A Memorial Day Weekend

Hope you all had a wonderful long weekend.

Mine started out great. Picked up my friend Marie for our usual Saturday morning walk and breakfast. We were both pretty excited to take a nice long walk because this was the first Saturday in a while that the weather was cooperating. It was a beautiful morning! Felt good and energetic and happy to be there.

Yeah, well that was pretty short lived. About 10 minutes into our walk, I tripped on a crooked sidewalk and fell off the curb into the street. I scraped my knee and both of my hands and banged my nose and forehead on the cement..hard! My sunglasses flew off but not before putting a nice gouge in my nose! I was bleeding profusely from the cuts and had a nosebleed from banging my nose so hard. Blood was dripping on the ground and all over my clothes, and neither one of us had so much as a Kleenex on us! Luckily, a couple driving by saw us and stopped. They had lots of tissue to give me and then kindly gave us a ride back to the restaurant that I parked my car at.

After I went in the bathroom and cleaned myself up the best I could, we actually stayed and had breakfast! Couldn't let the morning be a total bust! I even stopped briefly at a huge yard sale before I went home, but I was hurting all over!

Before I get to the weekend pictures (I will spare you pictures of my injuries...you're welcome!) get a load of this clematis, would you!?


I am very pleased with how well it is doing this year! I didn't fertilize it or anything. I guess it just needed to be left alone!

So the rest of Saturday was pretty much spent sitting around icing my knee and my face! Both of my arms were getting more and more sore by the minute.

On Sunday we went to my brothers for a barbecue and to see my nephew who is in from Colorado. Before we went there we went to a local lake just to hang out for a few hours. There was lots of baby Canada geese there! They were pretty cute!



Their mama was keeping a close eye on us! She was pretty threatening even if she did have grass all over her beak!



Then there was a mama swan and her cute little babies,



Today we went to the Brighton State Recreation Center to wade in the water and do a little metal detecting. This carving was at one of the entrances.



Brighton State Park has camping and they also have horse camping. I was amazed to see all these horses tied up at various camp sites. There was all sorts of riding trails for people to ride their horses on. I guess I never knew there was a horse campground, but I can see where people could use them!



More baby Canada geese (OK I know they're called goslings but I like calling them baby geese). I wonder if there are any geese left in Canada, because there sure a lot here in Michigan!



A storm blew in so our time there was pretty short. We plan on going back there sometime this summer.

Took the slow route home and saw this sign posted on a telephone pole:


OK...good to know!!

It was a nice weekend considering I was really sore and lived on Advil. Tonight I am feeling better by the second. The soreness is going away and my arms don't hurt so much.

Back to work tomorrow. Sure wish I could start the weekend all over again only this time stay on my feet!!

'Round The 'Hood

Last weekend it was so beautiful outside we took a couple of nice long walks.

Through the neighborhood park.



I love this little tree a few door down from us. It is almost perfectly shaped and so pretty!

We also walked a nature trail a few miles away from us, along the Rouge River.





This was a nice addition since the last time we walked this trail.

Unfortunately, due to the Michigan economy, the nature trail is not nearly as long as it was supposed to be. Hopefully, some day they can finish it.

Hope you all are having a good long weekend so far. In a few days I will post about ours, including a lovely little accident I had!

Awards!

I received a couple of awards last week from one of my many blog buddies that I have been reading for a few years. So thanks to Tiffany at Snerkology. I hope I can do them justice.

Here goes:

The first award, Happy 101 I am supposed to list 10 things that make me happy:

1. All of my wonderful friends in the blogosphere!.
2. Reading a good book.
3. My kitties.
4. Taking pictures.
5. Estate sales and flea markets.
6. Using sales and coupons to get stuff for really cheap or even free!
7. Reading other peoples blogs.
8. Falling into bed when I am really tired.
9. Listening to thunderstorms while I'm laying in bed at night.
10. Watching and hearing waves crash onto the shore.


The second award, Sugar Doll, I have to list 10 things you may or may not know about me.

1. I have to balance my checkbook every month to the penny. If it's one cent off, I find it!
2. When I am sitting down with my legs up, I cross my toes like you cross your fingers!
3. I absolutely HATE driving around parking lots and parking structures looking for a spot to park.
4. I hate to write by hand, If I never had to to write anything again that would be fine with me!
5. I want to retire so I can winter in a warmer state but I don't want to be the age of retirement.
6. I chew gum all of the time and if I go a few days without chewing gum I get withdrawal symptoms!
7. I love to cook but I hate to clean up and would eat out every day just to avoid that!
8. I could easily be a hoarder if I let myself! I love collecting stuff!
9. I love to burn candles but never do because I'm afraid one of my cats would set itself on fire.
10. I do not like to talk on the phone and very rarely do when I'm not at work.

Now I supposed to tag 5 people but I can't choose, so if you are reading this, consider yourself awarded!!

The Brenda Photo Challenge-Flowers

Pretty spring daffodils!

These are on a bush in our back yard. I don't know what they are but I love that they are so tiny and delicate!

These are glass flowers in the ceiling of a hotel in Las Vegas.

Whew..it's hard to keep to three pictures! To see more go HERE!

House stuff

A good part of Saturday and Sunday morning was spent tearing the carpeting off of the stairs and the upstairs landing. Before:



And after





We got a nice surprise that the wood on the steps was in pretty good condition. We should only have to do minimal sanding and staining. The under part (or whatever it's called.. riser I think) was painted white. We did some damage taking off the carpet tack strips, but with some sanding and repainting it should look decent.

Unfortunately, the upstairs landing is not hardwood. My plan is to install a wood floor on the landing and sand and stain the stairs the same color. I am thrilled just not having carpeting on the stairs anymore. So much easier to clean! We still have carpeting in all of the bedrooms though, but I think there may be hardwood underneath. I eventually would like to get the carpeting out of those rooms. The good thing is we can take our time because nobody ever goes upstairs except us!

Well the cats do but they don't care!

Marcasite.

We finally had a nice enough day for me to go to a few garage sales on Friday. There was several subdivision sales in my area. Didn't really find anything that great but I did get this pretty pin:



I guess I have this thing for marcasite. It always catches my eye at sales.
I got this pendant at a estate sale a few months ago:



Then of course this pin and earring set I bought at another estate sale:



This peacock pin was my grandmothers.



This lapel watch also belonged to my grandmother.



It's actually pretty old, and it's genuine marcasite, which means that the stones were pressed into the silver versus glued in like modern marcasite.

Yesterday morning I walked for the American Heart Association Heart Walk. It was only three miles (versus the breast cancer 3-day, which I would probably never do. Not because I don't want to walk for three days but because I am no fund raiser and can't imagine trying to raise over $2,000, which is what you need to qualify to walk in it!) but it was very nice out and I had a good time! Unfortunately, I only raised $30 because I kept forgetting to ask people for money!!

Oh well...it was for a good cause!

Mother's Day

Thanks for your comments about our sweet Tori. I do miss her.

We had a good weekend otherwise. Chris and Marissa took us to MGM Grand for dinner at the buffet. They have the best food there and I ate way too much! As usual, it was wonderful to see them! When Chris asked me what I would like for Mother's Day, I actually channeled my mother by saying, "Other than to see you guys, nothing!" She used to say that all of the time!

Speaking of my mother. I usually bring a big bouquet of lilacs from our bush in the backyard to the cemetery on Mother's Day. This year I could barely scrap up a couple of decent branches. It must be the cold weather we have been having because my lilacs were very short lived!

Shauna went to dinner with us on Friday and then came over on Sunday for a while, too. No news on the job yet, still keeping our fingers crossed. It's agony to have to wait especially when she is so anxious to get a new job!

This Saturday morning I have to walk 5 miles for the American Heart Association with some people in my department at work. I did not do the fund-raising I was supposed to do and only managed to scrap up about $30.

Oh well, I will never be known for my mad fundraising skills!


Hey baby, how you doin'?

In Memory of Tori

This is a repeat of a post I did a few years ago. Our elder cat Tori died early this morning. She was exactly 19 years old.



This is Tori.

Tori is the second cat I have ever had. She is a torti. She's brown and black and beige. She has beautiful brown and black eyes, and a cute little pink spot on her nose.

I got Tory from a neighbor who rescued animals. Tory and her siblings (I can't remember how many, now) were living under a deck. Their mom just disappeared one day. They don't know what happened to her but her kitties were too little to live on their own. They were rescued and bottle fed by my neighbor. Tory was actually about 6 months old when I got her. I was not really wanting another cat at the time but my neighbor held on to her. I guess she knew that I would change my mind eventually. I did and I'm not sorry at all.

She has been the greatest cat. So sweet and affectionate and always ready to purr. She used to jump 6 feet up the wall to get a spider or fly or whatever bug happened to be there. She was also a great hunter. We used to joke that she single-handedly wiped out the population of mice and moles in our city she used to kill so many. One day she even got a little bunny. You can bet she got in trouble for that one!

She also has used up 3 or 4 of her nine lives. Once she was caught in the dryer with a load of clothes. Once she disappeared for two nights; I think she got locked in a garage or shed. Once she got caught in a back yard with a dog and had to take shelter in huge hole that the dog had dug until we could come and rescue her.

She's 16 years old now. Although she is the only cat that we allow to go outside, she never wanders anywhere anymore. She stays in the back yard, laying in the sun or watching the birds fly by. She's slowed down alot but she still is in really good health.

I know some cats can live into their 20's and I'm hoping she's one of them.

Well, she almost made it. She was a great cat and we will miss her like crazy.



Tori 1991-2010

Hoping...

As I type this, Shauna is doing her pre-employment testing here at the University of Michigan for a possible job in Neurology. I hope I am not jinxing her by mentioning it here and I really hope she gets this job. She has worked at a grocery store for the last 10 years and she is so done with that. She has a Bachelor's in Behavioral Sciences and a certificate in medical billing so getting her foot in the door here would be a good start to bigger and better things!

It has been beautiful and sunny here this past week. I love spring. My flowers are going crazy and look at the size of my clematis!!

(pic)

It should start getting blooms pretty soon!

LATER: I wrote the above post earlier at work this morning. Since then Shauna did excellent on her tests and they already called and got a good reference from her present employer. All that's left now is for them to officially hire her..which they better do after all that! I am excited to have my daughter working at the same place I do!



"OK I see that bird and if you would just let me out of here I think I can nab it!"

Brenda Photo Challenge-Circles

It's time for another Brenda Photo Challenge. This one's circles!


Corks!

Dish cloths.


Pretty dish.


Go HERE to see more circle pics!