Friday, March 27, 2009

Keds Sneaker Giveaway


I'm giving away the shoes on the left at my Pretty By Nature blog. They Keds new Green Label Sneakers.
If you'd like to enter, please look here. The shoes are made out of organic and recycled materials. Pretty cute, too.
So far, I don't have a whole lot of comments, so your odds of winning are pretty good. The giveaway is for North America, only.
Image credit: Keds.com

Thursday, March 26, 2009

Kitty In A Box

I had to show you this before I went to bed. I looked at the box sitting next to me and look who is in there...... Kitty. Earlier, Sarah found her in the box and she brought her out to the living room. She left the box on the couch and apparently it's one of her new favorite places. She fits into the tiniest spots. There's this area in Bay's closet and it's about the size of a shoe box. She climbs in there at least once a day. You can't even see her at first.

She likes to sit on the towel shelf while Bay showers. Bay says that she mouths, "Help me, help me..." to Kitty when she is in there and Kitty looks all concerned. What a personality this cat has.

I told Jackie today, I said, they've only been with a few months, but I cannot remember what it was like to not have Greg and Kitty as part of our family.

The Things That I Remember




I was talking to an old friend tonight. He told me that he had a crush on me back in high school. He said that he liked "my attitude." I can remember moving a lot in high school. So much of it was almost physically painful for me, being shy, feeling that I did not fit anywhere. Apparently, I was good at hiding this.

When I try to picture it, me walking the halls, this boy seeing me the way he did.... Well, it would have been nice knowing that at the time. Not easy for kids to share feelings like that though. It was nice to hear it today. He gave me a compliment the other day, said he liked my picture on Facebook. It was nice to hear that, too. I've felt invisible for awhile.

I really enjoy talking to old friends. I love the shared history, going through the list of memories, Hey, I don't remember that? Do you remember this?? We all hold onto different things. So many of my memories are tied to a boy.

There's a whole lot that I let go of, just can't recall, and I think it's because of other crap that was going on at the time. Things were challenging when I was a kid and even when they were quiet, I did my best to screw them up on my own.

I wonder what my kids are going to hold onto? I bet it will be things like camping at the beach. I know they both tell funny Uncle Matt stories - Bay is partial to his "My Humps" performance. Maybe some creek stories will be in there....... I know they are going to have lots of Kitty memories. She's a funny girl.




Okay, I'm off to bed.

Nature Notes: Upper Bidwell Park in the Spring

Today I've got another Nature Notes blog entry. Nature Notes is the creation of Michelle from Rambling Woods.

Yesterday, I took a short hike in Upper Bidwell Park. I love this hike. It's a fairly steady uphill climb, not uncomfortable, but good exercise. This time of year, it's very green, lots of wildflowers.

In the Summer, it's much warmer and gold in every direction. The first weekend that Steve visited, we did this hike. He called it a "Death March," but he laughed when he said it.
As we hiked up the hill, I found myself growing comfortable with him again. It was the beginning of falling in love with him, after more than 20 years apart.

I'd say that 9 times out of 10 I've hiked this alone. I've run it many times and I always feel a mountain goat scrambling up and then I fly back down. One time, I ran by these woman who were my age and one called out, "You go, girl!"

The below shot is looking to the West. That ridge of rock you see is right around where the basalt rock starts. The creek lies below the line. I'll take some photos of that area soon.


More wildflowers. I wanted to lay on my belly to get a different view of these, but it was so busy up there and it's not like the front lawn when I'm trying to get shots of the clover.


I love the wildflowers, but oh man is my head a mess from my allergies. Not as bad as poor Max, though. He's very uncomfortable and he takes allergy medicine all year.



The shot below was shot near the bottom of the trail. You can see the fields of flowers. I start the trail with a worry. Some issue that has bothered me all day. With every step I examine the problem, try to work out the knot. By the time I get back to the bottom, I always feel better. I can leave it on the hill.







Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Ruby Tuesday - Ruby Ashlee

Happy Ruby Tuesday!

Today I have my niece, Ashlee, at her birthday party. She is a little shy and had a hard time getting going with the presents. Didn't bother me, it's her day, after all. Here she sits on the lap of her pretty Mommy, Shawna.



Doesn't she have the sweetest profile? Her little nose and you can't really tell from this shot, although if you've read my blog before you might have seen another shot, her eyes have this little tilt upward at the outer corner. It's like when she was created, the creator said, oh she's cute, but if we tweak this (little nose) and we tweak that (up-tilted eyes), she will be truly stunning. And so she is!



After the party, she came over to our place and spent the night. She's a fun sleepover guest. She always leaves me beautiful works of art.



If you'd like to take part in Ruby Tuesday, then please click here.



Sunday, March 22, 2009

Amelia On the Prowl

Amelia on the prowl..... I love this picture of her with her little tongue sticking out. We are all so crazy about her. Today, I heard Bay greet her with, "Hello, Lovely Lady," which cracked me up because that's what I call her.

I said, "We sure are a family of nicknamers." I used to have a ton for the kids, but now it's down to the following:
Max - Handsome Man (well, okay Max still has a lot of them. I call him Sweet Baby a lot, Handsome Prince, Honey-bunny)
Bailey - Sweets, Beautiful
Greg - Honey (and it's funny because if I call anyone else "honey" he says, "What?" He's used to his nickname already)
Sarah - Cookie, Sarie, Sugar, Sug

My niece, Ashlee, came over for a sleepover last night. We celebrated her birthday earlier in the day, so it was an honor to have her over - she picked us over new toys. She spent a lot of the time she was here doing art. She is very creative. I need to scan some of her artwork to share.

Well, I have to cut this one short. It's the tale end of Sunday evening and I've still got stuff to do.

Thursday, March 19, 2009

I'm Giving Away 2 Books

I'm giving away a Green Beauty book, Called Green Beauty Guide at Pretty By Nature. If you'd like to enter, please visit and leave a comment.

Also, if you are a viewer of the show, Millionaire Matchmaker, on BRAVO tonight, I'm giving away a copy of Millionaire Matchmaker Patti Sanger's, Be Your Own Matchmaker book.

That's it for now. Thanks!

Nature Notes - Bidwell Park and My Patio

Rambling Woods started something she's calling Nature Notes. I just woke up, so please excuse me if I don't get it completely correct. She is inviting people to take photos of their local nature and share them with the blogging world. Please click her name above, if you'd like to a take a look and participate.

Here are some flowers on my patio. I call them pansies, but I think that they are actually called something else. The something else currently escapes me, I'm sorry to say. I want to say violas, but that's probably wrong. I need some coffee.
Bay had a minimum day last week and we took the cameras down to Sycamore Pool, at One Mile, in Bidwell Park. I was messing around with the Through the Viewfinder here. My new Canon works much more effectively for this, because I can set the automatic focus. No leaves on the Sycamores yet.
Here's a longer shot of yesterday's Wordless Wednesday photo. That's a Valley Oak over head and I'm looking toward the dam and the bridge.


Bay leaned over and caught her focus on the side of the water with the Nikon. I wanted to try it and then she started taking shots of me taking shots. I don't know how many shots she made of me from my feet up - I was laying on the sidewalk - but I hate to think of the view of my big butt floating around somewhere out there. The park was pretty full for a weekday, but that's what it's like in a college town - the weather turns pretty, everyone heads for the water.
If you'd like to take part in Nature Notes. Then, you can click Rambling Woods name above or the picture, because I tried to make it clickable. :D More nature to come. Have a nice day.








Monday, March 16, 2009

Herb Is Here


I always set my posts up the same. I upload the photos. I put them in "center," then I add my text. At work, I paste the text, then add the photos in later. I wanted to try something different tonight. I tried putting the photos in on the "left" and this is what I ended up with. It looks like a big ol' mess to me.
Anyway, to the left is my Sage. I've had this Sage plant for a few years. It got really big this year. Currently, it's gone a bit woody. I don't use a lot of Sage, but I love the way it looks, the silvery green leaves are lovely. Just to the right of the Sage, in the very same pot is a minature Lemon Tree. Last year I got 4 lemons off of it. That is 3 more than I ever had on it in years before.
To the left of this is what is left of my Oregano. I think that there's a little mint in there, too. The Flat Leaf Parsley made it through, as well. I like that stuff, it's pretty, but I so rarely use it.
The Oregano and Mint both go nuts, just trail all over the place. There's a pansy behind it. I put the pansy in a tree start that Mom gave me. I'll grow the tree, but it's so plain right now. I wanted the pansy to fancy things up a bit.



I put up these little Basil starts. I used the heck out of the Basil. I like to make pizza and Pesto with Walnuts, so having Basil of my own saves time and money.
I got an email from a company today that does these redwood planter frames. They were so cool. There's one that is 8x8 and one that is for "city dwellers" and it's 4x4. They asked if I wanted to "sample" it. I'm not sure what they mean. Do they want to ship me part of it? Or to try it and send it back? Or are they going to send me a kit, because, honestly it's a pretty awesome kit. I would love to see that kit out on the patio. It would look pretty and I could grow some actual vegetables in there.
Well, I'm off to bed. I'm reading the book, "He's Just Not That Into You," and I find it incredibly liberating. So, he just wasn't that into me. So what. Maybe the next one will be.

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Sarah Heads To the Basket

The painters have been here all day and it's freaking my cat out. She could hear them talking and laughing as they papered and taped off the windows. They'd slide their hands down with the tape and it was a kind of creepy-sounding. You'd think we'd be used to noises in an apartment complex, but w..........

Okay, I was gone for a minute. The FedEx man just brought a huge box of Burt's Bees skin care products to review for Pretty By Nature. WooHoo! I love my job.

Oh, here's Amelia........ And I can see Greg out front. All my kids are working their way home. Sarah, too. She started choir. Max's bus. This is a busy time of day.


I took some shots of Sarah playing basketball this weekend. She played in a tournament and now it's all over until next year. I loved every minute of watching those girls. They were so bold and scrappy. I know that I've said that before, but I've watched Sarah sort of retreat into a shell this year and it's been sad to watch. Basketball was an adventure. She was Larger Than Life Sarah again.

Here's Sarah heading toward the basket. In this game they played against their "sister" team. The other Notre Dame team - one was White and one was Blue, although they look black and white here.



This is from the second game. I really don't know what I'm doing with these action shots.


Is it wrong that I'm proud of her agressiveness in this shot? The first day we were shocked by how rough the girls got. They would knock each other over and grab the ball and roll around on the floor. Sarah got more comfortable with the more physical side of the game.


Heading back to the basket...........



We are transitioning at work again. We are changing Lifestyles over to Blisstree this afternoon. This was my last official Dating Dames post. After this I will be one of the Relationships team. I think they plan on having 5 of us.
Veggie Chic was going to be gone, but somehow it's going to make it and be part of.....food, I think. I was running out of time, they were due to lock us out, so I quickly wrote about my lunch, which was so damn good. And I'm giving away some skincare at Pretty By Nature.
Now I'm off to get Bay............


Friday, March 6, 2009

A Couple More Things......

A couple more things.......

Do you Facebook? (hope that link works)

And please check out Bay's work on our co-blog Girl Looks Swell. She is doing a great job and I'm very proud of her.

TGIF again

I'm sorry that I have not been updating regularly. I feel that so much is happening, but it's not interesting stuff. My day is taken up with Mom duties. And work stuff. Thank goodness it's Girl Scout cookie time - Samoas help me deal.

The teenagers got into an argument today and seeing Greg hurting and hearing him say, "I'm hurt," well it kills me. I love all of my kids - the ones I gave birth to and the one that I inherited. If Bay and Greg break up, I'm not going to stop loving that kid. I made a commitment. I do not take it lightly.

I'm going to take my patio shed apart this weekend. I have to, because they are going to paint next week. What a mess. Oh well. I've got a bunch of annuals to put up as well. that part with be fun.

Sarah has basketball twice tomorrow. It's the last weekend. I'm going to miss watching those scrappy girls.

Monday, March 2, 2009

Amelia


We got a new kitty. Her name is Amelia and she's from the Butte Humane Society. She's a "torti" - very colorful.
As you can see, Amelia and Sarah are already pals. I haven't been able to get good pictures of her yet. The light hasn't been good and the flash makes her close her eyes.
We are having some serious rainstorms here and there was a flood warning in counties in all directions. Butte County has a lot of clay, so the water just sits there.
Well, time to get everyone to bed. I hope that you have a great day!