Hydrangeas

I planted a little hydrangea bush by my house last spring (or summer) and took great care with it. I watered it and loved it and hoped for pretty blooms one day. A year later I saw the first blooms. Beautiful big pink blooms. Oh, how I love hydrangeas. They are so pretty and wonderful. My little baby plant has given me several blooms this year and it just makes me pleased as punch. I stand out admiring the little hydrangea with Puppy. He likes them too. He will sniff it. Ocassionally he evens gives it a little something (if you know what I mean), though, I'm not sure if that's really very good for my plant. Thankfully it's not too often. Anyhow. Now my hydrangea is colorless. It makes me sad. I'm not really sure why (do you?). I'm guessing it has something to do with the soil. I should look into it. We were driving around one day and I saw the most beautiful hydrangea bushes. There were hundreds of them: pretty pink, sweet blue, deep purple, rich combinations of of the deep purple and dark blue. Soo pretty. I will try and get a picture of them so you can see for yourself just how pretty they were. ...hopefully I can remember wher they were :) Have a happy Tuesday!

the murdered book birdhouse

Five years later ... I have finally gotten around to sharing those birdhouse pictures with you. Remember when I told you I killed a book? And how awful and terrible I felt. The poor little unassuming dictionary that was still perfectly wonderful.... 

Well, I ripped it up. And I folded its pages. To make a little birdhouse.

see?

It really is a very simple craft, if you're into murdering books that is. 

I didn't take pictures of the process because I didn't really know the people I was doing the craft with and I thought that it might be a little strange to take photos.

If you want to kill a book and make a birdhouse out of it this is what you do:

1. Find a book [preferably a really old book or a really cheesy book that you know you or anyone else for that matter will never read. Yard sales have a lot of books for cheap and a lot of the time the books are really cheesy ones. So that might be a good place to look if you want to keep all of your beloved books.]

2. Rip it up. You need 200 pages. No more. No less. 

3. Once you have your 200 pages, take the first page and fold it length-wise in half [hot dog way]. Then take the top of the already folded page and fold it down [it will make a little triangle].

4. You are on to your second page. The second page you will rip the page half way up the spine of the book. Then  you fold it over on top of your previous page. 

5. Repeat these two steps in this order for the remaining 198 pages of your book. 

6. Fluff open. Clothes pins will help keep it open at first. 

7. Decorate. 

8. Display. 

And there you have it. If you do decide to make it and have any questions let me know. But hopefully the photo-less instructions will be of some help to you should you try to take on this craft. 

Really, it's a very simple craft. 

Anyhow. That's all I've got for today. I hope you all have a loverly Friday!!

deep thinking

Here's a question for you. What do you do with your old planners/calenders? Do you keep them? Throw them away? Let little children scribble all over the pages?

I was just wondering. I never really know what to do. I mean. I feel like I put so much into my little planner that to just throw it away would be like throwing a year of my life away (even though I know it's not). Maybe too I get some satisfaction from going back a while later and flipping through the pages of those planners. But obviously, to keep every planner ever used would be a lot. I don't know. It's just something I ponder on more frequently than I probably ought to. I just like planners. new ones. used ones. half used ones. There is something happy about them. I like to make little lists and check things off (though I must say this summer I have not been getting my of my list done, it's a sad story especially since I really do have nothing going on in my life right now).

One thing has been on my list for far too long now. All I have to do is call a store and ask them to mail me a receipt or something like that for an eyeglass purchase so I can send it into my insurance company. I haven't done it yet. I have all of the other papers. But not that one. And even though I have nothing to do all day, I still don't call and ask for that one little thing.

That and I'm supposed to call to see about out windows getting fixed. You can't see out of our living room windows. They've been al foggy since before we moved into the house. And even though we got a credit for it, we put that money to other things, like the house. Now that it's summer and the Hubs and I both have jobs we think we should fix our windows so we can actually enjoy the view. It's my job to call. But I don't. Lazy? Yeh. You could probably say that.

Though I will tell you, had I 500 things on my list I would have taken care of the window call forever ago. Why is it that the less you have to do the less productive you are and the more you have to do the more productive you are? Sure I know that if you have a lot to do, you have to do it. But, why is it that when there is nothing to do you can't pick up the phone and make one tiny little phone call? Does anyone else have this problem or is it just me?

And those are my thoughts for today :) I'm a deep thinker, huh?

Have a happy Thursday!

animals and the end

On the last day of our trip we drove around a little bit and ended up in Sequim for a while. There was an animal park that you could drive around (or walk) and see a bunch of different animals. It was $15 a person to drive through. Because the Hubs and I are super cheap people we did the free walk around the fences instead of even paying $5 to walk around and see the animals. It suited us just fine. The hubs is really a great companion for me and me for him, mostly because we get along so well and think along the same lines. Like, paying $30 to see some animals (though there were some pretty neat ones to see) was not something we wanted to spend our money one. 

Anyhow. So we walked around a little bit and then once we saw all we could see we left. 

We did get to see (and feed :) this here cute little donkey. Don't worry, we only fed him the grass. He just liked it better from our hands. I really liked feeding him because his mouth was so soft and happy. I thought he might bite my hand off (not really), but he just wanted to munch the grass I had picked. 

We also saw a yak and a lama. 

and lots of peacocks. This one and another one kept calling to each other. They were very loud. 

After we finished seeing all the animals we could see for free (which by the way included: a donkey, peacock, yak, lama, bear, tiger, ding, wolf, bunny, puppy, sheep, goats, dear, and a buffalo) we had some lunch at a diner for old people. I'm not even kidding. We were the youngest people in there. One old lady kept staring at me as if to say I didn't belong and I should leave. We did leave, after we finished our lunch. And we went to a little beach/inlet place. It was pretty. 

there were lots of shells there. and the water was cold. 

hubs found a crab.

pretty poppies (I think).

And we got some pictures of us in the house I used to play at pretty much every day when I was little. 

And of course with the dear sweet friends who let us stay at their house. We got to enjoy relaxing evenings filled with dinners and desert with them (and a little look at my past. Hubs got to see some pictures of me when I was little :). 

Anyhow. That was our trip. I enjoyed it quite. But I must say, I love being at home. There truly is no place like it :) 

I hope you are having a lovely Wednesday! 

seattle day

The last few days of our trip were nice. We just hung out and visited some old and familiar places... to me. 

we stopped in Tacoma and had a nice little lunch. 

I showed the Hubs were I lived once upon a time. It looked a lot different when I lived there. A lot. And nicer too. But it was neat to see my old house. 

 

One day we took a ferry over to Seattle and walked around a bunch. It was nice. 

and a little cold and rainy. 

Of course we had to visit the market :)

and admire all of the fresh foods and everything else. 

 

so pretty. 

crab. 

visited the Space Needle 

and went to the top

 

where we were engulfed in a cloud and it rained a bunch.

ten minutes later the sun came out and all was bright and visible. 

This is a glass museum, we were too cheap to pay to go inside so we walked around and admired what we could see. I think this is supposed to be a tree. Whatever it is, it is pretty.  

a palm tree I think. That is made of glass. Which is very impressive.

a strange lobster statue thingy. 

It was very pretty. 

And that's all I'll say for that day. The next day was our last. Like how I'm making our trip last so long? Tomorrow will be the last day :) Then you can tell me (or I can tell you) which you think my favorite day was. 

Anyhow. I hope you had a lovely Tuesday. I'll see you tomorrow! 

snow, snow, snow...

So, woops. I meant to post yesterday. I guess I got a little bit busy with my wide open schedule! :)

Anyhow. This is the day we went to Mt. Rainier (and Rainbow Falls). Well, we stopped in Astoria, OR for the night and in the morning were able to see a great view of the bridge. We love bridges and dams in our house. We stop to see them all the time (you know, since the hubs is a civil engineer and because he mostly works on water stuff). 

The Bridge. It was a very long bridge. I'm sure you you live in the area you will know the name of the bridge. I want to say it's the Colombian, but I don't really remember so don't take my word for it!

On our way to Mt. Rainier we saw a little sign that said "Rainbow Falls." We thought it would be the perfect place to stop and eat our lunch (left overs from the night before- did I mention that pizza was the best one I have ever eaten? It's true. And it was pretty much just as amazing left over for lunch :) 

Anyhow. The "Falls" part was a big fat lie. Because if you look at the little picture from above you will be able to see just how much of a fall it was. I'd classify it more as a baby rapid. One that even I would be willing to ride over. Not a Waterfall. But, we still enjoyed eating our lunch and being outside for a little bit. 

Then we saw a dam. Wow! It was pretty cool. I won't bore you will all of the pictures. Just a few :)

hubs and his Dam. he's so cute. 

We saw a bear, so naturally I wanted to take a picture of it. Hubs said he thought the bear looked friendly enough for me to get in the picture with him :) 

... Though I can saw we did see a real live bear! It was pretty cool! Sadly I wasn't quick enough with the camera, so you will have to take my word for it. I don't lie, so you should have no problem believing me. 

a fun adventure :) I hadn't been here since I was a little girl. It was fun going back with the hubs. 

the dried up river bed. I kept thinking a huge gush of water would come and sweep me away, it didn't :)

we found a nice little bridge and went exploring. 

 

while we were exploring I hugged a nice tree :)

on the bridge. Like how I give such great captions? You never could have guess that probably? Well, maybe you would have been able to since you can't really see the water below, but I digress... 

Sadly, I don't remember the name of this waterfall. I want to say rainbow, but I just don't know. I do remember standing by this waterfall as a little girl with my sister. I always liked the picture.  

on the mountain and seeing some snow! 

eating some snow. don't worry. it wasn't yellow. and I didn't really eat it.

pretty, pretty! 

hubs waving from the car. Look at all the snow!

It was a little blizzard up there that afternoon! It was soooo wonderful! Forget that six layers of clothing were hardly keeping me warm, it was very fun and very beautiful. 

and the snow. You might like to know that, on average, Mt. Rainier gets about 50 feet of snow with the most being 100 feet of snow. Crazy! Fun fun! 

we ate dinner at a sweet little restaurant on the mountain, at Paradise :) True story. We were at Paradise and had dinner at Paradise Inn. I can see why they named it that. 

I like him. ...did I mention it was a fancy restaurant? They had white tablecloths and everything. 

my delicious dinner of wild mushroom soup! 

and some steak something or rother for the hubs :) Both were gobbled up very quickly!

we even got to see some pretty dear on our way out! 

Anyhow. I hope you all have a lovely Friday! I am going to get started on some dinner.