Funny farm

"Am I cute or what?"
"I might just sit around in this chair all day."

"If only I could find a comfortable position." "Ahhhhh. That's better. Now, where's the sun?"

"I need to go shopping for some pretty make-up and glitzy jewelry. A day at the spa wouldn't hurt either."

"Maybe Sherwin and I will take in a movie. What? You expect me to help you clean up this mess? Hey lady! You're the one who threw all these pig scraps on the floor! Next time use a wastebasket why don't ya! If you ask me, I'd say this place is a real pig sty."

Ham Sandwich

Here's my first pig and I'm sorry to report she's a little off. I may have to send her to one of those livestock auctions. Her head is not quite the proper pig shape and her ears are too big. I'm now working on a new, improved version and it's showing real blue-ribbon promise. I'm quite fond of the fabric. It's pretty much what I had in mind when I hobbled off to the fabric store. She wasn't very happy when I told her she couldn't keep the boa. There'll be no need for that at the auction.

So we finally got the old house on the market and I must say it was bittersweet. There are a few things about the ol' homestead that I will miss. For instance, this wall art in Mr. Gadget's workshop.

For years he kept track of Tech Guy's and Big City Girl's heights. He even measured BCG the day she left for college. I think that's the last mark we have for her because future trips home never allowed time for such details. The college years were also known as the era of the revolving door.

Mr. Gadget and I are considering a measuring wall here at the new place, but we fear our measurements will show a descending trend, and that's hardly news to brag about. We might consider keeping a tally of our prescription medications. That trend would likely be an ascending one. Maybe during our golden years we'll just swear off measuring things. It won't disappoint me if I never have to paint another wall.

Going for broke

So my neighbor--the one who prides herself on her front-porch poker skills--made some bold moves yesterday.

She raised me two planters full of geraniums and a garden mallard (on the left in front of the chair). This left me no choice but to call in the dogs.

Two of a kind is a pretty good hand, isn't it?

I'm starting to sense that our penny-ante game is about to end. She has very little space left on her front porch, and I'm starting to get bored. It's been fun though, and I think we've displayed extraordinary sportsmanship.....even though only one of us was aware there was a game going on....

And now from the This and That file:

The basement closet still smells, but less so. The authorities have said they can fill the space up with concrete, but we've said no, since that will eliminate the ability to have an elevator at a later date. Oh, and by the way, we don't want a smelly elevator either.

The old house will have a for sale sign on it sometime tomorrow. Kinda sad in a way. I know we've moved on, but I'm having a hard time letting go. Who will take care of Bob? Maybe I can leave detailed instructions for the new owners. He likes his sunflower seeds fresh and crunchy, and he'll get very cranky if you make him wait.

I found some fabric for my pig and I've been busy stitching in my spare time. I think he's destined to be a real blue-ribbon porker.

My ankle is much better, but I'm not ready to give up the limp quite yet. Mr. Gadget felt sorry for me and bought me some key-lime pie as a special treat. I'm going to try real hard to hold out. I've got a hankerin' for some prime rib.....

Two toad tales

My neighbor over at the old house always offers her warm hospitality to cute little creatures who venture into her yard. We often exchange creature stories. She's heard all of the antics of Bob the chipmunk, and I know how she had to build a second bluebird house because the chickadees moved into the first. Now it seems we each have a resident toad. Go read about hers here.

As Mr. Gadget and I were sweeping around the old front door today, he picked up the conch shell that's been sitting out there greeting visitors for years. A toad jumped out. A hermit toad, I can only assume.

This freeloading toad amused me. You know how easily amused I am. So I decided to decorate his shell....to make it more homey and inviting.See that little dark spot in the middle? It's a break in the shell. It will make a nice picture window, so I painted some shutters on it. Mr. Toad will find it useful for predator sightings....you know, hawks, hedgehogs, or those persistent church ladies who come around with their religious brochures. I'm pretty sure this interesting piece of yard art might attract the right home buyer.

Soon after the toad discovery, I took a flying leap off the front porch. Not on purpose, although Mr. Gadget may have assumed so. Now, wouldn't you know, I'm officially on the disabled list. I'm restricted from doing any annoying tasks over at the house, but I'm free to operate my sewing machine, as long as I don't take any medication that might impair my ability to do so.

I took advantage of this opportunity to sketch up some pattern pieces for my pig doll.

I think these are going to work out well. This pink fabric is much too bright for the pig I have in mind though, but I'm sure they'll have just what I need at the fabric store. It's not like I'm quarantined or anything....

Oh, and today I noticed that my neighbor here at the new place.....the one with whom I've been involved in a frenetic game of front-porch poker.....has made a surprising, yet not totally unexpected, move. She's got skills, I tell ya! This calls for a trip to the basement....

Sherwin, philosophizing

You've met Sherwin before but that was before I named him. Now he's Sherwin Williams, in honor of all the painting I've done lately. He's sitting here next to me while I type, offering suggestions on all the things I could do today on my day off. He thinks it would be nice if I'd make him a gaggle of playmates out of this big bag of sheep wool sitting under the table.

He also thinks I did the right thing telling Mr. Gadget I needed a day off from working at the old house. My request to be put on the 15-day disabled list was a bit drastic he thought, but he definitely thinks my sitting out one game would be beneficial to my mental health.

Mr. G is over at the house by himself today, meeting with the plumber. I may have been overly excited when I finished cleaning up the muck under the fridge yesterday and pushed it back with too much vigor. That may have been what caused the crack in the cold water line to the ice maker. Who needs an ice maker anyway? What's wrong with ice cube trays? So today I'm stressed and I just need to spend some time in the dugout chewing gum.

I know I said I'd start a new doll project, and I invited you all to doll along with me. But then I saw these cute little pigs and remembered I've been wanting to make a pig to go with my beanbag characters. I'd have no problem doing both if I was on that disabled list. I'll have to speak to my manager.

What would Sherwin do, I wonder?

Frog recycling project

Soon after Mr. Gadget and I decided to sell the old house and move on, I started a frog recycling project. As I worked my way through eons of layers at the Macaroni dig site, I unearthed frogs of every sort. And I just decided (without checking with them first) that maybe they'd like to move on with their lives too.

Just down the road, in the neighboring town, lives a special friend who's getting up in years and isn't able to get out much. She loves frogs. She collects them. She might even be a frog fanatic. So whenever I go to visit her, I take along my recent finds and she's always tickled green. Yesterday I delivered the flower pot frog and the appliqued frog tote bag. She loves to knit so the bag will hold her knitting projects. At the moment she's knitting baby hats for charity.

So I've been thinking of starting a new doll project. I need a little diversion from the Groundhog-Day life I've been living for the last few weeks--over at the old house, day after day, painting, cleaning, sprucing. After today's session, I noticed a twinge in my lower back, and I tried to convince Mr. G. that I needed to go on the disabled list. He didn't hear me. He probably had just turned on his noisy shop vac or he was cursing about the lamp he'd just broken.

Oops....I guess I got diverted from my diversion. Anyway, I want to design a new cloth doll pattern-- something a little different from the beanbag style dolls I've been making, but a basic pattern that could be adapted to all of my crazy characters. It might be fun to write about this whole process here on the blog. Anyone want to doll along with me? No? Well OK then. Lurking along is fine too. But before I jump into this new creative adventure, there's one more thing I want to mention.

It's just as I suspected. These hardworking construction men next door are really just little boys playing in the sandbox. Look at this, will ya? It's King of the Hill.

Bottomless pit of despair

In our new condo there is a basement closet that can eventually accommodate an elevator. Hopefully by the time we need one, we will not have cruised away our elevator money. In the meantime, we are using the closet to stash stuff--winter coats, craft supplies, and boxes of who-knows-what.

One day we began to notice an unpleasant odor each time we walked by the closet. I was pretty sure it was my bag of sheep's wool, even though, I have to say, I couldn't really detect the aroma of pasture.

Before alerting the authorities, we thought it best to empty the closet and give it some time to air out. A month went by and the aroma lingered.

The construction foreman paid us a visit to check out the mysterious mustiness but could not offer an answer. As is usually the case with unusual malfunctions, no one else had ever complained of such a thing. Water proof cement was placed all around the pit (for the elevator mechanism) and kitty litter was poured in to absorb any moisture. A week later the kitty litter was vacuumed out, and still the aroma lingers. The foreman has now gone to a higher authority for further instructions.

Mr. Gadget and I have been speculating. Is it possible we live on the site of an ancient....or recent....burial ground? Or maybe years ago a farmer buried his dead chickens or his sick pigs....or even his mother-in-law.....under our closet? And maybe this explains those weird noises we hear in the night. A bump here. A clack there. Sometimes a twack or a bonk. Maybe I should burn some incense....

I miss Dr. Seuss

And sometimes I miss my old peach-colored countertop with the cracked tiles and the grout wearing thin. I know I'm a lucky woman to have a brand new shiny granite countertop. But honestly? I don't care much for its camouflaging trickery. Ketchup drips, mayonnaise smears, chopped olive splatterings and overflowing BBQ sauce just disappear into its God-given variegation. It's a little embarrassing when a friend happens to discover a spill with an ill-placed elbow.

So today I attended a creative writing workshop at my new local library. I say "new" only because it's new to me. It's actually an old library with a musty aroma. It has the proper library aroma as far as I'm concerned. It's the scent of well-loved books. The town is currently raising money to build a new library, and when it's finally completed I hope they move the aroma along with the books.

So the writing group meets once a month, and the moderator gives us writing "prompts," about which we write, non-stop, for 20 minutes or so. Today she arrived without her list of prompts, so she picked one out of the air. Dr. Seuss.

I had no trouble writing about Dr. Seuss. He's always been a favorite of mine and I read lots of his books to Tech Guy and Big City Girl when they were little. I'm a big fan of silly rhymes. In fact, I wish I could write some of my own. But, unfortunately, I don't have a rhyming brain. I'm pretty sure it's an inborn trait.

Several of the group members shared that they find Dr. Seuss books boring. I couldn't understand that, and I mentioned it to Mr. Gadget after I got home. He agreed that Dr. Seuss is indeed a boring read.

"Don't you remember all those green eggs and ham, green eggs and ham, green eggs and ham?" he asked me.

"I guess I just remember the colorful characters and the rhyming," I said.

Did I ever mention that Mr. Gadget walks on the treadmill--for an hour sometimes--and while he treads he watches the weather channel? Now that's boring. I like to walk outside where there's interesting stuff to look at. But if I were to walk on the treadmill, like if it was raining and I had an overwhelming desire to exercise, I'd need some much more stimulating entertainment than the weather channel. Maybe the audio edition of The Cat in the Hat.

The chips are down

My neighbor across the street....the one with the festive front porch....seems to be egging me on to join her in a game of front-porch poker. It's not what you're thinkin' either. Not one of those sit-down-at-the-table kinda games. You may remember this earlier photo. She's obviously a high roller.

I'm sure she could taste victory after glancing across the street and noticing the lousy hand I was dealt.But little did she know I had a few aces up my sleeve. I raised her a colorful doormat and a friendly sheep.

I couldn't help but wonder if, after seeing my surprise move, she'd fold. She did not. Instead, she countered with a couple of sneaky maneuvers. She moved her swan over behind her frog, then raised me a large boxy white planter.

Could she be scheming to plant even more festive foliage--perhaps a small decorative tree--or is she just trying to bluff? I can sense some big-game excitement building. Will we be sharing cigars soon?

I took a chance and raised her again--a cute little pot of red impatiens.

I'm feeling very confident now. I'm almost sure I can beat her, although she's shown herself to be pretty cagey. She may be a seasoned player with some tricky moves in store. On the other hand, I'm in a superior position with lots more space on my porch. I've also got a treehouse and a basement well stocked with crafty porch fixins'. I'm going to hang in. I think it's just a matter of time before she's goin' down.

Get thee to a rookery

Mr. Gadget thinks I'm being sacrilegious with my talk about flocks and gaggles of nuns. Other Marcia has suggested that maybe I should call them congregations. I suppose she's right.

But don't they look a little like penguins?

When I googled gaggle, that led me on one of those wild google chases and I found out that a congregation of penguins is sometimes called a waddle. Could there be a waddle of nuns? Oh no! Here comes Mr. Gadget with his ruler. Forget everything I said.

So now it's back to witches. Here is my witch du jour.

The process of making these dolls is easy for me now because I've had a lot of practice. The challenge is making decisions about accessories: hair color, boot fabric, hat decorations, etc. Sometimes they just have to sit on the shelf and wait for me to make up my mind. And sometimes I have to take a cruise just to clear the cobwebs....

Who says my porch isn't festive?

I was feeling like an outsider here at the new place with my naked porch, so I sprung into action. Well, maybe slogged into action is a better way to put it. I found a doormat with a little pizazz....not one of those boring ones with "Welcome" on it, or "A spoiling grandma lives here." You know. You've seen those kind. You may have one, in which case....my apologies.

The black sheep doll is my latest project. I knitted his red scarf last night during Jeopardy and a few innings of the Yankees game. I really should measure one of these scarves so I wouldn't have to run upstairs to the treehouse to try it on each member of the flock....if I were to actually make a flock. But that would be called planning ahead or being organized and that is foreign to my nature.

It's a good thing I wasn't planning a nap today, since the construction crews are hard at work on the new building next door and today they've decided to move big, giant boulders.

And here are just a few more pictures from our trip. Barcelona!

Now, I'm wondering......If I make a few nun dolls (I've had requests! Who woulda thought!) would that be called a flock? Or would it be a gaggle? I've definitely got to google....

Bob drops by

Today I drove over to the old house to speed-paint the kitchen cupboards. My intent was to just get the job done because the new owners....whoever they might be....will, no doubt, just rip everything out and throw it in one of those big ol' dumpsters. One of the good things about speed-painting is that it doesn't matter if you happen to paint right over some dried-on strawberry jelly or a piece of old Scotch tape. Here's a little friendly advice. If you ever have a need to do some speed-painting, buy good quality paint.

Anyway, there I was...painting at warp speed and getting into a nice zen-like state....when who should appear on the back deck. Good ol' Bob.

It was Tech Guy who came up with the name Bob. I would have chosen a more whimsical name, like Chippy, or maybe Cheeky. I'm not absolutely convinced it was the real Bob. It may have been one of his relatives. But he obviously remembered our house as a place to get a tasty treat. I immediately put my paint brush down and served him up some good home cookin', I mean a hefty helping of sunflower seeds, and then watched him stuff his cheeks. This never fails to amuse me. It's kinda like watching people in a cruise ship buffet.Since I'd already moved the good china, poor Bob had to eat right off the floor. He managed to hide his disappointment.

And now, a few pretty pictures from our trip:

Is less more?

Things are greening up nicely here at the new condo complex. However, several residents are in a snit about the work the groundskeeper is, or isn't, doing. The flow of correspondence about this issue is hard to follow. Maybe we should have just stayed out to sea till the matter was resolved.

I did look out my front window this morning and noticed how festive my neighbor's front porch has become. New items seem to be appearing daily.

There's a wreath, a chair, a vase full of artificial flowers on a decorative pedestal, a little ceramic man, a swan and a frog. Will she put something in the chair I wonder? I will wait to see with great anticipation.

Take a look at my front porch.

Zilch.

I guess I'd better take myself down to the garden center....

Expedition findings

I learned that in early Roman times, sardine fishing was a major industry in Sardinia. In fact, at one time Sardinia was known as the Isle of Sardines.

I observed the tower at Pisa and confirmed that it's still leaning.

I was informed that the chocolate buffet did not migrate. It became an endangered species and now, sadly, it is extinct.

Here are a few funny photos....some blog filler till I'm out of my jet-lag fog.

A large sealife mural on a building in Cadiz, Spain.
I'm no longer concerned about my walls with complexion issues. Come to find out, they have a special Mediterranean panache.

Roman tourists. More panache.

Staying out of the way of Roman drivers requires some fancy footwork. But if they do run over you, their cars are so small it doesn't hurt much.

Ferry art.

Those folks in Barcelona really know how to do siestas.

Shop sheep.

A street entertainer along Las Ramblas, the colorful pedestrian walkway in Barcelona. When I tossed a coin in his chamber pot he blew me a raspberry.

And now the laundry.....