What I did on my summer vacation.

Well, I didn't go anywhere for a summer vacation. But here are a couple of pics I found on my camera from summer. The first is my birthday cake. I haven't had a birthday cake since my mama passed away in 2004. She was a real stickler that I always have a cake. She would enlist someone to go get me the very prettiest cake every year. And of course me being me, I LOVED the corner pieces with lots of frosting roses. Guess I must have reminisced about that quite alot. So my darling little girl got me a cake with frosting roses everywhere and in my favorite color! Boy did we enjoy it!

"When I am an old woman I shall wear purple..." and pink skulls on my shoes. Love these comfy shoes. Would have died had my children tried to wear something so fugly. But in my bizarro reality think I may be rockin these. (Which is the exact reason that I fear for my sanity.) One hot July day, I mean really hot July day, (did I say it was a hot July day?) we found this guy. This poor little fella had fallen down into a barrell of feed and could not claw his way up and out. When my husband found him, he thought he was dead as he was totally unresponsive. But after a closer look we could see he was barely breathing, and totally dehydrated. So drop by drop, we gave him water, then pedialyte. When he regained conciousness he moved on to canned cat food. After a few days and an amazing recovery he was ready to rejoin his family. Since then I have seen him several times as we had marked him with a squirt of green livestock marking paint. Guess all's well that ends well. He's not sickly in this photo, but enjoying a scratch on the back from my hubby.

That's about it for the pics in the camera, but I am looking at the calendar hoping to take a summer vacation in the fall. We'll see.

I'm Baaaaack,

and I can't say where I've been. You see it's in the contract that I signed. Noooooooooooo, not really, that's a lie too. I haven't been anywhere and I haven't done anything, at least not blog worthy.

But, you know how you wake up some mornings and try really hard to get a good start, a positive start? I personally use my Stuart Smalley affirmations, "I'm good enough, I'm smart enough and dog gone it people like me!"

Unfortunately most days I don't even buy that line of crap and for those days there are these cards. Cards that get right down to crux of any situation. Believe me they have a card here for ANY occasion. Just don't expect any Hallmark hoo-haw. You can get yours at the Bluebarnhouse Store.

Babysitter's Club

I've been babysitting for several weeks. A teen-aged friend of mine needed a place to keep his chickens for a while. Actually it was 100+ chickens. The keyword being "was". Due to my swell animal husbandry skills in combination with his "not quite adequate" fence building skills, add to that an attack from a natural born killer, you have a recipe for disaster. There are now about 70 chickens and one very happy, healthy, well-fed skunk. My chicken numbers are dwindling but on the other hand, my skunk is thriving.

I've got places to go, people to see...

and things to carry and now, thanks to Roxanne at Cheetah Velour, I have the cutest aqua bag with the sweetest green lobsters to hold my things! Don't you just love it? Most days are fun but today was really, really, really fun! I love surpises and when I got my mail today here was this waiting for me. Thanks Roxanne for this cute crustacean bag and thanks for making my day special!

Run, don't walk...

right over to the Hollow Happenings blog and see the amazing photos from Heather's trip to the Galapagos. While you are there check out this season's ADORABLE babies!

As summer simmers...

I have found myself to be an infrequent blogger, very blase and uninspired. That is until I came across these images. Once more I am amazed and in awe of the creative genius that some possess.

Just when you think you've seen it all...

A sleeping giant was awakened in Nantes, France, the birthplace of author Jules Verne. This giant puppet was made by theatrical artistes Royale de Luxe. I have no words to describe the awe that I feel when seeing such creative people at work. via socyberty

This group of street artists is also responsible for the Sultan's Elephant shown here.

via Ronnie del Carmen