Hurry Up And Wait!

Hello everybody.
I swear, I don't know how someone could work so hard, yet get nothing accomplished! I have been working on the house, getting it ready to move in, but it seems like I haven't done anything. The final move is this weekend! The house was such a mess, and the guy that just moved out had the nerve to tell my mother that he left the house cleaner than what it was when he moved in. I swear, if he wasn't a cop, I'd deck him for being such an ass. He painted over wallpaper, put huge nails and screws in all the walls, took a huge shelf out of one of the bedrooms, hooked up a dishwasher and screwed up the sink plumming in the process, left oil all over the garage floor, let the kids have Kool-aid all through the house leaving pink stains in every room, nail polish in the carpet, holes in the walls. All this without any permission and thinks he should get his deposit back. As if!!! I hate stupid, inconsiderate people!

Can you tell I'm aggrivated?

Michael wanted me to tell everybody Thank You for all your birthday wishes. He couldn't believe so many people left the message for him.

These are all older pics. Still from October, but I haven't been taking any pics lately, since I have been working on the house. The bridge is from springtime.

Chuck and I went to Portland Friday night to Walmart. It was a little after 10 p.m. when we left to go over there. On the way, we saw two deer along the road. One had crossed the road in front of me and the other one stayed where he was until we passed. Thankfully, I wasn't going very fast, or I may have hit the first one. We got home around 1:00 a.m. and stayed up talking until about 4:00 a.m.! Can you say Tired Puppy! I'm still trying to catch up on sleep!

It is currently 32 degrees F. They are calling for snow tonight. We had a little bit of sleet around 6:30 this evening. It only lasted for about 5 minutes.

For some strange reason, my pictures are posting in the opposite order that I selected them in. Don't know what's up with that.

Gonna get off here for now. I have to work at the middle school cafeteria again tomorrow.

Everybody have a great week and wish me luck on the moving process. I'm gonna need it!!!!!!!!

I more than likely won't post again until after the move, but I will definately be checking your comments.

TTYL

Love Ya

Lisa

Moving Day Is Drawing Closer!

Hello everybody. Obviously, this hawk didn't want to be bothered with me. I only got a couple of not-so-good shots before he took off. The take off was the best shot!
Moving day is getting closer and closer! I'm not looking forward to the move at all. I have been at the house all week cleaning, trying to get the place ready to move in. I took a couple of boxes down as well as my plant stand. Of course, my plant stand hasn't held any plants for about a year. They all died on me. I think I could kill silk plants for that matter. My plant stand usually holds pictures, figurines and nik nax to collect dust! LOL I am making the Florida room into my computer room. It will also hold Mom's refrigerator as a back up with ours in the kitchen. I will also have my sewing machine out there. It is not a heated room, so we are going to have some kind of space heater out there. Kerosene heaters are a little too pricy for our budget. The only thing that I don't like about the house is that the bedrooms are all very small. We won't even be able to get all our bedroom furniture into our bedroom. My dresser will have to go into the "guest" bedroom.

The kitchen, however, has more space than my current kitchen. The best part is, the cabinets in the utility room are huge, so that will be my pantry. I will take my two cabinets from here and use them in the computer room there. I'll have Mom's washer and dryer which are much newer than mine.

I was packing a few things up from the "sitting room" here, which is what I took to the house already. Salem decided he was going to help me pack. Some help! He just wanted to take up space in the boxes! LOL

I took this shot of the moon this past Saturday. The "slash" marks at the bottom and right are actually tree limbs from the tree across the street from me. I knew that once the moon got any higher, it wouldn't be as large. This is the best moon shot I've gotten yet.

This is an older picture. About 2 years old. I took it with my Kodak Easyshare. My friend, Glenna, had asked me to e-mail her some of my "coloring book" pictures of Blackford County. She is a registered nurse, but she is currently working with children who live in a "home". The children are there for various reasons. Abuse is the main reason. She printed out the pictures that I sent her and took them to work with her for the kids to color. The kids range in age from about 6 to about 17. She is, in a way, a teacher. After her son died, this is the first thing that has made a difference in her life. When the children do well with lessons and tests, she gives them the coloring sheets, or she has also bought several used movies and takes them in for the children to watch. Most of them have never seen a Disney movie and absolutely love watching the ones that she brings in.

This is the Mothodist Church in a little village southeast of Hartford City called Millgrove. It's very tiny. I don't think that there are any businesses there any more. There used to be a feed mill and a cabinet business there, but the last time I went through there, I didn't see anything but houses, probably less than 30 houses.

Gonna get off here and get my beauty sleep! It doesn't work, but it sounded good! I would like to know where the term "beauty sleep" ever came from. Maybe if I call it "rich sleep", I'll wake up with more money in the bank. What do you think? LOL

Everybody take care and have a wonderful day. Today is my son, Michael's 15th birthday. Wish him a good one!

Love Ya

Lisa

Fewer And Farther Between

Hello everybody. It's been a long week. My mother's tennants moved out of her house last weekend. We are going to be moving into it, but it needs a lot of work first.
I was on my way home from Mom and Lyle's after taking Mom home from her monthly class luncheon. I saw this hawk at the last minute sitting on a utility pole. I had to go up to a driveway and turn around. He flew down from the pole, to the ditch in the field on the other side of the road. I got a few shots of him in the high grass. I think he was looking for a late lunch.
This shot I had to turn into a coloring book because I had it too far overexposed and couldn't correct the lighting on Photoshop, but I liked the way he looked, so I did the coloring book, but left the color in.
I took several pics of him both in the grass and on the pole. I'm surprised he stayed there as long as he did with me being there, although I never got out of the truck. I shot all the utility pole pictures out of the windshield of the truck and the ditch pics out of my rolled down window.
This is my favorite shot of him on the pole. Actually, I like them both!

What's an autumn-time post without some more autumn colors?
This is another shot of the Mississinewa River. From the same location that I shot the pics a couple of posts ago. I just had more time to sit where I wasn't supposed to! NO PARKING!
A little bit different angle. I used the "lighting effects" filter on Photoshop for this, without using the texture on it. The ones I posted previously with lighting effects had texture added to them.
This barn in out on county road 100 West. I was on my way over to Muncie to get ink for my printer. This pic was on the east side of the road, so I had to enhance the pic. It was rather hazy from the morning sunlight.
These are just a few elk on an elk farm on the way to Muncie. I pass this farm right before I hit the bridge over the Mississinewa River. Lori and I went out in May and took pictures of the elk. That was the first day using my Canon that my cousin gave me. At first, it was a little difficult to told the camera still as it is rather heavy. Robyn at the News-Times showed me the camera she uses, and it is extremely light compared to the Canon. I don't remember off hand, but I believe it was a Nikon.

The weather is nice and cool and the leaves are all over the ground. Nice and crisp. Weather and leaves! LOL

I'm going down to the other house today to do a little bit of cleaning. The bonehead that lived there before had the water turned off and it wasn't even in his name. It was still in Mom's name. But at least the electric is still on. It's in his name! Go figure!!!

Gonna go for now. I am sorry I haven't been posting more often, but I will try to do better.

I would like to say thank you to all of you who read my posts regularly and also thank my new readers for stopping by.

TTYL

Love Ya

Lisa

Civil War Days 2008

Hello everybody. Well, we didn't make it to Civil War Days on Saturday, so I took Michael out there yesterday. It was a little too warm for my taste, and I know the actors must have been miserable in their costumes. It got up to about 85 degrees and not a cloud in the sky.
I ended up taking about 300 pictures while we were out there!
It kind of aggrivated me that this takes place right beside one of our main roads, so there were a lot of cars in my pictures! :( The ones that didn't have any "modern conveniences" in frame, I tried to do as antique.
This guy got so close during the re-enactment, that I had to almost lie flat on my back to get far enough away to get a good shot of him.
This gentleman was portraying Frederick Douglass. He had a picture of the real Frederick Douglass in the tent where he was speaking, and the resemblance is remarkable!

These guys were in the shade of a tent playing music. The gentleman to the right, holding his hat was playing a flute until I tried to get the shot!

This was the Confederate side. One of the actors actually got injured during the re-enactment. His gun misfired and sparks went into his eyes. They took him away in the ambulance.
I hope he's okay. I did my best to get a shot of the cannons while they were firing, but I could never tell which one would be next to go off, so I just kept my camera aimed at one and kept watching them, with my finger on the button, ready to go.
This is the Union side. It was a little harder to get good pics of them from where I was sitting. I couldn't get shots of their cannons at all.

This is when they were marching down to the battlefield. Michael and I were just looking around, on our way down to the "saloon" to get some sodas to drink.
This soldier was getting ready for the battle.
This was also when they were on their way to the battlefield. It's the same group as a couple pictures up.
This old camera still works. The gentleman was taking tintypes of the actors, but none of the spectators. He was getting ready to put everything away when we were down there.
This is one of the pics he took. He said the process he has to use, which is the same process as they used back in the day, is what makes the pictures look this way. They were really cool!

This gentleman was speaking to a group of spectators in a tent, but I didn't stop there to listen.
This gentleman was at a tent that primarily had movie props as well as some authentic items. There were some clothes that were used in the movie GoneWith The Wind. There were old guns, badges, buffalo coats and military helmets.
This is just a cannon being hauled down to the Confederate side of the battlefield.

These two cannons were on the Union side of the battlefield. I had a good time. I have never been to Civil War Days before, and next year is their 20 year anniversary.

This Weather Can't Make Up It's Mind!!!

Happy Friday to everybody. We are having some unseasonably warm weather. I wish our summer would have been this comfortable! It is currently 74 degrees F. and the sun is shining. This wagon in the pic above is behind a house out east of town, near the fairgrounds. I had never seen it back there before, but then again, never really paid attention. It's right beside the field that I saw the three deer in last week. I love old wagons and farm implements like this.
This is the Mississinewa River. Normally you can't see all the river rocks there, but because of the lack of rain, the water level is low. This is in Delaware County, just north of Muncie. I couldn't stop and get out of the car to take decent pics, because there are No Parking signs all over, so I just stopped on the bridge and shot out the window. Mom and I were coming back from Muncie. She is feeling al lot better. They are currently on their way to West Virginia to see Lyle's son, Lyle Dean in Charleston, I believe it is.
This is one of the country roads between home and Mom's house. I'm glad I got the shot when I did, because when I drove past there this afternoon, all the hay (or straw) rolls are lined up in a straight row at the back of the field.
This is what they have done so far to the viadocks near our house. This is what my newspaper pics were of. They are so loud with the jackhammer, that I could hear it from my grandfather's yesterday while I was cleaning out the garden. That's 3 miles away!
This is Grandpa's new little friend. She is so cute! She stays outside and is still a little wild. I got more pics of her, but I thought this one is cute!

I told you a couple of posts back about my friend Glenna. She is the lady that lives in Anchorage, Alaska now since her son died. She called me Wednesday morning and told me that one of the firemen from Montpelier had called her that morning and told her that one of her barns had burned down. So she asked me to go out and take pictures of the damage.
There was nothing left except for the corrugated metal from the roof and the metal from where stalls had once been.
While I was there, there was an old rolled up carpet at the east end of what had been the barn, and it was still smoldering. With the wind blowing the way it was, the carpet caught fire again, so I had to call the fire department to come back out. I'm glad I was there when I was, because with so little rain, the grass was really dry and it would have caught fire and spread to one of the other barns. The firefighters told me that the barn was already gone when they got the 911 call at 3:00 a.m. The call had been made from 2 or 3 miles away according to one of the firemen.
The cause of the fire is still under investigation, but everybody, including the firemen and the police officer that lives across the road from there, has the same suspicion about how it started.
Frankly, we are all surprised that the house is still standing. The house is now up for sheriff auction. I have gone inside 2 times in the past 3 weeks. Glenna wanted me to get some of her belongings, whatever may have still been out there. Most of her antique furniture was removed from the house, then destroyed by her soon-to-be ex-husband. He didn't want anybody to have it! When I went into the house on Wednesday, a lot of things were not where they were the first time I went out, and curtains had all been removed from the bedroom windows.

We are going to try to go to Civil War Days tomorrow. I have never been there, but my son went there with his 8th grade class last year. They do the re-inactments and show what life was like back then. I hope we get to go so I can get some pictures for you.

Gonna get off here for now.

TTYL

Love Ya

Lisa

The Weekend Is Over :(

Hello everybody. I didn't want to post until I had a few pictures. I'm not getting out and shooting as much as I would like to. This is my honey, Chuck. We went out to Aunt Pat's last night for a cookout. My great-aunt Treva (Cookie) and my second cousins Mary-Beth and Bill came down from Chicago. It's the first time I've seen any of them since my grandmother's funeral in May of 2005. My great-uncle Bill came over from Anderson as well. Aunt Cookie and Uncle Bill are my maternal grandmother's brother and sister. It was a very short stay. They got in around noon Saturday, and left around noon Sunday.
Click photo below to enlarge.

Now I'm going to make you all tired of field and autumn leaves pictures! LOL I took these two pictures this evening on my way home from the store. Not exactly on my way, but I went this particular way because 2 evenings ago when I went this way, I saw three deer at the edge of this tree line.

Click photo below to enlarge.
Naturally, I didn't have my camera with me. It would have been a little too dark for a good shot anyway. So, I took my camera this time, and of course, no deer!
Click photo below to enlarge.
While I was outside with the camera this evening, I happened to notice this on the maple tree. Only the white part. The other part is just a little knot on the branch. I believe it must be some sort of coccoon, but I've never seen anything like this before. It is a hard substance. Does anybody know what this is?

These two books used to be in my grandparents' old house. Of course, there were several books there, but I only took these two. It stood empty for several years before they finally tore it down a few years ago. This top book is 104 years old!
This book, same book open and closed, is 106 years old. I had almost fogotten that I had them until I saw something online about antiques.
Click photo below to enlarge.
I don't know if you'll be able to click to enlarge any of the pictures or not. It usually doesn't work for my blog for some reason. Lori told me how to set the size of the pictures, but it never works. Okay, I tested it and the ones that will enlarge are marked above the picture. The difference is that I didn't change the resolution on those, only the photo size.
This combine and another one were harvesting soy beans next door to Aunt Pat's last night while we were over there.
This poor little guy has some really ragged wings. I had the camera out because I saw a Nuthatch, but naturally, it was gone by time I grabbed the camera. I had only gone out to fill the bird and squirrel feeders. I haven't been feeling all that well the past couple of days, so I haven't messed much with the camera unless I saw something, or thought I might see something. I haven't seen Taffy for 10 days, and I haven't seen the babies for a couple of days. Only the mamma opossum has been around, that I have seen.
I'm going to close off for now, and visit a few of your blogs before I go to bed. I'll finish visiting the rest tomorrow.
Everybody have a great week and take care.
Love Ya
Lisa