As Little as Possible...

We went to see "Tag" this morning.  It is about a group of men that have been playing tag for the month of May for the past 20 years.  Interesting. It is based on a true story. They showed the real people at the end. I think that they are still playing...

This photo is hard to see, but I put a bird feeder on the center log in the photo.

Tessie and Zar wanted nothing to do with helping, so I left them to their own devices.

Snakes, dogs and rubber chickens...

They ignored me totally.

I went into the workroom.  Covered the chair with a piece of zebra skin material.  Then I took the rest of the day off and watched several episodes of Supernatural. 

Bored much? Yup.  When I am I revert to watching Sam and Dean do their thing.

Then April and Amare called.  I am jealous of Amare.  They went to the zoo with his summer camp group and he got to PET a Rhino! I want to pet a Rhino!!!

Anyway, that's about all that happened here today... Not much in the way of minis.

See you tomorrow.

Graduation Day!!!

Amare Graduated Kindergarten this afternoon.

We are so proud of him! 

Whatever task they throw at him, he does it...

He's a great kid! We love him!

His mom is a teacher's assistant in his class.  She got to hand out the flowers to the kids.  He took his and gave them to Seth, his dad. 

It might have looked strange if he has handed them to his mom like the other kids did.

We gave him a present and I made him a card. In case you can't tell, he's a big Star Wars fan.

I didn't know about the hat or I would have probably put one on the card. Oh well. Next time... Eight years from now.

Here's the inside of the card... It was a fun afternoon.  Back to the regular blog tomorrow.

See you then.

Happy Mother's Day

OK... It's a day early.  We went over to April, Seth's and Amare's for an early Mother's day brunch. Seth's parents and brother were here.

Amare showed off the new shirt that Gayle sent him and the changes to his mini room box.

Both are looking good!

Me?  No cleaning in the workroom today...

Early Mother's day.  I will clean tomorrow.

Yes. I know that the floor is still a mess...

I did, however get a pot of really pretty orchids for Mom's Day. 

Yes it is a day early, but I gladly accepted them anyway. Thank you April, Seth and Amare!

I will count this as mom's day and I will go back to cleaning tomorrow.  That seems logical to me...

I promise to go back into the workroom tomorrow, bright and early.  See you then.

Happy Easter and April Fools Day too!

This morning I got more cleaning and moving done on the back porch.

I just moved things around here and there.

Much more comfortable to sit out there now.

It's amazing what a couple of weeks can do for plants.  The pomegranate Tree had no leaves at all about two weeks ago. 

This is what it looks like now. The fig tree is still fighting to live, so I am going to get it going again. Walter is redoing the run off from the cooler so that it will drip irrigate the pomegranate and the fig.  That should help get a better crop on both. 

The little kumquat tree is going great.  It has several blossoms on it now. I don't expect a big crop this year, but I think that it is going to do well where we planted it.

I suppose that I should report on Tessie's progress... I found some purple grapes and piled those on top of the other things that she needs for the vines... She is not a happy camper.  More work for her.  Less work for me.

April and Amare came over today.  Seth is out of town for his job.  We had a good time but missed him.

Anyway, that's how our Easter went.  I hope that yours was as nice as ours.

Back to watching TV and playing with Kota. 

See you tomorrow.

Amare and the Kumquat Tree

Today was a really good  day.  April, Seth and Amare cane over and brought me a Kumquat Tree. 

I went with my friend Joan to the closing sale that Jay's Indian Arts is having until April 28. When they close, we will be buying off of the net.  Not much left in the way of my kind of beads here in Tucson.

When I got back, April, Seth, and Amare showed up with a baby Kumquat tree.  

Amare worked on a Star Wars kit while we chatted and planted a tree. 

After lunch, we came back in the house. I looked out the window and saw Tessie slipping out to the tree. 

She is in love again.  A tree with Tessie sized fruit.  Best thing that has ever happened to her.

We talked Amare into watching "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory".

At first, he was not sure he wanted to watch it. By the time it was done, he was singing along with the Umpa Lumpas and he loved it.  I have a feeling that April and Seth are going to be watching that movie again soon!

After they left, I went out to hunt for Tessie and found her in the top of the new tree. If I let her, she would string a hammock from the branches and spend the night.

Not going to happen.

The two grape vines I planted are already starting to vine around the trellises. We are going to be up to our ears in fruit this year... Well... At least up to Tessie's ears.

Back to looking at all of the beads that I bought this morning.

See you tomorrow.

Gem and Mineral Show, Day Two...

We met April, Seth and Amare, at Micha's for Mexican food for lunch. 

They treated because Walter and I both have January Birthdays.  It was really good!

Then we went to one of the tent shows that we usually hit.

Amare is following in his father's footsteps.  He was picking out rocks just like Seth.  Seth was a Geology major in college.

The Kids bought new matching Wedding rings with an inlay of Koa wood from Hawaii.  The photo doesn't do them justice.  Very pretty.

They asked what I wanted for my birthday... I handed some of the gemstones that I had picked out and some petrified shells as well.

These are the shells.  They are smaller than they look in the photos.  I am thinking that they will make good earrings or rings.  I am going to have to get the wire out and start experimenting. 

I was very happy with the selection. I will be wire wrapping and jewelry  making for a while...

My biggest problem is the fact that I do this every year.  I stock up.  Then I do a few pieces and wait for next year to come.  I think that the acquiring of the supplies is the most fun.

Walter and I are planning to go back to the ballpark at least one more time.  He wants to find a stone to make a necklace and I have my eye on a couple of things that I didn't buy yesterday...

Round and round we go.  See you tomorrow.

Still Icky

Today is Walter's birthday.  Let's see... I think that he is 21 this year... Maybe. Happy Birthday Walter!!!

I have decided to hang the new dragon over my desk in the  bedroom.  He will probably hold a towel for me to wipe my hands on.  Toilet paper just doesn't do anything for his image!

I would like to be in here working on something small... but... Nope.

Not today. 

 I don't even feel well enough to go up and play with my snake and frogs... No fun at all.

I started watching Supernatural from the start, a couple of weeks ago.  At least that is keeping me occupied.

I am in over a hundred episodes so far.  One was just on that had Spike (from Buffy the Vampire Slayer) in it.  I almost didn't recognize him.  He had dark hair and a bit of gray. poor vampire is getting old...

Last but not least.  Every year, April and Seth give us a new calendar with photos of Amare's proceeding year.  This year Amare was a superhero in January!

OK. I did my duty.  I wrote a blog entry.  Now can I go back and lay down some more?

Yes! I can!  See you tomorrow.  Sure do wish this stupid cold would leave!

See you tomorrow.

Happy Christmas to You!

Merry Christmas to All!

and

to All a goodnight!

 

See you Tomorrow.

Other Things Happening...

Our back porch looks haunted! Plants covered in bed sheets all over the yard!

It is supposed to freeze tonight... This is the same place that, a couple of weeks ago, the weather was in the 80s and  breaking records for high temps.

So I spent an hour or so covering plants this afternoon.

I have put Albert and Daisy in charge of gift wrapping.  That is, they are taking care of the paper, boxes, ribbons and other wrapping things.

Amare's sock is almost full and that is NOT a small sock.

That should keep him busy for about ten minutes on Christmas morning...

I am still chugging away on finding things to fill the room box.

I did get a couple more rows done on the shawl that I am crocheting.

The Terrible Two plus One are holding down the fort in the room box.  I am going to send them in for some serious accessory hunting in the workroom tomorrow. I have to get busy on the rest of the furniture.

Wish me luck... Christmas is coming... FAST!!!

See you tomorrow.

Little Bins

In Amare's room there is a shelving component that consists of side boards with dowels strung in between. I am not sure if they got it somewhere of Seth made it, but I am copying it. 

All of the good stuff gets thrown in there. Easy to put away and easy to grab when Amare wants to use it.

I started by building a frame all the way around and then drilling holes in both sides to match.  That way the little tubs can slide in and out when needed.

It was not a lot of fun getting all of those long toothpicks in the holes on either end, but I did it!

The tubs are made from the little plastic bubbles that jewelry findings come in at Walmart.

I cut them out close to the edge of the bubble.  Then I glued string around the edges to make them more sturdy.

I painted them all in rainbow colors. I used at least two coats of paint both outside and in.



  

I need at least one more package of two kinds of findings.

Not too bad for a bunch of miscellaneous wood and some throw away plastic.

Two of the little boxes that I made yesterday will be glued to the corner post of the bed after I get things glued into all of the holes.

I am going back and try to find tiny rocks that are interesting... Amare tends to collect everything that he sees.  That includes interesting rocks.  That's what he has in the real ones.

Back to work.

See you tomorrow.

Happy Sixth to Amare!!!

Amare was born six years ago today! He is one happy little boy and growing a mile a minute. 

They had a Birthday party in the park this afternoon and asked that people bring cat food and dog food in place of presents.

Some people did both.  We took all of the stuff back to their house and opened presents there. 

Amare made quite a haul! He got a lot of Star Wars things and some things dinosaur oriented.  He loves digging for fossils and the like.

This is him digging into the Star Wars Light Savers that we got for him.

I told Seth that they should keep him away from my blog for a while. 

Since I am working on his room in mini, I don't want him peeking.

This is kind of what his room box is going to look like. 

I am taking a few liberties with it.  He is going to have Star Wars Sheets and curtains.

I took a bunch more photos this afternoon so that it will be more accurate.  I doubt that he will mind if I put Star Wars Sheets and curtains in it, since that is his major interest right now...

I really do have to get to work on it now... I have the box pretty much finished.  Now all I have to do is furnish it and put a lot of details in it.

Come along for the ride.  This is going to be fun.

See you tomorrow.

Beading and Lunch With Spiderman!

OK.  I finished the beading on Watch One.  All I have left to do on that one is put on the fastener...

That is if I can get it away from Tessie.

As soon as I snapped the photo, she grabbed it and ran.

Then she leaned back against the bead tubes and told me to snap the photo fast, before the belt fell off...

I just barely got the photo before she let out a deep breath and the thing fell off. Luckily one side of the band didn't really reach around her waste, or I would have had trouble getting it back...

She had the nerve to complain about it being a very uncomfortable belt...

As for lunch, April, Amare and I went shopping this morning.  We hit a Goodwill that April didn't know about and bought a couple of things.

After that, we met Walter at Longhorn Steakhouse for lunch...

Walter bought Amare a Halloween costume at Costco.  He has been wanting to go as Spiderman for quite a while.  That's his favorite superhero...

We gave him the costume when we got out of the cars. Before we went into the restaurant...

He wanted to wear it for lunch.  We talked him out of that by saying that he would get Macaroni and cheese on it... That held him off until after we ate.

Then Walter accompanied him to the Men's room and he changed into it.

Needless to say, we had one very happy grandson. 

I have the feeling that April is going to have a job trying to get him not to sleep in it and wear it to school!

They are off for Autumn break right now and they are all going camping.  I doubt that he will want to wear the outfit while climbing rocks and hiking... Unless his spidey powers kick in before they go.

I'm just glad that I'm not the one that has to talk him out of it... Good luck April!

Back to working on the watches. See you tomorrow.

I Want One of Those!!!

No. Tessie wasn't talking about Amare's rocks.  He is into rocks and what they are made of right now... He demonstrated how to smash a rock and get tiny fragments to study...

Unfortunately, Tessie wanted one of these... Amare's off the floor bed. It is tall enough so that I can walk under it. There is a ladder at the foot of it, so that he can get up there.

Seth built it for him a few years ago.  It has a lot of room under it so it almost doubles the size of his room...

Now Tessie wants one in her size.

A friend did Amare's name in  wrought iron and it hangs on the side of his bed.

Tessie wants one of those too...

There is a light under the bed so that he can see what he is doing.  It turns the walls in that area kind of a lilac color...

Tessie wants the whole room that color when she gets hers built... Guess who she thinks she is going to get to build it...

OK... I am getting out the graph paper as soon as we get done here.

I had to show you one other thing that is new in their house.

Seth built a new dining room table!!! It is two slabs of walnut put together and finished with the raw edges of the tree! It is amazing!!!

I am taking lessons from Tessie! I want one!!!

I am going now to talk Tessie out of a seven foot high bed... It probably won't work and she will probably want it by yesterday!

Back to work.

See you tomorrow.

If It Isn't One Thing...

It's another... I couldn't work on the two rooms this morning because this got in the way.

We are going over to stay with Amare while his mom goes to a meeting.  Seth is out of town so we are the elected sitters.

I found this shelf out in the garage and decided it would be good for some of Amare's latest treasures.

April says that his room is starting to look like a natural history museum.  He is collecting rocks and other nature things.

This morning, I added the sign and we will take it with us this afternoon.

This is going to be a full day.

 It is Wednesday so there will be a gathering of witches.  As soon as I get home we will leave for Aprils.

The title was suggestive of what is going on in the back yard now.

For the past few weeks, the hummingbird feeders have been cleaned out by bats every night.  This is a yearly happening.  The hit here every winter when the season starts to change and it gets cooler.

Just when the bats seem to have left(migration) the bees take over. They are just starting now.  They will also disappear in a couple of weeks.  The poor hummingbirds are having to wait in line to eat.

I am not sure what I did to make Kota mad, but for the past two days, he has been ignoring me.

I did something that he didn't like. He is at least posing for me when he sees the camera.  Otherwise he just puts his nose in the air.

I will wait patiently until he gets done being in a snit.

If looks could kill....

Anyway, I thought that I had better write something before Wednesday Witches.  There probably won't be much time after. 

I am off to get ready to go.

See you tomorrow.