“It goes so fast. We don’t have time to look at one another. I didn’t realize. So all that was going on and we never noticed.  Good-bye to clocks ticking….and Mama’s sunflowers. And food and coffee. And new ironed dresses and hot baths….and sleeping and waking up. Oh, earth,you are too wonderful for anybody to realize you. Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it–every,every minute?”

As a seventeen year old, I couldn’t fully appreciate the meaning behind the words.  As I’ve grown older (and experienced the loss of my father), I try my darndest to enjoy the day to day.  Sometimes it’s super boring and I feel like a rat running the race, but other days I simply enjoy the routine.  I told Chucklebutt yesterday that while I love our adventures, I love our ordinary moments even more.  The waking up next to each other, the goofy goodbyes each morning, the mid-afternoon phone calls, the lazy nights watching trash tv.  Good times.

With that said, not too much has been going on at our household.  We’ve just been living the day to day and enjoying it.  We’ve seen some good movies (Ghost Town) and some not-so-good movies (Special).   We ate smothered fries at Denny’s this afternoon and we took a 45 minute nap which turned into three hours.  He had a production meeting for a show that opens next weekend and I went antiquing and didn’t buy a thing (shocking yes?!).  Oh, and last night we tormented our girls with crafty bits.  Witness:

Will we be able to do this with human babies?  FYI- Chuck and I are both only children and our animals have always been our playmates.  Mom says that we didn’t have brothers and sisters to aggravate so we take it out on the kitties. 

We wore them out.  Awwww…

Today was the first Saturday I have had off in three weeks.  I had plans to weed our yard and spray paint some pieces that I want to submit to Somerset.  We live in Arizona, and 99% of the time we have beautiful sunny weather.  The day that I wanted to work outdoors, I awoke to this:

The entrance to the Mines of Moria has got to be around here somewhere.

You can’t tell from the pic, but it was pouring rain!  So no weeding or painting was accomplished.

I love our flowers right now!  The yard is out of control, but the wildlife are loving it.

Yesterday was my first venture into the world of ribbon embroidery.  One of my residents is teaching me and I am loving it!  The ribbon is silk and a bit of a pain to work with.  Next week we’ll do the leaves and add some centers to the flowers.

Finally, I wanted to show everyone what I found at Goodwill yesterday.  Isn’t she amazing?!!?!?!?!?!  It’s a perfume bottle.  Guess how much I paid for it?  Oh yeah, a buck 99.  The thrift store gods were shining down on me that day.  Squeal!!  I’m still on cloud nine for the find.

Oh one more thing — Chuck has been getting quite a few texts lately.  Who are they from?  Work?  Friends?  Girlfriends?  Apparently he has discovered Twitter and has a bromance going on with quite a few fellows.  Dr. Drew, Kevin Smith, Brent Spiner and Weird Al Yankovich.  Everytime they update their account, he gets notification.  Chucklebutt is such a goof — but I love him!

I love this picture of the folks.  They look so happy and carefree.  Check out that gorgeous Arizona sky!  It’s almost as good as a Carolina sky (how ’bout them Heels?!).

This is Claudia looking all fierce!

It was really a great day, and we didn’t get home until after 4pm.

Last weekend, I received my goodies from Bethanie.  Holy Cow!  She flat out spoiled me with this swap.  Check out the booty:

OMG!  Are those S&H Greenstamps in the upper left hand corner?  Did that ever bring back some pleasant memories.  Sigh.  Our groceries stores used to give them out and then my grandmother (Bopka) and I would spend hours licking them and putting them in the booklets.  That was one of our”things” that we would do together — sit at the kitchen table and organize the booklets.  I wish she was here to reminisce with me.

I love this little rabbit.  I pick it up at least twice a day and just marvel at its cuteness.

This is my other favorite treasure.  It’s an old bridge tally card with faires on it.  Who doesn’t love fairies?  I LOVE fairies!!

Daisy had to get in on the action.  If it’s string-like, she’s got to be a part of it.

Thank you so much Bethanie for such a great package of springtime sweetness.  I hope that you have finally received yours.

I got home today, and Chucklebutt informed me that he no longer wanted me as his medical power of attorney.  I asked him why, and he provided some incriminating photographs which didn’t fare well for me.

I’m a bad mommy to plants.

Chucklebutt was not impressed with my deciscion to get rid of the petunias.  They are mostly dead to me (due to lack of watering) and so I was getting ready to put them in a shallow unmarked grave.  But noooooooooooooo, not Chucklebutt!  He refuses to let them go.  He wonders if I’m going to be too quick to pull the proverbial plug.  “Nurse, he looks like he’s lost most of his blooms.  You can stop feeding him and just prop him up in the corner.  I’ll take him out next week with the trash.”   Bwahahahahahaha!

Finally, I found another awesome animated video on youtube.  My allergies have been out of control lately and I feel like I’m having body meltdown.  Witness-

I discovered this today and laughed my booty off.

Chucklebutt discovered something amazing in our garden:

Is that a leprechaun?

One of the many joys of working with older adults and young people is that you get to dress up for every holiday and nobody things it’s weird. Mind you the folks driving on the freeway definitely bowed up and took notice, but I just waved and smiled.

This weekend we continued the task of painting our bedroom. Chuck has to work, but in between phone calls, he managed to slap on some primer.  You can’t tell, but it’s a light blue.  I was a bit bummed at first and wasn’t really thrilled with the color.  It’s growing on me, and once I get my girly things up on the wall, I’ll be a lot happier.  Chuck is very tolerant of my girly things as long as I don’t mess with his garage or office.

Yes we’re wearing the same shirt. I told Chuck we are just a few years away from this:

Or this:

Is it too late for us? Ah who cares! We have lots of fun!

If the girls had opposable thumbs, we would have put them to work. As it was, they snoozed in various places.

This is Scooter’s favorite spot — Chuck’s seat. She stalks him, waiting for him to get up so she can ooze into his chair.

Daisy loves the bed. You can find her there anytime day or night. I’m a sucker for pink noses and pink foot pads. I just want to eat them up!

Happy St. Paddy’s to everyone.

At the moment, I’m watching "Hamlet 2."  The opening sequence begins when a Peter O’Toolesque voice over saying, "Where do dreams go to die?"  The next shot is of Tuscon, Arizona.  Bwahaahahahahahahaha!  It’s gonna be a great movie!   I also picked up "Repo! The Genetic Opera."  The only thing better than Anthony Steward Head, is Anthony Stewart Head singing about organ transplants, wearing black pleather and wielding a knife.  Righteous!  It’s from the producers of Saw and I am such a sucker for those gorey movies.  Mind you I can’t watch any of the new horror flicks that came out this week cause I’m also a big chicken.  I’ll have to wait until Chuck gets home and he can tell me what’s going on while I cover my eyes and plug my ears. 

I have lofty aspirations this weekend.  I plan on painting our entire bedroom.  We bought the paint in October, and I figure this would be a perfect time to start.  Realistically, I’m sure I won’t finish, and I’ll leave all the intricate stuff for you-know-who.  He’s pretty meticulous when it comes to projects and I’m of the half-ass mindset.  I also have started on the Sookie Stackhouse series.  They’re like cheese whiz — not good for you, but enjoyable going down.  Mom has read them all and she has a crush on Eric.  That probably means nothing to anyone except for Maja and she doesn’t read my blog.  Eric is a Viking vampire — in case you were wondering.

Before Chuck left for Daytona, he took some nice pics of my recent treasure hunting.  Check it out:

These were the two boxes that my swap partners gave me.  They are chocked full of all sorts of goodies.  Thanks Lisa and Rosalyn-Sue!  You ladies Rock!  The linens I found at Goodwill for dirt cheap.  Gosh I’m such a sucker for all things embroidered.

See I told you I can’t resist.  Who would give away such beauties?  I guess it’s my fortune.

This too cute teacup I got from the gals at Mystic Paper.  A few weeks ago they invited everyone over to the shop for a tea party.  We got to keep our cups.

I also have a little button problem.  You can never have too many buttons.  Well maybe you can, but I haven’t reached that point quite yet.  A few weeks ago, I took some of my residents to the AZ Quit Show.  There were tons of vendors and I was like a kid in a candy store.  I found one booth filled with vintage Czech glass buttons.  Holy Cow!  They were/are gorgeous!  The gal was from Venice Beach and her stock was very reasonably priced.

Then there was the vendor out of Connecticut.  She was *not* reasonably priced, but I couldn’t resist the above buttons.  The red ones look art deco to me and the ones beside them look like cameos.

The above is not a button, but I thought it was gorgeous.

I found this creepy, cutie and just had to have her.  I realize that she looks like something that might be used in voodoo, but she’s got some awesome shoes.

One of my residents gave me this sheet of music.  It used to be her mother’s so that can give you an idea how old it is.

What’s this you may ask?  This is what happens when Scout is bored and takes it upon herself to shake things up a bit.  Let me just say that it is really difficult to salvage such a mess.  Try wiping with those bits.

Finally, since Chuck has been gone, I have had the daunting task of taking care of all his fish tanks — eight in all!  Scout likes to help with the tank in my craft room.  I hope that she doesn’t slip, because that would be one heck of a mess.

Enjoy the weekend! 
Watch "Hamlet 2"  then you too can sing, "Rock Me Sexy Jesus!"