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Wednesday, July 31, 2013

A Week in Pictures (#23)

This was a forgotten blog draft written back in May - I was scrolling through the posts to see what I have posted and found this (along with another). I'm just going to publish this. Week in Pictures will no longer be done due to a variety of reasons; but, I will continue to share pictures I take from time to time.

QuiltCon, Austin, Texas 2/22/2013

In case you missed it, I blogged about the quilt show here.

Loot from QuiltCon 2/23/2013

The charm squares and mini-charm squares were freebies. The magazine was only $1.00 and it is no longer in my possession.

Zelda! 2/25/2013

I started playing this game again. However, Since the beginning of March, Dan and I have been watching Bones. We watched the TV series from the very beginning all the way through Season 6 which we finished on April 13th! Six seasons in about six weeks. I suppose I can pick up this game once again now because we do not have Season 7 in our possession yet.

Concordance, "I shall not want" 2/26/2013

Reviewed and studied in depth Psalms 23.

I ddi not any pictures for the rest of this week as I was busy packing and getting ready to travel to see my mother for her birthday. Her birthday is February 28th and she turned 79 years old. We actually traveled on March 1st to see her that weekend. It turned out we ended up seeing her at the hospital instead of the nursing home.

A Week in Pictures (#24)

This was a forgotten blog draft written back in May - I was scrolling through the posts to see what I have posted and found this (along with another). I'm just going to publish this. Week in Pictures will no longer be done due to a variety of reasons; but, I will continue to share pictures I take from time to time.

{All pictures shot on our 1+ acre land.}

Prairie Flax 3/1/2013

Unknown (milkweed?) 3/4/2013

I believe I have shots of this plant unfurled at a later date. I also think this is not a milkweed plant. I have yet to figure out what they are. The bees and a few butterflies love these things though. I have to tell you that I think they are ugly in full bloom! Ha!

Make a Wish 3/6/2013

These are from the false dandelions. The flowers bloom in the mornings and by afternoon, they are in this form. It is both amazing and weird to see many yellow flowers in the mornings and then a bunch of these seed forms by afternoon.

Texas Squaw-weed 3/7/2013

Unknown (cactus?) 3/7/2013

We do not have many of these on our land; but, I find them a little beautiful with the white curlicues grass like parts.

Found Egg (3/7/2013)

I was exploring the land and discovered this egg on the ground near the back of our property. It was broken; so, I do not think it was viable. However, I left it alone. I found the egg totally broken apart a few days later.

Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Random and Orderly Pictures

I have not been posting pictures of the week of late due to the fact I just have not had the time nor the inclination to take pictures and/or process them. Below is a few favorite pictures taken the last couple of months. Enjoy.

Storm Clouds; 5/25/2013
{To see a larger image, go here.}


Faded Poppy in the Backyard; 6/9/2013


Flower in the Backyard; 6/9/2013


Dragonfly; 6/9/2013


Scissor-tailed Flycatcher; 6/11/2013 (with long lens)
{To see a larger image, go here.}


Butterfly; 6/18/2013


Cool Signature Web Art! 6/18/2013

By the way, this was a very tiny spider – less than an inch long. With the wind blowing, I knew I would not get a great picture; but, I just had to try to capture this gorgeous signature web art!


Garden Spider Feasting on Another Insect; 6/30/2013


Cool Looking Garden Spider! – Different from the Common Ones Around Here; 7/1/2013


Garden Spider with its Mate; 7/2/2013

By the way, this is the same garden spider captured feasting on another bug above.


Cumulonimbus Cloud; 7/4/2013
{To see a larger image, go here.}

The sun was setting and I absolutely loved the coloring of this storm cloud. It is difficult to capture clouds in their glory; but, I tried.


Black Widow; 7/6/2013

Most likely male as it was on the same web as a much larger black widow. Dan killed the larger one and then asked for my camera because he could see this tiny one had gorgeous markings. When he finished taking pictures, he killed this one too.


Daring Spider; 7/6/2013

I discovered this daring spider with a web which was rather unusual hereabouts. Daring spiders rarely have webs; so, I assume this is a nest with eggs (or baby spiders). I found it fascinating this spider could go all the way straight through its webbing – it was a funnel web.


A Gorgeous Sunset; 7/6/2013
{To see a larger image, go here.}


Unknown Spider (Green Lynx?); 7/14/2013

This thing scared the crap out of me when it came out of my gardening gloves when I shook it to make sure nothing was there. (I left the pair outside on the patio table). I quickly grabbed my camera to take a picture.


Unknown Spider (Green Lynx?); 7/14/2013

This scared the crap out of me again when I slowly went around it to take another picture. It is extremely aggressive and extremely quick. As a result, this is not a very good picture because I was unwilling to get very close to the critter. And yes, this was shot with my macro lens.

I have NO clue to what particular species this is although the name green lynx is tickling my mind. To be honest, I never want to see one again. My gloves are now stored inside the house at all times.

Wednesday, July 24, 2013

Wordy Wednesday {Kitten on Camera Bag}

{pictures shot on July 11, 2013}

I am trying to cooperate…

But, I have other pressing matters…

I am sleepy and want a nap….

Okay! Okay! Okay! Happy now?

Oh, what was that? The Sandman calling?

Friday, July 19, 2013

DIY and Remodeling Update

We have been taking our time with the interior of the house. We are kind of at a standstill due to a variety of reasons. But, I do want to show you what is going on around here concerning the house.

  • Exterior of House:

We started painting the exterior of the house. In some places, it was in sad shape. We cleaned up some places and primed those spots. I think only one or two coats of paint without any primer was put onto the house. I primed over many nails that were showing through the paint and becoming rusty. Pathetic. {note: we are using KILZ 2 primer / sealer / stainblocker which blocks out all stains including rust.}

Did you see blue tape? Well, there was a long thin piece of wood that somehow separated itself from the main piece of wood. It was like that when we bought the house. Dan fixed it up weeks ago and taped it down so that it would stay down while the glue dries. We just left that tape up there until we started painting. Ha!

This is the new paint color and the picture does not do it justice. We both agree that the new color is much better than the old and matches the bricks of the house. We still have 1/4 of the back siding and the garage side left to paint. Once that is done, we will paint the shutters and the underside of the porch all around the house (eaves).

  • Kitchen:

We are going to paint the kitchen cabinets (after I sand and prep them for painting). As much as I dislike these particular cabinets, I just cannot see replacing them with a style we like as they are still in good condition. After watching a DIY show where they painted these same cabinets, I got to thinking to myself that they may look tons better painted. So, we picked up a bunch of paint chips and taped them onto the cabinets.

It took me awhile to narrow the colors down as most were so similar. I have finally decided on far left for the bottom cabinets and the second right color for the upper cabinets. What is so funny is that after I made my choice, the chosen far left color is called “fudge”. Do you realize what this means my kitchen will look like after cabinets are painted? Chocolate mint ice cream. Ha!

I plan to sand the cabinets during the day while Dan is at work. But, there is something else that I should do first.

  • Pantry:

Yes, I am crazy. But, the apron is my inspiration for the colors in the kitchen. I figured that for once in my life, I was going to paint something in a wild vibrant happy color and that is orange. And besides, the door to the pantry remains shut 95% of the time; so, no one will really see the color. Anyway, I have chosen the top paint chip, the far upper right color, for the pantry. Once that color was chosen, we decided to go ahead and get started on it.

At first, things went along swimmingly. We ripped out the old shelves and the baseboards. We are planning to redo the shelves to fit our needs. When Dan ripped out a baseboard, we discovered that builder missed a stud by a mile and hit a hot water pipe.

We had to shut off the water and ended up calling a plumber. Due to the fact it was the weekend, it was difficult to find one to come out and help us with this problem. A minor remodeling project turned into a major expensive project. *sigh*

Once the plumber fixed the problem for us, we soldiered on. Dan decided to put in an access panel instead of putting up new drywall and he will build the panel. I started priming some areas that needed priming before we put up the wall color and discovered an area that refused to be primed. The previous owners spilled something in the corner of the pantry. I cleaned it up as best as I could before moving in the house.

Well, every time I put the KILZ 2 primer on the area, the stains would seep through creeping me out. I have watched too many episodes of Bones. I was thinking things that I should have not been thinking such as a dead body was behind the drywall. Ewww!

After putting two coats on and the stain still seeping through the primer, I still did not want to paint with the chosen wall color. I just knew that the stain would bleed through grossing me (and others) out. Dan was worried that something was wrong behind the drywall. So, he decided to rip out the drywall to make sure that the stains were not coming from the studs or something else. It turned out that the thin paper on the drywall was just soaked with whatever the previous owners spilled. The drywall and the studs themselves were fine. At the very least, we both have peace of mind concerning this issue. And, there is no dead body! A plus! Ha!

The end result of ripping out all that old yucky drywall. Dan is now in the process of putting drywall back up. The difficult part is that one side is one thickness and the other side has a different thickness. So, we had to buy two different sizes of drywall. Ugh!

In the meantime, I will be painting all the baseboards and the shelving that we purchased to build inside the pantry.

  • Dan’s office

I originally wanted to do his room first; but, he had a hard time deciding on the wall color. Even with all the colors (and there were tons more that were eliminated), he still could not decide. One day while at the home improvement store, he found another paint chip.

I think he has finally decided and it is the one he recently found – the far right color. We have already started on the pantry; so, the work on the office will wait until that is done.

Monday, July 15, 2013

Macro Monday (Interesting Critters)

Those antennae!

{To see a larger image, go here.}

Both of these were shot on June 8, 2013. I do not have time to research what these critters are.

For the first image, I was curious about the bug which couldn't have been more than 1/4-inch long. So, I took several shots with the macro lens and much to my amazement, the antennas are very unique!

For the second image, I just liked the markings and took several shots of that critter.

The only reason why I spotted either one of these critters is because they moved!