IF - idle

Nothing says "idle" better than fishing, if you ask me. This cat's caught more fish than I ever did, that's for sure. I used to go fishing with my Dad now and then, and we spent most of the time untangling fishing line and just sitting around. Oh yeah, good memories, I miss him.

baby zoe + summer = little work will done

with a new kitty to play with, the summer sun to take long walks in, books to be read, ice cream to be eaten and cool drinks to be drunk - it's been too hard to work. how about you? getting anything meaningful done this summer? I think I know the answer already and I take that as a no. happy summer ya' ll!

IF - hollow

Ahoy there, matey! Pirate Bird has some treats stashed in her hollow wooden leg to snack on during her voyage across the salty seas. This illo is based on the Pirate bird and Pirate ship images I designed as wood mounted stamps for A Muse. This is a vector image with Photoshop shading.

is it Christmas already?

Every summer, when it's 80 degrees outside, I'm designing holiday cards for my coffee inspired greeting card line. It's always so hard to get into the spirit, ya know what I mean? This year, I'm thinking of only doing 2 new designs, rather than my usual 4, but I had 4 ideas that I've sketched out! To make my decision of which ones to do, I thought I'd open it up for voting on the 'ole bliggity blog. So, if you have any favorites and care to vote, let me know asap. (click on the image for a better view) Now, I think I'll go sit in the sun for awhile and warm up, it's getting cold in here with all this snow!

crazy little thing called love

I fell in love at 1st sight on Tuesday. I was driving past our local cat adoption clinic, PAWS, and glanced over to see this little cutie playing in the window and fell head over heels. I drove home and told my husband and he actually said "go get her". Of course, I wasn't going to put up a fight of any kind and jumped back in my car and drove back up there and adopted her. Kitties go fast there, so I'm so glad I didn't hesitate. She is a bundle of joy. We named her Zoe. Or maybe we will spell it Zoey, not sure yet.

The only drawback to an otherwise lovely addition to our family, is my other cat Scout and his obvious dislike to the situation. I've never seen him make such a mean and scary face as he did the 1st night we got her. Yikes! We have been keeping her separated in one room for now, letting him in for 5 mins at a time everyday. Hopefully, it will slowly get better and he will get used to her soon.

IF - shaky and weird and wacky in the midwest, part 2

It's a beautiful summer day on our recent trip to Indiana and we're sitting outside in my mom's backyard, under the shade of a giant tree. My mom, sister and I in a little group, with my daughter, Nikki and her cousin, Ben, in another little group, slightly ahead of us.

We hear some rustling from the tree and we all look up, expecting to see a bird or a squirrel, but it's a branch, breaking off from the tree, for no apparent reason. It falls, right on to Nikki's back! If she hadn't reacted and started to move away, it would have fallen right on her head!

Aside from a long scratch on her back, she was fine, but somewhat shaky after that and never would sit under a tree for the rest of the trip.

happy 4th

only in the midwest - part one

Whenever I go back to the Midwest to visit family, I always see and hear weird and wacky things to "make fun of." Now, I'm not really making fun of the people that are from the Midwest, I was born and raised there, so it would be like making fun of myself, which is OK to do, right?
This is all just good natured fun.

The 1st thing weird and wacky thing is the "craze" that is sweeping every backyard cookout in the Midwest. And guess what it's called - corn hole. I kid you not. There is even a cornhole.com website. It's basically a bean bag toss game, you play on teams and there's some goofy scoring system that I never did understand. My nephews crushed my daughter and I so badly the 1st time we played, it was the last time I played! I wanted to win, damn it!

I kept asking - "Why is this called corn hole?, it's bean bags!" Finally, my niece looked it up on Wikipedia and it turns out it was originally played with corn in the bags instead of beans, hence the name corn hole. Put the corn in the hole.

Yep, only in the Midwest. Stayed tuned for Part 2 of weird and wacky things from the Midwest - coming soon.