Down by the river

DOWN BY THE RIVER

Jim & I had to take the boat out to make sure it was running okay after being fixed and HE didn't want to go all the way to Mark Twain Lake so we put it in the river for the VERY first time ever.  I wasn't too happy with the plan but once again I was over-ruled.  I could go into a long story about how it wouldn't start at first and it was pretty chilly and stuff, but the reason for this blog is to show you pictures of Steve Hoffmeyer's barge house and here it is.

Decorations

Here are some pictures of my fall/halloween decorations.

The Bird

We've had this female cardinal bird flying & pecking at the windows on our house for a long time now.  I tried to figure out when she first started and I thought it was early spring this year but it could be as far back as last year early spring.  When we're watching TV, we can here her flying into the windows with a thump.  She doesn't fly hard enough to knock herself out or anything, just hard enough to annoy us and she poops all over the place.  We think she sees herself in the glass and  she's mentally challenged.  We've tried to figure out ways to get her to stop.  We moved the bistro table & chairs away from the atrium window downstairs.  We moved the rocking chairs away from the windows on the deck.  We placed fake birds on the railing of the deck.  We moved things off of the windowsill.  Jim has tried shooting it with his BB gun and, fortunately, hasn't shot any windows out.  The bird seemed to go away for awhile but now it's back.  When I came downstairs yesterday morning to go to work, I heard the bird flying into the window on the deck again.  Jim shooed it away and we left.  When I got home from work yesterday, sure enough the bird was flying into the window.  I couldn't believe it and said (to the bird) "Have you been doing that all day, you stupid, bleeping bird?"  Of course there was no answer & I felt like the mentally challenged one!  So my questions are:

1.  Does anyone know if cardinals fly south for the winter?
and
2.  Does anyone know the lifespan of female cardinals?

Antique store finds & the Bee Gees

We went to the Red Door antique store in Eddyville, KY while on our cousins scrapbook weekend.  I got some really good deals and I'm not complaining, but.....I bought a wooden shelf with 3 or 4 shelves on it that had been painted pink so I could put it in my girly room.  It was marked $50 and I was proud of myself for only paying $30 for it.  When I got it home, I wiped it down with a rag and noticed on the back in black magic market $2.00.  I guess the antique store vendor got it at a garage sale and marked it up, uuummmm, how much is that percentage?  I don't even want to try to figure it out!

I also bought 2 sets of small silver salt & pepper shakers for $3.00 a set to use in my dining room on the rare occasions we eat in the dining room.  I just thought they were so cute.  When I got them home & proceeded to wash them out I noticed that one shaker didn't have the rubber plug in the bottom.  Darn!  There were a couple of other sets at the antique store but I didn't think to check for the plugs while I was there.  Oh well, live & learn, right?

While we were scrapbooking, Barb had her ipod playing and the Bee Gees came on too often for me so I commented to her that I really didn't like their singing.  When we went to the antique store, we also stopped at a scrapbooking store and lo & behold, Barb had to point out to me that my favorites, the Bee Gees were playing.  Then, yesterday I went to Michaels to buy some scrapbook page frames and I'll be darned if they weren't playing the Bee Gees when I walked in.  I guess I'm being haunted because of my big mouth!

This is a layout I did on our cousins weekend. It's a title page for my travel album.

This is a "I swear! It's a Shag!" layout I did because all the young 20 something girls at work couldn't believe that I had a mullet and wanted to see pictures. They got a big kick out of it.  Jim asked if I had anything on the layout stating that I wasn't gay!

To all of you bloggers who've put the halloween background on your page, how do you do it?

Scaredy Cat

Jim left yesterday a little after 5PM to go over to pick up Meagan at college & go to a concert with her in Illinois so I was home alone. Whenever I will be downstairs working in my scrapbook room I ALWAYS make sure all the doors are locked, the garage doors are down and any windows that anyone could get in are closed & locked. So I worked downstairs for a couple of hours and then came up to watch the season premier of Desperate Housewives & Brothers & Sisters. Everything was fine for the first hour. During Brothers & Sisters, I heard a door slam upstairs. Oh, oh! I knew it had to be the wind because there were windows open in my bedroom and Jim's man room but I can really freak myself out. I tried to ignore my over-active imagination and reminded myself that the doors had been locked. After a little while I went out on the deck and that's when I saw the light on through the master bathroom window upstairs. I told myself that Jim had left a light on up there and tried to talk myself down. I went back inside, grabbed the biggest butcher knife we have & my cell phone before going upstairs. I just knew I had to check otherwise I'd be nervous when I went up to go to bed. I discovered that I was right and the door slammed because of the wind tunnel. I also discovered that I was right as Jim left our closet door open and the light was on. So everything's cool, I finish watching my shows, go upstairs & get ready for bed. I read for a while and then turned off the light. It was very windy and my curtains kept billowing in and I debated closing the windows but was too lazy. Right when I was dozing off, I heard a bang from downstairs. It freaked me out but there was no way I was going down there. I convinced myself it was something that blew off a windowsill somewhere & went to sleep. This morning I looked but couldn't see anything that had blown over. Luckily, Jim will be home tonight.....