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Saturday, June 30, 2007
A Busy Friday & Lazy Saturday
Yesterday, Friday, I spent the entire day away from home and none of it was business related, just pleasure.

I left home about 10:00 am and went to the drugstore, then to get my nails done. I always enjoy chatting with the girl that does my nails. She and I have the same birthday (years apart tho') and she is from a totally different side of the world. She is Vietnamese and came to the US about 10 years ago. She has several sisters that live nearby and they are all very close to each other. A loving family, obviously. Her mother passed away after they came to the US and is buried in the same cemetery as my Mom. I love learning about her culture and their traditions. She is always willing to tell me about anything I want to know. Very interesting lady and culture.

I met a friend for lunch afterward and when we finished eating, we visited the cemetery. Her father is there as well. (Odd, now I am making cemetery friends.) Anyway, after our visit there, we went to her house and visited there for several hours. She has a very cozy backyard with lots of plants and a nice covered patio area. Maybe one day, my back yard will be that cozy.

Late in the afternoon, I met another friend at a local Mexican restaurant. It was to celebrate her birthday that was this past Wednesday. When all was said and done, there were approximately 23 people there to share this with her. It was nice. A lot of the people I used to work with were there and it was nice to see and visit with all of them. It's been years since I have seen some of those folks. It was like old home week. Tom joined us when he got off from work and we had dinner with the group. After dinner, Tom and I left and came home to take care of the dogs.

Tom is so special to me. I don't say enough about him. He is always willing to meet me and friends for dinner after work, or to take off to take me to the doctor. He takes such good care of me and obviously loves me dearly and I him. Since I have retired, I miss him a lot when he is at work. I know I don't do enough for him. He is even working today and it's Saturday. He hinted that today would be a nice day to make brownies. LOL I think I will go do that for him. He loves brownies and it would be nice to have some for him when he gets home from work. I know it will make him smile.

Have a nice Saturday everyone.
 
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Thursday, June 21, 2007
Birds in my yard
I love to feed and watch the birds around here. So, since I don't have anything else to write about today, I thought I would show some pics of some of the ones I have seen right here in my yard.

The little brown guy above is a tree sparrow. Pretty birds, but not very colorful.

Of course, we all know Mr. Cardinal. I get lots of these and their mates around here.


I believe this one is the Belted Kingfisher. He is very close to the one I saw in my yard.


This is a Red Bellied Woodpecker. It's hard to see their bellies, but they are red.


And of course, the Red HEADED Woodpecker. These birds' color are so vivid. They are really pretty.


This little cutie is a Saffron Finch. I don't see these often, but I did have one over the weekend.

This one is really pretty. He is a Red Summer Taneger. They are fairly rare, but I have had a few this year.

The red winged black birds are pretty vivid in color too. When they fly, that red on their wing is very bright.

The blue jays are pretty, but they are such mean birds, it's hard to like them. They want everything for themselves and no sharing from their point of view.

I'll show some more later. There are several more that make their way around here.

{P.S. If have used anyone's copyrighted photos here, it was totally unintentional. I try to check for that. But if I have a photo that IS copyrighted, please let me know and I will take it down immediately}

 
posted by Cindy N. at 11:56 PM | Permalink | 1 If you would like to say something about what you just read, please say it here
Sunday, June 17, 2007
Father's Day in the Pool

Today was a really nice day. The kids came over to share Father's Day with Tom and we all had a great time. The only one missing was Ash. We missed him but he did call to wish Tom a Happy Father's Day.
We grilled hamburgers and made french fries (oven fries by Ore Ida). I really like these fries and so does the rest of my family. And there is no frying mess. There I go again, giving free advertisement value to another company. I took a lot of ribbing the other day about the Magic Eraser commercial I did right here in my blog and not I am doing an OreIda commercial! Oh well, they ARE good.

After burgers, we all went and got in the pool. We had so much fun. In one of my last posts, I showed a pic of a pool with a deck. To clear up a misconception unintentionally implied in that post, it was not MY pool. It was just a picture of one I found on Google. Today, I took pictures of everyone playing in the pool at MY house. Here it is.
Heather and Allen bought some of those balls that you get soaked and then throw at people and we had a blast with those things.
The noodles are always fun too. Did you know you can actually blow the water out of them and squirt people with them?
Then Kirk decided he needed to surf on one of the floats. Needless to say, it didn't work, but he had fun trying and we had fun laughing at him.
And here, in the foreground, is the Father. Yes, that is Tom squinting at me as the picture is being taken.

I'll tell you that when you are playing in a pool instead of just floating around by yourself like I usually do, you get REALLY tired. We were all worn out after about 2 hours of dunking, falling off rafts, tossing wet balls at each other and laughing a lot! I haven't laughed that much in a long time.
It was a great day. I hope we can do it again soon. Happy Father's Day everyone.



 
posted by Cindy N. at 10:39 PM | Permalink | 7 If you would like to say something about what you just read, please say it here
Friday, June 08, 2007
Rips on the Northshore
Today my friend Cynthia and I had planned to go eat lunch with Heather and her friend, Linda. Heather and Linda work in Mandeville which is also considered the North shore of Lake Ponchartrain. Pronounced 'Punch a train'

Anyway, just as Cynt and I met up and got ready to leave to go there, Heather called and said she was sick and had to leave work to go home. Bummer…… for Heather ....and for me & Cynt. After thinking about other things we could do around Baton Rouge, we decided to go ahead to Mandeville anyway. And we were glad we did.

First of all the little town of Mandeville, is a quaint little place with old homes with huge porches and beautiful flowers in the yards. There is very little trash lying around and the people are friendly. Just a little small town America place to go.

Anyway, we went to a restaurant called Rip’s that sits on the side of Lake Ponchartrain and ended up sitting out on the 2nd story porch overlooking the edge of the lake. There was a nice sea breeze coming off the Lake and even though it was hot temp wise, sitting on the porch with the breeze blowing made it very comfortable to be out there. The food was excellent and the view was great.
Here are some the pics we took while just hanging out.

This is Cynthia totally into watching what is going on on the Lake. Notice the huge porch behind and around her.This is the Causeway Bridge that crosses the Lake and takes you into New Orleans on the other side of the lake. I think the bridge is 24 or so miles long. You can't see the end of it from where we were.This is Mr. Blue Heron that frequent the area. There are a lot of sea birds around here as the Lake actually opens into the Gulf of Mexico. The lake itself is not completely salt water, it is brackish (part salt, part fresh). It is a very shallow lake too. You can stand up in most of it although there are some deep holes in it.

This house sits facing the lake. I think it is actually an attorney's office,but in its day, I am sure it was an awesome residence.


This old oak tree is dead now and probably was killed by Hurricane Katrina, but it still has moss growing on it and it made for a very interesting picture. I loved the tree. I am sure it has seen a lot of stuff happen over the years.And here is Mr. Heron again. They stand about 3 feet tall. Interesting birds. In this photo, he was walking toward me watching for fish in the water next to him.

I hope you enjoyed our trip with us as much as we enjoyed it. It was nice weather and turned out to be a very nice outing.

 
posted by Cindy N. at 9:45 PM | Permalink | 6 If you would like to say something about what you just read, please say it here
Thursday, June 07, 2007
Rain keeping me from the pool
Not much going on around here. Everytime I decide to go get in the pool, I look at the sky and it's clear with small white puffy clouds (the kind I like) and then within 10 minutes, the sky is nasty gray and the rain is coming. It doesn't last long, but it just ruins the mood. It did that twice to me today.

I went into town today and had lunch with my ex-coworker, Marc. We went to LaMadeline's (sp?). I enjoyed seeing him. I realized it has been 9 months since I retired while I was talking with him. It is amazing how many things have happened in my life since I retired. It just shows how fast time goes by. We sat for about an hour and just chatted about all sorts of things, and I realized how much I miss our conversations we used to have everyday at work. So Marc, if you read this, you know how much I enjoyed our visit AND our lunch. Hope you did well at Chocolage.

After I left Marc, I went and had my nails done, then went to Anna's Linens and bought 5 sofa pillows because I hate the ones I had before and then I went to PayLess shoes and bought nothing (good for me). On the way home, I stopped at the drug store and the small local grocery and made it home in time to spend time in the pool, but then the rain. I won't go into that again.

The pillows: I bought 5, but I am taking 2 back because I don't like the way they look with my furniture. I love the first 3. They are about 18 inches square and 2 are burgundy and 1 is deep beige and all three are fringed (1" fringe) all the way around. They are full and would be great for taking a nap on the sofa. The 2 I didn't like were some sort of slick fabric and it looks like different colors depending on the angle you are looking. I am going to exchange them for another burgundy and another beige fringed one.

I am getting rid of all my ceramics greenware and bisque that I have a gazillion boxes of in the storage unit. A lady is supposed to come here this weekend and pick it all up. I will keep my brushes and tools, but the rest is history. I need to get rid of so much stuff that I just don't need any more and all it's doing is taking up space. I am trying to clean out our the first of those two train cars Train Cars in front of my house, so we can get rid of them so I can build my porch.

The porch will look something like this on the inside, but it will be flat on the ground with a concrete floor and a white steel awning for a roof. I can't wait to get that built so I can enjoy sitting outside watching the birds late in the evening without all the bugs and mosquitoes attacking me. It will have different furniture too. I have already picked out the furniture from Wal-Mart that I will put out there. It includes a firepit table for cool fall and winter evenings. I can't wait.
Well, I guess that's enough info for now. As I get the porch going, I will take pictures of the progress. I am certainly hoping to have it finished before fall.
 
posted by Cindy N. at 10:22 PM | Permalink | 1 If you would like to say something about what you just read, please say it here
Sunday, June 03, 2007
A really nice weekend.
I know some folks are getting some bad weather from Tropical Storm Barry, but because of it going to the east of my house, we have had great weather.

Tom and I did our Wal-Mart trip last night after going out to eat and I got some things I have been needing to organize my pool supplies and such. I got this huge storage container from Rubbermaid that has a lid that lifts on it. I was able to put all my chemicals, hoses, extra connections, etc. in it and get all that stuff in one place so that it's easily accessible to the pool. That way I don't have to find it on the back porch and lug it up to the pool deck to do what I need to do.

I spent a lot of float time in the pool this weekend while Tom cut up and burned a pine tree he pulled down last weekend. When he gets really hot, he comes over and gets in the pool for a short while and cools down.


I had been having a lot of trouble with the water and getting it all cleared up this year but finally, it is crystal clear and very enjoyable.

When my Mom moved in here last summer, she brought 3 patio chairs with her and I had them sitting on the pool deck all this time. I decided I needed to put them on the porch so that the sun won't dry rot the backing and sitting parts. Well they were very dirty and even had two wasps nests on them. We killed the wasps and I got busy cleaning them up.
If you have never used Mr. Clean's new Magic Eraser, you haven't lived. Those things are great! I brought those filthy chairs around to the water hose, wet 'em down and just rubbed (doesn't even take elbow grease) with one of these erasers and like 'magic', they came clean immediately! Those are the best things since sliced bread, I tell you. I am NOT a scrubbing kinda gal. If I have to do WORK to accomplish something, forget it. It's not that I am lazy, I just don't wanna strain myself! lol

Father's Day is coming up in a couple of weeks and I need to see what the kids want to do. I was hoping to have a pool party with burgers on the grill or something like that. We will see.

Anyway, it's been a good weekend.
 
posted by Cindy N. at 4:11 PM | Permalink | 5 If you would like to say something about what you just read, please say it here