current events

Last week I helped out at my church's Vacation Bible School. I showed this doodle to a couple of people, and they knew EXACTLY who this four-year-old is.



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more excitement than i can handle around here...

While we were on vacation, a barn swallow put a nest on top of our front porch light. Those barn swallows have been scoping out my porch for a long time now, but waited until we went away to get to work on their little building project.

Now every time I go out there to do some gardening, the bird will fly into the air and fly circles above the yard, calling out to all its friends and family to come and warn the intruder (me) to leave. So about five birds will be up there shreaking at me. All they had done so far was make a lot of noise, so I started to sweep the bird crap off of my porch, right under the nest. They came dive bombing at my head, and chased me off, as I ran screaming like a little girl back into my garage and into the house.

Some delivery person is going to be surprised this week. George is expecting a package.

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I recently joined a Flickr group where fellow doodlers are creating sketches from tea stains.

Our visit to Seattle

I know I am not the first person to post a picture of this guy on my blog. I wonder if he's been able to start his karate lessons by now?


This guy had a cardboard sign on the other side that read, "I WANT YOUR WEED."


We saw this national landmark... the first Starbucks. Yes everyone, smile, I am taking your picture.

Pike Place Market was packed with people. But we did not see any fish being thrown. They had the day off because it was the fourth of July.

We stayed at a funky hotel in Seattle called Hotel Max. This is the hallway...

Our door...

The lobby...

Can you guess what this is?

thought of the day

Why is woman pronounced "women," and women is pronounced "wimen?"

more vacation stuff

On day four of our vacation we drove as high as we could up a mountain at Olympic State Park. It was cold up there! There were patches of snow on the ground. The gift shop was selling plenty of warm sweaters and coats to people.



A couple of wildlife shots...

A chicken crossing the road.


This deer had her baby with her. Of course I did not get the photo I was hoping for, because this camera just opens way too slow!

some portland pics

You can save a few bucks at the Marriott if you get the room without a view. But we didn't travel all the way to Portland, Oregon just to hang out in our hotel room anyway.



The Columbia River Gorge. This is the first scenic view we drove out to see, right after we got off the airplane and got our rental car.


Multnomah Falls. Thankfully, there were no earthquakes or falling boulders while we were there.


These are carnivorous plants at the Portland Saturday Market. I'd never seen ones like these. I guess they would be hard to check in to the airplane.


There is a different breed of street performers in these parts.

One thing that was cool about Portland was the enormous variety of coffee shops. In Seattle it was practically all Starbucks and Seattle's Best on every street corner. Portland had some good affordable restaurants too. The first night we were there we ate a huge feast at a Mediterranean restaurant.

traveling doodles

Here's a bunch of doodles from our flight home, which included a five-hour layover in Chicago. We've become quite familiar with that airport and its food choices from this and other trips.

Gone are the days of the free in-flight t.v. dinner. Welcome the $5 bagel sandwich.


I never noticed how many people wear Crocs until spending a huge amount of time watching people in the airport.


I knew about those little drive-through espresso places out west, but never realized what an abundance of them there are, and way out in the middle of nowhere too. You will never have to drive far without an espresso. You will probably have to drive farther to find a bathroom though, so don't drink too much.

This is a tourist attraction for us, since we do not have this kind of thing in our parts, unless it's a Starbucks with a drive-through.

blogger meet-up

One of the highlights of our vacation was meeting two fellow bloggers, Emma Sometimes and BaDoozie for the very first time.

We ate a gourmet meal at Jake's Famous Crawfish in Portland, OR. Everything was spectacular. Although I agree with BaDoozie that it would be nice if they'd cut the loaf of bread all the way through so we don't have to rip it apart with our bare hands. And it would be good if the crust wasn't so hard that a person's teeth could fall out trying to bite off a piece. Nevertheless, I still had my teeth by the time my salmon arrived, and it was very tasty. It's too bad we don't have a Jake's. They have a day where you can eat with your dog.

Susie's son Dylan was a character, even if he does suffer from voice emodulation. If I had more time I would have doodled him and everyone else.

Now Emma Sometimes and her husband are very smart and cultured types, and they had tickets for us all to a classical music concert right after dinner. It was really good, and we sat front and center.

Of course, I cannot go to a classical music concert without doodling.



After that we went to Powell's ginormous bookstore, where I would have loved to have spent more time, but the jet lag had been catching up with me for hours. So until next time... we may meet again someday...

getting things back in order

Things to do after arriving home from a ten-day vacation:

Wash and fold giant pile of laundry

Pull ten days off of my page-a-day calendar

Go through a pile of mail, mostly junk

Throw away rotten bananas

Throw away rotten eggplant, broccoli, green beans, cheese...

Open all windows and get some air in here

Buy new food

Get my dog (got him!)

Pull 9-foot-high weeds out of the front lawn

Respond to emails

Blog stuff

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The story of Charlie


I am very thankful that my beta fish, Charlie, did not die while we were on vacation. I gave him a 10-day beta fish feeder on the morning we left. Charlie is very particular about what goes in his bowl. When he's stressed out about something, he turns from blue to grey and then sinks down to the bottom and sulks. As soon as I put that 10-day feeder thing in the bowl he turned grey and when into his zombie-state. I wondered if he'd eat it at all, and was almost certain I was coming home to a belly-up beta fish. Well, Charlie was grey when I came back late last night, but he was very happy to see us and snapped out of it. Now tonight, I took a photo of him, using the flash and he looked like he'd completely conked out, floating sideways and motionless.

Ironic, taking a picture of my fish to show he's not dead, and now the flash kills him. I think he's going to be o.k. though. He is apparently very resilient.

I'm back

We are back from our trip to the northwest.

More to come.

Last night I stayed at Chautauqua Institution with my brother and his wife and baby who are visiting here. It's on Chautauqua lake, and there are concerts and things going on all summer long. Thankfully dogs are allowed. Skippy likes to put his feet in the water.

I am packing my bags now. Assuming all goes as planned, we will actually meet two very famous bloggers this weekend. Thanks for making those reservations Emma!

Today there was a surprise package for me in my mailbox. My friend Kaori went to Japan, and bought me some Hi Chew (the best Japanese candy) in these two exclusive flavors which are only sold in Okinawa. The green fruit on the bottom package is some kind of Okinawan fruit that I don't know the name of.

I might have something new to post here soon. I guess there's just not much to say lately. But I always have plenty of doggie pictures. I need some coffee. I'm tired.

nature photographs

This big fat snake was crossing my walkway this afternoon.

He let me take a close-up.

These little butterflies are flying all over my yard. I suppose technically it's probably a moth. (We have a lot of dead grass in our lawn! It could use some rain.)

doodleydoo...

I was going through some old sketchbooks tonight and came across these doodles.




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Saturday we were grocery shopping, and when I went to buy a bag of Japanese rice, I noticed there were living winged insects inside the sealed bag! They were in there trying to fly! The only way they could have gotten in there is by recently hatching out of some eggs that were in the rice.

They say, if you keep flour long enough things will hatch out of it.

I bought a different brand of rice this time.

the poof tree, and a doodle

There's this tree behind our backyard that's some kind of a cotton tree or something, because it continually sheds cottony poof balls all over the neighborhood this time of year.




The poof balls in our yard.


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A Starbucks-inspired doodle.

not too much is going on

A couple of doodles I drew in Chili's.


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Hallmark started charging $1.49 for some of their ecards. What's up with that?

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This is my miniature forest.


It is sometimes inhabited by a small furry black and white creature.

misc.

Do you ever have a day where you don't get any email for so long, that you start to wonder if your email stopped working?

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It is very hot and muggy here.


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George bought this Brady Bunch fabric that he loves, and today I made it into curtains for his home office.



I wish they were a little longer, but it works.

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I have a Sears Kenmore sewing machine that I only use for hemming things. Making curtains is really the same as hemming.

I had to refer to my owner's manual to figure out how to get the thread wrapped around the right way.

This is my favorite page from the Sears Kenmore Sewing Machine Owner's Manual:

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George put this video up on youtube. Skippy and his favorite toy. Oh, and yes that's me.



George got the music from a Russian movie called Kavkazskaya Plennitsa.

weird dream

Last night I had a dream that I took a flight to California, and there was a quick layover on the moon. On my ticket it just said "lunar." When I was at the terminal on the moon I was surprised to see out the window that there was a highway with plenty of traffic.

It's a beautiful day outside! Why are you indoors reading my blog? You should go outside and play!

the daily doodle


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The people who last owned our house planted a bunch of ground cover by the house. Now I have no idea what to do with it. The grass grows inside of it, and it is impossible to pull it all out stalk by stalk. I want to do away with the whole thing and start over. Where do I even begin?

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Remove Stains Right At The Office

I have a pair of white capris that I like, but they've been stained with something unremovable, like paint or something. Today I covered up the stain with wite-out. It actually worked. At least, I can't find the stain now unless I'm really looking for it.