Manic Monday - Orange

Image courtesy of Tropical Nights

I'm not a Fall person - the season depresses me because of the death of the green things. Today, I needed to post something that reminds me of what will reoccur in the spring when nature renews itself. And because I needed a laugh, I threw in the egg yolk being naughty.

Photo Hunters - Original

These are three of my favorite paintings. I hope you enjoy them!

(For clarification, I did paint them myself, in oils)

Here's the link for TN Chick and Photo Hunters:

When I Am Famous...

When I am famous ...

Okay, I "borrowed" this, stored it for a week and I don't remember where I got it! I can't acknowledge anyone...so if you would like to take the tag, don't credit me!

1. YOUR ROCK STAR NAME: (first pet & current car)

Johnny Chrysler

2.YOUR GANGSTA NAME: (fave ice cream flavor, favorite cookie)

Peppermint Snickerdoodle

3. YOUR “FLY Guy/Girl” NAME: (first initial of first name, first three letters of your last name)
Agra

4. YOUR DETECTIVE NAME: (favorite color, favorite animal)

Det. Blue Dog

5. YOUR SOAP OPERA NAME: (middle name, city where you were born)

I don't have a middle name! So, I'll just use my blog name:

Gracie Hollywood

6. YOUR STAR WARS NAME: (the first 3 letters of your last name, first 2 letters of your first)

Gra'am

7. SUPERHERO NAME: (”The” + 2nd favorite color, favorite drink)

The Blue Margarita

8. NASCAR NAME: (the first names of your grandfathers)

Glenn Thomas

9. STRIPPER NAME: ( the name of your favorite perfume/cologne/scent, favorite candy)

Happy Butterfinger (he, he, he...)

10.WITNESS PROTECTION NAME: (mother’s & father’s middle names )

My mom didn't have a middle name, either...I'll use her maiden name!

Morris Clayton

11. TV WEATHER ANCHOR NAME: (Your 5th grade teacher’s last name, a major city that starts with the same letter)

Runze Reno

12. SPY NAME/BOND GIRL: (your favorite season/holiday, flower)

Christmas Orchid

13. CARTOON NAME: (favorite fruit, article of clothing you’re wearing right now + “ie” or “y”) Pineapple Shortie

14. HIPPY NAME: (What you ate for breakfast, your favorite tree)

Smoothie Palm

15. YOUR ROCKSTAR TOUR NAME: (”The” + Your fave hobby/craft, fave weather element + “Tour”)

The Scrapping Rain Tour

Thursday Thirteen - P.C. Cats

In honor of all my cat-loving friends!

Thursday Thirteen Banner courtesy of Samulli

Politically Correct Terms For Cat Owners:

My cat does not barf hairballs ~ he is a floor/rug redecorator

My cat does not break things ~ she helps gravity do its job

My cat does not fear dogs ~ they are merely sprint practice tools

My cat does not scratch ~ he is a furniture/rug/skin ventilator

My cat is not a "shedding machine" ~ she is a hair relocation stylist

My cat is not a "treat-seeking missile" ~ she enjoys the proximity of food

My cat is not a bed hog ~ he is a mattress appreciator My cat is not a dope addict ~ she is catnip appreciative

My cat is not a lap fungus ~ he is bed selective

My cat is not a ruthless hunter ~ she is a wildlife control expert

My cat is not evil ~ she is badness enhanced

My cat is not fat ~ he is mass enhanced

My cat is not lazy ~ he is motivationally challenged
Here's the link for more Thursday Thirteen participants!

The Power of Pink

TOGETHER, WE CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE IN FINDING A CURE Since 2003 Brighton has donated nearly $2 million to breast cancer charities. In our 5th annual year of Power of Pink, we are tripling our efforts by introducing not one or two, but 3 new pieces of jewelry! We invite you visit Participating Brighton Retailers and see the latest earrings, bracelet and necklace Brighton's designers have created to support breast cancer research, education and treatment.*
Many stores are having exciting Power of Pink events...check out our calendar to find an event near you!

I don't know about you but I am nuts about all things Brighton! They are offering this beautiful charm bracelet for "Breast Cancer" month. For participating retailers, check here:

$5.00 from each purchase will be donated to Breast Cancer research.

BUT, PLEASE DONATE THROUGH OUR BLOGGERS FIRST!
Asara: Asara's Mental Meandering
Mags: Ms Maggie Moo Talks 2 U

What? Me Get Old?

AN ESSAY ON AGING...(received by e-mail
and I do not know the author)

"The other day a young person asked me
how I felt about being old. I was taken aback, for I do not
think of myself as old.
Upon seeing my reaction, she was
immediately embarrassed, but I explained that it was an interesting
question, and I would ponder it, and let her know.
Old Age, I decided, is a gift.I am now, probably for the first time
in my life, the person I have always wanted to be. Oh, not my
body! I sometime despair over my body, the wrinkles, the
baggy eyes, and the sagging rear. And often I am taken
aback by that old person that lives in my mirror (who looks
like my grandmother!), but I don't agonize over

those things for long.
I would never trade my amazing friends,
my wonderful life, my loving family for less gray hair or a
flatter belly. As I've aged, I've become more kind to myself,
and less critical ofmyself. I've become my own friend.I don't
chide myself for eating that
extra cookie, or for not making my bed, or for buying that silly
cement gecko that Ididn't need, but looks so avante garde
on my patio. I am entitled to a treat, to be messy, to
be extravagant. I have seen too many dear friends leave
this world too soon; before they understood the great
freedom that comes with aging.Whose business is it if I choose to
read or play on the computer until 4 AM and sleep until noon?
I will dance with myself to those
wonderful tunes of the 60 & 70's, and if I, at the same time,
wish to weep over a lost love ... I will.
I will walk the beach in a swim suit
that is stretched over a bulging body, and will dive into the
waves with abandon if I choose to, despite the pitying glances
from the jet set.They, too, will get old.
I know I am sometimes forgetful. But
there again, some of life is just as well forgotten. And I
eventually remember the important things.
Sure, over the years my heart has been
broken. How can your heart not break when you lose a loved
one, or when a child suffers, or even when somebody's
beloved pet gets hit by a car? But broken hearts are what give us
strength and understanding and compassion. A heart
never broken is pristine and sterile and will never
know the joy of being imperfect.
I am so blessed to have lived long
enough to have my hair turning gray, and to have my youthful
laughs be forever etched into deep grooves on my face. So many
have never laughed, and so many have died before their hair
could turn silver.
As you get older, it is easier to be
positive. You care less about what other people think. I don't
question myself anymore. I've even earned

the right to be wrong.
So, to answer your question, I like
being old. It has set me free. I like the person I have become.
I am not going to last forever, but while I am still here, I
will not waste time lamenting what could have been, or
worrying about what will be. And I shall eat dessert every
single day. (If I feel like it)"
~~~Anonymous
MAY YOU ALWAYS HAVE A RAINBOW OF
SMILES ON YOUR FACE AND IN YOUR HEART FOREVER AND EVER!

Please, Make it Go Away!

This is what the back of our property looked like after we moved in, in May.

Blue skies and foothills...
This was the same but from a different angle...

Now, we've got big ol' honkin' earth movers, working from 7:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., raising dust and racket you wouldn't believe - unless you've had earth movers working directly behind you.

I'm just hoping we don't wind up with Valley Fever from all the dirt that's been fallow for so many years being stirred up! Pesimist.
They come right up to the fence, (which we were going to replace) and make the ground rumble. As you can tell, we are no longer going to be the last row, and from the position of the big ugly, yellow monster, you can see that the new mobiles going in will be much higher than we are and will block our view completely!!! We chose this particular mobile because of the fact that we would have no one behind us. Great cosmic practical joke, huh?

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR~!

(I just found out today that they're going to be an "Own-Your-Own Lot" mobiles, with garages. Maybe we'll just hop the fence and move into a newer unit! Now, I'm talkin' optimism!)

Manic Monday - Kit

My entry for this week's MM word - Kit - is Kit Fox. Living in the San Joaquin Valley, we're privy to some interesting species, some of which are, unfortunately, endangered. Because of the severe laws in effect, I'm afraid someday our farmers will become endangered as well!

But this little guy is a winsome little fox. At our previous house, we had an area just a block away that these foxes lived in. Sometimes at night, if you were real lucky, you could catch one in the headlights.

We live in the 'burbs but it was all rural not too many years ago. In the nine years we lived in the southwest part of town, in our backyard I have seen a 'possum staring down at me from one of our banana plants; a hawk swoop down and fetch it's lunch in the form of a mouse; a skunk, whose tail was at full alert and managed to get off a good spray right under our office windows; and many other wonderful creatures! But I count it good fortune to see one of these cuties~

INFORMATION ABOUT THE KIT FOX:

Conservation comments:
The San Joaquin Kit Fox is a cute, curious, and endangered resident of the San Joaquin Valley of California and is found in the Central Valley and foothills.
STATUS: Endangered. We are working hard to prevent this.
DESCRIPTION: San Joaquin kit foxes are the smallest foxes in North America. They are about 51 cm long. (About 20 inches) This doesn't count their tails. They weigh a little over 2 kg. (About 5 pounds) They have long legs and large ears. Their coats range from tan to buffy gray in the summer. This changes to silvery gray in the winter.
FOOD: Small mammals such as mice, kangaroo rats, squirrels and rabbits. Ground-nesting birds. Insects.
HABITAT: San Joaquin scrub and grasslands.

MATING: Kit foxes can breed when one year old. Adult pairs stay together all year. In the fall, females begin to clean and enlarge their pupping dens. The foxes mate between December and March.
Litters of two to six pups are born in February or March. Pups emerge from the den after about a month.
PREDATORS: Red foxes, coyotes, domestic dogs, bobcats and large raptors.
RANGE: Most San Joaquin kit foxes live on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley.
THREATS: Loss of habitat to farming and development. By 1979, only about 6.7% of the San Joaquin Valley's original wildlands south of Stanislaus County remained untilled and undeveloped.
Predation and competition from larger species such as the nonnative red fox.

A Place for the Kit Fox to Hide: We help win California's first Safe Harbor, Posted: 01-Jan-2002;

Updated: 08-May-2007
Small and delicate, with huge ears, the San Joaquin kit fox has been called "the ballet dancer of the canid world." This small, graceful carnivore has been on the endangered species list since 1967. More than 95% of its grassland and desert scrub habitat in California's San Joaquin Valley has been eradicated by housing, mega-malls and farms. But a recent agreement brokered by Environmental Defense improves the tiny fox's chances for survival. Kit foxes share the San Joaquin with larger, faster coyotes that prey on them. In self-defense, the mostly nocturnal foxes have for millennium been digging escape burrows where they hunker down until it's safe to come out. But in cultivated fields and orchards, there are few places left to dig. The foxes have become increasingly easy pickings for the coyotes, their leading cause of death, according to Dr. Patrick Kelly, director of the endangered species recovery program at California State University, Fresno.
Kelly studied kit foxes in the vicinity of the Paramount Farming Company outside Bakersfield, and conceived a new way to help: Why not install artificial burrows for the foxes to escape from coyotes on farmland?
It seemed simple, but there was a catch. Paramount, if it cooperated, might become liable under the Endangered Species Act for its farming activities near the burrows. Why would the landowner take such a risk? "Unfortunately, a history of conflict has made private landowners extremely wary of the Endangered Species Act," says Michael Bean, director of our wildlife program. Some valley farmers have reportedly resorted to plowing fallow fields to keep endangered species away.
"Our concern was that we'd do the right thing, and it would backfire," says Scott Hamilton, Paramount's resource manager.
Safe Harbor's Promise
Kelly enlisted Environmental Defense and our Safe Harbor initiative. Safe Harbor agreements, introduced by us in 1995 and adopted nationally by the Fish and Wildlife Service, allow landowners to help endangered species voluntarily while being protected from new liability. Bean was pleasantly surprised when, after hearing about Safe Harbor, Paramount "took about 10 minutes to agree."
After our plan was embraced by Paramount, the company built 25 escape burrows on its land and even volunteered to pick up the cost. Bean and Kelly are impatient to open the dens, which are still capped in anticipation of final federal approval of the agreement. "The foxes need some time to check them out," Kelly says. "And their breeding season is coming up soon."
http://www.environmentaldefense.org/article.cfm?contentID=362

Photo Hunt - Paper

My spare room is stacked with boxes full of paper; paper for altered books, scrapbooks, cardmaking and other "artsy-fartsy" projects! I cut pictures out of magazines to use with altered books and a book I'm working on. I have boxes full of cards I've been saving over the years to use in some way. I love papers, especially all of the different textures and colors.

The little book above started out from a kit and I further embellished it. The photo is of me and my dad circa 1955.

Please check out TN Chick's website for more Photo Hunt participants!

It's Raining - It's Pouring - Yipppeeeee!!!

To some of you, this may be a very boring post. To those of us in a drought area, it's thrilling!
We are breaking the record for a low for the day and it's raining!!! We haven't had measurable rain since May, and after experiencing several days of temperatures in the 100's, just to smell the sweet smell of rain is divine! Last week it was in the 90's. Today, it is 75. Yipppeeeee!
It is supposed to climb back up next week but after a reprieve, it will be a snap!