A lot going on this summer, both in my life, and those of my friends. Good and bad. It's as crazy as the weather, and I wonder if they are somehow related. Who knows. My cat Pug is officially diabetic. I give him insulin shots every day, twice a day. he is a tub of lard, and I hope to at least stem the weight gain with the change in diet and the shots. He has been gaining a quarter pound every week for 7 weeks. Not goo. He is at 16 3/4. The fatty fat fat is acting better after a week of insulin shots, though. He doesn't camp out in front of a water dish all day, and we went for a walk in the park 2 days ago. First walk this year. I have missed those. My garden is crazy big. The tomatoes are starting to ripen. Should get the first few cherry tomatoes today. The carrots look like they have been taking steroids. They are HUGE! I just harvested round two of lettuce, and the third round is coming up. Might be able to get one more in before the weather gets to bad to grow stuff outside. I think I will try and turn the tower room into a grow room this winter. Just for fun. I have been trying to get a mural job for some people about 40 minutes from here. I received an email from them yesterday, telling me they have decided to hire me. I am excited and nervous, as I should be. I have outlined the next steps for them- contract, half pay, upfront and non refundable- and we shall see if they agree. I cannot start until the week after this, but they will be the only client I take on until the job is done. I am hoping to go browse through some art books at a friends today to get some photo references. I will pull what I need together this week and start ASAP. I am getting $60 a square foot, and it is 17.5 feet. Hopefully, I will also get references, and be able to get more work. Yay! I have been getting a lot of odd jobs the last 2 months. I put an ad out to help people declutter/organize their homes, and have a client from that. I helped another friend by organizing her attic. I have done a brochure for the Henderson Historical Society, and will start another when the last touch is put on it. I designed a logo for a local sport program, and won. Only got a t-shirt, but it gets my art out there. I am waiting to hear from another potential decluttering client, and I should be painting a porch this coming weekend, weather permitting. I have been doing a ton around the house as well, and am looking forward to a visit from my parents and an aunt the beginning of September. I also need to contact a potential client about a drawing she wants done. That will happen today. My hours at work have increased as well. I feel I am not that busy, and should do more. Hehehe!When the Henderson Historical Society gets a place set up to put a Geocache, I will set that up for them as well. Oh, and Felicia and I have been getting together several times a week to hang out and go for walks. It has been lovely! And with that update, I will need to get to the sun porch and start painting! I shall leave you with some pictures. They are-in no particular order- Me, all dressed up in period dress at the Sterrling Renaissance Fair, a sunflower in my garden, Faithy, out for a walk, and me Photoshopped into the latest family photo. Have a great day, everyone!

I have been cat sitting for a friend for a friend for almost 2 weeks now. The cat is a little old lady with big attitude, and I love the britches off of her. She has been peeing on her bedding every single day since BEFORE they left (I know because of the mess I cleaned up the first day. Way more than 2 days of pee). # days ago she developed runny poo, with blood in it. So, I got to take her to the vet, and now I get to do a few days of antibiotics and other such things before they get home. Poor little thing! Thank god it is only once a day, as the trip there is 45 minutes. I finished the 2 almost done jobs on my list this week, and am taking today and tomorrow to start gather material for the sketch for the mural. I plan on getting a sketch to them next weekend. I will need to hit the hardware store to collect some paint chips. Two of the colors will be sample paints, because I need a lot for those areas. The rest will be acrylic paint from my collection. Getting excited! Haven't heard from the declutter client this week like promised, so Sunday I will email her an find out if she is okay. I want to hit her a couple days next week. I have a cat vet bill to pay. Bleh. However, since I had a busy week, I am spending today puttering around the house and working on the mural, and will do so tomorrow as well. I need me a relaxing break. I am taking one. I leave you with a recent picture of my wild garden. I left a lot of the native plants to grow along the side of the garage. The bluebells are beautiful, and the Queen Annes Lace is huge. I have 3 volunteer sunflowers that opened up yesterday and are spectacular, and I have done 2 harvests of snow peas. Yay wild thing!

I went hiking at Wehle State Park a bit ago. This is one of two places I shoe in the winter. This is the first time I have traversed Snakefoot trail when there was no snow. Let me say it was so very, very beautiful! It's amazing how different things look when you remove a few feet if ice off the bushes, and take away all the snow. Oh, lets not forget to up the temperature into the high 70's, low 80's, and throw in beautiful sunshine. Wow!The trail is a little over 4 miles of flat and easy, but a chunk of it goes right along the edge of Lake Ontario, and most of that is just a little about water level. Needless to say, I know where I can go with a picnic and a good book for a restful afternoon. I tried to take some pictures in about the same location as I had during snow time, and I cobbled them together so you can see the difference in the seasons. Pretty cool, huh? Your welcome!

I am feeling very satisfied with the yard this year. 2 Years of hard work, and it has paid off. I love the fact that I am NOT trying to keep it all perfectly maintained. The back of the house is a lush growth of native plants(most of which would be considered weeds), and columbine seeds I have been scattering. I maintain a weed-eated path amongst the green so you can get from one end to the other, and I and keeping up in the mowing and edging (also done with the weed eater) around the rest of the house. However, along with the wilder backside, I am leaving spots of this lushness under the lilac trees, and in the cubby by the shed and laundry room. Now that the Hostas are filling out, and the ferns have leafed, It is looking down right gorgeous! So, it really DOES bring me pleasure to share with you- My Yard!

New York was amazing, partly because of the friend I was with. Okay, MOSTLY because of her. She is so wonderful to vacation with! I am working on slowly editing my photos (over 1000 of them) and will hopefully have an album up on Facebook for your viewing enjoyment in a couple of weeks. I have spent my first week back home working on the last bits of winter clean up in the yard, and planting my garden. We went from winter to summer heat here in less than3 weeks, so I am really trying to pace myself and not drop dead from heat exhaustion and humidity. I get up and get moving by 7am, and call it quits for anything strenuous by 11:30, Then I am in and out of the house all day to control heat exposure. So far, so good. This morning I went and peeked at the garden, and I already have some seedlings popping up. Yay! I spent Friday afternoon and early evening hanging out with the lovely Felicia, dinking around at her house, shopping a bit, and trying bubble tea in Sackets Harbor (very different from the one I had in Chinatown). I spent Saturday morning at Tom and Dawn's helping them fell and cut up a few trees, and then topped it off with a few hurs of catch up with a friend I haven't seen in a few years. Today it is cooler and cloudy, so I am going to finish a little yard stuff and go for a walk at Black Pond. The trilliums are up, and I want to take pictures!

So, the house is up for sale. The ship has sailed, the plane has taken off, Elvis has left the building. It will be interesting to see what sort of interest we get, and a bit scary. Deep breathe, moving on. Spring has started to, well, spring here in the frozen North of New York State. Although we have freezing temperatures for the next few days at night, and the chance of snow (*headdesk*), I am optimistic that the things that are starting to grow are gonna be fine, and that we will shake off the rest of this nonsense soon and step fully into Spring, and fly into summer. That is kinda how it works here. Winter really did bring the deep freeze. Where the earth only usually freezes up about 2.5 feet down, this winter it was between 5.5 feet and 6. This even started to muck with our well a little, along with the fact that we never got what I have heard is the usual few days of thaw the beginning of February. So, sludgy well water, and low well water made for a bit of fun every time you turned on a faucet. We survived easily, though, and no longer have that issue. I do believe the larger projects I can do here to help make the house sale-ready are done. I might think about painting the trim ceiling in the dining room instead of having someone else do it, but I don't know. Between the kitchen and the bathroom ceiling repaint, I am a bit painted out. Not my favorite thing to do. I think if the paint dried almost immediately, it would be different. Painting and waiting, painting and waiting...not my idea of fun. Garden is ready for when I return from my week of fun in New York City. Tamara and I are visiting this amazing place again, and this time I have a list of things would love to do. Like, visit a REAL art store. I want to snuggle with true art stuff, not just the lazy crafter's tools we carry at Michaels. And I want to browse a book store. A real new and used one like real cities have. And I am going to Goodwill, and another thrift store because I want to see what sort of things New Yorkers toss out. There will be a trip to Brooklyn to The Sketchbook Project Library for much viewing of world wide art creations. And there will be walking, and parks and hotdog vendors, and and and! Then when I get home I will plant my garden and see what happens. Yeah!

The kitchen is done, and it looks fabulous!

Okay, kitchen before moving crap out to start the repaint. And after. The house is 135 years old, this room has major issues and had to be jacked up. The cracks that created, and the crappy patch job done by my roomie and her mom have made for a lot of pre-painting prep. On today's list; crap-ton load of caulking, sanding, and patching. Pretty sure this is two days worth of time. Oh, and I need to wash the last bits of wall that was behind the furniture.

Well, 2015, so far you have been a mixed bag. I have survived your piles of snow better because I am now, occasionally able to do this

with my friend and snow shoe supplier, Hillary.

However, I am starting to get a little sick of your shenanigans, especially because of how they are effecting my friends. Spring will come, eventually, and whup you into shape, but til then, maybe you should reread some manner books and tone down the massive car pile-ups, death, frozen pipes, cabin fever, and other rude behavior. Be mild. People will like you more.

The wind is roaring this morning, and although it is not snowing at the moment, we are scheduled to get another 2 to3 feet in the next 48 hours. I hit the grocery store yesterday, and have the next few days off, so I am not going anywhere. We have been very snow free this winter, which is odd, and also not a good thing. We need the snow to refill the water table. So, I love that we are getting back to regular numbers for this time of year. 4 to 5 feet of snow is typical, and we should be there by Saturday night. This Holiday season was more restful than most. I finished everything before December, and all was mailed as soon as that month hit. It was also boring. Didn't go look at lights, did nothing to mark the holiday season except a little decorating. But it is all over now, and we are creeping toward my favorite time of the year; Sunny Time! Yeah! I am excited to use the garden beds I built last fall, and to utilize another part of the yard by planting in pots. It will be interesting to see if my plans work. The kitties are starting to go stir crazy. They really want out, but when the snow is over your head, it's hard to go anywhere. I am starting to turn my attention towards them, setting time aside for each for play and snuggles, as well as doing group plays. Sometime it feels more like a chore, I admit, but I love my little furry bed warmers, and it's not like I can go out in the snow, either. We have an RV show coming up at the beginning of march in Syracuse, and I am going to go. I have been researching small homes and tiny houses, and really want to get back to living in a space where I am living smaller and simpler. There really is a lot of space in this house that sits, unused. I have never seen the point of that. Also, if I can get a smaller space I can haul around, I can go camping whenever, as well as travel. That idea appeals to me on so many levels. Move somewhere for a few years, work and explore, move somewhere else, work and explore. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. I am still crafting. I have started a journal and recipe swap with a close friend in Redmond. One recipe and journal page a month. I had so much fun with that, I started another swap (but just doing the journal pages) on Swap-Bot in a local group I am a member of. I found another group on Swap-Bot that does micro journals. They are pocket sized, and you write one sentence a day on each page for a month. I did this in October, and as soon as she posted a similar swap for this year, I signed up. It's helps me doodle a little every day, and makes me more aware of my day and the things I experienced. And on that note, I will leave you with a few pictures or weather because, welll...because!

It's begining to look atlot like Christmas...with no snow.

Yep. No snow. A bad thing for around here. Light snow years mean dry summers, which is bad for the crops and bad for the farmers and bad all around. I really hope we get hit pretty hard the rest of this winter to make up for it. I go to work this morning at 5am, work a shift, and then run a couple last minute errands. Then it's home, and outside in the warm weather to rake leaves. These are the ones I did not get to before the first snowfall of the year. Now that the show is gone I can hit a few of the thicker piles and haul them to the compost heap. It will make spring cleanup easier. Last year was a crazy amount of raking, and I really don't want to go through that again. And now, a couple of pictures before I head downstairs for breakfast.

So, to keep from tensing up to much on my drive home, I made a weather/season inspired song. I only have the first verse and chorus, but I think it will be a big hit this year! (Sung to the tune of Oh Christmas Tree) "Oh Wintertime Oh Wintertime You make Springs' mud seem so divine Oh Wintertime Oh Wintertime You make Springs' mud seem so divine You really blow-, and not just snow. My visibil- ity's zero. Oh Wintertime Oh Wintertime You make Springs' mud seem so divine" So, that's all I got, but not bad for creating between "oh shit"s and "where the hell did the road go???!!'s. This was my visibility (yeah, I drove AND took pictures in this shit. I am in New York. It's what we do) This is what I looked like after I got home. Fun times, fun times!

The Best. Song. Ever!

What more can I say?

So, this happened yesterday;

As I sit here this morning and watch the sun come up on the first snow of the year, I discover I am alright with it. I am relieved. It's been a busy year, and now Old Man Winter is stepping up behind me, laying a hand on my shoulder, and saying, "You've done well, you've done what you should, and what you can. Now come, sit with me." I am happy to spend time with my old friend and watch the this year ebb into next.