Sunday-11:30am

Good Morning!

When Leah was here on Tuesday night she attached the quick release on the faucet on the side of the building and on my new expanding hose!  TaDa!

As long as I had the camera outside I thought I would show you the view to the left...

...and to the right.  Pretty boring, actually--LOL!

They picked me up a rug for inside the patio door so we have a place to take off shoes when we come in.  Don't want to track in bird poop--LOL!

That's actually a really pliable bath rug from Ikea.  So it is absorbent for wet shoes and quite washable.  Perfect!

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Got the second rusty cart put together, too.  :) 

One shelf for my morning writing supplies, the bottom shelf for Ian's art and craft supplies, and three shelves got filled up with the current card project.  Only one left open, so we did need two carts, I guess, eh?  LOL!
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I'm always making soup but I haven't shown you any for a long time.

This one has potatoes, onions, carrots, celery, Napa cabbage, and crushed tomatoes in vegetable broth.  Yummy!
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I ordered some very cheap fountain pens on Amazon that are coming slowly from China.  Two of them have arrived so far (said could take 4-8 weeks).  

  These two are really heavy!  I find I don't like to use them capped because of the weight, but they both work.  They're actually the same size but the picture angle makes them look different.  The bottom one has rosewood ($4.65) and the top one has painted cherry blossoms ($4.68).  None of the pens were over $5--with shipping!  But most of the Chinese pens only come with a medium nib.  The rosewood one is the only one I ordered that had a fine nib.  I couldn't resist checking them out at those prices.  I haven't written with them a lot, but they seem okay so far.  What a hoot!
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My big project this last week was pulling the litter tub out of Karma's big wooden cat box and scrubbing it down.

Her temporary set up is just the old inner tub...so she is totally confused.

That tub was inside of here.  Karma had to climb in the entrance hole...

...and then up and over the inside tub.

  Was getting harder for her.  She's getting old and stiff, too.  So I had Leah cut the hole down a bit on the plastic tub a while back...but that just made for a lot more mess because Karma could really kick out litter--and I think she may have backed up to pee with her butt beyond the door a few times.  I had a piece of carpeting on top of a plastic placemat under and between the two doors inside there--so it never got to the wood.  But it was time to retire the big box to the garage.
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Leah is picking up a new big plastic tub for Karma tomorrow and we'll cut a new higher hole so she can't kick out any litter.  (Karma's always been an excessively enthusiastic digger and burier--lol!)  I even bought her a step--which I'll show you after we get this all set up.  
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Karma was quite upset with her box being in the living room.  I had to find a spot where I could block the hole against a wall so she wouldn't, perchance, try to use the empty box during the night.  She stayed near her box and during the night she howled.  She did use the plastic tub--but threw up twice on my bedroom carpet.

Karma does not take change well.  LOL!
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Leah went away for a girl's weekend.  First time she's been away from Ian for any length of time.  Dagan and Ian came over for a visit and to help Gramma yesterday.

The first thing we did was make a trip to the garage to get the big cart so we could haul out the wooden cat box.  I decided to treat Ian to rides in Gramma's folding cart and crate.  He got to ride out and back twice!  We'd stop so he could stand up to push the big buttons to open the doors, too.  He loved it!

We moved out the cat box and the new seed bin I got for the birdseed this winter...watched some more nature shows for a bit...and then Ian discovered his shelf in the rusty cart--LOL!  I don't think he was much in the mood to actually use them...just thrilled he found them in this new spot.

Ian got distracted when he remembered Daddy had shown him Gramma's fish last time he was here.

Then we went on the walking path down to visit the cottonwood tree.  This video just quit, but it was ten minutes long, anyways.

BUT--I finally remembered to take videos!!
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Here's Daddy and Ian on the way home to Gramma's.  Blue sky this direction and very dark sky behind us.

Ian remembered the exact apartment where he'd seen a cat in the patio door the last time we walked down to the tree!  And how would Ian find Gramma's patio?  The one with the bird poop--LOL!  "Bird poop...bird poop...bird poop", Ian said.  Yup!  That's the one.  ROFL!
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Today I'm washing clothes and waiting for the bird house to arrive.  Could be out there by the time I post this.  Yes--it's supposed to arrive today!  Way earlier than expected--said it could have even been beginning of October--whoohoo!  Leah will be able to check out the birdhouse tomorrow as far as how she wants to hang it with the chains.  But I don't expect it to be hung until maybe October, depending on the weather.  
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Ooops!  The dryer buzzed.  
Got to get moving.  
Have a memorable week!!  :) :)
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"If opportunity doesn't knock, build a door."
Adrienne Gusoff

Tuesday-11:30am

Good Morning!

I've been able to have the patio door open for a part of the day on occasion...

...but it's still in the 80s so it gets hot in here by late afternoon.  Still remain mostly closed up. 

I know that is really wimpy to those of you who have it in the 100s.  Well, I am a self-proclaimed, heat-wimp.  At least now with a good AC I am not praying for fall--LOL!  ;)

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Remember the big feed bin I bought?  Can you see where Karma spent a couple days before Caroline came to pick up the box?

Caroline's workplace is moving so she'll take any boxes she can get from me.  So, before Caroline got here I emptied out the parts for the second Ikea rolling cart, too. 

Yes, Leah picked me up another one when they were in Minneapolis last week--in the rust color!!  Leah will be here tonight to work on cards and will put it together for me, too.  She's such a sweetheart!

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Normally she comes on Monday nights but Dagan's work had a golf tournament yesterday that was running quite late so we switched to tonight.  (Dagan loves golf!)

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Oh, and I think Leah picked up a quick release thingie for my hose.  I don't have good grip with the bum arm and all, so it sprayed all over the place at the wall.  I was afraid to try to get it on tighter because then I might not be able to get it back off again.  (Hey, I can have trouble getting the tops of my thermal mugs--LOL!)  So, that's why I haven't been able to use the hose yet.  Still using buckets of water.  They work.  But the hose works so much better.  ;)

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I carry out some fresh cold water for the saucer every morning.  Do you think someone is maybe a little jealous?  Tipping over the bucket and licking water droplets when I bring it back inside--good grief.

We've seen more ground squirrels.  Today I finally saw one that looked larger, too!  And that's a mourning dove on the edge of the patio.  The doves have come a lot more often now that there's delicious small seed. 

In an hour or two at the most...all gone.  And usually wet around the saucer where they drink and bathe. 

Just lots of tiny poops left--LOL! 

I couldn't catch a picture of it, but one afternoon Karma was watching a plastic bag twirling about out there in our whirlwind area.  Stray pieces of trash are really mesmerizing on a windy day.  They skitter across the sidewalk and fly up into the sky...only to return in giant loops of air.  They do look alive!  

 Later that afternoon Karma went nuts crying over something.  A leaf.  

Must have skittered across the patio and got caught there behind the metal table.  She wanted it badly.  Karma does believe in wind magic.  ;)

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I got a beautiful handmade card from Jeannie!

So sweet!  Thanks so much!

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I've been getting letters and long emails from several of you lately--whoohoo!  You know how I love snail mail, but a nice long personal email is wonderful, too.  I know not everybody loves to take pen in hand.  ;)  They are all appreciated.

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 Okay--new stuff and repurposing old stuff! 

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Leah and I often need lots of surface area for cards to dry.  Obviously there's only so much surface area in my place--LOL!  Well, I came up with an idea.  I bought a set of a dozen small plastic food trays!  We can fill them and stack them criss-crossed to dry.  

There's about 3/4 of an inch leeway in the gap so plenty of room for cards or any artwork papers we want to dry.  Only takes up a small amount of surface space.  I hope this will work really well.  :)

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Confession (of a fountain pen nut)...I ordered several really cheap fountain pens (under $5) from China/Japan (through Amazon) that can take anywhere from 4-8 weeks to arrive, it says.  (One has already shown up, though, and seems okay.)  Anyways, I had been using an old box cover in my wire shelves on my desk, but now there would be too many pens to fit in there.  (Purpose--have so many ink samples to use up.)  So, I needed to come up with some other way to store all those filled pens.

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I wandered about my place looking for some kind of container that was large enough for pens to lie flat but not too big so that it wouldn't fit in my wire shelf unit (which I love)...when I came across these storage bins.  They are InterDesign Linus drawer organizers and come in all different sizes and shapes.

  I bought them on Amazon and use the 12 X 4 bins in my wall unit in the studio.  

I was so impressed with how sturdy they are!  Even with my bum arm I can get down the bins filled with big bottles of paint with no problem!  They weren't cheap, so I bought them a few at a time over several months. 

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Which reminds me!!!  I never did make a new apartment tour video, did I?  I need to do that, too.  LOL!

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Anyways, back to the pen storage.  

These bins stack so they don't take up much room. 

I cut squares of felt to lay in the bottoms to keep the pens from rolling about as readily.  Oh, and the highlighters are just place holders for pens I am using at the time.

I've kept my currently filled fountain pens in the bottom drawer of the wire shelf unit on the right there on my desk for years.  I really didn't want to move them elsewhere if I didn't have to, creature of habit that I am.

I had four of these 6 X 6 inch bins--which is absolutely perfect because they fit stacked two high in the wire shelf and there's room for two stacks.  PLUS--I also already had a 12 X 3 inch bin that I am now using for all the ink sample vials that fits right alongside the stacked 6 X 6s!!  Yes--absolute perfection!  Couldn't have planned it any better.  :)  

And--speaking of small joyous moments...

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I saw this idea on Gina Ahrens YouTube channel HERE.  Brilliant!!  I had gotten the package of 24 Brusho Crystal Watercolors quite a while back.

They come like this and from what we saw online you had to poke your own hole or holes in the tops of each of these plastic containers if you wanted to shake out the crystals (which we do!). 

Leah and I are waiting until we get done with all the six sets of cards before we start anything new, though.  (I have been remiss the past two weeks and not worked on them at all for various reasons.)  But--anyways--I found the shakers Gina was using on Amazon!!

A set of 24 miniature salt and pepper shakers in a metal holder rack!  I am so excited!  Now we can transfer the crystals and make labels for each of them--preferably with color samples on them, too, of course.  Now that's a project, eh?  But they'll be so pretty we'll hate to use them--LOL!

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Well, I guess I had best get moving.  Karma's been crying for a big tablespoon of canned food.  She's upset with being ignored and has her back to me and is flicking her tail with her ears back--pouting--till I am done staring at the silver machine and hitting it with my fingers.  Humans!  Who can figure them?

I have created a monster. 

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When she had the UTI the vets wanted me to get her to eat more canned food.  She was used to her little bit, mornings only (speaking of creatures of habit--LOL!).  It took me months to get her to eat a little bit of canned food in the evenings.  That finally became a pattern, but she won't eat more than a heaping tablespoon, if that.  The vets were talking canned food being her main diet.  So I thought I'd try during the day...hence, the birth of the treat monster.

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Now she wants a little bit of canned food off and on all day long--whenever she decides she is in the mood--LOL!  As often as every two hours some days!!  But she never will eat more than a tablespoon!  Awk!  

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Well, she hasn't been sick again, so that's a good thing.  And she IS eating more canned food than she used to, so that's a good thing.  But having a demanding feline...well, I was already her personal servant.  Geez!  As you can see by the above picture, she doesn't think I'm an efficient enough servant, either.  Right now, she'd fire my butt.  So--got to go.  Later....  ;)

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 I would say to Miss Karma...

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“From adversity we can learn the value of patience.”

Dalai Lama 

Thursday-1:45pm

Hello!  Hello!

Good afternoon.

I seem to collect a lot of photos when I haven't been here for a week--LOL!

I haven't seen the bigger ground squirrels around lately, but this young high-stepper has been around all week.

He walks almost like he's on tip toes for some reason. 

Very glad to see him. 

There's also recently been another young one who is the opposite and sometimes lies down on his belly to eat--LOL!  I never know exactly how many there are because it is impossible to tell them apart except by size or mannerisms. 

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When McFamily dropped off the car they also dropped off a zucchini and some broccoli from their garden!  Delicious!!

 When I went over to feed Sammy and Annie and scoop cat boxes I finally got to see the landscaping they have done in the front yard.  Yes, I have only been to their place once or maybe twice since I moved here just over a year ago.  Has been a rough year for the old body--LOL!  Well, an apparently tougher on the old brain than I thought, too--ROFL!  Nice to feel better, that's for sure.

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These huge pots by the garage are beautiful!

 They have put in bushes along the front of the house with rocks around them...

...two small fir trees and that big area with a ring of rocks around it and a couple small boulders.

The bushes are all looking perky on a sweltering day. 

And the three garden boxes in the backyard...

...are looking pretty lush.

I didn't spend much time outside as it was hot and sticky and they had a thunderstorm warning out (turned out it came later in the evening).

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I snapped Miss Karma sleeping in the sun one morning. 

Did I get a look!  

How she can hear that tiny noise the camera makes is beyond me.

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Caroline brought groceries and I ordered some actual bird seed.   

My goodness!  

Has that ever been a hit!   

The grouse came and stayed for a long time--which they've never done before.  They love the small seeds.  Couldn't seem to get over the shock of finding better goodies here--LOL!

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And the blackbirds and sparrows went nuts!  Weren't even doing much of the usual squabbling. 

Do you notice the young ground squirrel on the right? 

Once the sun is gone in the morning, though...all the critters on CatTV are old hat to Miss Karma now. 

The only thing that glues her to the window these days are ground squirrels and birds bathing in the water saucer.

Yes.  My one loaf of stale bread has transformed into a plan to feed them year round.  I had been hesitant because I know how much work would be involved and that it will cost me extra money...but they won me over in no time.  Bread turned into sunflower seeds and oatmeal...and now real bird seed (and often still a little oatmeal).  If I was going to feed them this winter I needed to come up with a plan.

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Naturally I consulted Leah, our tool girl.  I asked her if she could figure out a way I could put up a removable bird feeder for the winter months?  And she came up with a plan to hang it with five chains hooked to the balcony above me.  The chains would have clip-hooks (I forget the name of them) on either end so they would be removable from big eyehooks screwed into the boards above in the four corners of the balcony.  One chain would just come straight down.  

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I wanted the birdhouse to hang over my patio so that the excess seed would fall down on to my patio and it needs to be low enough so that I can reach it for refilling.  I'll have to show you this fall, but the reason for all the chains is to keep the birdhouse from smashing about out there in the terrible winds we get here.  

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It's so windy that Leah even came up with the idea to velcro the metal glider chair's legs to the base to keep that chair from rocking back and forth so hard.  It was scooting about on the patio and even tipped over that one time, remember?  I am ordering a small bird feeder that has some kind of grate on the bottom that is supposed to help in the wind and rain, but if you just hung it from a chain low enough for me to refill it would be smashed to bits out there in no time.

I'm excited about the birdhouse!  Made by hand in Michigan and won't arrive for another month or two.  Has a wooden inverted V inside the hopper to help the seed get out so it doesn't clump up in the middle, too.

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To save myself a little money I will keep this feed bin in the garage. 

I can then buy 20 lb. bags AND when the seed is frozen it kills a lot of the little grain bugs and moths that always show up in seed.  I can just go out to the garage every so often to fill up the smaller container I'm using now in the apartment. 

And, of course, you knew if they had one that I'd find a big red feed scoop--LOL!  ;)

Oh, and now that there is small seed out there I am seeing the mourning doves regularly, too!  There were two of them but you can see the one on the left more clearly.  They love the small seed, too.  The sparrows go for that first, too.

The bird brigade gobbles down everything but the whole corn...which gets pocketed by the ground squirrels as soon as they arrive.  There are no black sunflower seed shells or anything at all left out there when they are done--except poop--LOL!

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But the ground squirrels hibernate over the winter, so I don't want anything with corn in it once the snow flies or the ground squirrels quit coming, whichever comes first.  Right now, though, I am giving them a combination of three packages.  A no waste bird seed, a regular bird seed (black sunflower seeds in that one), and a critter food package (for squirrels and the like) that even has a few shelled peanuts in there, I think, and that's where the whole corn is from.  Makes me wonder--which birds eat those small black sunflower seeds whole?  They were gone before the ground squirrel arrived?

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Anyways, for the winter now I have my feed bin and scoop--ordered a bird feeder--and all that's left is to hang the feeder and get a lightweight snow shovel so I can clear the center of the patio.  I'll need to be able to get to the bird feeder to fill it and to be able to spread some food down on the ground that doesn't get lost in snow for the grouse and possibly for doves.  (It says online that most mourning doves migrate but a few never do--more likely males.)  And for the grouse and doves--any food falling out the the feeders will be welcome, I'm sure.  I wonder if the jackrabbits will come to eat, too?  Time will tell.  I wonder if they eat whole corn?  Nope, I just googled that and not whole corn because they can't chew through it to break it up and it passes through the poor things still whole--LOL!  Well, that answers that.  ;)

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Yesterday McFamily stopped by briefly on their way back home so they could pick up the car.  Ian seemed as glad to see Gramma as I was to see him!  I have gone from Ma-maw (rhymes with Gramma) to Gamma with a hint of an r in there--LOL!  He wanted to watch more "Africa" but there wasn't time for that.  It was snack time at the table with peaches and then puzzles and books for a little while.  A surprise visit--so I forgot all about the camera again.  I am really terrible at that.

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Okay--that's it for today.  I was locked out of facebook right after I posted my blog there last time because somebody in Tokyo tried to log into my account.  I avoided facebook for the whole last week because I was afraid that if I made a new password like they wanted me to that it might be a scam of some kind.  But I finally did that now today so I can post this on facebook for those of you who only catch my blog over there in that still-alien-to-me territory--LOL!  If I get another person trying to be me on facebook this time--I might just leave altogether.  We'll see.

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It's actually only 76 degrees right now and I've been able to have the patio door open--whoohoo!!  We have to treasure these days this summer.  We actually might not have rain till next week and low 80s.  Depending on humidity there may be some more open door days.  Nice!  Have a good weekend, everybody!!  :) :)  

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"Expect to have hope rekindled. Expect your prayers to be answered in wondrous ways. The dry seasons in life do not last. The spring rains will come again."

Sarah Ban Breathnach