It's Raining, It's Pouring, The Old Man Is Snoring!

Rain, rain, DON'T go away!

We are finally getting rain!

And not just light rain.  Cats and dogs rain.

Lightning and thunder rain.

Music to my ears!

The second wave of the night just went through.  The first one had a lot of wind, some lightning but not much thunder, finishing off with buckets of rain.

This next wave had everything but the wind.

But we needed this so bad, I can't complain.

All the rain dances done in IL did the trick!

It was announced a couple days ago that the entire state was in some kind of drought.  The hardest hit has been the southern half of the state where a lot of the farming is done.  Most of their crops are ruined by now due to lack of rain.

What we are getting tonight, and hopefully will get tomorrow, will hopefully salvage whatever crops are still growing just west of me.

It's still supposed to be 91F tomorrow, so still warm enough to need my air conditioning on while I'm at work.  But hopefully in a few minutes, the rain will have let up enough that I can open the windows back up and get some fresh air into this place.  I hate being cooped up in the a/c for weeks at a time.  Give me fresh air and my wallet a break.  I'm not looking forward to my August electric bill.  Ugh!

If you've been hot and dry, I hope you're getting a break from it with cooler temperatures and maybe some raindrops here and there.

Charlie Strikes Again (And Wins)

I'm leaving Saturday morning for Florida; spending a week at Disney World with my sister, niece, great-niece and great-nephew.  But before I go, I wanted to share with all of you, who I know will NOT be laughing at the latest shenanigans going on here between me and Charlie.

Most of you know I have a bird feeder and enjoy watching the birds.  You also know I like squirrels, all of them being named Charlie, and because they like to eat the birdseed I keep peanuts in stock to feed them.  All in the hopes of allowing the birds to have the seed.  Also, when the weather is nice I will leave my sliding door to my balcony open partially during the day when I am off at work.  Since I live on the second floor, I have little (some might say stupid) worry about someone breaking in.

So, here is my little tale, but you must promise not to laugh.  Well, ok...maybe just a little giggle will be understandable.

Tuesday after work, I stopped by the store where I purchase my birdseed to pick up a new 20 pound bag.  Once home, I lugged it up the flight of stairs to my apartment, with the intention of emptying it into the orange bucket I have (already partially chewed thanks to Charlie).  The bag was placed right in front of my sliding door (inside my apt), next to the bucket, so they could be easily moved outside for the transfer.

I got busy with stuff, and before I knew it, it was too late to empty the bag that night.  I decided to do it the next night instead.  The next morning, before I left for work, I saw the bag sitting there in front of the sliding door, with the blinds partially open, and thought, "I need to move that bag so Charlie doesn't see it and try to get to it."  I moved the bag over behind my recliner where the blinds were closed, where it would be out of sight from Charlie, and went to work convinced it was safe.

Nope.

I was outwitted and outsmarted by a darned squirrel!  A member of the rodent family!

Entering my apartment Wednesday evening, I immediately noticed the bag was laying on it's side.  I naturally assumed it tipped over during the day.  I did what I normally do when I get home.  I set my purse down.  I started going through the mail.  I walked over to the sliding door to see if the kids were outside playing.  That's when I noticed it.

Next to the bottom of the bag of seed was a pile of empty shells.

I quickly glanced back at the screen door and noticed a hole chewed through the screen.

I can almost hear every one of you gasping, and tsk tsk'ing me.

I did a brief search of the apartment, and it appears nothing else was touched.  Not my open bag of garbage waiting to go out to the dumpster.  Not the open bag of peanuts on the counter in the kitchen.  Just the bag of birdseed.

So here's what I figure must have happened.  The bag probably did tip over, which moved the vertical blinds just enough so Charlie could see the bag of birdseed.  He then chewed through the screen at that spot, but encountered the glass door between him and the bag of seed.  At that point, he probably tried to get to it from a different angle, and discovered the glass was not blocking his way at that spot.  He came in, chewed a small hole in the bag of seed, ate his fill, and left.

Of course, now I have to keep the door closed until I can get the screen replaced/fixed.  And Charlie is on my NAUGHTY list!  Today I come home, after leaving the door closed all day (not just because of the hole, but also because it never reached 50F today) to discover that Charlie wanted more of that yummy seed and made that hole bigger.

So go ahead and say it.  I know you're dying to.  I got what I deserved? That's what I get for feeding the squirrels?

All I can say is, I'm dumber than a squirrel.

If You're Reading This

it means I still actually have a couple people following my blog.  After all this time, who knows!  I can't even remember all the things I have to blog about, it's been so long.

Let's see, I took a trip to California in February for my aunt's birthday.  We spent a couple days in Palm Springs.  I'll give you the highlights now and fill in some areas later.

Let's see...the pictures are under "Palm Springs"...

This is my sister Diane.  Forgive me, it was nighttime, we hadn't eaten dinner yet, and I was snapping pictures of tired and hungry women, lol.

This is my sister Janet.

And my Aunt Val and sister Sue.  I don't remember what they were writing down or talking about.

Earlier in the day we had met in Palm Springs for lunch and a matinee of the Palm Springs Follies.  It's a bunch of old men and women doing some singing and dancing.  The costumes were fantastic, the songs reminded me of when I was a kid, but the dancing left a bit to be desired.  I have to give them credit, they were all in their 60's and 70's.

Here's the four of them waiting for the show to start.

This is what the inside of the theatre looked like.  (Lots of old folks, lol)

The next day, while two sisters were golfing and the other was getting her taxes done, my aunt and I took the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway up into the San Jacinto Mountains.  This is me at the top.  It was about 40 Deg F with two feet of snow.  In the valley, it was 80 Deg F.  In February.

Here's me, Janet and Sue by the pool.  I think our eyes are closed, lol.  I was going to go swimming but neither pool was heated.  I did spend some time in one of the hot tubs though.

Here's my aunt Val, Janet and Sue, also by the pool.  We thought that was the best place to take pictures, because of the flowers blooming behind us.

And I haven't even gotten to the pictures of my great-great niece!  Wait until you see her!

I have lots going on in the month of June, not sure how much I'll get posted.  DisneyWorld, Michigan, Dentist, all fun stuff!!!

February

Wow, February ended up being a bad month to go on vacation.  Right before I left, several returning shows started up, NASCAR racing was starting, plus it was sweeps, so most shows were airing new episodes.  I've had enough to catch up on, besides trying to stay caught  up now that I'm back, to keep me from even starting a post about my vacation, of which I have plenty of pictures!    And I'm not even completely caught up on my t.v. shows, as I still have 3 (4 including today) episodes of Days Of Our Lives still to watch.  And a musical/movie I recorded over the weekend.

A couple years ago, I saw a live production of Robin & The 7 Hoods.  I had never heard of it before, and enjoyed it very much.  I might have even posted about it, who knows? Anyway, I happened to catch the original (starring Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Bing Crosby, Sammy Davis Jr.) on t.v. over the weekend, and recorded it.  So I have that to watch too.

Hopefully, I can get the pictures transferred to my computer and let you see how much fun I had before my next vacation in June, when I go to Disney World!

Only 15 days until Spring!!!

Snoring Doormouse

I'm sure most of you have seen the video of the snoring Doormouse?  Well, if not, it is absolutely the CUTEST thing EVER!!!



Link to You Tube:  Link

From the You Tube page:

Don't worry, he's okay! He's just sleeping.

He's a dormouse. Dormice hibernate in the winter in nests that they make hidden away on the ground. In Britain the dormouse may spend up to 1/3 of its life in hibernation. Dormice usually enter hibernation at the time of the first frost, when nearly all food is gone. Dormice rely upon fat reserves gathered in the summer and autumn, and during hibernation they loose about a quarter of their body weight.

Surrey Wildlife Trust Mammal Project Officer, Dave Williams, took this lovely footage of a dormouse in torpor (hibernation).

Ingenuity

Or as the saying goes, necessity is the mother of invention.

For the last few months, I've been under the assumption that my upstairs neighbors were still the father and teenage daughter.  I haven't seen them recently, but I hadn't noticed them moving out either.  It could have happened around Thanksgiving when I wasn't home.  Or it could have happened in mid December when I was in Minnesota.  But I also never saw anyone move IN.

After staying up WAY too late last night (actually this morning), I was expecting to be able to sleep until at least noon.  I woke up about 8:30 and decided to move to the recliner.

After sleeping for about another hour or so, in the middle of a dream, I was awakened by lots of people going up and down the stairs, obviously moving someone out of the building.  I eventually gave up at going back to sleep and got up and semi-dressed.

With all that noise in the hallway, I figured it would be pointless to turn the t.v. on.  Just too much noise.  As I shrugged off a chill, I started wondering why I should be chilly.  Then I realized, if they are moving all that furniture out, that means they have the front door open to all that cold air (It's currently 28F with 20+ mph gusty winds).

The reason I was cold was because I have about a quarter inch gap between my door and the door jam on the top and side.  The cold air was leaking into my apartment through that gap.  Not knowing how long they were going to be keeping that door open, I decided I needed to do something to stop the flow of cold air.

My first thought was, what can I jam into that gap to block it? But I quickly figured out that would be difficult to do not only down the whole side of the door, but on top too.

*Light bulb moment*

I have blue painters tape!  I can just "seal" off those two sides of the door and it should hold well enough to keep the cold air from coming through!

It won't save me from an infectious disease outbreak, but it sure did the trick for cold air.  Very little is coming through and I won't have to worry about being cold or turning up the heat to compensate.

I think it looks nice, don't you?

Wish the Obamas Well for 2012

Link

Should I wait until January 19 and then send them a message that I hope they enjoy their last year at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave?

Or maybe send one each day, with just a countdown of the days?

I can almost hear my mind buzzing as the ideas pour forth!

First Snowstorm of 2012

After all the snow we had last year, and the predictions of a snowy winter this year, I was very happy to have temperatures in the 40's and 50's the last several weeks.  Until today.

Today, the snow started.  And I had a funeral to go to.  My ant's best friend passed away from cancer over the weekend.  I originally wasn't going to go to the funeral, but when the weather turned on us, my ant asked me to go to help her get there and back without slipping and falling.  I headed out to her house last night so I wouldn't have drive in snow this morning, stopping at the wake along the way to give my regards to the family.  I know several of the family members through my ant, so I'm glad I had the chance to offer my condolences.

The snow started falling about 8:00AM, and it's still snowing now at 10:15PM.  Getting to the church wasn't too bad, as the snow wasn't sticking badly to the roads then.  After the mass and luncheon afterwards, the roads were significantly worse.  I dropped my ant off at her house, packed up my stuff and started my trip home.  Normally it takes about 45 minutes on the highway, but since Jan 1 when they doubled the tolls, I have tried to avoid the toll roads as much as possible.  Taking my alternate way home would normally take about an hour, but with the roads it took about an hour and a half.

Once home I got my shovel from my trunk and shoveled a path to my building.  I knew it would be covered by morning, but it would make it easier for everyone when they started coming home in the evening.

That's my car in the top left corner, with no snow on it, and the other car had been there all day.  I'm guessing we had about 2 inches when I took this picture at about 3:00PM.

One of the few things I love about winter and snow:  Pine trees with snow on the boughs.

The wind has picked up so the snow is being blown around, making it hard to determine exactly how much snow we have.  But I find wide spans of undisturbed snow very peaceful.  This is from the stairs on the back side of my building.

With all this snow, I figured the birds would be wanting more seed and fresh water.  Before sweeping the snow off the balcony, I took this picture of some bird tracks.

After filling the feeder with fresh seed, then cleaning and filling the bird bath with fresh water, the birds were ready to come fill their bellies.  I had Chickadees, Northern Juncos and even House Finches eager for me to go inside.  Here's a picture of what I estimate to be a Female House Finch.  It can be difficult identifying a brown bird, because they all look so alike.

Tomorrow morning's commute should be a doozy, so I'll need to get to bed soon if I ever hope to hear the alarm and get up when I need to.

For those of you wanting snow, I'll have plenty to send to you.  If you're one of the lucky ones that will be getting snow or already have snow, be careful out there.  Enjoy the awesomeness of Mother Nature.

U.S. Debt Disaster

I keep hearing in the news about how bad things are in Greece, with the austerity measures and the continued money being thrown their way to prop up their economy.  Then last year, S&P downgraded the U.S. credit rating from AAA to AA+.

Now comes word that our debt has officially met and is surpassing our Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which is the entire economic output of the country.  We're not quite as bad as Greece (their debit is about 144% of GDP), but we're getting ever closer.

At what point is it enough? At what point are we going to start bringing fiscal sanity to our government?

$15.23 trillion!  And it's going to go up due to the most recent debt ceiling agreement!  Do you know how many zeros that is?

$15,230,000,000,000.

To put it in perspective, imagine your annual salary is $15,230.  Your credit card is maxed out, and the MINIMUM payment on that is $15,230.  How can you pay for anything else without borrowing more?

I think I just found the one thing I can focus on to help me determine who I'll vote for in November.

Early Spring Cleaning

In between football games today, I started looking for the boxes for some of my knick knacks.  With the loss of my coffee table, end table and entertainment center, I have no room for most of them.  I found one mystery box that I don't know what it goes with, and one box for a Tigger/Rabbit figurine.

I also dug out five decorative plates with kittens and puppies on them.  Would you like to have them? Pictures can be provided upon request.

I think I might be getting back into a clean and toss mood.  This will be a good thing, as my last one didn't last very long, and not much was tossed.  And there's only so much room in an apartment.  There's also the storage closet downstairs that right now is filled with Christmas decorations that I'm not using and may never use again. What to keep, what to keep.

This sure would be more fun with helpers.  Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?