May 29, 2015

Friday Funnies: Taking Cute Photos of Cats in Bluebonnets - It's Just Hard

I took these pictures in April, but since I didn't get the shot I wanted, I never did anything with them.  Today, I took a photo that gave these a purpose.

After years of buying bluebonnet plants and seeds, I finally have a decent sized bluebonnet patch. And since I no longer have kids at home, I decided to take a picture of the cat in the bluebonnets. One of those cute photos where he is up to his neck sitting in the bluebonnets and looking at the camera with an adorable look on his face.



Kids are easy. "Look at momma. Smile at momma's funny noises." Click.
Dogs are easy. "Sit. Stay." Click. But cats, cats are just hard.

I put him in the middle of the flowers. "Stay there sweet boy. Look at me," I crooned. He ignored me and walked over to investigate something in the flowers.



I put him back in the flowers again and ran over to my spot. He ran with me.



Once again, I put him in the center, and backed away telling him not to move. He was more interested in a nearby grasshopper. "Kitty cat, hey kitty kitty." He totally ignored me. I made mouse noises, or at least the only mouse noise I've ever heard - the sound of a mouse right after the trap snaps shut as seen on cartoons. Still no response. Eventually, he chased the grasshopper out of the bluebonnets.



I picked him up again and he made a whining growl that let me know he was getting tired of this. I put him back in the center, in a spot that had become fairly trampled, and tried to lift the smashed bluebonnets on my way out. "Stay!" "No! Don't move!" I snarled through clenched teeth. He wandered over to me, not once looking directly at me and the camera.

So I gave up.

Then, today I was feeding him in an old plastic tub, and realized I could finally get a picture of him in the blubonnets.  It wasn't adorable, or even cute, until he got the tub stuck on his face. But of course, I had already turned my back on him by then.



Next year, I'm going to borrow a cute kid for an adorable photo in my bluebonnet patch.

May 28, 2015

I Never Thought I'd Celebrate a Day Without Rain

I heard on the news just now that we have only had three days in the last month without a drop of rain. I'm not sure that's right, unless he meant over the entire North Texas area. In any case, we didn't get a drop of rain yesterday, the sun is out today, and I am grateful, even if it is a sauna outside. We are expecting more storms tonight so this afternoon I will have to kick myself out of this air conditioned house to mow the yard, or as much of it as I can mow without going through swampland.

And since this blog post seems a little bare, a picture of my new lawn mower. (insert half-hearted yay here.)



May 25, 2015

Happy Rainy Memorial Day

Another day of rain ahead of us, but there are supposed to be a couple of hours of clear sky so I thought I'd make the most of them and try to dig in this mud. But first, a few pictures of the crinum which have enjoyed all the rain like a kid sinking both bare feet into the mud and squishing the mud between their toes.  So much so that they are blooming earlier than last year. The leaves show the scars of a couple of hail beatings, but the blooms look nice.  We should all be so resilient.





On the other hand, the vegetable garden is drowning. Until today, the corn was standing upright, but the wind, combined with saturated soil, laid them on the ground. We haven't been able to get into the garden in over a month.



We bought a new rain gauge and put it next to the deck so we can actually get to it after a rain.  It rained and drizzled Saturday morning but then cleared enough for Hubby to put it up around 2pm.  He checked it Sunday around the same time and we had gotten 3.6 inches of rain.

It rained most of the afternoon today, and now is down to a sprinkle so I slipped a plastic bag over the camera and went out to take another photo. This is the same view about 12 hours later than the above photo and after another inch of rain (actually a little over an inch). If it ever dries out, we are going to add some soil to the garden so we won't have to deal with this again.


Linked to Flower Friday at fantasy art and tree chatter of aquariann.

May 14, 2015

Fort Worth YWCA

We recently went to a wedding at the YWCA in Fort Worth. When we got the invitation, I thought of our local YMCA and figured the wedding would be held in the gym. Not so. I don't think there was even a gym in the building. The wedding was in a large room downstairs, and the reception in an even larger room upstairs.

And once again I am in awe of bloggers and other people who always have their good camera with them at times like this. Instead, I will show you my blurry phone photos.

The restored elevator.





The wedding room.



I love the stenciled ceiling.



May 13, 2015

I Love the Name of This School Mascot - It's So Real



After I took this photo, we turned the corner and followed a police car out of town. Deputy Dawg no doubt.

Linking to Wordless Wednesday at image-in-ing #136.

May 12, 2015

Back After a Long Weekend in Branson

We left here Wednesday, reaching Tulsa just in time to eat dinner with Brownie when she got off work at 7pm. She is currently working a split shift, so we slept in at a hotel while she worked her early shift and then we met again at 9am for breakfast. Then it was on to Branson. The weather forecast didn't look good for Friday through Sunday, so we went straight to Silver Dollar City and caught the last show for Rhonda Vincent and The Rage, and then spent some time checking out the rest of the park while we had fair weather.

Then it was off to find the house we rented for the weekend. It was in Stonebridge Village, a residential community. Village hardly describes it; it is 3200 wild, mountainous acres. We considered ourselves lucky that we had daylight and clear skies to navigate the steep, winding roads to find our house, called a lodge by the owners. Even then, we missed several turns and had to backtrack.

The owners had some strict rules in the contract (yes, we had to sign a contract for a four day rental), including penalty fees if we arrived before 4pm on the day of arrival or left after 10:30am on the day of departure. This, they explained, was so the cleaning crew could get started as soon as we left and have the lodge ready for the next occupant. So we were a bit peeved when we arrived at 6pm to find the beds unmade and wet towels on the floor. I called the lodge owner and she said they would be right over. Meantime, we unloaded the car and put all our stuff beside the door and sat at the table waiting instead of going to eat and to the grocery store as planned. The cleaning crew was there about thirty minutes and cleaned everything with a spray bottle of something with no odor. They also missed the mouse poop on the bedside table. Ick. Other than that, it was a nice house with two master bedrooms, one on each end along with a small living room, kitchen, and dining room. It also had a small washer and dryer which we used several times.

The next morning dawned overcast but dry, so we headed back to Silver Dollar City (SDC). Lil was driving in from St. Louis and went straight to SDC. We had show lover's passes to Rhonda Vincent's 1:45 show and we saw several other shows, including Nothing Fancy. We enjoyed them so much that we decided to get the show lover's passes to their Saturday show as well as another Rhonda Vincent show. We left SCD early because we had a reservation at Dobyns Dining Room at the College of the Ozarks. If you have a chance, it's worth a visit. The college is tuition free but requires every student to work on campus. Our waiter was friendly, courteous, informative, and had just finished his last exam before graduating Sunday. It was also his last day of work and we were his very last table. To say he was euphoric is an understatement.

This is the dining room. Excuse the crummy iphone quality.



We weren't lucky enough to make it back to the lodge before it started raining, and it was a little scary on those hills. I don't know how those people drive when the roads are bad. If I lived there, it would only be if Hubby was retired and we didn't have to drive if we didn't want to. Those people must have strong leg muscles too. It's hard to find a level place to stand on, much less walk very far. Yes, I'm a wimp.

Saturday, we were once again blessed with better weather than forecast. It did drizzle on us a time or two, but not the heavy rains that were predicted, so we felt very lucky. The shows were great and we briefly considered coming back on Sunday. It would have been fun to see Rhonda Vincent every day she was there, even though the die hard fans go to every show all four days. But after watching the weather, we thought we should get in as many miles as we could before the bad weather hit. As it turned out, we hit Rockwall just as it started raining and a tornado was spotted over I30 east of mile marker 74. And where were we? Mile marker 74! The clouds were swirling in all directions overhead, but we never saw a funnel. When we got home, it was raining so hard that we decided to just leave everything in the car and unload in the morning. The cat was torn between happiness to see us and being ticked off. So he rubbed on us awhile, and then used his complaining voice to scold awhile, and then it was back to rubbing, purring, and not letting us out of his sight. He was velcro cat for a couple of days before he resumed his normal routine.