Guitars & Other Stuff

Very cloudy & cold today with the temp most of the day being in the high 20's ..... seemed like the perfect day to start making faceplate covers for all of our faceless light switches. I got several made before heading off to the music store .... the next step will be to paint them .... here's what one looks like now ....


So a couple of weeks ago when we had a flat tire by the dump, the guy that changed our tire told us about a Les Paul Jr. guitar that was found at the dump the day before and that it was worth $15,000! Wow! So while I was at the music store I mentioned to the owner that I'd heard this rumor about a Les Paul Jr. .... he took me into his recording room and pulled it off a rack and let me hold it .... is that cool! He said the guy that found it gave it to a guitar playing friend who brought it to him. The condition wasn't too great so it wasn't worth the full $15,000 but he gave the guy the pick of any guitar in the store for a trade and he has some very expensive guitars in his store. I was thrilled just to get to hold it. I'm really loving this small town stuff, everybody's connected in some way. On our way to the music store we stopped at the water company to pay our water bill and the lady said to me "so did you girls get your sister all moved in?" ..... which reminded me of the second time we went to the county assessors which was about 4 months after the first time we went and the assessor remembered our address ..... me "we'd like to find out who owns the property next to ours" ..... her "oh sure .... let's see .... you live at 72 Powhatan so which side of your property are you interested in" and then I mention that to Diana and she says .... "oh that assessor lady is our neighbor" I love that!

Played Backgammon last night and used my new bench to set the board on .....

The Bench

It rained all day today .... I love the rain because I can stay indoors all day and do things that I otherwise might not have done .... like make a bench ....

A Beautiful Day ....

to hang holiday lights .....

Holiday Lights .... the beginning

Another frosty start to the day with the thermometer at 28 degrees when I took this snapshot


You know what to expect .... you know what I'm going to do .... yesterday's post started it and now the tip of the iceberg is exposed .... every time I hang another string of lights, twist another rope light around a post, stick some path lights in the ground .... you will see it here. So stay if you dare .... run if you can because we just entered .... the holiday season!

So I got this really cool 11' extension pole with a sort hook at the top to hang lights with ....


So the first string is in place .... it's just the beginning :)


So I saw a little bit of this movie yesterday on IFC (independent film channel) and what I saw was pretty funny, so I headed over to filmous today and downloaded it for my iPad .... I love B movies

Storyline:
Recruited by the U.S. government for their unique ability to lie, cheat and fight, Amy, Max, Janet and Dominique join an underground academy of secret agents known only as D.E.B.S. These crime fighting hotties set out to save the world and keep their lipstick perfectly applied while doing so. Now the girls must combine their skills for their most important mission- to capture vexing vixen Lucy Diamond, the deadliest criminal the world has ever known. When D.E.B.S. star player, Amy, falls for Lucy, chaos erupts and the D.E.B.S. loyalty is put to the test.

The Long Shadow Season Is Coming

Dinner was great last night .... we ate at 7pm and it was worth the wait .... never have been able to keep it very traditional.
27 degrees this morning .... the storm blew threw last night without dropping any snow but everything was icy this morning ....

I don't think anyone played any golf today.

Seemed like a good time to start a little holiday decorating. This is the window in my studio ....

Between Walmart and Lowes I have acquired lots of LED lights to decorate the outside of the house along with some other cool stuff like candy cane striped rope lights, path bulbs and other misc. stuff ..... now if it would just warm up a little bit so I can work without mittens on I could get started.

You really do know that winter is upon you when your shadows look like this ....

Thanksgiving Day or "The Cake" Pt. 2

The pumpkin cheesecake .... the next day.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!!!!!! You can now be thankful that there will be no more cooking videos .... ever ..... for at least another month :)

The Cake

It's he day before Thanksgiving and I decided to follow Paula Deen's Pumpkin Cheesecake recipe with the help of the new Food Networks iPad Kitchen app .... here's the condensed 10 minute version of how I did .....

Sydnys Worm

Sydny now weighs 18grams! The first time we weighed her she was 10grams. She's starting to come out of the ground on her own and explore her surroundings but we need to keep her abode at around 85 degrees or she stays in a hole. Here's a little 1 minute video that Lea shot last night of her eating a worm .... I know we all love watching turtles eat worms :) What's really cool is that she's starting to hold eye contact and Lea captured that at the end of the video .... she has very pretty eyes.

The Drive

We pass by this motel every time we go to Lowes in Mountain Home ... today Lea said "stop and take a photo before it disintegrates and is forever lost in history" ... well .... those probably weren't her exact words but you get the point. So I obliged (of course) and made this rather nostalgic looking rendition ....


Other than Diana and Nanc .... I doubt anyone knows what the countryside looks like on the road between Mountain Home and Cherokee Village .... it's very farmlike whereas Cherokee Village is more mountainlike ..... we really enjoy the drive and we thought it might be nice to share a bit of it with you .....

The Leaves

In keeping with my self inflicted challenge to post a blog a day .... no matter what it is .... I present to you .... "The Leaves"

U-Haul Unpacking Day At Lynda's New House

After a little bit of head scratching John got the U-Haul backed up the driveway yesterday which made today unpacking day. It may not look it but it's a pretty steep driveway for a loaded U-Haul .....


By 3pm we were done and as you can see .... spirits remained high throughout the day with no resistance to the hard back breaking work ..... yea right :)


I think we're all going to be on the sore side tomorrow.

Lynda & John Arrive In Cherokee Village

First off .... here's the sunrise this morning .... it's a little hard to see but there was a low lying fog layer along the river ....


Poor Lea's been sick with a cold for the past few days, she hasn't been too happy about me taking photos of her during her sick days so in this one I cropped her out but she and the dogs were all cuddled up with tons of blankets on the couch .... here's what I could show :)


And last for today is another "home movie" .... I shot the drive down Lynda's road to her house yesterday (we went over there to air it out and do a little cleaning) and then our meeting up with them today at the Sinclair station in Cherokee Village which is the U-Haul rental place. John needed to return the car trailer so he could back the U-Haul up their driveway. No video of this but we were like a caravan from there driving down the road .... It was me in the lead, followed by Lynda, followed by Lea driving John's truck and then John in the U-Haul. Tomorrow will be the unpacking of the U-Haul day ... oh boy :)

Mr. Horrell's Furniture Store

Lea wanted a chest of drawers so we went from the park to the best furniture store in the county .....

A Walk In The Park

We took the dogs with us to town today and stopped at Loberg Park in Hardy for a little walk .... couldn't resist posting the video I took. It's over 9 minutes long and there's even a "Part 2" coming tomorrow .... so don't say you weren't warned :)

Rain and Cardinals in the Dogwood

We have a Dogwood tree in the front yard and right now it's lost most of it's leaves but it's loaded with red berries. For a while the Squirrels were eating the berries and they'd get kinda drunk like on them .... now it's the birds feasting on the berries. The tree is right out of my studio window so it's really a pleasant distraction to watch them.

Cardinals are hard to photograph because they have camera radar and fly away the moment you start to raise your camera but Lea braved the rain this morning and was able to catch a few seconds of the elusive Cardinal .... if you turn up the volume on your computer, you might be able to hear the rain ....

Some Assembly Required

The sunrise this morning ....


And then the big truck arrived with a big heavy box on this pallet and the zen like day was forever changed ....

We pulled as much out as possible to reduce the weight

Dragged the box with a cable around it through the leaves to "the cave" entrance" (easiest way with heavy stuff into the basement)

Laid some of the stuff on the basement porch

Dragged the heavy box through "the cave" entrance into the basement and squeezed it through between a wall and the stairs...


Started laying the stuff out .....



And by the time the sun was setting we had it put together ....


I bet you knew what it was from the very beginning :)

Saturday Morning

Yesterday ..... Saturday morning ..... the dogs and cat are still trying to sleep in, Alex was still covered in his cage, Sydney was buried, a college football game just started (Ole Miss and Tennessee) and Lea was the only one hard at work. I had just finished exercising and decided to pick up my iPhone and do a quick walk through .... here's what I found ....


Hopefully YouTube won't flag this because of the background music ... they have pretty tight copyright scanning robots .... we'll see.

The Birds 2

I'm totally fascinated by these vultures ..... on the ground they're so clumsy and kinda ugly (although I really hate to use that word because ugly is in the eye of the beholder) but in the air they're so graceful and beautiful. This is the second time that the gathering flock flew around our place and the second video of them. So this won out over the video I was going to post .... lucky you :)


Hitchcock would be proud :)

Flat Tires and Shop Workers

First off .... here's this mornings sunrise ...


So we had our oil changed at Walmart the other day and when they were done and I was paying they told me that our battery tested bad and we needed a new one. So this morning we had to go to the dump to recycle the cardboard boxes that we took out of Lynny's garage and were occupying way too much space in our car (we missed the Lions club recycle hours on Wednesday by 15 minutes). So we figured we could go to the dump recycle center and then go back to Walmart to get our battery ..... but .... we got a flat tire after coming off the dirt road to the dump. I've never been much of a AAA person but it just so happens that we joined before the moving trip out here. Wow ... it came in handy .... stuck on a lonely road with a flat. Anyway the roadside guy put on that little bicycle tire looking thing and we were on our way. We really needed new tires so we went to a local tire shop where they use men to change tires and dogs to check under the car ...... really .... I have proof ....



I just love Arkansas!

Clocks & "The Pink Bathroom"

So we went into Hardy today to visit a couple of our favorite shop owners .... one that writes me checks and the other that we write checks to ... the second being The Hardy Pottery Shop. We wanted some nice stuff for "the pink bathroom" since ..... it's pretty much done! We ended up getting a couple nice throw rugs and a couple of clocks. Here's the one I got for "the blue bathroom" ....
It's a fish and it has 2 pendulums .... 1 is a worm and the other is a sailboat (which is the one that's on there now)

I should have shot a close-up of the one in "the pink bathroom" but you can see it in this shot that I did to show off our progress ....

It's a turtle! I'll shoot a better one soon ... I know you can hardly wait :)

So now that everything's cleaned up in there ..... I'm ready for a bath ..... I've been waiting a long time to take a bath in that bathroom ..... so tonights the night ..... and when I'm done ..... I'm gonna watch the first movie on this :)

"The Egg and I"

Morning, Lea's Burl and Lynda's House

This morning from the deck ....


And from my "studio" ,,,,

Millie will hang out in any room that music is playing .... she likes my guitar playing ok but really loves Lea playing the drums

You may remember a few weeks ago that a Hardy shop owner gave Lea a couple of tree burls .... I posted some pictures of her power washing them off ..... well .... here's an update showing her carving one of them .... it's amazing .... it looks like a giant leaf!


And the greatest news of all ..... Lynda's house closed on Tuesday!!!!! John and her will be here next week! We went by the house today to start doing some cleaning for her .... won't need much, it was left in nice shape. So here ya go Lynny .... here's what it looked like today with a lot less leaves on the trees ..... it's such a cute house and the property is soooooo beautiful!



I made Toll House cookies this evening and they just cooled off enough to grab a hold of one .... if I could pass it through cyberspace to you ..... I would .... but I can't ..... so I'm going to eat yours :)

The "Pink Bathroom" and Holiday Lights

So we painted the "pink bathroom" dark purple, it almost looks black unless the light hits it right. We also regrouted the tile black and recaulked the bathtub (no ..... silly .... not black .... it's white). So here's a small section .... once it's all cleaned up in there I'll shoot a picture of as much of the bathroom as I can get in a shot.


At some point during the installing of the rock, one popped out so instead of replacing it with a rock .... I built a "PEG" into the hole .....


Every time we walk into that bathroom it gets more bizarre ..... we just can't seem to let it be .... but it will have good energy! :)

So Halloween is over and our yard was a HUGE success with the kids ..... they loved it! So now I'm starting to think about holiday lights ..... this is going to be fun. I know for sure that I'm going to invest in LED's to save energy and I'm going to put it lot's of hooks so I can hang them easier in the upcoming years. There's a website that sells lots of lights http://www.christmaslights.com/ so what I can't get at Walmart I'll have to get there.

So far here's what I like at Walmart


Yes that's a picture of the box on the shelf ..... they had their holiday stuff out the day after Halloween ..... kinda early but it's got me excited so that's ok :)

Wood & Millie Loves Ellie!

Here's the view from the deck this morning .... the golf course has been frozen every morning for the past few days ....


So yep .... it's cold but so far it's only cold at night and early morning. It was 27 day before yesterday, 32 yesterday and 32 this morning .... but .... it was 72 this afternoon! I love this weather!!!!!!

Our fireplace heatilator system works really good. There's 2 vents into the family room, 1 into the living room and 1 into the "pink bathroom" .... so .... we need to keep ourselves well stocked up on wood. This is me today looking like a mountain woman heading off into the woods with my little chain saw to cut downed wood ....


And when I was all done ..... Millie gave me a big hug and bunches of really wet and sloppy kisses ....


Kinda reminds me of this ....

Millie loves Ellie! Pass that on :)

Crystal Peak (not in Arkansas)

I recently came upon a container full of crystals that Lea and I dug up last summer on a mountain top in Nevada. It reminded me that Lea made a video of our day trip to Crystal Peak, so since I'm doing a post a day and I've been spending my entire Sunday working on my website (which I did manage to get a PayPal shopping cart up and working) I thought I'd post that video. Bobbie would say .... "I did nothing interesting today" which may be true ..... but if you dig around in your closet a bit you can always find something interesting to share .....

Sydny & Mammoth Springs

Last night, during feeding hour when no one was watching after the baby, Sydny managed to get on top of her Flintstone house (that Lea built). Problem was .... she couldn't get down. Lea came in for the rescue and Sydny hurried to get on her hand and off the roof. All was captured in Turtlevision for your Sydny viewing pleasure :) She's soooooo cute, we love her ..... and she loves Lea! And just in case you're wondering ..... all that yucky looking stuff in the green dish is Sydnys food .... it's grated yellow squash, worms and shrimp, sprinkled with reptile vitamins ...... yummmmmmmm!


Today we made our over the border booze run into Missouri and stopped at Mammoth Spring to eat our Sonic Burgers and take the dogs for a "nature hike" before heading home. It's such an incredible place ... so beautiful and so magical .... we love it there and it's only 18 miles from home. Mammoth Spring is a very large spring and is the largest spring in the state of Arkansas and the 2nd largest spring within the Ozark Plateau region. Rainfall in southern Missouri seeps into the water table and flows through a vast system of passages and cavities. These cavities form a main channel and the groundwater reaches the surface at the town of Mammoth Spring, Arkansas. The emerging water forms a 10 acre spring pool that drains over a high stone dam. The spring generates a flow of 344 cubic feet per second. The water emerges at a constant 58 °. The spring itself cannot be viewed at the Mammoth Spring site because its mouth is more than 70 ft below the surface of the large spring pool. The spring's large volume of water travels a few hundred feet before merging with the Warm Fork of the Spring River to form the Spring River headwaters. The Spring River is one of the best float rivers in the nation.

Here's Lea today with the girls doing their best pose in front of the spot that the water emerges ... note the white dog poop bag hanging out of Lea's pocket .... seems we picked up a habit that's hard to break :)


And a fact sign .... you can read it if you click on it to make it bigger


And last .... a photo I took on another day. It shows the water spilling out of the pond and becoming the Spring River ....


Don't worry .... there won't be a quiz on this later :)