Attention!

Attention! I say...

has been brought to my total lack of attention to this blog.  Hah, I wonder if this is what it feels like to fall and not be able to get up. I won’t bore y’all, my dearest internets (still?) with my lame O reasons and excuses etc. etc. etc.  Just know I am WELL, thanks for caring y’all dear internets, My Life is GOOD, thanks to all y’alls prayers and such. One can never really have too much of that ya know.

Oh, I almost neglected more than this Paradise Valley 2…Hell’s Mountain – guess what time it is??? That’s right November (not just day of the dead celebrations) the November Poem a Day Chapbook Challenge. Say that without wondering what your gonna write. Tune in to Robert Lee Brewer’s blog for daily prompts and fine poems by some of the players.

And gosh I hope it’s not this long till I tune in again. 

Cheers to a super holiday season that is approaching really really fast, eh.

OH my!

Lions and tigers and bears! Well not really…

But HOLE E MOLE E it’s next month already.

Thanks for missing me y’all, my dear internets. I have been busy. Duh, right?

BTW It is now officially the Dog Days of Summer. Super Crap-ol’la as if it hasn’t been hot enough around here now here we are in our HOT and DRY season.

We have had several people knock on the door asking about the Solar. It has saved us $$$$$. I say that even thought this last electric bill was up…well I did run the AC in the studio almost every day. But I hate having to pay over $40 dollars now. I mean WOW the “fuel sur-charge” was like $28. It ain’t right I tell ya.

It is soo hot here that the milk turns to cottage cheese before we get home. It’s okay you may laugh if you so desire.

Speaking of cottage cheese. Oh my goodness in the month of July I bought the following items, which I seldom buy…

Cottage Cheese

Sour Cream

Ground Turkey

Guess what the Cottage Cheese was recalled! The sour cream was recalled! And now maybe even the ground turkey will be recalled!!! I feel like such a crazy a$$ because I already ate the Cottage Cheese, most of the Sour Cream and feed the Ground Turkey to my family! Oh, here’s the good news We survived. 

Trouble in Paradise!

OMG and HOW SAD, for me. It has been 10 days since my last post, my dear internets, and not one of y’all have called or emailed to check on my well being. Humph! (thanks for the snail mail card Deanna)

So what’s going on and all that you may want to know, or maybe not. {insert sad face here} I have not had any leftover MoJo / Inspiration / fodder to share with y’all. See it’s all because I was abducted by a space ship. Not the typical silver saucer with lights all around it, nope. It was one of those cigar shaped ones, no sillies not a Zeppelin but close, I guess if I had to make a reach for what it looked like…other than a cigar but way bigger, no huge’r than a cigar.

Sadly or fortunately I don’t remember much, not really. It was all like one moment I was dancing naked in the backyard trying to conjure up some rain and swoosh I was in this vast room. I mean hole E cow can y’all image! There I was all naked and junk in a colossal, too brightly lit room…all and I do mean ALL of me exposed. {shudder} Oh wait I forgot something {Cue: spooky space or techno music} So again there I was like all Nake Ed and so I just stood there looking around and thinking, What happened? Did I fall and hit my noggin in my wild foray of a dance routine? Did lightning strike me and now I’m in a coma? What!!

“No”, echoed this tiny voice.

Yeah, weird as I expected, and why did I expect, this big booming voice to answer too. So I twirled around trying to see who or what said that. Nothing, I saw nothing but empty space. Then I heard the tiny echo say, I’m up here. Duh!” I snapped my head up - Hole E Mole E! Standing on this weee witty bitty platform thingie was a little dude. At least I guess it was a dude, it had no…umm… well he had no boobs okay. So yeah, dude. Now picture this (oh you can kill the music IF you want) he was wearing a striped shirt of red, white and yes blue and had on pants, no not blue jeans, they were these green plaid, yellow and black. I know how crazy is that? And Orange tiny shoes, sort of Italian leather looking or made from Nagua’s (Naugahyde, umm yeah they are real).

I said, “Just what is going on here and who ta H E double hockey sticks are you?” While in my head I was all like whoa (as Joey says) and my legs were feeling a little jello’ie and not from my super and duper dance routine either. Then he shook his butt, at least I guess it was his butt it was behind him anyway and said something, it didn’t echo so I don’t know what it was. My hearing is not as good as it used to be ya know.

And next thing y’all and I know, I was in my bed and it was thundering and raining. No - not inside my head Silly, Outside and by that I don’t mean inside my house either.

To wrap up this post that went nowhere {along with me} the moral of this…the point is to…awh heck Don’t NEVER EVER do a rain dance when you are naked and “they” are cruising the night skies on a joy ride.

Have you ever been Abducted my dear internets?

Hello are you there?

Lazy ol' Moi

And the winner from my 3rd April blog post give a way is Deanna. Tadah you made it, errr your ID/name made it outta the hat and into the winners circle. You are one lucky Chicka! The angels are really liking you these days. So tell moi what's up with that?


Oh and this is y'alls last chance to enter my April Give A Ways, by commenting on this very post to win my 4th and final give a way for the Poem A Day month of April. The winner will be announced at my next posting 4 days from now…that would be May 1st

Okay so I’m taking the lazy way out Post for today, I’m asking that y’all visit some of my dear internets

Bricolor

Left Brain Write

A River of Stones

Be Kind

Terry Taylor

Brain Droppings

Oh, don't forget to comment so you will be entered in my Last April Give a Way! and let me know if any of my dear internets are your dear internets too.
 

Books - Books

Everywhere you look! Tadah my first poem for National Poetry Month – April. Did ya catch it??? I’ll repeat for those of you who over looked my piece of outstanding art….

Books – Books

Everywhere you look!

Okay so not really, but it does rhyme. Did y’all know poems Do Not have to rhyme to be a poem? It’s true, they don’t. Okay back to the business of posting…

I wanted to show y’all our collection of books and their various locations throughout our home. I say "our" as in Us, y'all no myself and my Beloved, he likes books too. Okay so I didn’t take photos of the ones out in the garage in boxes…palllease there are spiders in those boxes! Be sure to read to the end where the Give ah way info is. No don’t skip my wondermous righting skills as you may miss an opera tune ah tea to snort or giggle or make sum such noise.

Okay so I’ll start in my studio…these are some different areas that have books stacked up. Not pictured is the huge bird book, it’s like 1 and half foot wide by about 3 foot long. Seriously beautiful—clearance purchase at six ducks.

And in our life’ing room. However Not pictured here is the big giant Body Atlas that sat under a chair. Ewe lala

I did not take a photo in baby girl’s room, as there was an incident with the turtle so it’s quite a mess. All writey them on to my boo d wire. Some of y’all dear internets have seen it before.

Squirrelly y’all did ent thing I would skip the most important readN room of our home! Yes dear internets this is our Lie Barry, complete wif speck tick ills.

Yeah, lol don't every 1 have a chicken and a photo of their state capitol in the bathing room. Now for the give it away information as formal lee mint chinned. Leaf a comment and your ID will be in the hat. I will name the winter form this post in my next post. So that means you have 4 days to N Ter. I know! I M soo excited two! I can nut weight to sea whose wents my furst April Give Away!

Okay leaf it in commas y’all! And done bee a feared to Follow, I love dear internets who have mah back.

This One Time

when I was cooking some potato soup, okay stop laughing – I do know how to cook! In fact my Daddy says to me, “You make the best potato soup I’ve ever had.” Never mind that he may have been drinking, heavily, at the time. So any way I made the pot of soup. Really!


So then I was cleaning up the kitchen…no quit it. I do too clean! Gosh what’s wrong with you people? So I was cleaning and fixing to wipe off the stove when what did my itty bitty eyes spy? Y’all, my dear internets will never believe it! A pixie, a fairy if you will. No it’s true. Stop snickering…I can cook, I can clean and I did see!

Look I have proof!

See I told you. Well no, I couldn't get to my camera fast enough to take her photograph but she did leave a foot print. No she did not make the soup, I DID! NO she did not clean the kitchen, I DID!

I swear I don’t know what I’m gonna do with y’all my dear internets. Any suggestions?

I bet I CAN

Wonder what I can Do?


Be prepared for some bragging. Yes bragging. Some people think I’m too good at it and others think I’m modest.

So like I was saying I bet I CAN… piss y’all off, that is. How you may or may not wonder?...

Our electric bill for the month of December was $4.44. Yes you read that correctly Four dollars and forty-four cents.

Those solar panels are super and duper and mighty dandy too. Y’all should get some!
This message brought to you by the letters Electric & Bragging and the number 4

So did it work are you pissed off or What? lalala

Who wants 69?

Did I get your attention? Yeah, I know my dear internets and I know you are now wondering where oh where is she going with this? I’m wondering too.


Haha not really! I know the point I want to make and it’s really important. Well important enough to practically beg for your attention and those unusual people that Google really strange phrases.

Do y’all see that group of followers in my right hand side bar? Yeah go ahead and take a quick gander. See it says I have 69 followers. Oh I know that’s a lot but the problem I’m having is…well it’s been stuck at sixty-nine for a long time now…and I for one could not help but notice that. Didn’t you? I’m pretty sure some of y’all did, okay maybe some of my more freaky dear internets. It’s okay my mind wanders to the gutter too…every now and again. No it’s not there constantly.

Yes this is a post to try and promote a couple more followers. Hey don’t look at me that way. I can see the face you are making. You too would be begging for at least one more follower…lest you should be known as the www Sixty-Niner.

Come on, help a Queen out. IF you are not following yet, don’t be afraid you don’t really have to read every little post We post (we will not know) Although you may get a kick outta some of our post for we have been told that we make funnies and milk come outta noses. Okay so the milk part is not true, but tears…oh yes that we have caused once twice three times a lady. (we /our is Queen talk for I / Me / My) -haha say that in a sing-songy sort of way and it sounds like a song.

Does too!

Now get outta here, AFTER you sign up to follow, I hear that the NEW YEAR is upon us (maybe already started for you)

And for something else when WAS the last time you mentioned or tweeted one of our post? Yeah I thought so.

One more last thing – please don’t drink and drive I promise the life you save will be someone’s child.

HAPPY NEW YEAR, my dear internets

So What...

Cha doing? Me, just hanging out wondering when the Christmas Elf will come to take down our tree and put away all the decorations (nice & neat). What? The Elf does not come to your house? Well that’s too bad.


I hope y’all didn’t have returns to stand in line over and that everyone was thrilled with the gifts you gave them. Hey there’s always next year if not.

Did any of my dear internets go out shopping for the 75% off sales? I didn’t, most stuff was very picked over before and I have enough wrapping paper to last a few years.

Next year I’m thinking a total handmade Christmas, well if I start now that is…hey it could happen I have 11 months to think about it.

Do y’all have any plans for a New Year celebration? Us, no; cept maybe my Beloved will go marry his 2nd cousin. Hey it’s legal for him to perform the ceremony, being ordained and all. I suppose instead of hanging out I should go find some vows or something for him. Hey I have an Idea (rare I know) you could tell me what vows you spoke / did at your weddings…well if you’re married that is.

So What were they?

Please note that YES I do mean for you to answer all the above questions. See I'm holding my hand out just a waitin for y'all to fill it

Heavy Metal

How’s about a little heavy metal or light weight metal? Too bad you’re gonna get some anyways. This is a collage of Metal Photographs, part of the Color series thang. The background on this one is a vase or vase depending on the way you pronounce it, normal or fancy a$$ed. The upper left is a portion of something a semi truck was hauling. They sorta looked like bicycle stands you used to see in school yards, but I don’t know what they really were, other than very heavy. The upper / mid- right is an escalator both a utilitarian moving stairway device and a scary monster that can grab shoe strings and such to maim and cut off feet and or toes. Yes very popular in hospitals and shopping malls. In the lower left is a shot of a disposable razor. Again both a utilitarian device for hair removal and a superior monster for removal of thin slices of skin. Take it from me you don’t want to experience the latter. EEE-OUW, ya know.

How do you feel about metals? Like ‘em, hate ‘em, tolerate? Cold, decorative, great out in the yard or better yet in someone else’s yard?

Happy Birthday Andrew!
And wondering where I am this week, someplace New to me...Are you there?

Anyone Day Trip...

So a while back we went in to G city, not spot you nasty peoples, Galveston. The city of Galveston. It has been almost 2 years since our last visit. Things have gotten better since then and it’s starting to look like some recovery has been made since Ike.

Well y’all know how my Beloved likes to take day trips and overnighters and vacations and junk, but because we couldn’t overnight nor vacate we day tripped. So without further ado here we go, yes we, cause you get to do this virtually and that way it is practically free for you. See I do know how valuable your time is.

This is a sideways look down the side of a building.

And this is another building

Yes once more, they have a few buildings there ya know. We were just hanging out and meandering up and down The Strand.

TaDah I knew you were ready for a frontal. Can you see me in the window?

A close up of some fancy a$$ed metal work on…yes you guessed it a building

Wow-sers a Full Frontal view. Wonder where I am in this shot.

Yes I thought we should look the other way, back at where we came from. Now get in the car and let’s go home.

Thank you my dear internets for joining me on this little yet vastly eye popping architectural day trip. Who wants the answer as to which window I was in? That would be the one across the street, really my dears I was taking the picture and could not have possibly been in a window on the third or fourth story of the building I was photographing. Now could I? 'Your average practical joke you slander? Ha, there is nothing average nor practical about my joking. Was this fun for you? I guess it matters not because it was fun for moi!

So what kind of buildings have you looked at lately? Tall ones? Short ones? Skinny ones? Fat Wide Fluffy ones? Invisible ones?

Wooden Stake anyone?

You will never believe the following, but trust me it’s true. So there I was sweeping the floor getting ready to mop. No smarty panties that is not the unbelievable part. I scooted out one of the dining chairs so I could sweep and mop around the table and this happened

Incredible! I pulled the chair away from the table and part of the leg just sorta went ~~ plop. What ta heck? We have only had the set since March of this year. No I didn’t bother calling the store we got it from, I already know how that would have been…bring it in, well you must have abused it. Nope only been sit in like 3 times, maybe. Well then that was the problem, dry rot. (no they would never have said such a thing, it just makes me giggle when I say they would have said that) Sorry lady. We can’t replace it, color / style etc. is impossible to match. We can glue it back together. Yeah you know that’s the way it would have been, if I had called.

So being the handy dandy person that I am, I fixed it myself. Now once I started I could see that the leg was cracked when it was stained, due to the knot hole, I’m sure. See, can you see where the stain leached into the crack?

I got some trusty wood glue and some rubber bands. Painted glue on both pieces of the break put them together and wrapped the heck outta the leg with rubber bands. I didn’t have clamps, hence the use of rubber bands.

No, not my trick I saw it on TV this one time and put it in my memory banks for possible use latter. See y’all just thought all those weird pieces of left over memory cells were useless.

Beloved wants to put some screws in the leg to insure it won’t break again and I don’t want screws uglying it up. You can hardly tell it was broke, see

But the screws, surely anyone could and would see them. I know wood glue is pretty strong…but I want to know what you think. Yes you , all of my dear internets…What say you?

Screw OR NOT to screw?

Labor Day

Gosh I been working so hard I almost missed it. The day not the labor. Dooh! So what have I been doing you may ask? Or not ask, matters not so much as I’m gonna tell ya right cheer and now:


Mopping, well steam mopping and before that I

Swept, well the broom did I just pushed it and before that

Dusted, well my nose didn’t like that so before it started to run I

Brushed my hair, well ran my fingers through it and before that

Got a cup of coffee, well Beloved got my coffee but before that I

Did a little paper work, well someone had to do it and before that

Peed, well doesn’t everybody and before that I

Rolled outta bed, well fell out, but so what because before that


Worked on the railroad, well that part was dreamed and before that I

Okay I’ll leave it at the railroad cause really I just took the day off.

So what kind of labor have y’all, my dear internets, been doing? Cooking hot dogs, pulling an all nighter, cleaning up after others... Just what have y’all been doing?

Shutter the Door

Y’all remember when I talked about painting the shutters and front door? I’m sure you do after all y’all don’t have anything else to remember right? Just junk about moi, such is the life of this Queen of this Paradise Valley not 2 mention Hell’s Mountain.


Member? I said that some other stupid people on my street went and painted their doors the same red as ours and I like being unique – I MUST BE SPECIAL and that has nothing to do with crazya$$edness. So in one word ~~YES~~ I did it. Beloved is not so crazy about it, but said…”If it makes you happy then it makes me happy.” What a guy, the best, the absolute bestest husband I have ever had! And besides it isn’t that hard to paint so when (if) I get tired of it I’ll just repaint some other -neat-OH peat-OH color that nobody else on our street has.

Here is the before of the faux shutters

And here is the after of the faux shutters

Okay what do y’all think? I do value the opinion of my dear internets.

Oh and the front door, we added the “real”{wink} gold kick plate and the fancy gold thingie to the window. I hope that will deter stupid a$$ people from trying to look in. Y’all know what I mean? Folks would actually walk up and cup their hands around their faces, stick their noses up to the glass and try to see in. How do I know this you may ask. Okay go ahead and ask… I watched them on video. No fooling every single kid and junk door hanger just had to try and peek in. Hump!

And now tell me what color is your front door? Does it match your shutters (if ya have ‘em)?

Want my 2 cents?

Please note the first ever Flashlight Follower in my side bar...

Okay so this is a post of silly photos. Shots I took and just couldn’t quite come up with something smart a$$ed to say about ‘em.

First there is the view of brand new pennies- pretty faux copper like metal. Copper is very expensive and so it has been watered down, if you will, with some other kinds of metal to make the “real” copper go further without costing so much. Like the fact that it is more valuable as metal than as a penny, just saying.

Okay now this is nice shot of some air and water, nice things for everyone to have…in case of emergency of course.

And here is the shot of some background papers I did using a mono print with Plexiglas technique. Kinda cool and easy to do. Just brush your acrylic paint on the glass and then lay your paper on top and brayer it a bit.

This is a shot of the Nielsen survey we got in the mail that I was gonna post and tell you all about us being this big fancy Nielsen family and junk, but I guess we just didn’t pass the addition. Yes the 2 dollars was for filling out the paperwork but WhateEVER happens, happens.

Alright that brings us to the last shot, this was a store I saw in a stripe center in Spring Texas and I said hey what a neat name, let’s go in and see what kind of junk they have. Ah well I suppose it was not such a good name after all cause all it was, was just a name on a closed and empty store.

What sort of stuff do you suppose they tried to sell? Maybe Bull horns, “grab the bull by the horns” OR violin strings (cat guts) OR hows about some priceless faux ivory. What do you think?

ps: Its never too late to become a follower, just saying.

Emergency Post

This is a copy of the email I just sent off to Jannie the Funster. Maybe if I let all my dear internets know what's going on they will turn up. Okay so I'm hopping Jannie won't be mad at me too. Alright here's the email

Jannie, I had a surprise in the PO box yesterday...thanks so much. I love 'em

I'm just sorry I have to tell you this, but there has been a slight altercation the set of rooster salt & pepper shakers we already had, got their beaks outta joint when they saw the new bigger set of chicken S&P and before I knew it they had hen pecked the new ones until they announced they would not stay here (for long). Then promptly marched off to make a nest in the great packing material that you used. This morning when I got up I hunted for a couple of eggs to boil and low and behold Salt and Pepper were nowhere to be found. I was so upset I could just ring all their necks! Then I went out to the mail box to post a birthday card to my mom and found a note in the box.


Paige, we don't like it here! We are moving on! Hope to find new home or maybe we travel around!


What a pair of little chicken shits. And all those exclamation points, what was up with that? I'll let ya know if / when they show back up.


please give all my best to Lil' Kelly & JimBo

xxxooo

Paige

ps it's not my fault it was the rooster set of seasonings :-)

If ya get a chance please drop by and tell her It's not my fault, really it's not. Please and thank you so very much.

Neon's bright lights

 It's been a long while since I posted a study in color and this time it's not just a color but NEON Lights

Tell me my dear internets that I'm not the only one that likes these bright lights...no really tell me. And I also want to know if you have dreamed of being in the spotlight, under the big lights of broadway or just in a flashlight beam?

Crazy A$$edness Kitchen

Oh my goodness have we come a long way or what!


I know I’ve been very lazy busy with this life of leisure and not shown you how it looks at our house these days. First let me ask you to over look the fact that I have not made any curtains as of yet. I have a good excuse reason, no really I do. The studio is still sorta messed up with junk precious items from the house and I have been painting and doing mixed media-art journaling. In my spare time of course. So’s any ways here is a photo rich post…

I don’t know what that spot is behind the chair, must have been some kinda camera thang or maybe one of my in-laws’ ghost. Oh, speaking of, when our son came over with his girlfriend we took some photos of the “in love” couple and my father in law {deceased} showed up. Glowing large and just beaming over my son’s shoulder from the happy news. What? I didn’t tell you? Gonna have a baby this fall. Must stop dallying and make a baby quilt. I think it’s gonna be a girl.

 

And my Beloved is such a pubescent boy at times, he thinks I picked out these light fixtures to remind him of my breasts when he is in or looking at the kitchen. Said it was comforting, like being hugged or something sexual like that (use your imagination). He is such a crazy a$$.

I wonder if I’ll be able to get him to change the light bulbs when they need it. Yeah, guess I’m a bit of a crazy a$$ too. But y’all already suspected that or maybe I’ve mentioned it a time or two before.

Now what kind of crazy a$$edness would you like to share with me, my dear internets? OR do you just want to compliment me (feel free to rave on and on) about the dust freeness of my floors?

Broke Up

Does this boot make my foot look big?

I’m just all broken up about it. It’s true I was so excited about watching that HBO tv show coming on that I was rushing to get to the couch…and wham – O bam – O crunch – O when a toe bone – O broke – O and a little bone that connects said middle toe to the foot bone.

Have y’all ever broken a toe? This is my third. The first was a big toe that meet a wooden coffee table, back in the 80’s and then about a year latter a ham fell outta the freezer landing on the other big toe. Now don’t get me wrong those hurt, but not like this one. With the big toe you just sorta hobble on the outside of your foot, ya know. With the middle toe walking is next to impossible. No seriously, it is. You can’t balance on either the inside or outside part cause the pain happens when you use any part of your foot. Including when you pick it up, that dang ol’ thing has this sort of muscle, tendon WHATEVER that pulls right from the middle all the way up to my eyeballs. Yikes!

Argh! I had to sit with my foot propped up on the very item that hurt it, the ottoman, with its stupid big a$$ legs. Have you seen them? Here have a look for yourself.

See how big they are and how far they stick out, just trying to catch my toes. I have so many things I need, no more than need, I have to do. Just gotta do, but instead I’m sitting here typing this from the sofa while the tv blares, and bon bons melt from the heat of my lap top. Oh gotta go Martha Stewart is on and I can’t miss this episode.

Have y’all broken a toe or anything? (lil’ Kelly is disqualified from this question) I mean just anything like a heart, a dish, a tooth, a window or some one’s head?