This & That

Only at My House

It's interesting what turns up every once in a while.

Only at my house would you find a random, bright orange, mechanical duck foot on the bathroom counter.....that's been sitting there for at least 2 months.

We're Not in Kansas Anymore

We had some wild weather roll through here over the weekend that battered some of the trees here. Ironically, there wasn't a new rain of stupid pine needles. I thought that was very strange, but maybe the wind blew so hard, it just blew them clean away since we had wind gusts up to 60 mph.

What did happen was that I lost a couple of pretty large branches off my pretty weeping birch tree. You might remember that last fall it looked like this:

And now there's this:

This branch is at least 2 1/2 inches in diameter and 6-8 feet long. We lost another, one about the same size that is sitting on the roof.

Angry Bird

When we had Ollie out on the deck eating his food one morning, we heard all kinds of commotion from a nearby tree. 

There was a Blue Jay in it just shrieking at Ollie. Now, I was totally unaware that Blue Jays even existed in Idaho, but apparently they do and not only that, they stick around in the winter. Not only THAT, but they can make that circling vulture shrieking sound that you hear in the movies when somebody it wandering in the desert. No kidding. 

So when Ollie was done and we brought him into the house, this bird decided he was going to raid the food stash, and I decided I was going to get a picture.

 He flew on and off the railing several times, yelling while he was at it. 

Then he got a little braver and ventured onto the deck. "Are you lookin' at me? Are YOU lookin' at ME???" 

And then I think he tried to pull the old Jedi mind trick, "These aren't the droids you're looking for....as I swipe some food."

Then he was gone...with another shriek, of course.

Chocolate M&M Cookies

First off, Happy Birthday to this little guy. He's 2 today and I love him and miss him.

Next, these cookies are as sweet as my grandbaby. I sent some home in the car with LS Boy when he headed back down to school. I wonder if there were any left when he got there. They come from the Baked Perfection blog.

Chocolate M&M Cookies

• 1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
• 2/3 cup granulated sugar
• 2/3 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 large eggs
• 1 cups all-purpose flour
• 2/3 cup baking cocoa
• 1 small package instant chocolate pudding mix
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 2/3 cups M&M's 

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Cream together the butter, sugars and vanilla. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Gradually beat in dry ingredients and then stir in M&M's. Drop by well-rounded Tablespoons onto ungreased baking sheets. (I made mine a little smaller and cut the baking time by a couple of minutes. That way, I get more cookies.)

Bake for 11-13 minutes or until cookies are puffed and centers are set. Cool on baking sheets for 2 minutes; remove to wire racks to cool completely.

12---Actually, I Wish it Was 12

A couple of layouts done this week for the 12 class. Time is running out for this month and even with these 2 done, I still have 4 more to go to finish off my 12. It will be a race to the finish line, I think.

This one is for the Everyday Life category. The Girl is the last person doing regular piano practicing in the house, which is something that has gone on continuously for almost 26 years. I will miss it when she goes to college. The design is a Pagemap from 1/2011, and I love that I had photos of her doing this at different ages.

This one is an homage to the Hot Breakfast thing that I've talked about before. I tried to find the original blog post where I documented this, but couldn't, so I had to make up the journaling all over again, dang it.

Ollie

It's time for an Ollie post.

Ollie absolutely loves he cabin in any season. He loves the Great Outdoors and indulges often in the Crazy Dog Run. He loves going with DH for walks around the property. Actually, he loves doing anything with DH, because he knows it will get him outside. 

He loves wallowing in the snow and digging in it. The girls had him fetching big, frozen clumps of it, but he wouldn't give it up like he was supposed to.

He gets a little snotty about fetching for anyone except DH. 

 

Outside

The guys spent some time on the snowmobiles each day looking around for critter tracks. While they were out, they saw fox, coyote, cougar and wolf tracks, all fresh in the new snow that had fallen.

Nothing in close to the cabin except the fox tracks, but again, this is why they carry guns while they're out...because we are sharing the woods with some not-too-friendly species.

They have also tried some new equipment....snowshoes. They have used them to walk the trails down to the river and have said they work pretty well. You'll notice that Ollie doesn't wear them in spite of The Girl thinking that would be a really great idea.

I haven't tried them yet, but it's just a matter of time. I have a feeling it's going to be a little bit like putting a pig on roller skates. I'm not known for my coordination, you know.

Cabin Activities

So my word for yesterday's photo is just simply.....Peace. There is nothing quite like being there in the winter, when not very many people are around, and it's snowing and quiet and beautiful. 

And what do we do while we are there? Well, it's usually not quite as peaceful as that picture.

Well, there are several lively games of Skip-bo. They tend to get a little cut-throat.

And reading. LS Boy is currently reading Tony Blair's biography.

And several lively games of Sleeping Queens. Very fun, short card game that even the SGB has tried his hand at. There was also a stretch of playing Spot It, also a really fun, short game for multiple ages.

Temple Run on my ipad. I know nothing about this game other than The Girl loves it and downloaded it onto both my ipad and my phone. 

We also brought up a couple of movies for the evenings. We watched Abduction, which I won't even link because it's one of the worst movies I've ever seen. Totally not loving Team Jacob. He's one of the absolute worst actors out there, IMHO. We also watched Contagion, which wasn't tremendously riveting, but which I liked from a medical standpoint...just seeing how easily things can be spread. And we watched The Help. Loved this one. Even DH  said he enjoyed it. I haven't read the book, but the movie makes me want to.

 

 

A Picture and a Question

We are back and had a really nice, relaxing weekend at the cabin. I took lots of photos, a good share of which were of an interesting visitor we had, but his pictures will show up in a day or so.

Here's one of my favorite images of the weekend. It was taken Saturday morning during one of several short snow showers we had. You can see the rhino, which I drove in in the lower corner there. So here's the question for today. What one word title or description would you give this picture? Tomorrow I'll tell you what mine is. 

OK, Maybe One Tiny Techno Post

Just to show that I did make an effort with the 12 class this week. A lot of Valentine and cabin stuff got in the way, but this will bring me to the half-way point for the layouts for the month.

This goes in the holiday category. It's a tweaked lift of a layout from a SB, Etc. magazine by Lisa Swift.

And this one goes in the Places category. The design is a 9/2011 Pagemap. My DH would live in a place just like this if he could....oh wait, he kind of does.