Windy Weekend

The weekend weather was gorgeous partly and warm and windy with thunderstorms as well. It mostly started on Friday with heavy rains when it was time for me to start the weekend. Saturday afternoon thunderstorms were coupled with heavy winds. Sunday was mostly rainy. I know it was just April trying to get in as many showers as were missed for all the beautiful May flowers.

On Monday when we returned to work we were surprised to see a large tree had been uprooted in front of our building! There it lay .... after all those years.

The roots were just pulled right out of the ground.

It isn't usual for us to see something like this...hmmmm..and makes me wonder what if I'd been standing in that spot at the moment... and funny how it didn't do anything to the smaller tree shown in the front of this picture or the other one above. Nature is just that way.....

Stay grounded....I hope you have a lovely day... Judi xoxo

Cussing

I can't share pictures....or a story...so I will share a little diddy about "cussing".

Cussing

A 6 year old and a 4 year old are upstairs in their bedroom.

“You know what?” says the 6 year old. “I think it's about time we started cussing.”

The 4 year old nods his head in approval.

The 6 year old continues, “When we go downstairs for breakfast, I'm gonna say something with hell and you say something with ass.”

The 4 year old agrees with enthusiasm.

When the mother walks into the kitchen and asks the 6 year old what he wants for breakfast, he replies, “Aw, hell, Mom , I guess I'll have some Cheerios.”

WHACK! He flies out of his chair, tumbles across the kitchen floor, gets up, and runs upstairs crying his eyes out, with his mother in hot pursuit, slapping his rear with every step.

His mom locks him in his room and shouts, “You can stay there until I let you out!”

She then comes back downstairs, looks at the 4 year old and asks with a stern voice, “And what do YOU want for breakfast, young man?”

“I don't know”, he blubbers, “but you can bet your fat ass it won't be Cheerios!”

Have a lovely day.... Judi xoxo

Girlie Wisdom!

I wanted to share this kinda cute email I received with you. The funny thing might be that I have actually pondered on some of these before even reading this....

1. A friend of mine confused her Valium with her birth control pills... she has 14 kids but doesn't really care.

2. One of life's mysteries is how a 2-pound box of chocolates can make a woman gain 5 lbs.

3. My mind not only wanders, it sometimes leaves completely.

4. The best way to forget your troubles is to wear tight shoes.

5. The nice part about living in a small town is that when you don't know what you are doing, someone else does.

6. The older you get, the tougher it is to lose weight because by then, your body and your fat are really good friends.

7. Just when I was getting used to yesterday, along came today.

8. Sometimes I think I understand everything, and then I regain consciousness.

9. I gave up jogging for my health when my thighs kept rubbing together and setting fire to my knicker's.

10. Amazing! You hang something in your closet for a while and it shrinks 2 sizes!

11. Skinny people irritate me! Especially when they say things like...'You know sometimes I forget to eat!' .....Now I've forgotten my address, my mother's maiden name and my keys, but I have never forgotten to eat. You have to be a special kind of stupid to forget to eat!

12. The trouble with some women is that they get all excited about nothing and then they marry him.

13. I read this article that said the typical symptoms of stress are eating too much, impulse buying, and driving too fast..

Are they kidding? That's my idea of a perfect day!

...and on that note... I hope you have a lovely day... Judi xoxo

BLUE Monday

Everyday is a special day...and today's special day is BLUE Monday hosted by Sally from SmilingSally. Be sure to check out her blog and visit all the other BLUE participants. Everyone loves comments so be sure to leave one. That makes the day more special.

Today I'm sharing with you 2 bird pictures I recently purchased. I've had to take a picture of them from the side because of the glare from the camera. They are a fair size and you can see all the BLUE in them. I don't know what kind of birds they are but I'm really getting "into" birds AND blue!! Some of you know I've had a problem with bringing BLUE into my home but that continues to diminish. I really love these birdies. I got them for a great price too!

I hope your day is full of all goodness....Judi xoxo

PINK Saturday

Its PINK Saturday hosted by Beverley from HowSweetTheSound and I almost FORGOT to post. I bet you thought I did if you were here earlier. Be sure visit all the other participants with their PINKness. Leave them a comment so they know you've been there.

Today I'm sharing some pretty pieces of PINK china all fine china made in England....bits of this and that....a teapot, minus lid...cup and saucer and plate and sugar bowl. I'm showing them to you like this all in their PINK prettyness...piling them up and hopefully the next time you see them they'll be a PRETTY pink......? You'll have to wait and see!.

Hope you are having a lovely PINK Saturday...enjoy this day.. ... Judi xoxo

Things That Make You Go "hmmmmm"....

Do you call it a coincidence? ... or is it something else? Do you think of someone and the next minute that person calls you? ... or you think of something ... and it happens? I do. Sometimes I'm almost not even surprised. I think you have to be aware and be in the "now" because thats when it seems to happen more frequently.

This isn't quite like that but it has to do with a dream I had some time ago about one of the ladies at work who was on maternity leave, waiting to have her first baby. This is the blanket I made for her little one actually.

Anyway, Jina was 2 days late when she called me at work to say she was in labour and was going to the hospital. She called later than day to say she had been told it wasn't time and not to go to the hospital but she would keep in touch.

Two days later I had a dream and told my colleages about it. In the dream I had walked into our office and Jina was standing in front of the cubicle by her desk. There was a ledge in front of her desk and there was a baby in an infant seat on it. Another woman stood beside the baby and I gathered it must have been her mother.

In the dream Jina told me she had had the baby actually the night before. I remarked “why didn’t you call last night and tell me”???? She just put her hands in front of her tummy and slowly bent over. I looked at the baby and asked if the baby was a girl because there was no mistaking of that because she clearly looked like a girl. I don’t recall what she answered.

That afternoon Jina did call me at work. She told me she was blessed with a baby boy. She said she had had the baby the previous afternoon but couldn’t call because she had had a c-section and had been tired and sore. After giving more particulars she told me that everyone thought he was a little girl. Even when he was wrapped in his blue blanket they had this reaction from people.

As she told me all of this it felt like my dream. The baby had been born the day before as in my dream, and when she told me she couldn't call because she'd had the C-section and was sore it made me think of her gesture in the dream of explaining this to me and holding her tummy and slowly bending over. It all seemed like my dream and I was pretty close except I got the sex of the baby wrong. Later as I thought of it I realized I wasn’t wrong after all. I had said the baby looked just like a little girl…Jina told me everyone at the hospital said that her baby looked just like a little girl…

Do you often have "coincidences" happen? .....

Have a lovely day... Judi xoxo

True Words

I received this in an email. Its so true....plenty to think about. It is so particularly geared to all you wonderful teachers.....what do you think about these Rules?

Love him or hate him, he sure hits the nail on the head with this! Bill Gates recently gave a speech at a High School about 11 things they did not and will not learn in school. He talks about how feel-good, politically correct teachings created a generation of kids with no concept of reality and how this concept set them up for failure in the real world..

Rule 1: Life is not fair - get used to it!

Rule 2 : The world won't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.

Rule 3 : You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won't be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.

Rule 4 : If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.

Rule 5 : Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping: they called it opportunity.

Rule 6: If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them.

Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent's generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.

Rule 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades and they'll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.

Rule 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that on your own time..

Rule 10: Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs. Rule 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one. If you agree, pass it on. If you can read this - Thank a teacher!

Most of all Thank A Veteran for keeping our country free so this can be passed on to someone else.

Have a lovely day Judi xoxo

Hi there...

I was with my mom yesterday because she was having a surgical procedure done at the hospital. I spent the day with her at the hospital and slept at her place overnight and am back to work today. She lives almost an hour from me.

So I wasn't able to read anyone's Blue Monday or regular Monday posts because I didn't have a computer yesterday. I even forgot to go to Sally's to use the Mr. LINKY on her site on Monday morning early before heading out. I'm looking forward to relaxing blog reading tonight!

I wanted to add to my BLUE Monday post that it was Geoff my eldest son who bought the blue drill and bits for me. Thats why I was especially tickled PINK (Saturday) when he surprised me with it. What a nice boy.....*s*.

see you soon... have a lovely day... Judi xoxo

BLUE Monday...a present to accomplish work!

Its BLUE Monday again. Sally from SmilingSally is hosting it and be sure to click and go to her site to see all the other BLUE participants. Don't forget to leave a comment so everyone will know you've been there!

Today I'm sharing a little story about my borrowing my eldest son Geoff's drill whenever I make the Teapot Party Garden Bird Feeders, other crafts or for whatever. Poor boy has to borrow it back from me when he needs it and I always ask tell him I'll hold on to it for him when he's done. That way I can use it whenever a new idea comes up.

Anyway I took my mom to the eye doctor's on Thursday and he text messaged me "Home yet? Shopping". I reminded him where I was and asked "Why". He said he'd left me a surprise.

Look at the surprise! My very own BLUE drill with all the bits and screwdriver pieces! I felt really badly that he'd done that for me. It had never occurred to me that I should maybe buy my own. He seemed to be so happy about doing that for me and insisted it was a good deal. So now I'm the proud owner of a lovely drill. Up until the past year or so I had never used a drill in my life! Acually I think they should make a Pink drill for ladies.

So what was my project this time? I reupholstered my diningroom chairs and I needed to use the reversible screwdriver part of it to remove screws. This is one of the chairs before.

....and this is the seat now.

Remember I made new drapes a couple of weeks ago? This is a coordinating fabric. I have enough to make a runner as well. See the BLUE stripes in it? It really looks pretty and fresh in person.

Its nice to have that project completed. Now drill in hand and looking around. What's next??

Have a lovely BLUE Monday.... Judi xoxo

PINK Saturday

Its PINK Saturday again hosted by Beverley at HowSweetTheSound. Visit her blog for more PINK participants and you'll be glad you did. Leave a message to let everyone know you visited them.

For Easter my granddaughter Madeline came for dinner and brought me this lovely mum arrangement. It is in a little ceramic flowering can that has some PINK on it. The colours are actually off in this picture for some reason. The pink almost looks a salmony colour but it is really PINK. The mums are also very PINK in person thought they loo purpley in the picture. See the little butterfly that hovers over the flowers. Isn't it pretty? She was so proud of her little gift. I love it.


Beside it I also have a little china ornament which among other colours has a pretty pink flower. My brother gave it to me years ago.

Have a lovely PINK Saturday.... Judi xoxo

Dear Mr. President

I haven't had a chance to post pictures or talk about what I've been up to...or not up to. Its been busy however I've had some chuckles and wanted to post those with you. Then I got this and I thought hey this is serious! THIS makes sense! Don't you agree??

This was an article from the St. Petersburg Times Newspaper on Sunday.

The Business Section asked readers for ideas on "How Would You Fix the Economy?" this was the BEST idea....

I think this guy nailed it!

Dear Mr. President, Patriotic retirement: There's about 40 million people over 50 in the work force -pay them $1 million apiece severance with the following stipulations:

1) They leave their jobs. Forty million job openings - Unemployment fixed.

2) They buy NEW American cars. Forty million cars ordered - Auto Industry fixed.

3) They either buy a house/pay off their mortgage - Housing Crisis fixed. Can't get any easier than that! Even if we doubled the pmt to $2 million and mandated $500K into a 401K to boost up the financial reserves we would be spending billions less and accomplishing more.

Would you like to try it out? I think I would..*s*..
have a lovely day... Judi xoxo

Apple Announcement

This is my chuckle for the day....written by a man???

Apple announcement

Apple announced today that it has developed a breast implant that can store and play music. The i-Tit will cost from $499 to $699, depending on cup and speaker size. This is considered a major social breakthrough, because women are always complaining about men staring at their breasts and not listening to them. Have a great day!!

*lol*…. Have a lovely day… Judi xoxo

Too Smart Johnny

This little Johnny is a smart little wise guy....


Little Johnny's kindergarten class was on a field trip to their local police station where they saw pictures tacked to a bulletin board of the 10 most wanted criminals. One of the youngsters pointed to a picture and asked if it really was the photo of a wanted person. 'Yes,' said the policeman. 'The detectives want very badly to capture him.'Little Johnny asked, 'Why didn't you keep him when you took his picture ?'

The math teacher saw that little Johnny wasn't paying attention in class. She called on him and said, 'Johnny! What are 2 and 4 and 28 and 44?' Little Johnny quickly replied, 'NBC, FOX, ESPN and the Cartoon Network!'

Little Johnny attended a horse auction with his father. He watched as his father moved from horse to horse, running his hands up and down the horse's legs and rump, and chest. After a few minutes, Johnny asked, 'Dad, why are you doing that?' His father replied, 'Because when I'm buying horses,I have to make sure that they are healthy and in good shape before I buy. Johnny, looking worried, said, 'Dad, I think the UPS guy wants to buy Mom .'

I chuckled...hope you do too. Have a lovely day... Judi xoxo

Eastertime....

I hope you had a happy Easter. It was lovely to have Friday off work and the whole weekend was full of beautiful, sunny weather. The temps didn't go up as much as we hoped. I think the warmest was about 45F but look at what blew into town just 4 days earlier. Snow! Fortunately it only stayed a couple of days.
We spent Good Friday with our good friends who live an hour away. Our family Easter was at my place on Saturday. We had an Easter egg hunt with Madeline and she found all the chocolate eggs. Then we reinacted the hunt after she rehid her eggs and her porcelain dogs she brought over to play with. She sure makes us laugh.














I was happy that we were able to get together for dinner and family time. In the above pic is Geoff (my eldest) my mom, Richard (obviously the youngest) and Marc. Dinner was yummy too. My table was set up with the new blue and white dishes but forgot to take pics up close. It would have made a pretty tablescape.

We went out for Geoff's birthday (he's my eldest son) last Thursday to the Mandarin Restaurant which is a delicious chinese buffet. We celebrated his birthday again at Easter because my mom ws over. We served an icecream cake and I couldn't find the birthday candles....so we had to substitute with a tealight candle. Geoff is laughing because we had to light the candle 3 times. He and Madeline always blew it out before or after my picture. I don't know whether it was the camera....or me....but in the end we did have the cake before it melted. *lol*.

Hope you've had a lovely day..... Judi xoxo

Happy Easter

Happy Easter to all my blogging friends. May you have a lovely holiday with your family and friends.

We'll be spending Good Friday with my best friend Kirsti and her hubby. Saturday will be the family Easter dinner at my place. Its a busy time and I'm taking this time to write while waiting for Marc to arrive.

I won't get a chance to blog for a few days....enjoy and see you next week..... Judi xoxo

Marinara Seafood Sauce

This weekend we were so in the mood for seafood. We found a recipe but then took away ingredients and added in ingredients and it turned out JUST like what we had in mind. It didn't take any time to prepare either which was a bonus. You can add any kind of seafood and although we used cooked shrimp, which is what we had on hand, go ahead and use fresh if you prefer.

Ingredients:

olive oil

1/2 tbsp. minced garlic

28 oz. crushed tomatoes

1 can of clam juice

1 small can of stewed tomatoes with chillies and spices

2 stalks celery, chopped

1/8 cup onion, chopped

1 tbsp. chopped parsley

1/4 tsp. ground pepper

tbsp. sugar

2 tsp. oregano

1 small can mushrooms (or use fresh)

Combination of mussels, shrimp and and scallops. We used 2 dozen mussels, a dozen shrimp (larger size and cooked) and 10 large scallops

Fry the garlic and mushrooms, celery and onion in olive oil until about 5 minutes or so to cook mushrooms. Add the crushed tomatoes, salt, pepper, oregano and parsley and bring to a soft boil. Lower heat, cover and allow to cook for about 15 minutes. Add the stewed tomatoes and clam juice, tbsp sugar and cook another 10 minutes with the lid off stirring occasionally.

Scrub the mussels and remove any beards. Add the mussels and scallops to mixture and cook for 10 minutes with the lid on until mussels open. Discard any that do not open. Stir in the cooked shrimp to warm them.

We served the dish over fresh linguini pasta and let me tell you....it was so delicious. You can adjust the heat by adding more or less of the stewed tomatoes with chilies. We found that 1/2 the small can combined with the added sugar gave it some heat and some sweet. Just the way we love it! We served it up with a fresh salad and crusty bread.

Marc is giving the seal of yummy to this dish!

Have a lovely day.... Judi xoxo

New Sewn Draperies

Last week I blogged about the new fabric I bought for drapes for my livingroom. I was pretty "proud" to be bringing in some blue in them something I have only just begun to do. Fabricland has had amazing deals on fabrics recently. The fabric I just bought was reduced down to $5.00 a yard and I needed 5 yards. Its hard to resist making drapes for $25.00! It was the end of the bolt so I got an additional 3/4 yard for free!

This pair I made a few years ago. These are "my" colours and I like the vines and the fabric. They are easily made hanging from the little clips on a wrought iron rod.

These drapes I've just made look really pretty in person. They are the same simple style and bring in more of the different reds I love. I was very pleased with that and are a nice change being a brighter colour, clean and I wanted flowery. I can switch up between the two.

I have decided however, that I'm going to take them down and sew a little valance from the top just to give it a slightly different look. I have the plaid material that coordinates that I'll put on my diningroom chairs. I am just hoping I can borrow a staple gun for that project!

When they hang they sort of pleat and it appears the pleats seem to be hiding the bit of blue in the drapes. Oh well...at least I do know they are there and its still a good start.

Hope you have a lovely day.... Judi xoxo

BLUE Monday - Andy and Emily

Its Blue Monday again hosted by Sally from SmilingSally. You’ll have to be sure to click to her blog to see all the other participants this BLUE Monday sharing their blues. They will be looking forward to your visit and your comments to know you’ve been there.

My BLUE Monday to share is my Andy and Emily, two bunnies I made a number of years ago. See how they are dressed in their BLUE finery? They had a number of sisters also all dressed in pretty dresses and I found good homes for them years ago. They love to be out at Easter but enjoy sitting out all year round.

Thank you for visiting…. Have a lovely day… Judi xoxo