End of 2018

So the end of this year is drawing very near....

Today was a rainy, cold, lazy Sunday. So says Ditzy

How about some New Year's Resolutions?   I hate making resolutions, because they don't usually get kept.  But hey...they are a tradition right?

#1  Blog EVERY day.. it may get boring because my life is not all blog worthy..but I will resolve to write every day of 2019.

#2 Read 40 books with my Mom & Me book club (with daughter Dani).  Per my daughter we've read about 20 books in 2018 (reading the 20th now).

#3 Save more and spend less.  Retirement is still about a half a dozen years away but I feel the need to start saving and not spend so much including donations.  I tend to be a sucker for dog rescues.

I've even been day dreaming a little about retirement.  There is a part of me that is absolutely afraid of it, afraid that I'll lose my sense of self-worth because so much of my focus has been my career.  But when I can tuck that fear into a small box toward the back of my brain and let myself think about retirement in a good sense, I think of what can be done with the freedom of time.

I saw yesterday an article titled "The best 'hole in the wall' diners in every state of the US".  I turned to my hubby and said, "Wouldn't it be fun to travel around to each of these diners in every state when we retire?" I think it would be fun...though wouldn't do it all at once.   I also have nostalgic, dreamy thoughts about driving the entire Route 66 to see all the unique places on that route.  So that is another 'retirement dream'.  And there is still more dreaming to be done. :)

I think that is all the resolutions I'm setting for 2019.  We'll see how well it goes.

Two days after Thanksgiving

Yes, I know it has been weeks since I've blogged.  But I have been busy with work, doing Paparazzi Jewelry lives and also attending my youngest's wedding a few weeks ago.  So blogging takes a back burner these days. 

The wedding was wonderful though it was cold for being outside.  It is a real gamble in Texas with the weather in the fall and unfortunately November has turned out to be a colder than normal month.  But it was still a nice wedding and my oldest and her hubby flew in as well as my other siblings and their families so it was nice though short. 

Now I am sick with what I guess is a cold, I'm not sure. At first I thought it may be an ear infection as I've had some vertigo but my nose is runny too so it may just be a bad cold that has to take its course.  I will likely skip the exercise tomorrow morning to try to continue to take it easy.  I didn't do much all day other than drink tea, liquids, have soup, etc., but did start working on some greeting cards for that Angel card project that I do every year.  I got a nice start on them and have done I'd say about 30 cards so far.

I even got out of cooking for Thanksgiving!  The youngest wanted to take on the challenge of a turkey dinner even though they just got married a few short weeks ago. She did a wonderful job too!  I did bake an apple crumb pie Thanksgiving morning to take with us for desert but that is all I had to do.  It was great not having to cook dinner this year. 

Well that was only the highlights of the last several weeks but hey at least I blogged. :-)

Interesting

So I got our real estate tax bill yesterday since the bills comes directly to us now.   I was very fortunate to be able to pay off the house last year after my mom passed away.  But anyway, back to the tax bill.

Working in the mortgage field, I see a ton of real estate tax bills.  There are so many that offer a discount if the taxes are paid early.  Well, not in this state or at least county.  It will save me nothing whether I pay the bill the day I get it or pay it before the end of January.  That sort of floored me that there was no discount at all.   So guess who is paying her bill in January.  It doesn't help me with income taxes either as we don't have enough deductions to bother itemizing.  So I will tuck that bill away for about 3 months.

I have a half day tomorrow so I'm pretty excited about that.  I will have plenty of time to get my Paparazzi ready for tomorrow's live show.  

I am looking forward to turning the clocks back in a few weeks.  With all the rain and it being darker longer, the walks haven't been as enjoyable with the need for a flashlight and sometimes umbrella too.  At least I am commited to walking, with my girlfriend.  She walks every day, I only walk 3 days a week, but I do exercise 3 other days of the week. Saturdays I give my body a break. :)

It's a sign!

Hubby found this leaf the other day and I just had to take a picture and post it.
So...Christmas is coming..it is in the leaves.  LOL

I've been having fun doing some Facebook LIVES with my Paparazzi Jewelry business.

Hubby even made up a rap for me. Click HERE to see it.


The premise behind me promoting my Paparazzi business is two fold.  First, I really love the jewelry and for the price it can't be beat, so let's just say I've fallen in love with it all over again as I've been pulling boxes out, posting jewelry on Facebook and such.  Secondly, although I've been a representative for 3 years, I decided it is time to make something of it, even if slowly so that by the time I officially retire, I will have a nice (hopefully) customer base and possibly team so that it will  supplement my social security - which who know what shape it will be in by that time.
So a good plan I think!

We've had tons and tons of rain this past week and several lakes have been overflowing. One bridge even caved and collapsed.  What a mess!  I am very thankful that where I live, it is not close enough to a river so that I haven't had any trouble with flooding, but many areas in Central Texas have.  Today it has actually been sunny - looks strange!  But gearing up for more rain in the next few days. At least it is no longer in the 40's, for now anyway.  I'd like a gradual change to Winter, thank you very much.

Big time catch up...

SO I see I haven't posted a personal blog since Sept. .8th.  Well since then Stac turned 27, I turned never mind and so did hubby. We also celebrated 19 years of marriage.  Yes, next year we will be married 20 years already.  I'm hoping maybe we can go to Vegas for our 20th.  We'll see.

September was a pretty hot month and our air conditioner stopped cooling once again. That system was brand new just 4 years ago June and I sure wish we would have gotten a different system.  It was not cheap either.  The compressor that we just had replaced then last day of July has to be replaced again.  The A/C guy is coming tomorrow to replace it and it will be the last time we deal with the air conditioning this year anyway.  If it quits again, we'll wait until next summer to deal with it.

I am happy to say that I have been doing some Facebook Lives with my Paparazzi business. I have been a representative for 3 years but it has only been this year that I've had enough time to pursue it more.  My day job was often 7 days a week with all the refinance craze and now it has slowed. Not much overtime these days.   I have really enjoyed doing the lives and often wondered how anyone could really make good money selling $5 jewelry, until I heard there is a rep that actually just broke the Million Dollar income bubble!  Pretty incredible huh?  I have a facebook group where I also post my inventory for sale.   https://www.facebook.com/groups/313074459244817/
If you know someone who could use some extra money selling beautiful, affordable jewelry please have them visit here:
https://paparazziaccessories.com/37964/
Or they can contact me at dstjames@suddenlink.net and I'd be happy to share with them.
I would love to have a nice business built up by the time I retire (which may be 6 years away).  That really doesn't sound like that long from now.  :)

Stac is getting married in less than 30 days now!! November 11th is the big day and we're very excited for her.  I'll also get to see family that will be in town for it which will be fun!  We haven't gotten together like that since Mom's funeral last year.  It should be a wonderful occasion and I am so happy for Stac that she found her true love!!

So tomorrow it is suppose to suddenly get cold.  It is 87 degrees outside right now at 6:51PM and tomorrow's high is last I checked only 47 degrees.  That is really rare for Central Texas.  So it will be interesting.  I'm thinking if we keep the house relatively closed up it will stay warm enough without needing to think about turning on the heat.

My empty nester women's group has been going strong.  We have lunch two times a month (some just chose to come to one) and do other things like last Sunday some of us saw A Star is Born together.  I am so glad I put out feelers in April and made the effort to get it going.  I finally feel like I have friends here. 

That brings things pretty much up to date.  Will try to blog more often, but no promises. :)
Sometimes life gets in the way and other times I just don't feel like anything is important
enough to blog about.  :0)

Thanks to all who DO read these though and miss them when I don't post blogs. 

Bye for now.

Music room is Done..or so he says

Hubby said that the music room is now complete, though I still see a few inches of wall space on the walls.  :-)

First September post

Well here we are already well into September.  Here in Central Texas we finally broke free of the 100 degree days and thankfully have gotten some rain as well.  Let's see, this past week was a nice short work week since Monday was Labor Day. 

Last month when I had my gynecology appointment I talked to my doctor about getting one of those cologuard kits that tests for colon cancer or pre-cancer markers.  I have not had a colonoscopy yet and after taking hubby last year and hearing about the bad experience he had, I really have been avoiding getting one done. So I did get one and and am waiting to hear the results. Hoping for good news.

This month is one of celebration for birthdays and our wedding anniversary. I took a few days off partly to celebrate but also to take some vacation time off as I have to take it by the end of the year or it is lost vacation time.

I can use the occasional break from work too. There is a lot of pressure to get more done in less time. Makes for a stressful day.  Just hoping I can hang in there until I retire.  Time will tell. Hey maybe I'll win the lottery. Yah right ! :)

Finally have A/C

When we had the addition built for my mom last year, the contractor installed a Mitsubishi dual air conditioning/heating system that goes up on the wall.

I should have known when I saw the contractor with the box open trying to read instructions that we were in trouble.  Mom passed away before we needed to use it. Fast forward to last winter. It was feeling cool in the room while I was working and I tried to turn the heat on.  Nothing happened but a light blinked on it.  So I moved the space heater from my old office to my new one and used that when needed.  Fast forward to the hot summer we've had.  One day I tried to turn the air conditioning on. All it did was blow air, and it was never getting cold. Despite having  the windows open and fan on, it just wasn't good enough.

I finally decided today to call someone that dealt with this system as our regular whole house central air repair person did not deal with these, which I thought was nuts!

Anyway sure enough had a nice repair man out today who said that the system was never completely finished being set up and there was also no Freon in it. Figures.  Of course this was one more thing that my hub was able to complain about our horrible contractor. I finally got him to stop complaining about him by the end of last year.  Of course I do wish the contractor would have told me to contact a specialist to get the unit working properly, instead of telling us it was all set.  But anyway after a year and 3 months the unit is finally set up and working.

Doing my part

Well I am proud of myself for doing my part for helping the earth. With all the severe weather occurrences, one would have to live under a rock to not know that we are destroying the earth.  Hopefully it is not too late.

Anyway I got myself some stainless steel straws to use instead of plastic ones. It took me a little getting used to not trying to chew the straw. LOL But I have the hang of it now. I use them for my morning smoothies.

First post in August

Wow. I didn't realize it has been so long since I blogged. My life is boring I guess. LOL. Well we did recently get Netflix and have been sort of addicted to it, but that was only since last week.

I do have to say that we let our Molly go on Aug 1st. :-(  We miss her terribly but we still have our other 3 left to love.

I did go visit the youngest last weekend to see their new place and a new puppy. We went shopping in a cute small town with shops not far from where they live and had a very nice time!

I know my last post mentioned getting my teeth cleaned. Since then I also had a skin doctor appointment in which she found two moles she wanted to remove and send out.  I asked her to try to take as much as possible so that all the margins would be clean so that I wouldn't have to go back to get a core biopsy (and stitches and more recovery time) .  Sure enough they were both precancerous but they did get all of them so I didn't have to go back.  I am very happy to have avoided that.

When I got to my skin doctor appointment I saw that my gynocologist's office was right down the hall as well so I went ahead and made that appointment too and have had my exam with them and such. I keep getting calls about setting up the mammogram but I want to make that appointment myself and should have told my gyno that too.  I just don't care to be pushed into appointments. Had my fill of doctor/dental appointments for the rest of the summer anyway. : -)

School started back up here a few days ago already.  It is also clear that there is less and less daylight. Oh well seasons come and go.

Dental Appointment

Monday I had a dental appointment. It was just for a cleaning and a quick look over by my dentist. Well turns out she dislocated her shoulder or something last month and she's been out.  So it will be a year and a half until I actually see her again, if she is there in February.   I'm sure if I needed to I could see one of her associates but I'm glad I didn't see her this time.  I was anticipating her pushing for my front tooth crown replacement.  I'm not anxious to get anything done to my mouth right now that might rock the boat. I admit I'm the one who initially brought it up but that was before I did anything about it. By having those Invisalign braces, my teeth are straight now and it isn't really much longer than the natural tooth next to it. 

The hygienist that cleans my teeth is nice enough but she always asks me if I drink tea or coffee (because my lower teeth in the back get a little stained apparently). My answer as always is yes, but I always put cream or milk in it. She said it can still stain but I don't believe it can stain that much.  I only drink one cup of coffee in the morning and tea is one or two cups of green tea at night and again with a little bit of cream.   It actually gets me a little mad. I feel like saying, "Hey just do your job and clean my teeth". I already brush my teeth at least 4 times a day as well as floss every day too.   I am keeping up with my appointments and dutifully endure getting my teeth scraped and as far as I know have had no cavities in years.    There was a space of about 3 1/2 years there when I was not happy with any dentist and just didn't bother...but I have been going to my mom's dentist and I like her okay. 

So I am just going to enjoy life.  I am going to drink coffee and tea as I always do and not run to brush my teeth afterwards either.   So there!

Strange Moth

Hubby noticed this strange moth hanging out on the back porch screen. It really looked like it had leaves for wings.   So he grabbed a camera and took some shots of it. I am posting them below.  I have never seen anything like it.  Maybe it was attacked by something that took a few chunks of its wings.  That may very well be a good possibility too.

Hotter than He** !

Welcome to summer in Texas.  I still would much rather be facing a possible high of 105 degrees by Monday in Texas than experience all the tornadoes up north that they've been having. This weather sure is getting more extreme as each year passes. I just hope that something can be done to stop the global warming or whatever it is that is making more unstable conditions happen each year before it is too late. 

I finally got over my cold. I just have a cough that is I think from allergies or something unrelated to the cold. I just seem to cough at some point or another every day.  Could be allergies, could be the fact that we have 4 long haired dogs, who knows.  I read online that ginger can help with coughs so I have been putting it in my smoothies and putting some in my tea in the evening.  Hopefully that will help. 

I had a nice lunch today with the empty nester's group I started. We had a nice number with 10 total showing up. I am really grateful for the core group that I can tell are the ones that show up most of the time.  It really has been nice making some friends here.  That has been the only thing really lacking here for both me and hubby.  But I work at home so it is hard to meet people. I also used to work a lot, even weekends which took up a lot of what would have been spare time too. This year I've had plenty of extra time to dwell on the lack of friends..lol  so I'm happy I'm making some finally.  

Sunday already??

Well darn it is Sunday evening already.  Tomorrow starts a full work week.  Unfortunately I caught a nasty cold in PA.  When we landed Monday night I had a bad sore throat.  I was sort of hoping it was from flying or something but it was not as I still had a bit of one on Tuesday morning.  I got through that day without too much trouble and thought maybe I had staved it off.  I was loading up on orange juice and liquids in general.

Wednesday morning I took my normal walk with my friend (even though it was the 4th) but was pretty tired and by later in the afternoon the cold reared its ugly head and my nose started running, and I was getting a low grade fever and was wiped out for the rest of the day. 

Although I got through work Thursday and Friday, I didn't eat much, and was very tired so I slept as much as I could.  I even didn't attend the women's lunch club yesterday mostly to not expose anyone to my germs.  I was feeling better by yesterday but I am still hacking some.  Nothing too major.  I did do some Yoga today for an easy stretch/exercise routine.  I hadn't done anything since Wednesday.  After two boxes of Puffs, chicken soup and as much sleep as possible, I am doing much better. 

So tomorrow should be a good day!  

Happy 4th of July!

I was told it has been nearly a month since I blogged. Tis true!  Sorry about that.

I just got back from visiting my oldest back in PA.  I went with my other (youngest) daughter who lives here in Texas not too terribly far from me.

 I had not seen my oldest since August of 2014 when she got married.  So it has been a long time coming!  We were gone from June 27th - July 2nd.  Well I might as well say to the 3rd as we didn't walk in the door until 1:00AM.  The flight to PA went well and the flight back wasn't bad but there were at least 2 lightening storms outside our window to the South.  We took off nearly 40 minutes late too as the pilot got a different flight plan.  After seeing the storms to the south, I think I know why they had us fly to Dallas then southward from there.  There was also some more turbulence than there was on the flight out. But bottom line, we got home safe and it was wonderful seeing the oldest and her hubby and two fur kids.

It was nice to see what their life is like (well somewhat as Dani was off work most of the time).  We also got to see their cute house which I really like and is in a great location. The house is on a double lot and has a great expanded 2 car garage. Dani's husband has all sorts of car parts and tools in it and he loves to work on his Jeep that he is making changes to. I am very impressed!

During our visit we drove down to the dance studio that Dani co-owns with 2 other gals which is undergoing some renovation and will look great when it is done (doesn't look bad now either but it was literally being worked on when we saw it).  This was the first time we got to see the studio in person.

I also got a chance to have a short visit with a good friend of mine from 30 years ago. She remembered Dani as a baby~!  I plan to keep in better touch with her.  We used to be the best of friends!

We also got in some miniature golf and plenty of eating out. I'm surprised the scale did not indicate I gained any weight when I weighed myself yesterday.  Unfortunately but not a surprise to me,  I got a cold sometime during the trip. The last day there my throat got sore.  I don't go out much and work from home, so exposure to all the germs in the airport, plane, eateries, etc., got to me.  It was still worth it to see Dani and her family after all these years.  Their two dogs get along really well together and have such personality.  We enjoyed playing with them bunches too.

Hubby also had his own trip back to PA earlier in June.  He flew out June 8th and stayed with his friend and they went antiquing for some treasures to bring back.  His friend drove him back a week later but did not spend the night like I thought he was.  He just wanted to get the dreaded drive back over with I guess. Thankfully he got home okay.

The reason we didn't travel together is because we have no desire to put our 4 dogs through the trauma of being boarded.  Two of them are seniors and one has cancer so that added stress would certainly not do them any good,

I had off yesterday and today of course is the 4th. It was nice being off work for an entire week. I haven't taken this much time off at one time before.  I just have to get through tomorrow and Friday and then we have another weekend ahead. Yippee!

June is flying by

Okay I know I haven't written in a while, but not a lot new.  It is getting hotter of course, and it is getting lighter earlier, of course - that part I love though. :)

I was getting the dogs out to go potty just now and the clouds just looked so cool, I had to grab my camera. The way so many of them were scattered it was like a bunch of birds or even angels up there. I can often see things like faces or shapes in things that others can't always see, even things besides objects made out of clouds that I know many can see. I know there is a name for it but I don't remember what it is called. And no it is not crazy!

Here's some of the shots I took. The first one  and last photos had the flash on, so I don't know if it is just dirt/dust particles or orbs in those.

Last Saturday in May

Well summer seems to be here already. It got up to the upper 90's today. Oh well I am not going to complain as again it was a long winter.  Today I saw Book Club with some girlfriends from a social group I started. I think we had 8 altogether which was really nice!  The movie was good and very funny.  I found myself laughing out loud several times! There were previews for the next Mamma Mia movie and I think that will be the next one we'll go see.

I forgot to take some before pictures but last year we had bought the tail end of a roll of outdoor carpet (plastic type) and split it lengthwise because it was not very long. It has held up fairly well but was starting to fray and often would  fold up from the wind at times.  So I asked hubby to see if they had any new in stock this year so we could replace the area between the two steps with the full width of the same color.  So he got it a few days ago and laid it out this morning.  It has much better coverage. I love it!

Short Catch up

Yesterday was the first '3rd Saturday of the month' lunch with the new empty nesters group I started. It was really nice but it is interesting to me how there were Sooooo many women interested in it at the start and for each lunch there hasn't been more than 8 people show up. Granted I made the 2 Saturday groups at 12 maximum to keep the group manageable, but I should have guessed that many would lose interest or drop out.  I know there is a chance of other things coming up. At least some gals are showing up and I'm making friends so that's a good thing.

I also actually worked a few hours yesterday as well as today.  I'm sure it doesn't mean it will be an ongoing thing but it was nice just the same.

Today was clean the bathrooms day.  Though not a fun job, I'm glad when it is done.

This morning we got rain although I didn't think we were supposed to get much. There was even a small tornado that touched down about 8 miles away.  It rained sometimes hard too, until early afternoon. It really cooled the house down nicely.  We haven't turned on the air conditioning yet but there have been some humid, pretty hot days. So far the ceiling fans have been enough for us but it was nice today having it cool down to,the upper 60's.  It will be nice sleeping weather tonight.

Sunny Saturday

I was just on the back balcony setting for a spell...as they used to say in the old days.  I haven't really sat out there this year yet, just have used the back porch.  I don't have any big plans today so I figured I could just sit there and listen to the birds for a while. I love being outside when it is warm out. 

Yesterday was a very eventful day!  The youngest graduated with a Masters Degree in Education.  I took the day off to attend with my hubby and we left in what I thought was plenty of time at 7:00 am. Graduation was at 10:00 am. I decided to avoid the main highway through Austin as in was a work day and a Friday, not a good combination for traffic!

So I took the toll road and we got maybe 15 miles down the road and traffic came to a slow crawl.  I heard on the radio that the road was being SHUT DOWN due to an accident so luckily we were right at an exit which I took, along with what looked like hundreds of other cars.  It was stop and go (mostly stop) until we got to the street off the frontage road to head to that highway I was trying to avoid. Again we were with many others with the same idea.  I was very thankful that we were not stuck on that toll road any longer as it was still shut down for hours!

Getting to Austin, we passed another accident that was on the side of the road and when we got to the highway there was a motorcyclist sitting at the side with a police car, so not sure what happened there but I was concentrating on getting to the graduation.  Did I mention the urge to use a bathroom was starting to nag at me too?!!

We got down to the apartment where my daughter and her fiance live at 9:30AM.  Thankfully he was waiting for us as he had already dropped off Stac at the coliseum. We had to park and get a shuttle but after all that, we did get seated in time for commencement -made it by less than 5 minutes!  I took a little while to de-stress from that drive!  I suppose if I normally commuted every day it wouldn't have been so bad, but keep in mind I work at home so driving is rare these days and I got gas for the 2nd time this year the other evening.  I got my car back in 2007, and it still has less than 25,000 miles on it!

After graduation we had a nice lunch in a nearby town and then headed home.  Luckily the drive back home was uneventful.  I did take that same toll road though because there was bound to be traffic on a Friday afternoon on the highway through Austin. 

I have to say, it is so weird not working overtime. I am so used to having to work part or all weekend and having time to do what I want is foreign to me.  I don't feel like cleaning either so not sure what I'll do the rest of the day.  It may just be Sci Fi movie time.  Whatever I do, it will be much more relaxing than yesterday.  LOL !

Another nice day~

I was chatting with the oldest the other day and it was to get hotter in PA than here. Their high was somewhere around 90 degrees!  But today is nice, sunny, with a light breeze and is 85 degrees currently.

Yesterday I went to lunch with my Empty Nesters Lunch club.  Out of 12, there were 6 of us which was fine by me as it was a nice small group. We got to know each other better and had a good time. The Mexican restaurant that is where we usually will meet was booked up since it was Cinco de Mayo. We ate a a fairly new place I had not eaten at before. It was pretty good and it was very nice having lunch with some women that I feel like I am actually becoming friends with.

This morning I worked a few hours, and did some laundry. I have been wanting to see the new Avengers movie and hubby really wasn't keen on seeing it though he would if I asked him. So I posted on a local  women's group in facebook to see if anyone was interested in going. I didn't get much response other than a few saying they weren't going.  So I deleted it. I'll just see it when it comes out on TV.

Here's a video I took this morning. I zoomed in as best as I could. There's a new baby deer in the neighborhood.

More pictures...beautiful day out

Today was I'd say the most perfect weather wise this year so far!
It was sunny, got up to the low 80's, no wind, no humidity.  Just perfect!

We got more of the stone for the back.  We get it in bags so that we can carry them
out back (from the UPS delivery- free shipping) at our leisure and spread it around.
Although it would be cheaper to get a truck load and have it dumped, we don't have
the wheel barrow or man power to keep hauling it out to the back, so we're happy
enough doing it this way.  One side is done, the other has been started.

I also snapped a few photos of our Molly.  The vet is pretty certain she has cancer on her upper gum in her mouth.  We're just waiting for the biopsy results.  We are going to try a homeopatic treatment given her age.   But anyway...here's a few pictures of her enjoying this wonderful weather today too.

Near the end of April already?

I could have sworn I wrote a blog post last weekend but I don't see it.  Argh!

Okay quick catch up.  My sister from Ohio was out to visit last week and I took Thursday and Friday off to spend some time with her. I also went down to my other sister's house last Wednesday evening for a neighborhood eat out they had so that I could see my sister and her son.  It was nice seeing them and I got to catch up with my sister's life.  Kyle is autistic and the trip was too long for him as he was starting to complain, loudly at times about wanting to leave Texas.  But there was no way he was going to get home any sooner.  He is very used to his home and routine and I think anything outside of that is really stressful for him.

I had to admire my younger sister for playing hostess all week long on top of what she already normally does.  Thursday we visited our parents grave site up in the military cemetery in Killeen.  It is a fairly large place and sort of our there in the middle of no where.  It is tranquil but also creeps me out a little at the same time.

Friday hubby and I met them at the antique mall where we rent a booth.  There are a lot of booths to look at and we spent a few hours going around to all of them. My sister even bought a paper weight from hubby's booth.  That was really nice of her. 

She left Saturday morning and got back to Ohio around midnight Sunday night.  I bet she was glad to be back, although not glad to have to get back to work.

I didn't post any pictures of the stone we got for the back. We don't have it all filled in yet but here's a few pictures.  And still no cactus yet.

More yard art

Hubby got more yard art yesterday for the back. 
I know it is only metal and will rust after a year or two, but I like how it spruces it up and gives that area more purpose.  Here's a few pictures.

Hummingbird drinking

Hubby captured a hummingbird at the feeders outside my office window.  They always fly away whenever I grab the camera.

More goodies for our back yard

This week my sister is visiting from Ohio with one of her sons. I've only talked to her on the phone so far as she is staying at the other sister's house (less dogs). But I plan to see her tomorrow and have off Thursday and Friday from work for more visiting. One of those days we plan to go up and visit the graves of our folks.  I honestly have not seen them since they passed away. 

But here are some more pictures of some goodies we got today.

We already had all but the 2nd from the top which we got today