Flower Friday: Birthday bouquet

Beautiful bouquet of flowers from my husband for my birthday. And they smell WONDERFUL!

Dawn

Wordless Wednesday: Blooms and bees

Blooms and bees on a snow crabapple tree. Can you spot the bees?

Picture day!

I went in today for the dreaded driver's license renewal. It's gotten very high tech since I was there four years ago. They now have an electronic kiosk where you take a number and then they tell you over a loud speaker which window to go to when they're ready for you. There's even a sign that flashes your number  and the window number, just in case you aren't a very good listener.

But here's the really interesting thing. I usually wear contacts because when I'm at work, it's easier to see the screen clearly. (I have one for close-up and the other for distance). But today, since I was getting my picture taken for my driver's license, I figured I should be wearing my glasses, since I'm restricted to corrective eye gear whilst driving.

So I stand in front in front of the picture-taking sheet and ask, "Are my glasses straight?" because I really didn't want to look like I had been drinking or something, which is often the way people look in pictures when their glasses aren't straight.

Turns out you get your photo taken with glasses OFF now. And you know, that's kind of nice, because the glasses I wore the LAST time I had my picture taken made me look a little outdated. (Oh for heaven's sake, I'm nearly 50! Doesn't that outdate me already!?!?!?!)

And now the license is good for SIX years, not four, so if I had been wearing my 2011 model glasses (yes I know it's 2012 but the MODEL is a 2011), in 2018 (provided the world doesn't end later this year) I would have looked SERIOUSLY outdated.

And I have to admit, it's not the worst picture I have ever taken. No. The worst one I have ever taken officially represents me on the Farm Bureau website. I'm not even sharing the link, I don't like it so much!

Hope your driver's license picture day is everything you hope for! :)

Dawn

Flower Friday: Melt down

This is a different kind of flower Friday! It's the kind that melts your heart, even while the chocolate melts in your mouth.

My son sewed this in one of his classes, and then put several Hershey's Kisses in it and gave it to me.

He gave it to me last year. I loved it then. And when I found it in a drawer today, I loved it all over again!

I'm sorry, but it's this kind of stuff that makes me think I am a pretty lucky mom!

Dawn

Basking in the coffee grounds...

I feel TOTALLY justified at this particular moment with my coffee habit.

Yes, I get headaches if I don't drink some coffee every morning. But on days when I just get headache -- and we're talking make you want to run and hide headaches -- the most effective relief I have found to date is taking two Ibuprofen with about a half a cup of coffee.

And then today, I read that 46 percent of us are less productive without coffee. That's almost half of us! And I know it's ALL of me!

Plus there are all kinds of health benefits. Check them out in this infographic from OnLineMBAProgram.org:


Created by: OnlineMBAPrograms.org

Coffee makes me happy. I love the smell. I love the taste. I love the calm scenerios my coffee cup helps me conjur up: I'm sitting in my huge flower garden (which I don't actually have) in my comfy swinging chair (which I don't actually have, either) sipping my coffee as the sun warms my straw-hatted head (which I don't actually have, either. The straw hat, I mean. I do have a head, although some would perhaps beg to differ!)

And this all really helped assuage the guilt I was feeling about my coffee habit.

Gotta go! I smell.....coffee!

Dawn

Wordless Wednesday: Not long now...

Could I get any more excited about a flower? My first of 2012!

Still life

My nine-year-old daughter drew this. Free hand. No tracing. Pretty good for a nine-year-old. Heck, better than I can do and I'm 40 years older than her!

She comes by it pretty honestly, however. Both of her grandmothers painted when they were younger, as did many other relatives. In fact, while visiting my mother-in-law recently, I found out her aunt painted beautiful flowers and leaf motifs on plates and cups. I don't know how many times I looked at the cupboard filled with china and tea cups and didn't realize they were handmade by a relative.

I am so completely floored by people who can draw and paint.

I still remember the time my grandmother tried to teach me how to paint: Flowers in a vase. It turned out beautifully. But the truth is, I had so much help, it wasn't really my work. I tried a smaller painting a year or two later, using the picture my grandmother helped me paint as a guide.

To be kind, it looked pretty substandard.

So while I inherited the artsy gene, it was just recessive in me.

Rather than painting and drawing the flowers, I guess I'll just grow 'em instead!

Dawn

Weed be gone!

Saturday was a splendid, calm, pleasantly warm kind of day. So I spent part of the day weeding flower beds. 

Okay, actually it was more of a degrassing.

Yes, the grass is growing better inside my flower beds than it is in the lawn.

While the typical weed is most often something with a big taproot, grass roots get intertwined and if the soil is a little wet (which it was thanks to a gentle rain a few days earlier that I am not complaining about, mind you) a bunch of the dirt turns to sticky mud and gets removed with the grass.

I spent a great deal of time whacking grass clumps filled with mud clods on the ground in an attempt to retain my precious, albeit clay-ridden, top soil.

And then I got all philosophical and stuff. 

I said to myself, "Self, why are you nurturing and encouraging something to grow in one spot and right next to it, digging and whacking and destroying the very same thing, just because it doesn't fit into your pre-conceived notion of what it's all supposed to look like."

Self responded: "Don't be so lazy! Weeds, be gone!"

Hmph! I guess I told me, didn't I?

So I went back to digging and whacking grass clumps. :)

Dawn

 

Flower Friday: Cosmos sunset

I love big sky North Dakota sunsets, and I love my flowers, so why not combine the two? So I did. These cosmos (one of my favorite flowers) stood tall against the summer sunset last year. I can hardly wait for a similar scene this summer!

Dawn

A lasagna kind of day

There are so many days that I struggle with what to feed my family for supper. This week has been a stampede of "have to" things; have to be here, have to be there, have to do this, have to do that...

So suppers have been "make it quick" meals.

Not tonight. There is nothing on the agenda.

And I'm making home-made lasagna!

Okay, I suppose if I was making TRULY home-made lasagna, I'd be making the noodles and cooking up my own sauce, but I'm not quite THAT domestic!!! So in Dawn's world, this is homemade:

Preheat oven to 375.

Brown a pound of pork sausage.

In a glass 9 x 12 pan....
Put down a layer of sauce (I buy the Italian sauce in a big can and use two of 'em)
Add a layer of uncooked lasagna noodles
Dot ricotta and cottage cheese and sprinkle shredded Parmesan and mozzarella on the uncooked noodles
Add half of the sausage
Repeat...

Sprinkle the top with a little extra cheese

Bake covered for one hour.

I don't have any photos, but my food photography is pretty unappetizing anyway. So just trust me when I say that, if you don't have your own lasagna recipe, this one is relatively easy and tasty. I've been using it for longer than I've had kids, and my oldest is 14!

Dawn

Wordless Wednesday: Tongues on a stick?

They look like tongues on a stick! What are they really?

Bread-stealing maniac

I don't know. Does this look like the face of a bread-stealing maniac? 

Not really. But I'm here to tell you that "looks can be deceiving" cliche has more truth to it than we care to admit.

This "I'm a good boy" face is nothing more than a bread-stealing maniac facade.

It's not like he's starving or anything. In fact, he's spoiled rotten and often gets treats (I know, it's wrong) directly from the supper table.

So perhaps it's a sense of "entitlement" that led him to willfully disregard his dog food and go for the loaf of bread -- in the plastic wrap no less -- that sat in the bread container on the kitchen counter.

He grabbed that quarter of a loaf when no one was looking and hauled it off to his kennel. 

What made him snap? Was he feeling neglected? Hungry? (He's always hungry!) Bold? 

It's kinda like that, "How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop?" commercial.

The world may never know.

Dawn

The video dubbin' blues

What do you do when you're waiting for your software video program to write 20-plus minutes worth of interviews to a Windows Movie File that is 6.64 gigabytes? Well, you write a video dubbin' blues song, of course.

Think of this as my ode to learning how to be more patient! :)

I'm sitting in my office, convertin'  video right now....
Yeah, I'm sitting in my office, convertin' video right now.
If I wasn't so darn patient, I'd be havin' a cow.


A 20-minute video, takes such a very long time....
Yeah, a 20 minute-plus video, takes such a very long time....
Converting 49,792 frames to digital, takes so long it's a crime.


Chorus:
Have you heard the news....
I got the video dubbin' blues.


I checked the movie making progress. It's not even half-way to the end....
I just checked the movie making progress. It's not even half-way to the end...
It's just me and my video....could use a video dubbin' friend.


Chorus:
Have you heard the news....
I got the video dubbin' blues.


If the frame writing progress, messes up I'll be mad
If the frame writing progress, messes up I'll be so mad
6.64 gigabytes? I must outta my head.


Chorus:
Have you heard the news.....
I got the video dubbin' blues.


And as the frame writing process gets to the half-way mark, I will end my song and hope for the best.

Dawn

I'm going to meet Miss America

I used to be in a rock band.

Don't laugh. It's true.

My cousin, three other guys and me.

They asked me to join because I could play the piano and could carry a tune. I was by no means an accomplished singer, but I could snarl and growl my way through rock songs, like, "Miss America" by Styx.

And while that particular song showcased the down-side of being a beauty queen, the Miss America I'm going to meet is much more than a pretty face. She's an advocate for agriculture.

Teresa Scanlan, Miss America 2011, is coming to Fargo. It's her first visit to our state, and I think it's pretty cool that she's going to talk about our most important industry: agriculture.

So the old used-to-be-in-a-rock-band-person-who-sang-Miss-America is going to actually interview Miss America.

It's gonna rock! :)

Dawn

Ch-ch-ch-changes

Change is good. Especially when I find it in the pockets of the jacket I put away last fall and have pulled out again because it's springy and stuff.

But the other kind of change mostly makes people cranky. I was never sure why. I always kind of looked on change as an adventure.

Until today.

The office coffee maker gurgled its last -- well gurgle --  after pumping out a mere mug of coffee.

This is not a good thing in my world.

A day without coffee is like a day without coffee. And anyone who has a coffee habit knows what I'm talkin' 'bout!

Granted, the one mugful that the coffee maker did manage to brew was probably like drinking three mugs worth. But it was by no means satisfying.

Do you ever crave something and then you realize that until you actually get it, you won't be able to focus on anything else? Well, at precisely 2:39 today, I could take it no longer. I had to make a coffee run and get myself a medium white mocha.

And I spoiled myself and got the whipped cream because, well, because I figured I had been through enough today! :)

So on this, the second day of April, two thousand and twelve, I say goodbye to my friend, my coffee companion for more than six years. I will miss you, BrewStation! Rest in peace.

Dawn