A bit of fun for the pet owners out there

I saw this on Facebook this morning and just cracked up laughing.

Easter egg birthday party!

This has been a great weekend. In addition to having four days off work, last night a couple of friends came over and we had a little party in which we ate too much, drank too much, and dyed Easter eggs. We had so much fun!

Party table!

Gettin' fancy shmancy with the radish roses!!!

Mini brownie bites with peanut butter cups baked inside!

 

Carrot cake with cream cheese icing.

Local wine.

 

Prepping for whiskey sours.....

...the glasses are ready....

Delicious!

 

Getting crafty in the garage. We were banned from the house.
I can't imagine why!

 

Messy! Colorful! And a creepy floating egg!



M. and her dyed fingers! Also, see how happy she looks? That's
the result of two glasses of wine and two whiskey sours!

 

T. and her "goth" egg! She has the same birthday
as me so it was a double celebration! 



My eggs, so pretty!

The lovely flowers my husband surprised me with.

We didn't get photos of all of the food, mainly the hot dogs we grilled (yum!) or the delicious dip my friend M. brought. But rest assured, we had a small feast!

It was a very happy birthday. And now I'm thirty-eight years old. Eeek!

Happy weekend

Today is the start of a four day weekend for me, and I couldn't be happier! Tomorrow is my birthday, so the next few days will be filled with small celebrations and fun. My husband is off today and tomorrow with me, so we will get some time together. I'm not sure what he may have planned. At some point I'll be going shopping for my own gift--I'm in serious need of some new work clothes and of course only I can buy those. And on Sunday a couple of friends are coming over to have drinks and eat cake with me. We're also going to dye Easter eggs!

Lest anyone thinks that's too weird, let me explain. Several years ago I picked up some cheap egg decorating kits at the grocery store on impulse. I thought a bowl of dyed eggs would look pretty on the table as a centerpiece since it was almost Easter. On the night when I had boiled up a dozen eggs and was preparing to begin, some friends dropped by. Well, we ended up having drinks and decorating eggs and we had a BLAST. None of us had done it since we were kids, and the alcohol only added to the fun. Everyone ended up with some cool looking eggs to take home (and rainbow stained fingers) and we ended up talking about what fun it was for years. Since Easter is coming up next week I thought it would be fun to do it again. So we'll be having drinks, finger food, birthday cake, and craft time!

Speaking of birthday cake, I've been trying to figure out what kind to have. I've been doing without sugar (as part of my new year's "get healthier" resolution) for over a month now, so I'm super excited. I'm torn between chocolate layer cake, and carrot cake with cream cheese icing. It feels like a big decision when I've not had any dessert (other than fruit) for weeks on end!

Friends, family, new clothes, cake, crafty stuff, and time off....it's going to be a great weekend!

Spring morning pictures

Here are some pictures taken in my yard on this lovely spring morning. And although I'm a day late, Happy Vernal Equinox to all!




Sweet.



Dogwood blossoms, an early spring favorite in the South.



Ornamental pear trees dressed in white.

  

A squirrel's nest high among the flowers.

 

Many trees have delicate pink new leaves that will
turn green once they are hardy enough to tolerate the sunlight.

 

 

Spam

I would just like to apologize in advance to my readers (I don't think there's many of you) who occasionally comment here. I've had to turn on word verification. The spammers have been out. I've been finding all kinds of nasty offensive comments posted here and I'm sick of it. Hopefully that will put an end to them.

We're having some beautiful spring days here. I've not had much chance to enjoy them yet, as I've been working a lot of consecutive days leading up to this weekend. Friday will be the beginning of a long weekend off for me to celebrate my birthday. I'll be catching up with the blog then!

Hope everyone is having a great week.

St. Patrick's Day

Happy St. Patrick's Day! I thought this was an interesting breakdown of percentages of people with Irish ancestry by state:



South Carolina has one of the lower percentages, although you wouldn't know it from asking around. Almost every (non-African American) person I know claims to be partially Irish. But hey, everyone has a bit of Irish in them on St. Patty's Day, right? (Even if it's just a pint of Guinness!)

Blueberry blossoms

It's beginning!

The blueberry bushes in our back yard are bursting into bloom, promising buckets full of beautiful berries in June.

We lucked out when we moved in to this house; these bushes were already here. They're quite large, and produce great quantities of berries. We always give lots away with more than enough left for us (and the birds and squirrels, too). Aside from the delicious fruit, blueberries plants would be worth growing just for the spring flowers and the red autumn foliage. They add a lot of visual interest to a backyard garden, and will attract plenty of wildlife to boot. All that, and they seem to require almost no care at all. They're wonderful plants!

Happy Dog

I'm convinced I have the happiest dog on Earth.

 

 

 

Let's PLAY!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I love it when she smiles!

Machines hate me

For some inexplicable reason, my husband and I are downright incapable of keeping certain kinds of machines working. While living in our first apartment, we managed to kill three lawn mowers (one of which was borrowed and we had to pay for it). It's the same way for us with appliances.They will work just long enough to be past the warranty, and then they will die.  (Especially if they're expensive, like washers or dryers or refrigerators.) We are on our third vacuum in this house alone. It drives me crazy.

This morning I attempted to cut the grass in our back yard. Mind you, my dad repaired our lawn mower last fall, and it was working just fine for him the last time it got used. It's been in storage since. I got all prepared for the year's first mowing: picked up large sticks that had fallen from the trees, moved the hammock out of the way, gathered dog toys and other foreign objects from the area, filled the mower with gas, checked the oil, and then tried to crank the mower......

and tried. And tried. And tried some more. The engine just sputtered a few times, but never really fired no matter how hard I tried to crank it. Eventually I was sweaty and cursing, pulling the stupid lever over and over and nearly taking my shoulder out of joint in the process. I was so. pissed. off. Eventually I gave up, but only after kicking the machine a couple of times and sending a  colorfully worded (ahem) text to my husband (he's at work) expressing my frustration. So much for cutting the grass!

To add to the joy of discovering the mower is broken (again!) we've been planning to buy a new washing machine. We don't have much choice. Our current one is leaking water all over the floor during the rinse cycle. And forget getting anything repaired these days. We live in a throw away society; shops that repair appliances no longer exist.  They just continue to sell you crap quality new machines that are guaranteed not to last half as long as they should. And coming to my house is like a death warrant for them anyway!

I don't know why machines hate me so much, but I do know one thing: I'm about to have a glass of wine (nevermind it's just past lunchtime) and forget all about that f*#!ing mower for the day!

Wind!

This morning I woke up to the sound of the wind blowing hard outside my window. The sun is shining for the first time in a week, with wispy clouds racing across a pale blue sky. It's still cold, especially with all the gusts of wind, but it finally feels like a March morning.

When I first opened my eyes today, and lay listening to the wind, I had a memory from my childhood of my dad taking me and two little girls from my neighborhood to a large empty field to fly a kite. It must have been around 30 years ago. The field was muddy and the trees were bare; it may have been in March. The girls were twins that lived across the street from me for a year or two when we were very young. We were only casual friends through grade school, and went our completely separate ways after graduation. I haven't given them much thought in the years since, until this morning. So I was surprised when I logged onto Facebook (with my first cup of coffee in hand) and saw that today is their birthday! How strange is it that I had a memory about them (triggered by the March wind) on their birthday? Our brains work in mysterious ways sometimes!

Because today began the way it did, it feels like a lucky day for adventures. The wind and sunshine are calling for me to come outside and do something! So I'm off.... dog in tow, camera in hand, to see where this windy, wild, serendipitous day takes me.

"March is a tomboy with tousled hair, a mischievous smile, mud on her shoes and a laugh in her voice."
- Hal Borland

March already!

March came in quietly this year, with gray skies and cold rain that doesn't look much different than the whole of February. Spring doesn't seem to be in any hurry. Aside from a few stray daffodils, nothing is blooming yet, not even the flowering trees that are usually very early. I keep waiting for everything to pop!

This is my favorite month of the whole year. It's my birthday month, so I feel very aligned with the energy of March. St. Patrick's Day is coming up (hence the blog makeover with all the GREEN!) and Easter falls on the 31st. March is all about daffodils and shamrocks, dyed eggs and Easter candy, mad hares and Dr. Seuss.

In honor of my favorite month, I'll spend the next three weeks celebrating everything March here on the blog. Stay tuned!

Ginger looking for a 4-leaf clover.