Just some pretty pictures

 This font is called Caveat. I thought I'd try something that looked pretty now that things are starting to look worn out in the great outdoors. These were all taken at the beginning of November. Our neighbor's red tree/bush/shrubbery is so vibrant and lovely, even moreso in real life. I wish sunsets and bright colors came out in photos as true as they do to our eyes, but I guess our manmade stuff just can't quite keep up, hehe!

I  love sunlight!  

Random post

I had a small friend join me the last time I hung laundry outside. I love wooly bears!

Dada and his estate sales. I never know what he's going to come home with, but he was delighted to snag this humungous ladder. I'm eternally grateful that my father didn't have this one lest I'd needed to use it every time my BFF locked herself out of her house, but that is an entirely different blog post, so you'll have to ask about that one sometime.

You've seen pictures of Liam's long hairs. In his defense, these are not all his, but I am thankful that I spotted this hairball in the bathroom I don't use and rescued it from the drain. I shudder to think what would have happened if it had continued on its journey. It was large enough to name, so:

And another estate sale find- ramps to the trailer we rarely use. Maybe now we'll use it more...? *shrug* Not my monkeys, not my circus.

And while I'm pondering, why is it keys and monkeys and not drop the y and add i-e-s? Hmmm. English is weird.

 

Nature wins again!

 Hi! i felt like something different today, so i'm using the permanent marker font. maybe it balances out the not-so-wispy mist that has befallen us, causing the second fog delay-turned-cancellation day of the year.

i love the drips on the ends of the fronds. remember, you can enlarge photos by clicking on them.

Spider web in the gooseberries

if you look really closely you might be able to see the spider webs dangling from the branches. 

we lived twenty minutes north of here for about 8 years, and during sketchy weather we'd always hear about this southern district on a delay or cancelling. i used to laugh, "those kids are never in school!" 

now i laugh that the northern kids are always in school. i'm amazed we made it an entire academic quarter without even a delay this year, but we're making up for it now. having driven in it yesterday, i can assure you that there is an almost physical line where the fog stops. it's amazing. once you hit it, you go, "oh, so that's why we're always delaying and they're always on time!" i dunno if it's the actual school district boundary or what, but it's as if a wizard has planted his staff to declare to the fog, "you shall not pass!" 

i love it, though. even though this fog had a decidedly icy-seeping-into-your-bones feel, it is beautiful to me. i think it was a good call on behalf of the kiddos and poor bus drivers. i have already heard sirens this morning and i'm glad we get to stay in out of the damp. be safe out there and have a positive energy thursday!

#Inktober and real live decor

 

#Inktober keepin’ on

 

October is SO pretty in Ohio

 

A life lesson

 This post is for those of you amongst my Tribe who tend to procrastinate and then get fired up (almost as if someone had lit a fire under one's nevermind) and tackle a bunch of stuff at once, because you are My People and you'll get this.

Last year, I never hung our heavy drapes in the Old Lady Room. I left up the sheer cream and wine colored curtains because I wanted more light in a room that has a wine colored carpet and greenblack walls and no overhead light. What the builders were thinking when they left no light fixture is beyond me. We've since found wine colored lamp shades for two of the table lamps in addition to the halogen lamp stationed in the corner. It's still darker that we'd like most of the time, hence the light-penetrating curtains.

However, this week it got down into the 30s at night and I definitely noticed a chill on the back of my neck and shoulders whilst I was sitting on the couch which abuts the big windows. I figured I should probably rehang the cream colored, insulated drapes. Sometime. Soonish. Probably.

For some reason, I decided that time would be this morning.

Before I had taken my allergy meds.

Before I vacummed up what used to be spider webs and moths and stinkbugs.

Before I remembered that drapes require curtain hooks, I was already behind the couch, but before that I had said, "move, Couch."

Couch merely snickered at me and said, "yo, move this."

So I attempted a shove. Not a big one, just a "get outta my way so I can hang the dang curtains" shove. 

Couch wasn't having it.

I realized, in fact, the slider thingies were not permanently under Couch, something I should have checked first. 

"Fine. I will get behind you and do this anyway."

Lest you think the other members of my household are awful people who could have lent a hand, they were already working on the sink in the loo which has been dripping and dripping faster and is now drippingdrippingdripping alarmingly fast. We've kept a mixing bowl underneath and have been using the water to keep the water bowls full for the dogs and have been watering plants with it but I know we are losing some down the drain. I didn't want to deter that progress.

So there's me, squashed in the less than a foot of space behind Couch and the window wall. I'd had the foresight to dump all the drapes onto Couch, but they were still all folded into each other from two springs ago when I put them away. I'm twisting to reach and detangle the drapes when I realized, "oh *insert pirate-y talk here*, these need the dang hooks!"

I holler to Damon, who is in the room we call the Library as he has the day off school, and he appears in only his underpants, device in hand, as I try to twist further to gesture to what I need and where they are across the room from me. As he retrieves the plastic cup containing all the hooks (yes, we run a classy establishment around here, I know), they dump out and he's trying to simultaneously stuff them back into the cup whilst watching his video. 

Eventually, he hands me the cup (and had fetched me the vacuum, as well) and I start threading those into the drapes, all the while cursing living in a climate where anyone even needs to have summer and winter curtains and the fact that I was smashing the Count Chocula that I'd had after my Cheerios and that I probably should have pooped first.

I'm reminded of something my Mary Alice had shown me years ago; a sign that started off in huge letters cautioning PLAN AHEAd with a tiny, smashed letter d because they ran out of room. Somedays that is my life.

But the drapes are up! Just in time for it to be in the 70s again most of this week. If anyone needs me I'll be washing the sheers.

Looking Halloweeny

You probably can’t tell, but there was a great Cheshire Cat smiling moon this morning amidst the naked trees.

And check out this fool who thought it’d be a good idea to build a web between the ice and water dispensers. Sheesh. I think he was the same guy I saw in the kitchen sink the other day… I guess he is Araña de cocina, haha. Guy gets around!

 

#Inktober out of order

 

Sweet nothings

 Grandmama informed me that today is National Chocolate Cupcake Day, so I had to act accordingly. I even got to use up my homemade chocolate buttercream icing as well as cans of both cream cheese and salted caramel frostings. Win!

More #Inktober

 

Another post of Random

 Dada hit yet another auction, this time with Thing Two, and brought home at least three boxes of books. Now we get to sort what we want to keep, will actually use, will never use, what goes to the used bookstore for book credit, and so on!

One of Thing Two's science experiments isn't going as planned. The Dixie cup on the left has three bean seeds. The Dixie cup on the right has 15 bean seeds. The glass jar in the middle holds a few but aren't part of the experiment. 

He's supposed to find out what happens when seeds are overcrowded. I told him to just look at our garden for an example of overcrowding. None of his initial three beans have even come up, three of the 15 showed up, and the ones who don't matter are thriving. Beans.

I was killing some time last week when I saw these lovely colors together and had to take pictures!

Being in a college town, you end up with lots of coffee shops. This is one of our favorites. The week before, Thing Three had beaten Thing Two who proceeded to shellac him this time!

These next two shots were taken at the bus stop first thing in the morning. Well, first thing for some people. Right around 7 AM. Some of us had already been up for hours. It's so dark!

It's rare to see this kid conked out like this. He's always in motion, but he sure had a great nap this weekend!

Tis the season for shepherd's pie!

Have a terrific week!

#Inktober kickoff

 Clearly I'm going to have to remember to press harder so these show up better. I've decided to go themeless this year (usually I stick with fairies when I attempt Inktober) and I'm not penciling anything, just doing straight-up ink. Hence the lightness and hesitation, haha! Here are the first six. Feel free to click on them to see them larger. The prompt is on each.

Dada-ism

I forget what I was teasing him about, but I mentioned an expanding waistline. He fired back: 

What waistline? I have more of a hemisphere.