• Around home - Blog - Outdoors

    Sweet day gone sour

    yoga catYesterday was National Night Out. Our neighborhood didn’t have an event planned but a neighbor did come knock on the door saying they were having a hotdog roast and fire. Cool. I already had supper nearly finished, so we planned to join after. Of course, Gracie thought it was a good time to do a little yoga at the front door.

    ping pong hailWe knew we were under a tornado watch but went out anyway…heck, we were just across the street.

    The clouds and thunder rolled in and scared us home none too soon. Within a few minutes we were getting ping pong sized hail. That’s the biggest I’ve ever witnessed.

    grill cover holesWe were very fortunate. We lost no tree limbs…or power. Mr. G got his car in the garage just as the hail was beginning so I don’t think there is any damage there.

    This morning I went out to survey the yard. Our grill cover has several holes punched through. Again…not a big deal, other than the fact that we just bought the dumb cover a month or so ago.

    sad tomatoes

     

    My garden fared very well considering. I did lose 20+ yellow pear tomatoes but my big tomatoes suffered no loses.

    Never mind the grass growing in my garden.

     

     

    hail damaged hostas

     

     

    My very large hosta plants seemed to have suffered the most. The 6inch wide leaves have holes ripped through them.  Again, we are very fortunate. Just about 8 miles down the road they had baseball sized hail that was taking out windows and doing much greater damage.

    All in all I can’t complain. Yeah we have a little yard clean up to do but we’re all fine and the light s are on. It’s a good day.

     

  • Blog

    T Tuesday: the monogramed mug edition

    20130805_2899I picked up a new mug from the clearance rack at Menards, of all places.

    One lone mug with my initial…I had to buy it.

    It’s much bigger than my standard size so I’m not sure I’ll use it for coffee or tea.

    20130805_2901

     

    Maybe I’ll use it to hold my paint brushes….

    I usually keep them in a cute little pink bucket.

    Hmmm….decisions.

     

     

    20130805_2907

     

     

     

    Although, it might work better here on my desk.  I’m going to leave it here for a day or two and see how I like it.

    Next on the list for today is knitting group, Target and grocery shopping.

    I actually have been  get some projects finished while attending my knitting group.

    knit dishcloths

     

     

     

     

    Here are a few dish cloths to prove it. 🙂

     

    turning leavesAnd can you believe this!?! We have leaves starting to turn already. I haven’t even picked a ripe tomato yet. Our growing season was majorly shortened this year.

    Alright …enough blather from me…I’ve got things to do, people to see, blogs to visit.

    What are you doing today?

    You could stop by the home of T stands for Tuesday for starters.

    mystery solved

     

    EDIT: For those of you helping me on my flower/weed identification…here she is! A sunflower!

  • Art - Blog - Photography

    A beautiful day

    beautiful dayWe’ve had such gorgeous weather lately. It inspired me to create this journal page day.

    Blue sky and puffy white clouds.

    A field of flowers…beautiful day full page

    I think I was also inspired by a recent trip to the MN Landscape Arboretum.  So many beautiful flowers. I took well over 100 photos in the 1.5 we were there.

    I’ll share more of that day in a later post.

     

     

    coneflower

    This was the last photo I took that day as we were walking back out to our vehicle. That’s it straight from the camera…no edits…no fussing with color balance etc….with the exception of my watermark, of course.

    coneflower edit

     

     

    Here’s the same photo after playing around in Photoshop. It has a completely different mood.

    I could play in the digital world all day but there are things in the real world that need my attention today.