Tuesday, February 16, 2010

The Pharmacy

Project 365 - Day 26


Today's lineup ;(

Sunday, February 14, 2010

Happy Valentine's Day



Project 365 - Day 25



Lots of pink this Valentine's Day :)







Happy Valentine's Day to you all!  I hope you have a special day whether you have a valentine or not :)



Saturday, February 13, 2010

Under the weather

Project 365 - Day 24


My Dad got hit with a bad cold and now his germs have spread to me :(  Drinking some tea this morning helped a little but I think I may need to crack open the Robitussin. Fun times! lol

Friday, February 12, 2010

The Mouse

Project 365 - Day 23


Finally - the mouse story :)

A little background first:  We have always lived in a pretty suburban area and Timber has been an indoor cat his whole life (8 yrs) and never had a 'run-in' with a mouse until last winter (he didn't catch the mouse then either lol).  I set up a 'humane' trap using peanut butter, a cookie sheet, a brownie pan and a straw (sounds strange, but it worked!).  The little mouse went in to get the peanut butter and I closed the trap with a broom and out into the country he went.  Score: Jenn - 1, Timber - 0.

When we moved into this house last summer, we had a mouse in the house but didn't know it.  Oh, we found out quickly when my parents woke up to find the little mouse deceased on the floor near the bottom of their bed.  We thought "Yay, Timber did it!  He finally learned how to get the mouse!" lol  In hindsight, I think the mouse may have had a heart attack and that's what killed him because I'm now convinced that my cat cannot kill.

He was stalking our refrigerator on and off for a few days last week and he would lay in front of it, just staring underneath it, and would not move from his spot.  When he started doing that, we knew he was probably tracking down a mouse.  At some point the mouse ventured from the refrigerator to the kitchen food closet because we found a package of Nutty Bars that he had a party nibbling on.  Then Timber started to guard that closet.  Well, at some point yesterday afternoon the mouse got brave and came running out of the closet and Timber got him.  Then he dropped him.  Then he got him again and brought him into the living room where he proceeded to drop him on the floor and pat him with his paws.  He thinks the mouse is a toy!  Mousie got up, ran across the living room and under the TV corner stand and we haven't seen him since.

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Pizza night

Project 365 - Day 22


Made homemade pizza for dinner tonight. Funny thing is, I'm half Italian and my Mom (the swamp Yankee) makes a better pizza than me! lol

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Success!

Project 365 - Day 21


A 'falling feather' from my green cheek conure Emeril.  It looks like it is laying on some type of surface, but it's actually in mid-air.  The blurred (bokeh) background is a tall plant/tree in our kitchen.  I used my zoom lens which was able to take a closer-up photo than my regular lens, so as result everything but the object in focus (the feather) is blurred.

As of now, the computer reformat has been successful.  I've spent the majority of today reinstalling programs and moving files back to my laptop.  It actually feels good to have a fresh start with it....and it's a great time to de-clutter and get rid of old files I don't need anymore :)  I am still working on getting my emails restored.  I  use Incredimail for my email accounts and I have tried everything possible to do it, but I am left with the few emails that had downloaded into my box on Monday morning.  I emailed their tech support so we shall see what happens.  I'm just glad that I have my computer running and (somewhat) functional again!

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Birthdays and computers

 Project 365 - Day 20 (Monday)


First, I want to thank you all for the birthday wishes.  I had a great birthday and your words made it that much nicer :)  I got some great gifts from my family.  My big gift was a new TV (which I have wanted FOREVER).  I got some jewelry, nail polish (I used to be a nail tech, so buying anything for nails is always a hit!) a new wallet, clutch, and some other miscellaneous things for my 'office'.  My parents are so good to me...I don't think I could have picked two better people to have as my parents.  Even though I'm grown, they still take such great care of me :)

You probably have already noticed that I am a day late with this post.  I had some serious computer problems yesterday and got absolutely nothing accomplished.  My laptop has been running sluggish lately and I've been getting a disk check screen when I boot up, but I didn't pay much attention to it because the disk check would not run when I tried and then my computer just started up like normal.

Well, yesterday I put away my gifts and took a few photos and then sat down to upload them onto my computer.  I knew I was in trouble when instead of booting up, there was a blue screen with a bunch of error codes and something about files missing or corrupt.  It would not start up and load Windows.  I panicked because all of the photos and videos of my birthday were on my laptop and I had not backed them up yet!  By some miracle, after the 5th or so time rebooting it ran some kind of problem scanning fixing thing (love my technical explanations? lol) and Windows loaded.  I quickly transferred all of my photos to my Mom's computer through our network and was relieved that at least those were safe.  I lost all of my emails and some programs are corrupted, and after extensive disk scans and hardware scans I cannot figure out why my computer crashed.  It comes up saying no problems found.  I do not trust it anymore with irreplaceable information, photos, files, etc so last night I went to Best Buy and bought an external hard drive.  I am going to load everything from my laptop onto it, reformat my whole computer and see what happens.  I am not storing anything important on this computer anymore, I will store it on the hard drive.  I can't stand the thought of losing thousands of photos if this thing goes spastic again.

Now, the fun stuff lol.  Here are some photos from my birthday  :) 

Party decorations

My special birthday plate


I collect Bearington Bears and a few years ago I got this one for my birthday.


I love this book.  It has a ton of birthday and age-related quotes and stories.


My cake

Gifts

A close-up of the earrings.  I have wanted a pair like these for the longest time!

I am going to try to put up a second post later today for my project photo if I can use my Mom's computer for a little bit.  Cross your fingers for me and my corrupted laptop :)







Sunday, February 7, 2010

They say it's your birthday

Project 365 - Day 19



My Dad brought home this balloon for me yesterday and it was waiting for me when I came downstairs this morning.  If there was ever a birthday balloon created for me, it's this one :)  I had such a GREAT day today!  I will post more about it tomorrow (along with lots of photos!)

This is the backside of the balloon:

Saturday, February 6, 2010

1955

Project 365 - Day 18


This is an oil painting of my Grandmother on her wedding day in 1955.  It is hanging up near my desk and I enjoy looking at it every day.  It used to be hanging in her bedroom and when I was young and would stay with her, I always said how much I loved the painting.  She moved into a new, smaller apartment and she was trying to consolidate and get rid of some of her belongings.  She gave my Mom, myself and my cousins some of the things we had always wanted instead of having to leave them to us in a will.  I love the fact that I get to enjoy the painting now while she's still here instead of receiving it when she passes away.


P.S.  Betty - the mouse is STILL here as far as we know!  (I'll post the whole story tomorrow or Monday :)

Friday, February 5, 2010

Mouse chaser

 Project 365

My sleepy little mouse chaser. He spent half the day stalking a little field mouse that found his way into our house, then decided he had enough, curled up, and went to sleep.

Thursday, February 4, 2010

Flowers and snow

Project 365 - Day 16


Every year on my birthday I usually go shopping with my Mom and then we go out for lunch.  The weathermen here are predicting quite a snowstorm for this weekend.  Whether or not the snow will hit our area as much as they are predicting remains to be seen, but to be on the safe side we moved our shopping trip to yesterday.  While we were out, my Mom bought me a beautiful bouquet of flowers.  She was going to get them on Sunday, but she said she wanted to be on the safe side not knowing how the weather will be.  Oh, the hazards of a winter birthday lol.  I don't mind having them early...I get to look at them even longer :)

Here's the photo of the full bouquet:

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

My name is Jenn, and I'm an addict

Project 365 - Day 15




Went shopping.  Yankee Candles.  I will say no more.

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Birthday Week

Project 365 - Day 14


Birthday week has begun!  My Mom started a birthday tradition a few years ago.  One week before my birthday, she starts sending me special 'birthday' emails and e-cards and she does this each day until my birthday.  We call it 'Birthday Week'.  It's like a week-long birthday celebration and it's something I really look forward to each year.

Since my birthday is one week before Valentine's Day (and I get the joy of sharing it with the Super Bowl this Sunday) I got the bug to make some Valentine's cupcakes.  I'm about to go try one now...I'll let you know how they came out tomorrow.  However, if I don't return you can guess how they turned out lol.

Monday, February 1, 2010

Country living

Project 365 - Day 13


For the first time in a while I took a drive for the sole purpose of taking photos.  Lately I have just been bringing my camera with me when I go somewhere, but today I took a ride looking for a subject to photograph.  I ended up driving for miles down a long country road and for a while I had no clue where I was lol.  I passed by quite a few farms and took a bunch of photos along the way.  Cows and horses probably aren't a huge deal for most people, but for me who was raised most of my life in the city/suburbs, I get a little excited when I see them :)