Cosmos! or Fall Headgear!

Today has been great. This morning our dear friends Jonell & Roy came over to deliver us our very first cord of wood. So now we are truly ready for the cold weather months. I was so thrilled to get the oak wood. So after Roy & Jonell left Big Foot Ranch I took a picture of it.

But Henry Standing Bear was not as excited about it as I was, because we stacked the wood, along the fence line, in front of his side yard, blocking his view of the wildlife.

After taking this picture I stepped back to admire the tall, beautiful Cosmos that Tony had planted, months ago, along the fence line to attract hummingbirds and butterflies.

Then I took this picture of this beautiful Cosmo flower.

Before returning to The Cabin I decided to take another picture of our delicious, climbing Malabar spinach plant that is growing so fast, we can't eat it fast enough. 

Earlier this afternoon we met our dear friends Kris & Jim, in Kerrville, for two reasons. The first reason was to enjoy a fun lunch with them and catch up with each others news, at the Cracker Barrel. 

And the second reason, so I could hand off a copy of the first chapter (Wednesday), of my 3rd novella The Cowgirl Sisterhood: Ghost Riders in the Sand, so they could help me edit it. And here is a peak of page one.

Since it may be hard to read, here are those first, three paragraphs: And yes, this is a teaser  : )

                                         "Wednesday

After we had eaten my delicious tuna fish salad for our lunch, another recipe that I have stolen from my best friend Carol Vail and took credit for, I washed and dried the dishes and put them away. Then I went back to the bedroom, sat down at my ancient sewing machine again and got back to sewing some cute, tiny eye patches for Little Debbie to wear. Because her old ones were starting to fray. 

I had just finished sewing this darling, pink, camouflage eye patch when Tony walked into the bedroom, and said, "Hey. Here come the Waxlers." Then the phone rang. "I'll get the phone. Don't let them leave until I get back."

"Okay," I said, as I carefully trimmed away the top and bobbin threads for Little Debbie's newest, adorable, Fall, headgear collection. Then I went outside to greet our dear friends, "Good afternoon, Alison and Blake. I hope y'all slept okay, last night, during that thunderstorm.""

🌵🐾🌵

Y'all have a great evening and keep on laughing!

More Cow Bell! or Ooze Control Tip!

Today has been great. This morning Tony and I went to Kerrville to wash and dry a couple of loads of clothes. And while our clothes were washing we went and voted. And during the drying cycle we went to Home Depot, so I could buy some yellow and purple spray paint. Then we came home and ate lunch. Then I went to work.

First of all, after Tony took my cow bell down, that is next to our front door of The Cabin.
Then I started spray painting it.

While that paint was drying, Tony and I put up the shutters that I designed and had painted, but there was one little problem. When I first put a set of hinges on a shutter, we realized that I had put them on the wrong side of the shutter. And that left six small screw holes. Needless to say, I was not a happy camper.

Anyway, after Tony corrected my mistake he installed the shutters hinges correctly. Then we went outside and hung them up. And I love how they "popped" my soon to be, super-cool writing cabin.

After I did some more spray painting on the cow bell, I went to look for some caulk, so I could fill the holes in the shutter and then paint over it.

Well, I could not find any caulk. And like many folks that choose to live in the country, I was determined not to make another trip back to the Home Depot, in Kerrville.

Then I had a brilliant idea or at least I think so. I went into our bathroom and found my tube of Poligrip.

 Then I went back outside, and while the mosquitos were eating me up, I easily filled the screw holes, because Poligrip has an ooze control tip. Now life was good, again.

While the denture adhesive dried, I went back to painting the cow bell. And while it was drying again, I went and painted over the Poligrip and I am thrilled how it turned out. And you cannot even see the pink goo. So I highly recommend using Poligrip for dentures and filling in holes to cover mistakes.

After I took this picture of the shutters and downloaded it, I was more than thrilled to see the two orbs that my camera captured. And whatever that thing is above the shutters, I refuse to think it is just sun reflections.

Then I went and finished spray painting my cow bell. Then Tony put it back where it belonged. And that is it for tonight.

Y'all have a great evening and keep on laughing!

Felix! or Einstein?!

Today has been great, even though it is still raining. But the good news is the cold, gray, rainy weather is going to improve starting as early as tomorrow. And it looks like we are in for several days of beautiful weather.

I am one of those people who must have sunshine 99% of the time or my mood goes down rapidly and doing without sunshine for so long—I cannot wait to see the sun tomorrow.

Okay, I know I've told you about being busy these past few weeks and because I am feeling guilty for not blogging much I am going to show you one of the projects we did and the progress that we've made on my "she-shed" aka soon to be writing cabin/guest house.

A few weeks ago, we had two, consecutive, beautiful days with plenty of sunshine, so because of my need for sunshine I spent the majority of my time outside, with Tony, putting windows in my shed, painting it South Western colors, and then decorating the exterior.

But the sad news is we've not been able to finish out the inside, because we cannot move the storage boxes that are inside it, due to all of the rain. But the good news is starting tomorrow afternoon we should be able to start working on it again.

Anyway, here are before and after pictures of my upcoming writing cabin and I hope that you like it. The shed had no windows and I forgot to take a picture of it before we put in the windows.

After we painted the shed, I recycled some old, used wood and made the window flower box with Tony's help. I wasn't clever enough to come up with the flower box design, so I we copied this flower box from a picture that was in one of my tiny house books. And they look exactly alike except for the colors.

I really love this flower box, because it only has two legs and it was so easy to make. (Thanks to Tony)  

Then Tony and I put flat stones down to make sort of a patio and then we used two old, wash tubs, an old milk can that I spray painted yellow and several of my flower pots to decorate the exterior.

  

I was so thrilled with the way it all looked, I then decided to change the front of The Cabin, too. If you'll remember we first stained The Cabin's siding with cedar stain. Then several months later, after building the front porch I painted it white. (With Tony's help.)

On the second day of sunshine, we literally only had five hours to repaint the front of The Cabin, before the rain returned and the sunshine disappeared. So here are before and after pictures of it.

Please note that the tall pile of cut oak, to use in our wood burning stove, is hiding a lot of the color.

And after a few weeks, once we've gone through that wood pile, I promise to take another picture, because the wood pile sort of makes it look cruddy.

Four hours after repainting the front of The Cabin the rain returned, so I feel that we got very lucky to accomplish so much before the cold, damp, rainy weather.

Before the rain came that day I took this weird picture of the sun shining on our front door. When you look at it long enough I think it looks like two different silhouettes of a man. One is dark on the right and the other is light, in the middle of the door. 

The silhouettes don't look like anyone that I know. But I think that the one on the left corner might be Einstein? And the other one looks like he ran into a door. Anyway, I thought it was pretty interesting.

I now feel better letting you know what we've been up to and just to prove we've really been busy here I want you to know that a week ago Tuesday, I drove myself up to Dripping Springs, and spent the evening with my sweet sister Cindy, Ronnie & Nita and so we could all visit with Felix, our dear, old family friend, who came to Austin, from Las Vegas, to play golf and to see us.

I had a wonderful time and I spent the night at Ronnie & Nita's Ronderosa Ranch and drove back the next morning. 

Y'all have a great evening and keep on laughing!

Am Writing Up A Storm!

I apologize for not writing since the 6th of October. We have been very busy and I've spent most of spare time writing on my 3rd novella. Which I am very thrilled with, because I think it is the funniest one I've written so far.

So please be patient and hang in there with my few blog posts, because right now I am writing up a storm or at least I'm writing until another storm comes our way.

An Empty Glass! or Purple Mountain!

Today has been great. This morning after cooking Tony and I breakfast I took a shower and while I was washing my hair I decided that I would take a day off from writing.

I decided to paint. Not paint a wall or something like that, but paint a picture for the possible cover of my upcoming third novella. Then I rounded up my art supplies and set up "shop" on the kitchen island.

With Henry Standing Bear, Little Debbie and Big Al(ice) intensely watching me, I then started playing some of my favorite music, in hopes to be inspired, because a desert scene mainly consists of: cactus, sandy dirt, rock mountains, etc.

When Gary Stewart, one of my all-time, favorite singer/songwriter/musicians started singing one of his Classic hits An Empty Glass, I love that song, so I started trying to dance the two-step with Henry, while also holding Little Debbie, in my arms, while Big Al(ice) jumped up on the couch to watch us. And needless to say, "Henry needs some serious dance lessons."

Anyway, An Empty Glass was the perfect song to inspire my desert painting. And I just might use this painting for my upcoming, third novella The Cowgirl Sisterhood: Ghost Riders In the Sand. But please know that, I do have a few more ideas for the book cover that I want to try painting. So nothing is set in stone, so to speak. Here's my "Purple Mountain" that I painted earlier today.

If I choose to use this painting I plan to put the title up near the top, above the moon. And if you noticed the turquoise rocks, there is a reason for them being there, but I can't tell you why, because you will have to read the book.

Y'all have a great evening and keep on laughing!

I Sure Didn't! or Whistler's Mother!

The past few days have been great. Yesterday we ate lunch with our dear friends: Denise & Les and Kris & Jim, at Bella Sera, in Kerrville.

As always meeting our lunch club was so much fun and the food was delicious, too. And yes, Tony and I ordered the exact same thing—Lasagne.

While we were catching up with each others news, Denise told us about The Good Cop, this great show on Netflix, starring Tony Danza.

After Denise reassured me that it was fun to watch and not too violent, etc. I decided to watch it. And omg, I loved it, because trying to solve the murder mysteries was fun. I also loved the father-son humor along with the great cast of characters.

Only one thing bothered me while watching the first episode—how much Tony Danza had aged, because I thought I was much older than him when I used to watch him in the sitcom, Friends.

In fact, I could not quit thinking about it, so I paused the show and Googled Tony Danza to find out just how old he is, even though I thought he looked great for his age. Or better said, "He's still a hunk to me."

When I read that Tony Danza is 67, the same age that I'm fixin' to be in less than 2 weeks, my jaw dropped to the floor. And after I picked up my jaw, I read that Tony, not my Tony, starred in the hilarious sitcom—Taxi.

Then it hit me that I was confusing Tony Danza with the great actor Matt LeBlanc. So I Googled Matt LeBlanc and discovered that he is only 51 years old and like Tony, my Tony, he is also a Leo. And Tony Danza is a Taurus.

Then I binge-watched the first season of The Good Cop and after telling Tony, my Tony, about it—he binge-watched it, too. Bottom    Line: It is a great show and we cannot wait for The God Cop: Season 2 to be released.

This morning my dear friend Mari sent me this e-mail with a short, 2 minute video attached. Mari wrote:

"Betcha didn't know about this - I sure didn't! I am in awe."

Knowing Mari as well as I do, I thought to myself, "Well, if Mari is in awe of this video, then I bet I will be, too. I just hope that it doesn't star Tony Danza or Matt LeBlanc, because then I might get them confused all over again."

The name of this IN THE NOW awesome video, is Bird Language. So I immediately went and got Tony, my Tony, to come watch the video with me, because he loves birds so much and he is always taking beautiful pictures of them.

First off, let me say that it wasn't exactly about birds like I thought it was. But Tony and I loved watching this video anyway and like Mari—we were in awe too and we never knew anything about this.

This video was filmed in a remote Turkish village, with more than 10,000 people using bird language (whistling) to communicate to one another. And their whistling can be heard from miles away, in the mountains. But that is all that I am going to say about it, so you will be just as amazed as us and awed by it, too. Here's the Bird Language video.

Late this afternoon, I decided to re-watch this incredible video and after watching it again, I went to go to the bathroom, but on my way there, I stopped when I entered the bedroom, and then went back and grabbed my camera. 

And fortunately for me, Nature wasn't yelling, so I had the time to take this picture of a homemade, framed picture, that I had Photo shopped of my beloved Yoda, back in 1994. Its title is Whistler's Mother (Because whistling is the theme of tonight's post). 

Anyway Whistler's Mother and my Photo shopped, Yoda Lisa pictures, that hang, on the walls, in the bedroom, always make me laugh whenever I see them. And I hope that they will make you laugh, too. Because I believe that no one can laugh enough and it is good for our hearts and soul.

Y'all have a great evening and keep on laughing!

Not Cereal!

Yesterday was an unexpected blast. I slept in Sunday morning and got up around 8:00. Tony had already fed our dogs their homemade breakfast, so our dogs were already outside, leaving calling cards and watering the weeds for us.

But before I go any further, I want to explain about "our dogs homemade breakfast." Since early August, I decided to quit feeding our dogs—name-brand, manufactured dog food. So after spending several hours researching (Googling) high quality dog foods, it dawned on me that I could, and would love to, cook healthy meals for our dogs instead of feeding them bags of dog food that are full of fillers, etc.

The good news is it is not anymore expensive than buying name brand dog food, our dogs love it and I know exactly what they are being fed.

So every evening, while sipping my one glass of Franzia Chillable Red Wine, I precook breakfast for our dogs and I really enjoy doing it.

And thank goodness I have my faithful Instant Pot, because every evening I use it to cook 3 cups of long grain brown rice, in just a matter of minutes. And while the rice is being pressured cooked, I drink a few more sips of delicious, cheap, boxed wine, while listening to some of my favorite music.

After the rice is cooked, and my wine is doing its thing, our dogs become my personal audience, with their eyes glued on me as I add either raw meat or chicken or fish or scrambled eggs or diced up hot dogs with some raw, home grown, organic spinach leaves. Then they really start drooling as I dump in a can of Veg-All, Parmesan cheese, that comes in the green jar, and I top it off with Tony Chachere's Original Creole Seasoning. So now you know and I hope that you will try doing this.

Now back to my story. As I was sipping my coffee, Tony comes into the big room and says, "I've got great news. Jim Keaveny and Rachel are coming to see us today. They just got back to Austin yesterday, from Jim's Netherlands tour and they will be here later this afternoon...."

Tony and I were thrilled about Jim & Rachel coming to see us and spending the night with us, before they headed back home, to Terlingua.

Around noon, Tony and I took off for Kerrville to run a few errands. He dropped me off at the Country Clean laundry, so I could wash and dry a load of dirty clothes, while he went to Walmart to get a slow-leaking tire fixed.

We normally only use Wagoner's Tires, on Sidney Baker, to buy tires or to fix a tire leak, but because it is family owned. And because we love the family, because they are good people and because years ago, on November 12, 2013, they adopted sweet Bee Spears from us.

But because it was Sunday our only option was Walmart. Here is the link to my April 5, 2015 post, about Bee Spears' fabulous adoption. And here is a picture of this magnificent dog that once lived, at our Utopia Animal Rescue Ranch. And lastly, here is the link my blog post on the day Bee Spears came to the rescue ranch.

Rachel & Jim arrived around 5:00, and we enjoyed a happy hour with them, while I cooked up our dog's breakfast. We talked about Jim's tour and how much fun they had, we caught up with each other's news and we did a lot of laughing, too. They also told us about them getting a Vita-Mix machine and loving it as much as we love Jaws (our Vita-Mix machine). So we started trading smoothie and soup recipes, etc.

Then Jim excused himself and he went out to his truck and came back inside with presents that he & Rachel had bought for us and Kinky. And he was wearing these beautiful, hand-carved, wooden shoes (clogs) that he had bought while touring, in Holland.

After admiring Jim's awesome, wooden shoes, he & Rachel gave us this cute pair of miniature clogs, made in Holland.

And before I put them on the window sill, I put them on Little Debbie's front paws and she loved them even though they were a size or two too big for her dainty feet.

Then there was more. Jim got out his pocket knife and cut open a bag of tulip bulbs, from Holland and he gave us four (pink, yellow, blue and red) bulbs and one yellow bulb for us to give to Kinky.

Because Jim & Rachel were tired last night and dealing with jet-lag, we didn't stay up late like we usually do when they visit. And I had a hard time falling to sleep, because I kept laughing about the fun time that we had had earlier.

This morning, I got up at 8:00 and Rachel & Jim were already up, drinking coffee and packing up their things. When I was making a cup of coffee for myself, I noticed two bowls of delicious cereal, sitting on the counter top, so I said, "Your cereal looks delicious. What's in it?"

They started laughing with Tony, and Tone said, "Nance, it's our dog's breakfast—not cereal. I haven't fed the dogs, yet." And that made me laugh, too.

Around 9:00 this morning, we sadly adios-ed our dear friends and bid them a safe trip back home. And that is about it for today, because I plan to spend the rest of my day writing up a storm, until it starts thundering, because I will have to unplug everything.

Y'all have a great day/evening and keep on laughing!