The highlight of my day today? Seeing birds I’ve never seen before, and knowing exactly what they were when I zoomed in with my camera. Now these shots are horrible, but I consider I was excited, they are sorta on the small side and they were perched high in the poplar tree out back. These are a loving pair of Cedar Waxwings - both male and female flirted together at the top of this tree while I stood watching, amazed that we even have them around here.

Two separate photos, merged together and tweaked for sharpness, shadows and color. Really - you have to see them in person to appreciate how sleek they appear. Makes me want to go plant a mulberry bush right next to the Grand Central Feeding Station!

My butt went numb from driving. I annoyed the bejeesus out of my little sister (who drove this backseat driving ohshithandle gripping passenger from Mom’s house downtown), we circled the “W” so many times we lost count before we finally found it. I was welcomed with hugs and giggles with Lisa and proceed to Navy Pier to dilly dally and find the nearest Starbucks. I bought stuff - mainly shoes, because I’m an idiot and wore a new pair that caused a wicked line of blisters across the tops of my feet. I ended up with four pair of shoes in my bag that night - and I’m sure Lisa is still shaking her head and waving her pointy nurse finger at me about always wearing comfortable broken in shoes when you’re going to be walking a lot.

We put our hair down for the cocktail party and I sought out Kim (aka MommaK) who, with that head of hair, was not hard to find. Yes, she’s gorgeous and sweet and wonderful in person - just like she is on her blog. Lisa, Kim and I had some cocktails, chatted and ran into some other bloggers on the rooftop of the Navy Pier. The three of us cabbed back to the hotel and had some good food and a couple more good drinks, we chatted about the conferences and blogging and it was all really comfortable.

I didn’t attend the conference and as I understand it - most everything is covered over at ProBlogger, retold by a woman to women so there’s some mushy gushiness for serious (and seriousLY) female bloggers. I just went for the friends, the drinks and the limo ride - the flip flops were a bonus. It was also really nice to see a different side of the City. Having grown up nearby, I steered clear because of the crime and ick - but from the top of the Navy Pier - Chicago is a true melting pot filled with beautiful elements and a nice breeze off of Lake Michigan. The water is clear, the gulls and purple martins were wonderful to watch, and the smell of freshly baked churros made walking on the Pier really enjoyable for as many people as were there.

It was a short afternoon full of flip-flop shopping, blisters and friends - and I went away from it feeling blessed to know some very sweet people and also a bit like a schmuck for not saying thank you enough, interrupting too much during conversation and overall feeling like I act just like I live in the middle of this here cornfield.

    

  

I hope you had a good weekend, and thank you to everyone who volunteered to beta test for me! You guys are awesome, and I have a lot of work to do!!

Just a few things for you and I’m going to dig in and try to get as much accomplished today as possible:

1. I need a couple of volunteers for what I’ll call beta testing, it requires honesty - tact is optional.
2. We’ve had a very cool bird here again, and now I’m all worried about my bunnies - this gal (I think she’s a she) has been perched on this poplar tree right behind my house. Gorgeous, indeed - hopefully she keeps her talons to the tray feeder, rodents - and the occasional locust.
3. My family-less baby bunny is loving his (or her) little treats. I had to pick up more carrots so I opted for the big whole carrots (cheep cheep) for keeping my grandbunnies spoiled, this little dude looked hilarious this morning “I have a big carrot, and a little mouth! I’m just not sure how well this plan was thought through!” (think Meet the Robinsons)
4. I’m going to be attending THE cocktail party Saturday night. You know. That huge girly blogging conference in Chicago? Yes, I’m going to go meet some very cool people - will you be among them? Let me know if you’re going!
5. Add-on: Wicked cool - a hummingbird moth that has eluded me and my camera for weeks finally posed for me! These are cool!

That, my friends, is all I got. I know - but next week promises to be more creatively entertaining, since I couldn’t put finishing touches on any of my projects this week. Once I wrap up these next few, I’ll be painting a few custom portraits - so I’m gearing up to be in the studio with my brushes again very soon!

Happy Birthday to you,
Happy Birthday TO you,
Happy BIRTHday dear Catyyybuuuuuggggg,
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!

 

Here’s to another year of learning, loving your friends, family and God, growing in knowledge and faith, and being an all-around amazing young woman. We couldn’t be more proud to have such a gentle, wonderful and intelligent girl in our lives.

As many of you know, we rescued some baby bunnies this past spring - one of them had a weed-whacking injury so we thought it best to hold them for a week until that one could heal. They did well, we didn’t handle them - left them in the garage with food, hay, water, and shelter - and then released them into our brush pile the following weekend.

Two of them have hung out with us, not too domesticated but also not very afraid, either. The one with the injury was very sociable, she let me get pretty close, and she always made herself comfortable. You could tell she didn’t feel threatened around us. That really made me feel good, considering the expense and extent we’ve gone to to have some security on our property.

A couple of weeks ago, I noticed their absence. I saw them a couple of times across the street and knew they would be safe there, so I wasn’t too concerned. A few days ago, I spotted a new baby bunny. This one is just a few weeks old, and he’s alone. He’s doing well in our garden, eating up a lot of my flowers (which I’m getting used to, now) and he has a cousin. A lighter shade of brown - a month or two older, and very skittish. I’m happy to have bunnies around again, of course! (Just call me Snow White.)

Well. Today we were doing some yard work and when we finished up, we sat on the patio and were just relaxing. I noticed Zorro-girl bolt through the yard and over to the flowerbed, where I thought I saw her starting to munch on my chrysanthemum. I went over to her, and saw her buried beneath it:

I asked her not to eat my plants, but she completely ignored me. My plant was shaking from her movement and I thought she must be ripping off a big piece. I also thought “hm. She’s completely ignoring me. I wonder if she’d mind if I just pet her a little bit?”

So I did.

Wow, she’s soft. I pet her a few times, and she didn’t care. I asked her if she was ok. She looked at me funny.

Then I thought, “man, she doesn’t even care that I’m petting her. This is so cool. I wonder if she’d mind if I picked her up?” So I moved my camera to the side and picked her up. She let me hold her, and I felt a bump. Woah, I said to her “honey are you pregnant?!” and she jumped out of my arms. She promptly went over to the other side of that little log and you know what she did?

She popped out four baby bunnies. That’s what she did. And I got to watch. And I coulda cried.

  

One of them kept rolling down the hill, so she let me put him back underneath her. He kept rolling, so I told her I’d help her move them back under the plant, and I did, and she went right in after them and continued caring for them. I sat and watched her nurse her new babies, and thought - this is incredible. What an amazing thing to get to witness - this bunny who was injured that we rescued and hoped would survive well in the wild when we released her is now a momma of four, right in the same backyard she grew up in.

Awwwww. :sniffles: Does this make me a grandbunny?

I’ve just tallied up the results, these are my totals:

1. Pamibe : 52 referrals
2. Michele : 44 referrals
3. Jenny @ Our Life Together : 16 referrals
4. Shelly @ This Eclectic Life : 4 referrals
5. Kara : 3 referrals
6. Erikie : 1 referral
7. Invalid : 8 (dupes, me, etc.)

Pamibe is the winner of a custom monochromatic portrait of her dear baby girl Tess who passed away last fall.

Wow, I coulda’ saved myself the count and gotten the results from you, Pam!

Michele’s referrals also count toward Pam’s total, so she really ends up with 96 referred comments on her behalf.

Congratulations and thank you to everyone who participated! If you would each (Michele, Jenny, Kara, Erikie & Shelly) please contact me I have a special gift for you for referring people over to play.

Thank you!

Because I’m crazy busy over here, I am going to have to go underground for a few days. Maybe even the whole week. Yes, it’s possible. I know, I know. Calm down. You’ll be ok. In fact, you may even wind up being better than ok, because if you have a blog, you can try to win something while I’m working over here in the background (hear the clickity clack of my keyboard already? Smell the burning brain cells? Yes, that’s me.)

I thought up this crazy thing while I contemplated abandoning you for the whole week. I’m throwing caution to the wind here, so please play along. If you have a blog, or even if you don’t have a blog and you’re just a bloghopper/reader, you can participate. If you don’t, I’m very sorry. You should have a blog, everyone else has one.

1. On your blog, or in comments on a blog, send people to this post to leave a comment. THIS post. Not another post. Just this one. If they leave a comment on another post, it won’t count.
2. The comment left here must say “Referred by way of …….” insert your name/URL in the dotted field. If there are just dots in the comment, I won’t know who referred that commenter now, will I? (one comment per commenter, please.)
3. The referrer now earns one point toward the grand prize.

updated to add:

4. Your own initial comment DOES count for you, but while follow up comments by you as the referrer are appreciated, they are not accumulated into your total. (ie. you comment, then you send referrals, your first comment counts for you - and for the person you were referred by. Ooh it’s getting twisty turney now.)

See how easy that is? Very. What do you win? Hmmm… I’ve been tossing that one around. I think I will give the winner a choice, because having a choice is such a cool thing. The winner can choose from one of three things:

1. A lovely signed print of one of my hundred thousand photographs
2. a climby squirrel t-shirt
3. a custom 8×8 monochromatic oil painting (person or pet, single subject).

Now hopefully this isn’t the least bit confusing, but if it is, I will update/clarify as needed. Of course Multiple Personalities need not join in, and I should also tell you that I will moderate comments to verify that all fields are properly filled in and authentic.

To sum up this complicated way of entering my very-cool-prizes if you win refer-a-comment contest, send people here to comment, be sure they tell me you referred them so you get credit. Your competition are my readers, and the commenters you send - should they decide to play along as well.

Fun exciting stuff happening around here, folks! We have succeeded in our very first ever attempt at growing food in our yard! YAHOO!

Hubby decided that this would be a good year to try growing some tomatoes. Why? Because he’s the only one who likes them, that’s why. I don’t mind them - chopped up in my food, but I’m not one who slices up a tomato and eats it fresh off the vine. But I’m learning. We’re going to have so many of them, I have to learn - and fast!

Yesterday he did the honors and picked the very first ripe roma off the vine. It’s perfect, really - and of course I had to take a photo of the little beauty for posterity. Then Chickeymonkey got the honors of going for the second one.

I have to tell you - every single day, this girl has gone out and checked all of the plants that have food on them to see if anything is ready - every single day for over a month. She’s very excited about having food she can just go outside and pick and eat. She’s picked a measly little strawberry or two, they’re quite pitiful actually so I can’t count those as real food, since they’re more the size of a half eaten raspberry. She likes checking the Bing Cherry tree (in its first year here), even though she really doesn’t like cherries.

Me, I’m getting inspired. I’m getting motivated to try my :growit: thumb on vegetables again, even though my past attempts were more than failures. Hubby and I are talking about the size, the location, marking the area to see if it gets the right amount of sun, and really digging down into our rich black dirt and giving it 100% next year. We’re thinking pumpkins, cucumbers, tomatoes, green peppers (which I love raw.) and I don’t know what else. What else? Seedless watermelon and cantelope would be good, too.

Of course I’m not sure how all of this is going to fit in with the inground pool I keep dreaming about. Hrmpf.

This is why I love the warmer months over the colder - it’s easier to eat fresh and eat well, it’s healthier and more fun to throw some teriyaki marinated chicken on the grill, sit on the patio and have dinner outside. It’s even yummier to throw some fresh berries on a couple of scoops of vanilla frozen yogurt after taking a mile and a half walk around the neighborhood with your kids, stopping to chat or just say hi to your neighbors. Yep, I’m a warm weather kind of gal.

If one of you has a vegetable garden, I’d love to know what you’re growing and how well you’re doing with it. Any tips would be most appreciated!

According to photoblogs.org users, I’ve got myself one hot Photoblog.

I had no idea. I don’t even check the stats - I just post photos, ya know?

Good thing I’ve been sneaking in a few minutes every day to reformat my site and add an e-commerce shop. It’s sorely needed, as right now there’s no quick simple way to order a print. Yeah, yeah, I’m getting there - paying customers come first, though!

I had the pleasure of launching a blog design today for Southern Social, in all its preppy-chic pink and blackness, and I’m so excited to have had the opportunity to work on this project! Leslie is an Atlanta blogger, and I can really see her turning it into an Atlanta hot spot for info on dining and hitting the hot spots around town. I’m looking forward to seeing how her blog grows in readership and popularity now that she’s switched from Blogger to WordPress. Yeah! Another great decision made by a very smart blogger!

(I love it when people get their own domain names. Love. Pink, puffy, big and fluffy hearts.)

I installed WordPress on her new domain and imported her blogger posts with just a click of a button. Okay, a couple of clicks - but it really is easy - you should do it, too!

Go on and visit Leslie and say hello, show her some of that Southern hospitality she’s used to!

Just another super cool blog design brought to you by yours truly through EWebscapes Blog Design Studio.

“We Love What We Do!”