Author: ToadMama

Hubby, you can skip this post. It’s a girl thing.

Most of my fans have heard of Stephanie “NieNie” Nielsen and her husband, Christian, who were involved in a near-fatal plane crash that left the pilot, a dear family friend, dead and NieNie and Christian badly injured. How badly? Christian suffered burns over 30% of his body. Stephanie’s body was 80% burned. Did I mention that they are young? And have four small children? And that her sister volunteered to take on all four kids while they recovered? And blog for Stephanie to keep everyone updated? And that the blogging community and folks all over the world stepped in to help, pray, raise money, do whatever to help this beautiful young couple in their time of need?

I can safely say “most” of my fans because it was Shannon and Amy who first told me about NieNie. I don’t read the Blog regularly because it makes me cry. But I checked it this morning and was delighted to read that NieNie herself is blogging again. That’s amazing. That fact alone made me all weepy.

This video is a “thank you” from Christian for all the support he and Stephanie have received.

If you’d like to learn more about NieNie, click on over to NieNie Dialogues and poke around. It’s a beautiful story. You won’t be sorry. Just be sure to have some Kleenex within reach.

This weekend was a mixed bag. What better way to describe it than with pictures?

Because my human babies are all grown, you get subjected yet again to dog pics. Dogs and birds, that is.

One of the more entertaining aspects of having bird feeders is watching the dogs watch the birds. And try to catch the birds. Belle is very spry, lightning fast, and has never-ending enthusiasm for chasing the feathered critters that visit. Meg is older, slower and quickly tires of chasing the birds. It appears she just decided it would be more economical from an energy standpoint to camp out below the primary bird feeder.

Meg, who is really very sweet, has quite an expressive face. Sometimes she can look grumpy, as in the above images, but really, the sun was just in her eyes.

Another thing I did this weekend was experiment with food. Back when I worked in an office, one of my co-workers and I would go to lunch at Famous Dave’s periodically. They have this dish they serve which consists of beef chunks served on a baked potato. It’s yummy and I have always wanted to try it. So Saturday’s dinner was barbecued beef chunks on a baked potato. I cooked the beef for at least two hours, which made it super tender. And quite tasty.

As an accompaniment, I elected to make salad with Homemade Ranch Dressing (courtesy of The Pioneer Woman). Who knew homemade salad dressing could be so easy? And so delicious?

While making salad, I discovered this little gem in a container of grape tomatoes…

The delight I felt at this discovery was sort of like cracking an egg only to find a double yolk. I thrill easily.

Hubby spent most of the day Saturday working (ugh). Most of the day Sunday was spent shopping for a TV online to replace the one we had, which died suddenly on Friday. We also spent a good bit of time training Belle to come when called, which she is doing very well with I must say. She’s a very smart little dog. And she’s a cuddle bug.

How cuddly is she? See for yourself…

I also experimented with different ways to present photos using Photoshop. In case you didn’t figure that one out for yourself.

My parents came for a visit on Saturday, too, which was nice. I didn’t take any pictures, though, because I was busy preparing the barbecued beef chunks.

Sunday morning’s food experiment was fried apples served over sourdough french toast. No pictures for proof, but it was really delicious.

I did some other stuff on Sunday, too, a project I am working on, but don’t want to talk about and jinx myself, which involves the computer and words. Lots of words.

That pretty much sums up our weekend. I would’ve posted this yesterday, but I was so excited about sharing my new AVATAR that I waited until today. You’ll just have to check back later to see what Monday brought.

I am sooo excited. This is really cool news. At least I think so. You should, too.

Do you remember me telling you about Katy and Elizabeth Hughes? Katy is a California teenager who also happens to be a blogger, budding artist and writer. She and her mother recently found themselves homeless. When I learned of their story and saw Katy’s artwork, I told her she should consider drawing avatars for people for money. I offered to be her first customer (I’ve always wanted one for my blog).

And she said yes!

Isn’t that the coolest thing ever? I sent her some pictures, described what I wanted, and she did it. She did a fabulous job, too. Go ahead, zoom in and check out the detail. Motorcycles aren’t easy to draw. And my frog is wearing gloves! Oh yeah, I didn’t send her a picture of a leather jacket, I just told her to put me in a biker jacket. It rocks.

The good news is, Katy and her Mom finally moved into an apartment a few days ago. So no more hotels and/or nights spent in their car. Things are definitely looking up.

If you want to read more about Katy, check out her blog, Destination Anywhere But Here.

It has only been a few days since I filled the bird feeders. Apparently, there’s a great communications network among our feathered friends because every day we get more, and different, bird visitors.

These are Northern Cardinals. They are very common. But I like the picture so I am sharing.

It was only after I snapped the photo of the male that I noticed the female sitting on the cat’s head. Did you notice the bird on the cat’s head before I said anything?

As for the new visitors…

Here’s a Downy Woodpecker with its back to the camera.

We had a Wren visit today, too. Look closely, it is hanging off the end of the feeder.

Here’s another shot with the Wren on top of the feeder. Every time I see this picture, I think to myself, “I wonder what they are looking at?”

Here’s an American Goldfinch. These are the little birds that turn really yellow in the Spring and Summer.

There are two American Goldfinches in this shot. One is on the twig beyond the Cardinal and the other is above the feeder.

At one point, there were five male Cardinals in the yard. That’s why, I think, there’s a Cardinal in so many of these shots.

Speaking of the Cardinals, here’s one next to a Junco (on right, in center of image). If you’ve never seen a Junco, this’ll give you an idea as to how small they are.

And speaking of Juncos… this one was a very pretty, dark one. They come in various shades. Juncos usually travel in small flocks, so there’re typically several in the yard at any given time. They’re ground feeders, too, which is why there aren’t a lot of pictures of the Juncos on the feeders.

Wonder what new bird(s) we’ll see tomorrow?

So, earlier today, as I was pondering what to blog about, I actually considered poop as a topic. Mostly because at the time I was thinking one of the best things about winter is frozen poop. It is so much easier to pick up that way. I quickly decided poop wasn’t a great topic. Then, THEN, as I sat down to write this, I checked someone else’s blog first. When I commented, the secret password I had to type was “poopho.” Like, I’m a poop ho!

Sorry, I am easily amused by weird stuff.

I do have pics to post today. Quite a hodgepodge, really.

What’s this? An accident scene? Nope. They’re Eric’s toy fire trucks. The grand kids LOVE them. Double thanks go to Mawsie and Pop (my parents) for saving the things AND installing fresh batteries before bringing them to my house when they heard we were having grandchildren.

I haven’t talked much about Hubby lately. He was kind enough to let me take this picture of him last night. That’s ’cause I was whining about having to work all day and not being able to take any cool pictures to blog about.

So, like, he knew I was going to post this picture on my blog. And he still let me take it. He’s cool like that. And he loves me. What’s love got to do with it? He doesn’t want all of my adoring fans to think I’m a loser for having nothing to post about and/or a picture-less post.

Speaking of Hubby… you know the cool bird feeder that you see in most of my bird pics? You know, the big one…

He made that for me for Christmas one year. It has a little, removable copper roof over a bin that holds two quarts of seed. Isn’t it awesome? It’s way better than any old bird feeder you could buy.

To the untrained eye, this is a nice picture. It’s a good snapshot. But it’s nowhere near the quality of a salable image. I shot it through a window with a zoom lens and wasn’t using a tripod. A tripod is a must for high-quality, zoom lens work. Even the slightest shake is magnified, causing blur. But they’re okay pics for my blog.

That red bird is a Northern Cardinal, by the way.

I like this Cardinal pic better. Still no tripod, but I was outside for this one.

Here’s another through-the-window shot. I Photoshopped it a bit to make it clearer, but it’s still not a high quality image.

This image is better. It’s clearer. That’s a Tufted Titmouse on the left and a Black-capped Chickadee on the right.

This is a White-breasted Nuthatch. I was outside for this shot, too.

I’m on a mission to get a picture of all the different birds that come to our yard. The hawks will be the biggest challenge.

I told you it doesn’t take much to amuse me…