Link time!

I'm enjoying the garden bits and pieces I'm finding by using StumbleUpon so I'm going to post some. Maybe someday I'll even get to use some of these ideas.

Container Pond for the short on space...

Bird feeders made out of teacups 

container garden from 5 terrcotta pots 

A week later

I can't believe it's been a week! I've just been working on getting better from a cold and playing video games and playing on the computer...etc. I've got it pretty nice right now. I see Bill practically everyday, even if it's just to say, "Hi!" over the fence. That's terrific. I get to see Deb at least once a week, which I love. Life is good.

Weaving with yarn, card board and a yarn needle. Easy Peasy.

I decided that I was tired of crocheting and I saw a post on a craft blog about weaving with a cardboard loom. It looked like my kind of craft, so I'm weaving some squares for Special Olympics scarves. I think it will be a nice one when I'm done. Here is the post that I saw...Portable vacation saori weaving by Gingerbread Snow Flakes. I left a comment about how I think it would work for weaving squares for scarves and she contacted other friends that weave and linked me to enough info to make some very decent squares! Thanks Pam! You Rock.

Kitty Cat Floats

Sidewalk Chalk is fabulous. I'm a grown-up and I still love to use the stuff. TeeCea gave us some chalk for Denali and Katie was salivating over it so Auntie gave it to her because Denali is not lacking sidewalk chalk. We decided to draw all over the driveway. We didn't last very long because it's hard to kneel on concrete for every long when you have pooped out knees like I do, but we did our best to make some temporary art.

An LPS (littlest pet shop) frolics in the grass. It's a cocker spaniel because she's obsessed with them.

This (apparently) is a dog swimming in a pool. It is because she says it is LOL.

Fun in the S-S-SUNNN.

this started out as one little heart and became a bigger and bigger heart that ate up the "peace heart" necklace that Katie drew. Now it looks like a huge heart pendant the size of Flavor Flav's tired old clock schtick. HA HA! I KILL ME!

A lighthouse for Grandma and Grandpa to find their way safely home.

Snow Day, which is my personal favorite and a Moose getting ready to chomp a flower.

I love sidewalk chalk. Speaking of sidewalk chalk, why don't you go and learn how to make some at home? I saw a great blog post about it at The Crafty Crow. That's one of my favorite sites to read for crafty and simple ideas. Maybe someday I will get around to trying this one!

There is more to share, but I'm spreading it out so I don't have to be interesting everyday. I'll be sure to post more soon.

Yesterday, back at the ranch.

Okay, so it's not a ranch. Yesterday I decided I felt like having a little BBQ with the chicken I had marinated the night before. Caribbean Jerk marinade, jealous? Well, you should be ... it's delicious! I found some fresh corn in the freezer and raided it. I probably should have thawed it before I put it on the grill but I'm not really big on thinking ahead. It still was edible, if a little undercooked. Next time I'll try to plan ahead. The grill made the move with no leaks and it's working like a champ.

Mini BBQ time!

While I was out in the yard making chicken, I decided to take a few yard pics for Mom and Dad to see. It's getting so green around here and it's just lovely! The trees are getting leafier and leafier. The color of the new leaves is so pretty. I'm happy to be here to see it before I head off to a new adventure in Korea.

The yard is getting nice and green!

Notice I put the Adirondack chair on the hill so it wouldn't be so "lean-y." I must be uptight because I like a nice upright chair. On the hill it's just perfect for me.

Katie is listening to her tunes.

Katie joined me outside with her music and had a little sing-along. Then she dropped my new 3DS on the porch and I took it away for a while. That's one I won't be able to replace if it bites the big one.

This rose bush is getting pretty!

Here's the rose bushes that Dad has been thinking about. This is the one under the kitchen window.

I love this wind chime.

Ooh, I got all up in that wind chime's grill for that picture. I like how it looks.

The lilac bush is giving us some leaves.

Here's the lilac bush right next to the porch. I think it will be so pretty when it blooms later this summer.

Bill and I's contribution to the garden decor.

Another happy rose bush.

This picture is already outdated because I moved the floats that were killing the yard to that area with the rocks closer to the gate. You'll see those in my next post.

Crab apple tree is working on leaves, too.

No blooms yet, but leaves are a good start!

Deb came into town and decided to hang with us instead of go to a movie. I was so happy! She took us to DQ and she took some good pictures there. Look at me and my girl. She never did know when to smile for the camera.

Katie and I at DQ

Then I went to figure out where our blizzards were and Deb got this great pic of Katie. Such bright eyes! This picture looks posed but I'm sure it's not.

Deb got such a pretty picture of my girl!

I made them get me a Dilly Bar for Katie that hadn't been melted and it was a trial but we got a good one in the end. I think Katie wants it...

We love the butterscotch Dilly Bars!

Later in the day we went to a BBQ at our friend TeeCea's house. That was a good time. I love days like that!

Korea or bust?

I woke up day before yesterday because my phone was ringing. I must have taken too long to answer because I missed the call. I was awake and i had my phone in hand so I lay there and looked at facebook statuses until I saw one from Husband that said, "Five PCS choices and all are KOREA!!!! WTF!?!" I didn't really react to that. Didn't think he was joking, didn't panic, didn't process this at all. I just opened my phone and called home. There were 4 choices where he would have to go for a year and one choice where there was concurrent travel but it's for two years. It wasn't a very tough choice for me. We should all go together. There have been enough separations. If we can avoid one, that's what we should do.

So the short version is we are supposed to go to Korea, Camp Carroll (in the southern region of S. Korea) sometime around October of this year. I say sometime because this is the Army and they are not real big on doing the first thing that they say. I also read that there can be delays because sometimes they can not accommodate everyone in the family right away. I'm not sure how this works but it doesn't matter. The Army is what it is.

I was pretty pleased at first because I thought we were going to Camp Casey, which is up towards the demilitarized zone. They have an arts and crafts center there that has pottery! How awesome! But, as it turns out, Camp Casey was one of the options for the tour where he goes alone. Poop. I guess I'll just have to satisfy my artistic notions in a different manner. I know I can't bring my wheel because it's wired for the states. The electric system in Korea is 220 and the wheel is useless without the kiln. Can't use that indoors and it also pulls as much electric as a clothes dryer or electric oven.

It would seem that pottery is one of those things in my life that I love, but it will simply come and go with no rhyme or reason. There will be time for it again when I'm back in the states.

Deb found some videos on you tube of the area we will be going to. It looks pretty and I'm sure I'll like it enough.


This kind of required function is surely in my near future...



Looks like there is no shortage of sushi there!

Here's a taste of the news reports that AFN offers up. I'm not excited for that but whatevs. I've done AFN before and I can do it again!



It's pretty cool that they have a long arm machine....at Yongsan! I will recap at this point by saying we won't be THERE. LOL

So, beyond this news, there isn't much going on here. I caught a cold, BOOO! It's not bad yet so that's good. Deb, Mark and Denali came into town today and I got to watch Denali for a while. It was fun because Katie had let her have my Nintendo DS and we let her try out all of my games to see if she liked any of them. She learned how to make a sandwich in Cooking Mama and it was so cute! She even made sure to play it after Debs got back so she could show her that she knows how to make a sandwich on the DS. Adorable!

We took turns playing with one of Katie's toys that is a Cuckoo bird and I made the mistake of pretending it's scary. LOL We woke each other up until she was tired of that game. Then I did "this little piggy" with her toes and she really really LOVED IT! So we did some variations, like this little piggy checked her email and this one played DS and this little piggy cried WEE WEE WEE all the way to Grandma's new house! Then she made sure to tell me that Momma drove the piggy in the car to grandma's house and it was fun! We also decided that WEE WEE WEE is how the piggy laughs because this is so much FUN! Good Stuff.

Hope your day was nice too!

Shirt for Dad

I got a text from Mom today that Dad needs more shirts, so I got on facebook and found some pics of him, Mom, his kids and as many grandkids as I could fit in there. Keep an eye out Mom, because it's not my best work but I ordered a shirt today for Dad. BTW, I'm just washing a couple of things for the package and then that's going to go out too. Love you!

Gardens and crafts and pictures, oh MY!

The day started off pretty badly. Got up early to take Mom's car to Cline's so they could tell me what's going on with that ABS light that keeps coming on. They didn't tell me any prices and made us sit there for 2 hours while they took care of at least 2 cars that showed up after mine. We got the list of what's wrong and a bill for $41. Just to look. I would have liked to know about this cost prior to them looking at the car. The old blood sugar was pretty low by then so I was angry and weepy. It was stupid so I came home and my wonderful brother Bill cheered me up. He has that effect on me. We played our games, him on the wii and me on the computer and chatted off and on. I kept getting into watching his game and exclaiming when his character bought the farm like it was me playing. LOL good times.

I started thinking about that place in the mall where you paint ceramics because Bill and I wanted to do that together while I'm here so I looked up their website. They had a section where you could virtually paint things and Kiddo got really mad at it so I hauled her to the real store and we painted some ceramics. I did a trivet and she settled on a rabbit because there were no cats. She was so mad she tried to get me to leave! I said no and we worked it out.

Here she is working on her bunny.

There's my trivet. She had to wait a good half-hour for me to finish after she was done. Kiddo took this amazingly well but we debated the entire time about where to eat dinner. I'm just not as into Arby's as she is. I'm.just.not.
Look at her. she's so stinkin' satisfied. At least she's cute when she's full of cheese sticks, right? So there is the finished paint job. I didn't make the glaze as thick as they recommended because I wanted it to be pale and watercolor-y. I hope the brush strokes show and look fab. We won't see if it worked for about 2 weeks. Hey Mom, this trivet is for you, BTW.

SO, gardens. I admit, it's been a long while since I took a stab at taking living things and making them live in containers but I've been thinking about it and I'm ready to try again. In Alaska, I kind of get how to do this... as I say that I realize that the plants are still outside and I forgot to bring them in last night! Ahhh! BRB.....
15 minutes and a photoshoot later...This little guy is feeling kinda down after I left him out in the cold. :(
This one seems to have a plant-y brand of frostbite. Poo! I'm a bad plant mommy! Hopefully a few days indoors will put them to rights again. I know that the plant behind frosty there got a bad chill and now it's tough as nails. Maybe it will give my sad plant friend a pep talk.Hey, at least these violets seem to like me. I gave them a nice soak a couple of days ago and they are so happy.
I didn't actually put the plants outdoors yesterday, which leads me to believe Bill carried them out with his bum wrist. Bill, I waggle my finger at you, naughty boy! Rest that Wrist!

So I saw some neat planters on one of my favorite blogs when I was back in Georgia. You can bet I'm not gardening in that place. I'll have a heat stroke and then the Army will decide to move us just as it gets really pretty. This is my luck. Here in Alaska with Bill next door, how could I not think of gardens? That guy knows how to make a person want some flowers! So here is a link to the awesome planters(click the picture):I like the woolly pockets but I don't like the idea of buying them I could make that and it would be whatever design I wanted! I think they would tend to drip, which makes me want to hang them on the fence outside and have long lines of plants on the wood fence...*dreams*
I also like the tea tins. Very cute but wouldn't that leave rust rings?
Next I liked this idea of using upside-down bottles to line your garden edge. Colorful but kinda dangerous for people with kids so I'll just look right now.
These bottles remind me of pillar candles. Strange... seems you can't take the partylite out of the girl.
Lastly, I'll never be able to make the journey from seed to viable plant. I just don't get it, so I needed a post like this:
Separating seedlings! Looks like fun, maybe for my birthday I'll get some plants...I'd like that. You don't have to pack them.

blog images from Re-Nest

I had a lot of fun today riding the bus downtown and hanging out at the Anchorage Market, so that's why I'm putting a pic or two here:

This is what happens when you give me sidewalk chalk and no where to sit...and not enough colors.
My sweet girl is waiting for the bus with me. For a Master Cosmetologist, I'm not too impressed with the job I'm doing with my daughter's hair. She won't let me cut her hair because she's "growing it"...that and she's impossible to reason with.

This is the cartoon from "tundra" that I helped paint today. It was as tall as me and we had some filthy watercolors that came in red, blue, green, white and black, along with a bucket of dirty water. It was so FUN! I saw them replace the picture (the old one went in the trash) and I couldn't resist getting to work on it. It was my kiddo, a younger girl that I didn't know (she sure looooved to talk), and myself working on this. I'm sure it went in the trash too, but that's what mobile phones are for now. HA!

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