April | 2014 | Life in the Slow Lane

Archive for April, 2014

Week in iPhotos 17 of 52

Posted in week in pictures on April 30, 2014| 6 Comments »

Last week I had oodles and oodles of pics and this week I hardly took any with my phone. Made up for it with my real camera though. 7 sessions in 4 days. Ugh.

*Monday our big pictures showed up at my office. ❤ I hung them on in our living room, but I don’t like that way they look so I need to change some things around . *Received a special package from Sarah!!! 🙂 *Jelly Beans did not last very long! *Friday I wanted to get fancied up so I went to the salon Mildred works at on the weekends. *Friday I tired to make an umbrella wreath for my Gma & MIL, but I couldn’t get those little suckers to stay open once I start putting them on the top. I even tried hot glue but I got angry and quit. *Friday afternoon I had both baseball and softball games going on at the same time. I was a tired lady after each team played double headers. *I have to take my little stool with me to the games. The fence hits me about my forehead and it’s a pain to stand on my tipy toes the whole game. *Saturday Mildred, her bf and I went to a 60th anniversary party for my Great Aunt & Uncle. This was a paying gig and we took family pics, party pics and then had a photo booth. Afterward’s Mildred’s bf said he didn’t know there was so much whining from the people in the pictures. You know everyone knows how to take pictures….. *Sunday TNT and I went 100 miles south and shopped at Menard’s. Finally found some stones and pavers to do my landscape project. They look really red here, but they aren’t that red in person.

Sunday we drove home in blowing dirt.

We are 1/2 mile from the elevator and you can just barely make it out. It has been blowing like this for 4 days now with no moisture in sight. 😦

Favorite pics from Friday’s game.

*After Mendard’s I took my nephew’s race pictures. *Out of order, but on Saturday we stopped at this cool building and snapped a few of Mildred and her man.

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I Won’t Fall

Posted in Down Memory Lane on April 25, 2014| 5 Comments »

One afternoon in the Fall of 1998, Bruce, Mildred and I were in the back yard of our new house playing with our puppy. The previous owners had a knee high chain link fence around their garden. Bruce and I were discussing what we were going to do to the backyard landscape wise. We decided the first thing to go would be the short fence.

I’ll stop there and tell you more about Mildred. She would have been an 8th grader and was a track star. She loved to hurdle. She’d set up stuff in the yard and hurdle it. It was constant hurdling in and around our house. Some kids sing! Some kids play video games. No, Mildred hurdled.

Back to this story. The three of us were standing about 20 yards from the knee high fence. Mildred said I’m going to hurdle that and takes off running. Bruce said, “Bet you fall!” She yells over her shoulder, “no I won’t.” Well I’m sure you can guess what happened! She got to the fence and realized there was another wire 6″ above the chain link (the previous owners had a hot wire to keep the dogs out of the garden). Mildred put her hands down on the chain link but she still had too much speed going and flipped over the fence and landed on her back. Bruce and I instantly fell to the ground laughing. We didn’t even wait to see if she was okay.

I can still see this happening.

Her famous last words will always be “I won’t fall!”

And this story gets told at every family gathering and never gets old. She’ll never live it down. Kind of like me and the “there’s a skunk in the ceiling.”

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The Great Pheasant Release

Posted in Living in Kansas on April 23, 2014| 3 Comments »

Another way we helped the pheasant population was releasing 60 hens and 10 roosters. Pheasant farms are set up in a few places around Kansas. They raise the pheasant chicks with minimal human contact that way when the adult pheasants are released they can live on their own and survive in the wild.

Pheasants Forever is an organization that helps with conservation and improving habitat for pheasants. The chapters in Nebraska & South Dakota will release a million dollars worth of pheasants each year. A million $$ will buy you around 117,000 birds so that helps their populations. However, for some reason the chapter in Kansas refuses to do this. Which I guess is a reason the population is so low here in KS.

Fly little birds fly.

This is a hen.

The males have beautiful plumage.

These are Ring Neck Pheasants.

We hope that they get busy and reproduce.

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Wildlife Waterer

Posted in Living in Kansas, projects on April 22, 2014| 4 Comments »

For some reason waterer is just a weird word, yet I guess it is one.

Anyway, the pheasant population in NW Kansas is very low. There are a few reasons why. The number one reason is the drought that has been going on for years. When we go months without rain fall the pheasants have to rely on the little dew we have in the mornings. Or they will eat the green grass…until it burns up in the hot wind. Another reason is predators….chicken hawks and owls are very hard on pheasants as are coyotes. Turkeys are also very bad because they stomp on the nests and break the eggs. Then you have over hunting which takes place November to mid January. Just like with anything you have some idiots who don’t care and just shoot any birds they see, but then you have others who do the right thing. We have landlords who will come out every weekend from Colorado to hunt when the game is plentiful. This past year they came out twice in the 2 month season. They know better than to hunt the few remaining birds that were on their and our land.

I’m going to stop this story and explain about how we became friends with the CO people. This would have been close to 20 years ago that Carl & his buddy Towne started coming out to hunt. They knew no one out here, but wanted to hunt pheasants. They went farm to farm and since no one knew them they wouldn’t let them hunt until they showed up at my inlaws place. TNT and his buddies were sitting on the front porch shooting cans and drinking beer. (Insert redneck comment here)! Carl asked if they could hunt on TNT’s ground. TNT said sure go down south a mile then east a mile and there is a pasture. So began the friendship. Carl & Towne came back year after year and soon my FIL was going with them not only to show them where to hunt but to hunt with them. Carl, his dad and his FIL all decided they wanted to buy some Kansas land so that way they and their future generations would always have a place to hunt in Kansas. They asked my FIL if he’d be up for selling some of his land, but wanted him to keep farming it. My FIL agreed and 15 years later we all have a wonderful friendship Eight years ago Carl’s wife invited the inlaw side of my family up to ski which began our friendships with her. TNT and I travel out to Carl’s place in CO to go on the Jeep trails in the summers. I’m actually planning our trip right now with Carl’s wife. My inlaws, Carl & his wife just got back from Key Largo, FL. They also travel to Lake Powell every summer for a week on a house boat. Crazy to think how our friendship started all because two CO guys wanted to hunt silly birds!

Okay back to my post.

Trying to help the population of pheasants we all gathered Friday & Saturday to build two wildlife waterers. What the heck is it, right? It is a lean-to with a tin top so the water runs down to the barrels buried in the ground. Just wait you’ll see.

First you start digging four posts. This post hole digger is a mean machine. Hence it’s name widow maker.

I’d like to point out that it was not nearly warm enough for shorts and no jackets but these boys are “tough.” It took two of them to actually hold onto this while they are digging the hole.

There they have the first two dug and the frame for the top made.

Two more holes are dug for the back of the frame.

They bolt one end higher than the other so the water can run down the roof into the black 1/2 barrels that I’m digging a hole for. Two barrels will go on the downside of the lean-to.

Close up of the barrel in the ground. I cleaned the dirt out of these about 15 times. Boys just are not as careful as I am.

Then we started putting the tin on the roof.

Once the tin is on the boys began attaching the gutters to the downside of the lean-to so the water will run into them then down into the barrels.

My MIL had to try it out with a bottle of water.

Finished product. Now we wait for the rain.

View from the front.

What did my MIL and Deb do while the boys and I were working hard? Sunning themselves and posing. LOL

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Week in iPhotos

Posted in week in pictures on April 21, 2014| 5 Comments »

You all are going to be sick of pictures after you read this post. Busy Busy Busy!

*This pretty much sums up each day in Kansas March until now. Every day it is different. *Tuesday Sonic had 1/2 price drinks all day so I treated everyone I work with to a cherry limeade. *And this is what I went home too. Anyone want to loan us some $$? 😦 *Wednesday the dirt was blowing. You’d think it was a pretty day, but look just above the green wheat. That is blowing dust. *Spring flowers that died with the freeze Wed. night. *Friday was the Art Walk. Saw many people and handed out a lot of information for my senior pictures, business cards and magnets. I sold two sessions and since it was a free show (only spent $60 on pictures) I made some $$. I was very pleased. *Saturday morning our friends from Colorado came out to build a wildlife waterer. I’ll do a big post about this later. Here they were digging the holes with the widow maker. lol *The frame is up and pits are in the ground and yep that is me working!! *I also took time to play with this sweetie. Our friends’ new pup Morgan.

*Finish product. *We ate lunch out in the field and drank one or three adult beverages. Which helped me take a 3 hour nap Saturday. Woke up around 5 and headed back to the inlaws house for supper. *Got home around 9 and baked this chocolate angel food cake. *Decorated the cake Sunday morning. *Made the Cadbury trifle. *My sister and I heading over to the inlaws place. My mom and sister partied at the inlaws house for Easter lunch. *Mildred and I went on a nature walk around the inlaws farm and found a nesting owl. Pictures will come later, but OMG it was awesome!! *We headed home around 3:30 and my dad was already there setting up his frier for the turkey. *Mildred and I were bored so we went on yet another nature walk and found these blooming bushes. *My pretty sister following me. *After supper we went on a Jeep ride.

*I gave my dad my phone and told him to take pictures. This is what he came up with. I love TNT’s eye in the 2nd pic. LOL *I saw a junk pile and had to go investigate and thought this old tree was neat.

*No rain for us, but east of us they were getting a good shower.

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A Day in Carrie’s Life

Posted in Me on April 18, 2014| 3 Comments »

6:30am: Wake up 15 min before my first alarm goes off. Tails is already waiting for me in the bathroom to feed him.

6:35 am: This is the reason I have to get up 10 minutes earlier. I use Rodan & Fields products morning and night. After I’m done with that I do my hair, get dressed then my makeup. Makeup is last since I have to let the last product dry before I can apply the goop.

6:50am: Pulled the Terrain out of the garage and fed Molly and gave her some treats.

Fed the fish after Molly and realize I have a floater. Well a sinker, but you know belly up fish.

6:55am: Try to get Molly out of bed. Then hug her and give her kisses when I make her go out to the garage. Kiss the hubs good bye then head to town.

7:00am: Pull out of the yard and see it is 32 degrees. 😦

7:15am: Arrive in town and run to Walmart for Easter supplies.

7:30am: Head to McDonald’s for breakfast. Usually I eat cereal at home, but since I was in a hurry to get some shopping done before work I skipped it at home.

7:45am: Walk up the stairs to my office. And spread out my artery clogging breakfast.

7:55am: I notice I have missed a lot of the fb messages between all you ladies!! LOL 52 messages to be exact. So I catch up with that and play a little Farm Hero’s Saga before my boss comes in.

8:15am: I start on the inventory from the day before. Same routine every single morning.

10:15am: My boss went on her monthly walk through the plant so that means for 2 hours I can do my own thing which included editing pictures from the baseball game I attended on Tuesday.

11:30am: My stomach was telling me I was about to starve to death so I had spinach, tomatoes, turkey lunch meat, Parmesan cheese and Olive Garden dressing for lunch.

12:30pm: My boss headed out for her lunch so I finished watching season 2 of Scandal on Netflix. Anyone else watch that show? OMG! LOVE LOVE LOVE!! I should mention here that from Jan-September it is super slow at work and I wouldn’t watch Netflix or edit pictures if I actually had work to do! I apologize to Dwight for being a time thief!

2:30 pm: Sit down at the shredder and work on this never ending project of shredding 20 years worth of paperwork. I’m down to the last five years so I am making progress.

3:30pm: Grab the scale tickets from the Receiving department and enter all truck loads that came to our plant today. Also voucher all AP invoices that arrived during the day.

4:30pm: Call TNT and make sure he is coming to town to help me set up my display for the Art Walk. Hear him grumble about it but then remind him that I was going to do it all on my own, but HE was the one who suggested he help me.

5:05pm: Head downtown to the business where I am going to set up my booth.

5:07pm: Walk in the door of said business.

5:08pm: Want to run for the hills after I see the mess that was supposed to be cleaned up before I arrived.

5:09pm: Explain to a grumbling husband that we have to help move all the junk out of the store front so I can set up the display.

5:50pm: Leave without finishing display because I was so pissed. Head home. At least the sky was pretty.

6:15pm: Arrive home. Grab a bag of Doritos and watch a March episode of Parenthood in hopes they improve my mood.

6:45pm: They didn’t. 😦 Pull up Home Depot & Menards and try to find retaining wall stones and cement edging to match for our landscape project.

7:30pm: TNT comes in the house and he told me the ribs he’d been cooking on the grill still had a while to cook. I gather some more items that I need for the display.

7:45pm: Decide I need to clean house and get all the floors swept and clutter put away.

8:15pm: Shower and get back on Home Depot & Menards websites and cuss that the retaining wall stones and edging don’t match. You know they HAVE to match when you have OCD.

8:45pm: Supper is ready.

9:15pm: Sit down in the basement to read my book, but end up watching Impractical Jokers until 10 when I finally went to bed. Grrrrrr!!!

10:00pm: My mind wouldn’t shut down from being so pissed all week and I finally turned on Fraiser and fell asleep around 10:45. Not that Fraiser is boring…I love that show…but it’s what I watched until I fell asleep.

I might add I’m normally in bed by 9, but some nights it doesn’t go that way.

PS…..I woke up still pissed off and this day isn’t getting any better. 😦

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TBT

Posted in TBT on April 17, 2014| 1 Comment »

Check out this foxy lady. That’s my paternal grandmother at 16!

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All About Me

Posted in Me on April 16, 2014| 6 Comments »

After yesterdays post I realized I never showed off the pictures my cousin/friend/fellow photog Kristy took of me last Fall.

Let’s just say I am much more comfortable behind the camera. I was all nervous and doing the weird giggle I do when I am uncomfortable. But the thing was Kristy was nervous too!

This is the same ally from yesterdays pictures, but we took these pictures about an hour before sunset as where the pictures TNT and I took were at noon.

Me and my baby. Love this lens so much!

Pulled out my “smoldering” look. LOL Or what I think a smoldering look would be. I’ve never been good at posing myself.

And why did I cut my hair off? 😦

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Sixth Anniversary Pictures

Posted in Me, My husband, Pictures on April 15, 2014| 6 Comments »

If you’ve been around my blog for very long you know how much my husband hates pictures. Normally we only do pictures once a year for our Christmas card. But last Fall when TNT’s cousin and I met up for some pictures for her and I to use for our business she took me to this great ally. Ever since I’ve wanted to take pictures there with TNT. I’m sure you can guess how excited for this he was. When we got married our deal was if he smiled and behaved for our wedding pictures I’d agree to a wedding dance. Well he didn’t hold up on his end of the deal and so I have a bunch of pictures where his one eye brow is raised and his eyes half closed. After 6 years I decided we’d try again for some new pictures on the wall. Didn’t go so well!

I knew it was going to be a huge fight, but I don’t understand why he can’t just give a nice smile and then we are done! That’s it! But nope, “I hate pictures” and I”m going to be an ass the whole time is what I see/hear. So I set up the tripod and remote for this shoot. You be the judge of how well this went!

So this is the look I end up getting on his end. And then I look at me and realize my arm is as straight as a board. I constantly tell clients to bend that elbow, bend that knee and here I am straight as a board. Oh well. This one is SOOC.

Update: My mentor just told me this pose is very modely so the stiff arm is okay since my shoulder is turned. Who knew! LOL

I’m thankful for Photoshop because I pulled TNT’s head from another picture onto this one and then tamed my wind blown hair some.

At first I didn’t like the meters on the left, but we are in an ally so they kind of fit.

And I’m going to call this our best shot. I plan to print it 20×30 for my wall. As good as it gets I guess.

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Week in iPhotos 15 of 52

Posted in week in pictures on April 14, 2014| 2 Comments »

*Picking out an anniversary card for the husband and came across this religious one! I may have snorted in the card aisle. *Started on a landscaping project in the yard. *This week was beautiful and I worked on my trees one night. I hooked up the irrigation line and had a big leak. Pain to fix, but pretty in the sun. *I was looking on Pinterest for Easter dessert ideas and came across this one. OMG! *Molly photobombed my flower picture. *flower picture. *Thursday night I planted blue spruce trees and found this little wiggly guy. *One of 8 trees I planted. *Saturday we traveled to Central KS for a birthday party. We stopped in Salina and took some anniversary pictures in an ally downtown.

Out of order, but Friday I received a graduation announcement from one of my clients. Love seeing these! *Saturday night we had a fancy gathering for TNT’s Uncle who had a surprise 70th bday party. He had no clue. I got to rub elbows with a Kansas Senator and other State officials. I was important….I guess. 😉

Happy Anniversary to this guy. Hard to believe 6 years have flown by. Beautiful sky on Thursday night. In the 80’s and on Sunday it was 21 degrees windchill. 😦