of humour, so that's another plus for me. I get a huge kick out of her, and there is a lot of fascinating information on that site.

Tara Hill Designs is an awesome online store. The owner makes a variety of wonderful runes, wands, ogham staves, and a few other things. The first set of runes I bought were made by her, and to this day they are my favourites. I also bought a wand from her, and I love it. She is wonderful to deal with, and her prices are very reasonable. What's not to love?

I love post-mortem memorial photographs - they are so beautifully poignant. The sites I have listed for post-mortem photography are some of the best I've come across. They treat the subject matter with a great deal of respect. The Antique Photo Album site really tugs at my heart. She's done a beautiful job with it, and the music really gets me.

The Ossuary at Sedlec is awesome. Due to limited burial space in Europe, bones were removed from graves to make room for newer burials. The bones were stored elsewhere, and the places they are stored in are known as ossuaries. The Sedlec Ossuary is phenomenal, as far as I'm concerned. An artist was commissioned to create a chapel with the bones, rather than just leave them heaped up somewhere. He did a breathtakingly beautiful job, and the detail and craftsmanship are awesome.

Of course I love all the links I posted, but the ones I've nattered about hold a very special place in my heart. I hope that you enjoy some of these links too.

It was a bit cooler today, and is certainly cooler tonight. There's a beautiful cool breeze coming in my windows, so hopefully that will lead to a better sleep! I was going to write about a couple more things, but I'm so wiped from the heat we've had that I simply can't write anymore. So it will be nice if this coolness tonight helps me to catch up on a bit of sleep!

I do have one thing to leave you with. My coworker's daughter bought a puppy, and I had to take a picture to show you all. She is just too adorable for words - a tiny little fluff ball, with more energy than the Hoover Dam...


How Cute Is This?

On that note, I shall wish you all a good night, and pleasant dreams!

Attack of the Killer Worms

All right, it was only one worm, and it wasn't a killer attack worm, but I took the dogs out for a potty break and ran across the largest earthworm I've ever seen around here. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera with me. This worm was around six inches long, and usually the ones I come across here are about three inches at most. This one was alive, and I felt very bad as I ended up stepping on it after I'd cleaned up after the dogs. It had shifted position slightly, and I wasn't really paying attention to where it had got to.

I only stepped on it's back end - at least, I think it was the back end, as it was moving in the other direction. It's kind of hard to tell with earthworms. The interesting thing about earthworms is that you can cut them in pieces, and they will grow new heads. So while I was feeling bad for injuring the poor critter, I was hopeful that it would survive quite nicely. When I went out with the dogs again a few hours later, I was fascinated to see what appeared to be the back end of the worm laying in the dirt, drying up, while the longer portion of the critter was nowhere in sight. I'm thinking the injured portion fell off, and the rest of the worm went on it's merry way.

Continuing on with the worm theme, Misty has had a fascination with earthworms since she was a puppy. She's into the dead ones, though. The live ones do nothing for her. Morbid dog. Anyhow, she loves to hunt them out in the grass, and as soon as she finds one she'll roll all over it. She also likes to bring them in the house, but after stepping barefoot on several disgusting dried-up earthworms, I've gotten wise to her tricks. I can usually tell when she's hiding one in her mouth to bring inside - the look of sheer guilt on her face generally gives her intentions away.

When I got back from shopping today, I took the camera out and stood there in the blistering heat getting video footage for you all, and I was fortunate enough to capture Misty in full earthworm roll mode.




Lookin' for Worms


I also managed to get some footage of Lady wandering about, keeping a watchful eye on me and the camera. Sorry for some of the Blair Witch-type shakiness in this one!




The Investigators (and More Earthworm Rolls)


No, Misty didn't manage to bring her beloved earthworms in to the house.

As you can see, I've figured out the picture link for the videos. Actually, it's not the link I had been trying to use. That one does not have any options to resize, so I gave up on it. This one is a great link, because it embeds so the video plays right on the blog. However, it would not work previously - Blogger kept telling me that the tags weren't closed. Which was why I had been using the other link. From what I can see, the tags certainly are closed, but I figured out what Blogger was having an issue with and added another tag. It still should have worked with the original coding, but Blogger didn't like it. I'm happy to say that Blogger seems to like my tweaking, and the links now work!

I've also fiddled with the appearance of the blog - no doubt that's rather noticeable! I'm quite pleased with the effect, and just so Brooke doesn't have to give me credit again, yes, that's another moon picture that I took myself. I took a whole series of moon pictures that night - the clouds were moving rapidly, and I got some awesome shots. I posted some of them in an earlier blog entry, and I thought they would be nice to use for the main blog page.

I hope you enjoy the videos, and I wish you all a wonderful night!

Testing, Testing

I've been fiddling around for longer than I care to admit on making some changes to my blog. It all started innocently enough. I went in to add two more links. That was it. No plans for anything else in there. Then I got all ticked off because the side bar was showing up at the bottom of the blog, instead of staying at the side near the top. After a few attempts at deciphering code, and not being able to find anything amiss there, I decided to re-load my template and start from scratch. No luck with that manoeuvre. Even more annoying was that I had to re-insert my links again. Fortuntately I'd had the foresight to copy them.

I finally realized that it was those honking big video links that were causing the problem. However, for the life of me I can't figure out how to make them smaller. The first one I posted was small. The rest are all huge. The code's the same in all of them, so I have no idea what the hell is going on. I did have one bright idea, which is why I'm doing this post. Just to see if said bright idea is right.

In amongst all of the fiddling and deciphering, I started putzing around with a few other templates, and decided that I very much like this present one. Clean, simple, black as night. Since I've always been a lover of the night, that suits me perfectly. Now that I've got this one going, I'm not quite sure why I didn't pick it to begin with.

Of course changing the template led to changing the profile picture, and we won't get into all the details of that little adventure. All I'll say is it that Blogger was annoying the hell out of me. Fair warning - your URL for your profile picture can only have 68 characters, and the file size can't exceed 50 kilobytes. It would have been nice had they stated that right in the section that one posts the URL in. However, after some resizing and other putzing I got what I wanted. Although that all led to me fiddling in my graphics program to crop some pictures, as I wanted a different effect than I had to begin with in them. Oy...

So it's done - sort of. I know I'll be putzing around with more pictures, but for now, I like it. Now to try a movie link and see if it comes up at a more reasonable size. Okay, it's still the same big honking picture. Back to the drawing board!

I was just going to delete this post, but I figured you could all use a good laugh, so I'll leave it up. Besides, it will inspire me to keep trying to figure this damned thing out!

I'm just going to try to post a text link for a video here, to see if that works. If so, I'll change all the other picture links to text links - saves on bandwidth too!

Misty on the Run!

Excellent. The text link works. I have changed all the picture links for the videos to text links, and I will just keep posting them that way from now on, as I cannot for the life of me find anything on PhotoBucket that explains why the sizes are coming out so large. The only thing I could think of is that the link with the smaller picture was a smaller video file - but that really shouldn't affect the size of the link picture.

Okay. I'm dong nattering about all this crap. One bit of news - the lady with the brain stem infection is back at work. She came back mid-week, and is doing quite well. She's still a bit tired, but other than that she's mending nicely and happy to be back on her feet. So we are all relieved, but still keeping an eye on her until she's right out of the woods.

That's all for tonight, folks! Sweet dreams for everyone!

Summer Solstice

I'm posting this a couple of days late, but I wanted to wish everyone a very happy Summer Solstice. I hope it was peaceful and enjoyable for all of you. Wanting to send you good wishes at this time has also led to what will be a very different blog entry for me. I don't normally write much about my spiritual path and beliefs, but I'm feeling a need to share a bit of it this evening.

I was planning on doing a small ritual for Summer Solstice - I didn't want to do a full one as it was rather late by the time I got started. Most of the time I kind of wing it with my rituals. I allow God and Goddess and my guides to direct me as they see fit, as they usually know better than I what is needed at the time. This time was no different, and much to my surprise I ended up doing a full ritual, complete with tools and spellwork.

It's been quite a long time since I've done a ritual. I've done some very short mini-rituals - very mini, as a matter of fact. I've been feeling that it's time to get back to them, and to get back to spellwork. So while I hadn't planned on getting back to it with such a bang, I was very pleased with the results, and it felt wonderful to do a full ritual again.

A good chunk of the focus was on bringing energy into my life, and bringing balance to the energy coming in. I'm pleased to say that I noticed a difference immediately. There have been a lot of things in my life that have simply been overwhelming, to the point of my being pretty much stalled when it comes to getting things done. Even work has been a struggle - I've been having to force myself to get things done. I've been a bit freaked out because I have a fair bit of extra work coming up next week, and it's stuff I haven't done, so I needed training on it. I was getting a bit panicked, as I was concerned that I would not be able to handle it in light of how overwhelmed I've been feeling.

The morning after the ritual, I was delighted to find that I had more energy to face the day (in spite of having got to bed quite late), and was able to focus much more easily at work. I started the training for the additional work that day, and was able to focus on it and pick it up very quickly. Today I continued the training, and did everything on my own. It went very smoothly, much more quickly than I expected, and there were no errors. I was very relieved, and very happy. Not to mention very thankful that I had been guided to working with energy and balance in my ritual and spellwork. Had I not done that work in ritual, I know that things would not have gone so smoothly at work.

Not only have I noticed an immediate increase in energy and focus, but I've also noticed a marked increase in balance. A huge issue for me, especially at work, has been the energies of others. At work, it's mainly one person who is putting out some very negative, frantic, and unbalanced energies. This has been affecting the entire staff in the office, but as I have always been strongly affected by the energies of others, and as I work most closely with this person, I've found this coworker's energies have been affecting me very strongly. Since doing the ritual and spellwork, I have found that they are not affecting me nearly as much, and my own energies are more balanced, which at the moment is helping to block the chaotic energies of my coworker.

I have never had a problem believing that spells actually work, as I've always had very good success with any spellwork I've done. Even so, I always find that I'm amazed and delighted each time, as it is so wonderfully awe-inspiring to see such tangible results. This time I'm especially delighted, as I think this will help to get me more motivated, and will give me more energy, to get stuff done around the house. Not to mention that it will help to minimize the effects of the chaotic energies of the coworker, and THAT is definitely a most welcome change of pace!

Well, I'm rather pooped, so I am going to shut this down and wish you all a wonderful sleep!

Olives, Anyone?

First off, an update on my coworker with the spot on the brain. She came in after her neurologist appointment, and had some good news, although to be honest there is still concern. He told her that she had an infection in her brain stem, and has her on antibiotics and steroids to clear it up. So in a way it's good news, but is still a pretty big concern until it actually IS cleared up. Still, better news than it could have been. We aren't sure how long she'll be off work, but no one is too worried about that. The main thing is she takes it easy until she's healthy again.

There is no news about our other coworker's dad. II would think that means that as of Friday afternoon he was still alive, because I'm fairly certain we'd have heard if not. I just hope and pray that he's healing. If not, and if he's not meant to live, then I hope and pray that he isn't suffering, and that he passes fairly quickly.

Now, on to the olives. We have a Russian Olive tree out front, and it's been flowering like crazy. I went out and took some pictures of it, but they didn't turn out very well. The leaves and flowers are quite small and abundant, so it's very hard to get in there and have the camera focus without the poor piece of equipment having a nervous breakdown. It also didn't help that the first time I went out to get pictures it was extremely windy, so it was impossible to keep anything still long enough to get a decent picture. But the second attempt the next day didn't produce much better results, even though there was very little wind.

At any rate, I told Judy I'd post them here for her to see, as she also had been trying to get some pictures of the flowers. So here they are, Judy! I'll post the original shots and a couple of crops that I did of them.


This is the original shot. In quite close, so you can imagine how small the flowers and leaves are.


Cropped version.


Another crop.


This is the original of the second one that turned out semi-decently.


Cropped version.

Of course the focus is all out of whack on them, but the other pictures I got were horrid - at least you can get an idea of what the flowers are like from these two pictures.

If it stops raining before the flowers are gone, I'll go play some more and try and figure out how to deal with the focusing issue. If I can't sort it out before the flowers are gone, I guess I'll just have to wait until next year!

I think that's it for me tonight. I'm very tired and about to head to bed. As a matter of fact, I'm not even going to bother proof-reading. So have a good sleep everyone!

Just for Judy...

Okay Judy, you asked for the pee movie, you've got the pee movie! There's also the other movie with Lady trying to get away from the camera... LOL!




The Infamous Pee Movie





The Great Escape


That's it for me tonight! Sleep well, everyone!

I'm Drowning!

Okay, I'm not really drowning, but if this storm keeps up, I very well may be! It's been raining fairly steadily all day, and this evening it poured. And poured. And poured. And poured. And poured. You get the picture. It would slow down for a few minutes here and there, but for the most part it poured buckets. I told Judy that we were going to need oars - and an ark. It's been a long time since I've seen a downpour like this here.

I took the girls out during one lull, and they weren't too happy about it. Neither was I, since Misty refused to leave the deck until I went out there with her. So all three of us got soaked. Yes, I did say it was during a lull, but it was still raining quite hard. I tried to get some video footage through the door (no way was I about to take my camera outside!), but it didn't turn out very well. I did see some rain - got a decent shot of drops in a puddle, as well as water streaming off the roof. I also got a good shot of the Chokecherry tree waving wildy in the wind. However, the video was very choppy and I suspect would have made everyone seasick, so I deleted it.

The rain slowed down considerably about 15 minutes ago, and so far it's fairly calm out there. There are still some ominous looking clouds out there, and it's still intensely humid, so we may get some more rain before the night is over. I've been enjoying it very much, I must say. It's so cozy sitting inside, listening to the rain pour down. Now that it's settled down to a drizzle I'm missing it. We got a few peals of thunder, but nothing to write home about - once again I was disappointed to not be treated to a rip-roaring thunder storm.

Misty was pleased, though, I'm sure. She does NOT do thunder well. I vividly recall waking up one night to a small furry dog climbing over my head, and firmly planting herself right in front of my face - sucked up so close that I couldn't breathe. That was the spot that was furthest from the window, where she could still firmly attach herself to me. I managed to move her enough so that I could breathe, but the poor thing shook like a leaf until the thunder finally quit. She really is pathetic when it comes to thunder (and many other loud noises), so my heart goes out to her, poor baby.

In other news today, I would like to ask anyone reading this to send some prayers out for a couple of coworkers. Last weekend the father of one coworker fell two stories and landed on his head. He was in and out of neurosurgery a couple of times that we know of, and the last update as of a couple of days ago was that he was not doing any worse, but also not doing any better. He was responding to pain, but not to any other stimuli. The family was summoned home (his parents live on the other side of the country), and all the doctors can do at this point is wait for the swelling of the brain to go down, and see what happens from there. It is not sounding good. So prayers are needed for this man and the family.

For the last couple of days another coworker has not been feeling well. She's been dizzy, disoriented and a bit naseous. She was thinking it might be the flu, or that perhaps she was pregnant. I was feeling it was something else, and wondered if it could have something to do with some medication she's on. Tuesday afternoon she was feeling so poorly that she went to the doctor. She called and left a message yesterday morning saying she wouldn't be in but to call her back and she'd tell us what was going on. We called, and got no answer. This morning she called again, with the news that the doctor decided to do a CT scan, and they found a spot of some sort on her brain. She is seeing a neurologist tomorrow, so we should hear something further after the weekend. We are all quite worried as this seemed to come on very suddenly, and she told one of the girls that she is more disoriented today than she was yesterday. So she seems to be sliding downhill quickly with this situation. We are fervently hoping that this is something they can deal with effectively and quickly. So prayers are definitely needed for her as well.

I was very upset by the news, but even moreso because she and I had been talking about how ill she was feeling on Tuesday morning, and we were both hoping that it was because she was pregnant. She's been trying for several years, and she would have been thrilled to get that news. When she told me what was going on this morning, I couldn't help but feel very sad, and a bit angry on her behalf, over how far removed the reality was from the hoped-for diagnosis.

With such nasty things going on with two of our coworkers this week, I must admit that I'm feeling a bit jumpy and hoping nothing happens to anyone else there - or to anyone in our families. I was just thinking that the old saying - "it never rains but it pours" - seems very fitting this week - not only with my coworkers, but also with the weather. There's almost an eerie synchronicity there.

There's not much else to talk about tonight. I'm exhausted, so I think I will pack this in and head to bed. I wish you all a wonderful night, and very sweet dreams!

Screen Debut

I managed to get some better footage of Lady this evening, so here she is, making her screen debut!




A Star Is Born


Of course, she still wasn't being overly cooperative - she just wanted in the house! I did get some footage of her moseying around the yard, sniffing at everything, and trying to get away from me. It was not quite as clear though, so I opted to leave that one out.

I think I am going to end up having the movie bug. It really is quite fun to make these little clips, and I know that one day I will be very glad to have video footage of the girls. Of course I have pictures of them, but to have video footage once they have passed will be priceless.

Enough of that talk. I'll be crying buckets in a second!

Today was - and still is, for that matter - extremely muggy and warm. Apparently we had some thunder showers, but I missed the thunder. We did get a fair bit of rain where I work, but I didn't hear any thunder. When I was last out the sky was getting clearer, but it's still extremely warm and muggy, so I'm thinking we're in for more rain. Of course that suits me just fine, especially if it results in cooling things down. It's weird to have it so humid here though, as we normally have pretty much non-existant humidity. It's been so humid that even my carpets feel damp. (No, Judy, neither of the dogs peed on them! Although Misty did pee on the deck, but that's another story, and I'll send you the video clip of that. Talk about hamming it up for the camera... I wonder if that would fall under the method acting category...? LOL!) Anyhow, as I was saying, my carpets felt damp, as did my nightshirt, the quilt on the bed, and pretty much everything else. I was commenting at work that all the paper felt damp, and my coworkers said they had noticed that too. Very strange for this neck of the woods.

At the moment the breeze coming in the window is starting to feel cool, for which I am very grateful. I was a bit worried about what it would be like trying to sleep tonight, but as long as the breeze stays cool like this, it should be fine. It's very nice to have windows that I can open in the bedroom now - I'm enjoying being able to have fresh air in the room while I sleep. The bedroom used to have a large sealed window (well, two windows, but set so that they looked like one divided window), and while that was wonderful as far as soundproofing went, I did miss not having fresh air in the room. So I'm quite enjoying the new windows, although still shuddering every time I think of the horrendous clean-up that was involved when they were installed. I shall always be eternally thankful to Judy for helping me with that. Thanks, sis! *muah*

Speaking of bedrooms, it's about time I started thinking of getting my ass - and the rest of me - to bed. I really only planned on posting the video of Lady, so I didn't have anything in mind to babble about. Not that that's ever stopped me... Anyhow, I wish you all a very good night, and sweet dreams!

Grab the Popcorn!

Okay, I've finally gotten around to playing with the movie feature on my camera. I can see that I'm going to have a great deal of fun with this! I don't have sound on my camera, but that's not the end of the world.

At any rate, I've taken a few little movies of the girls, and figured I'd throw them in here just to see if they actually work on the blog. I've only got two of Misty loaded into Photobucket right now, as they take so damned long to upload. However, the third one has some of Lady in it. I would have gotten more footage of her, but she decided that she just wanted in the house, and there was no convincing her to stay out and do her screen test! I will post the other clip once I get it in Photobucket, but for now, here are two cute (well, I think they're cute!) clips for you!




Misty Wandering





Misty on the Run!


I think I'm going to try and get the other one loaded now, so I will skedaddle out of this blog entry!

Ahhh, Refreshing!

We had some more hot weather, then much to my delight we had a few rainy days. It actually got quite chilly yesterday, which surprised me. I wasn't about to complain, though! It was supposed to be cool, cloudy, and rainy for the next few days as well, but what did we get today? That's right, sun and heat! However, this evening it clouded over, and we're getting lovely coolness and lots of rain. Yay! I even heard a lovely bout of thunder a couple of minutes ago.

I doubt that my brother-in-law is as enthusiastic as I am though, considering that he just sprayed weed killer and fertilizer on the lawn about an hour or so before it clouded over. Ah well, at least the fertilizer will just soak in and still do some good.

I'm not hearing any more thunder, which is sad. I love thunderstorms, so I was looking forward to it - oooh there's another one! I guess I spoke too soon! Mind you, it sounds like it's quite far away, so we may not get much of it anyhow. Much as I'll be disappointed if the thunderstorm passes us by, I'm still very happy to have the rain and the cooler temperatures. It's very refreshing.

The one bad thing about the rain is that it keeps me from taking the camera outside. I know I could use baggies and whatnot to keep it dry, but frankly that's a pain in the butt, so I just don't bother. Since we did have a sunny day, I decided it was a good time to haul the camera out with me. I didn't get too many pictures, but I did get some cute ones of the girls. I was in the midst of trying to get some interesting foliage shots when I got chased in by a bee, so I don't have much else to share besides puppy pics tonight. But hey, they're the best anyhow!

I can rarely seem to get Lady to put her head up or pose for me - she's always so intent on sniffing around out there! Here area couple of her doing her thing - at least the head was up!





And one in her usual sniffing mode:



Misty tends to pose better, although often that's simply pure luck by catching her snapping her head up to listen to noises in the neighbourhood. Here are some good ones of her:





This one made me giggle, and I had to fiddle with it in a program I just installed:



The only fiddling I did was to add the text. I think I am really going to enjoy this program. It's a freebie that's been recommended to me by tech people for a few years, but I've never bothered with it as I have other graphics programs that I like very much. I decided to give it a try, though, so I'll have fun playing with it for awhile! It's called IrfanView, and you can check it out by clicking on the name.

It's pouring again - just in time to take the dogs out! Oh well, at least I don't have to worry about them getting into the weed killer now! I shall wish you all a good night, and sweetest dreams. Take care, everyone!

Birthday Girl!

Just a quick post to wish my friend Brooke a very Happy Birthday! Yes, today is the day, and I'm hoping she's out doing something fun and relaxing to celebrate! You hear that Brooke? You are to have fun and relax, damnit! Anyhow, I hope you're having a wonderful evening, Brooke - many happy returns to you! XOX

Sandman Time...

I've just finished my laundry and taken the girls out for their last pee of the night. It's time for bed, but I decided to do a quick blog entry while I'm finishing my tea.

Speaking of laundry, I washed my orange skirt with some of my lighter tops and my underwear. The lighter tops came out unscathed, but I now have peach-tinted panties and one peach-tinted bra. I put them back through the wash with a bit of bleach, but they are still peach-tinted. I'm slightly annoyed, especially since the tint in the panties is a bit mottled. The bra seems more uniform, though. Ah well, I'm the only one who sees them, so it's not a huge deal.

I have to say, this heat is really going to do me in by the end of the summer. I'm hoping we don't have the long, hot, dry summer that has been predicted, but from the look of things so far, I'm afraid that's exactly what we're in for. It's a good thing I went out and bought a bunch of summer clothing, or I'd honestly be concerned about surviving this one! I'm even thinking about hitting a couple more stores to look for a few more pieces of summer clothing...

When I was younger, I loved the heat. The hotter, the better. I remember visiting relatives in Ontario for the summer, and loving it when it got to over 105 F in the shade. I would be sicker than a dog there now. Not only do they get wicked heat, they also get horrid humidity to go along with it. Ugh! I found that after hitting the ripe old age of 30, I couldn't tolerate the heat as well. Every year that goes by, I find it gets worse. I wouldn't wish for winter all the time, but I would love to find a place where it sat at a nice, balmy 17 - 20 C all spring and summer, and for the fall and winter I'd be very happy with some nice, crisp, mid-to-late autumn weather. So far I haven't come across a place with my ideal weather - if any of you find somewhere like that, let me know, will you?

Yesterday was quite hot but very windy, which kept things reasonably cool in the house. In spite of the fact that all the plants were being blown wildly about, I managed to get a couple of shots which I was quite happy with.


This was my favourite of the day:



These next two are from the same plant - I'm not sure what it is, but it grows in a large patch each year in the back yard, and it's gorgeous:




These two I took today:




They are different angles of the same dandelion, and I have to say I was quite startled at the results. I love dandelions, but I've never been quite that up close and personal with one before. If someone had shown me these pictures, and not told me what they were, I'm not sure I would have been certain they were pictures of a dandelion. At first I thought the little hook things must have been tiny bugs, but then I realized they were part of the flower. Have I mentioned how much I love the macro feature on my camera? Oh, I have? Okay, then...

The first picture, with the wee white flowers, and the dandelion are considered weeds. I'm not sure what kind the first one is, but I know it's some sort of weed. I figure anything that pretty can't be bad, so I just don't see them as weeds. I see them as beautiful plants and flowers.

I am done my tea, so it is time to go visit with the Sandman and wish you all a good night. I am too tired to bother with proof-reading, so if there are any glaring errors in spelling or grammar, that's just too bad. Have a wonderful sleep everyone - sweet dreams!

More Critters!

Relax, folks. This isn't about the same critters I nattered about yesterday. I admit that this first picture is in a similar vein, but I think you'll all agree it's much prettier and promotes a more peaceful feeling. I had to take this with the zoom function, as the butterfly wouldn't let me get very close:



I had no idea the fly was there until I was cropping the picture afterwards. So that's bonus addition! I'm not normally a huge fan of flies, but I had to admit that it added something to the picture.

These next two critter pictures are much more warm and fuzzy. Literally. Here are my babies:


Lady, sniffing around to make sure no other dog has been cavorting in her territory while she's been in the house.


Misty in mid-scratch - "ooooh yeah, that's the spot!"

Sister Judy and I always giggle about how she reminds us of Ed from The Lion King when she scratches and performs other bodily functions. I just happened to be a nano-second away from snapping her picture when she got the itch, and started "Ed-ing out" - talk about being in the right place at the right time!

Now, let me just go sift through the picture files and see if I can find anything else to entertain you with. I'm sorry, but there are no more critter pictures for you. I'm sure you're all very sad to hear that... hehehehe! Ah yes, I've come across a few more pictures to share with you.


Here's the Chokecherry tree as of a couple of days ago. The blossoms are all gone, and the berries are starting to grow.


I just liked the way this picture turned out - an artistic experiment on my part. It's the hinge off the milk door at the back of the house.

What's a milk door, you ask? Back in the old days, houses used to have a cupboard-type thing by the back door. It opened from the outside, and the inside. The milkman would put the milk inside the cupboard, rather than leaving it outside on the steps. You don't often see houses with milk cupboards anymore, so it's kind of neat to have one. Not that I've actually seen inside this one - the doors are firmly sealed shut from many layers of paint on both sides. It would take a heck of a lot to get them open! Here's a picture of the door from the outside:




Raindrops on the plants. This is actually some type of weed, but I have to say that I simply look at weeds as plants. I find most of them quite pretty, although I appreciate that many homeowners and gardeners are not fond of them.

I think that's about it for tonight, folks. I didn't really have anything to babble about - just had a bit of a stressful evening (my bank pissed me off - I have payments showing as late because people on their help line had given me the wrong information about cut-off times for same-day online payments), and found it soothing to share some pictures. However, I also had some good things going on this evening. My fluorescent light in the kitchen has been very wonky lately, so my brother-in-law installed a new light fixture. It's nice to be able to go in the kitchen, turn the light on, and actually have some light! Woo-hoo! And I had a nice chat online with my dear friend Brooke, who managed to help calm my nerves from the stressful bank crap. Thank you, Brooke! You're the bestest! So all in all, the good stuff outweighed the stressful stuff - now I just have to get my stomach and all the muscles in my body to unwind! LOL!

I discovered a few more pictures to share, but I shall save those for another day. I'm sure I'm far more interested in all these pictures than anyone reading this blog is, but hey, it's my blog, so I can inundate you all with them if I want to! hehehehe! For now, I shall wish you all a good night, and very sweet dreams!