When the going gets rough, write a blog post.

Well, y'all...

life is certainly not boring.

It's been one of those 

weeks where lots of small,

stressful situations

have all hit us at the same time.

But this blog is no place

to dwell on negativity, 

so I'll share some of the good

things that happened this week.

First, Z & I are trying to find

new/more things to do around here.

We know one of the baseball players

on a local college team, 

so we took in a game the other night.

 Then, I got a call from our favorite store, 

Trader Joe's.

When you take your own shopping bag

*at least at our local TJ's*

you get a raffle ticket.

Every so often they draw a name 

to spin the prize wheel & get a free item.

So in the midst of my crazy week

I got to spin the wheel & won some

free TJ's frosted flakes!

I also hosted

9 people from church for

a dinner/committee meeting.
The food was good
& my house is clean.

And thankfully the weather

has been lovely during the day

so I'm enjoying taking my

Mr. Wilson for walks 

around the neighborhood.

When I'm stressed, I like to try to 

do something productive, so I've 

been crocheting lots of new hats

& trying out new patterns & stitches.

I'll be posting some photos of them soon!

Dog Days

Left coast dog.

East coast dogs.

Obviously the east coast dogs are a bit more active.

Our Mr. Wilson loves going for walks, but is

perfectly happy viewing passersby from our front window

& alerting us to the arrival of the mail.

Ball is not in his vocabulary.

The east coast canines, Shelby & Abby,

belong to my folks and my brother,

respectively.

They are BFFs and salivate

at the mere mention of the word 'ball'.

Lovely, crazypants dogs.

More of the same?

So I realized that

I've been posting a lot
of pictures of flowers
and our backyard.

I suppose this is mostly
because I am at home
almost all the time
so that is what I see when
I have my camera handy.

I am going to try to
take some photos of
other subject matter
and welcome suggestions
and/or
requests from all of you.

In the meantime,

Here is a view of our living room
with some flowers Z brought me last week.

A couple of shots from one of our
three rose bushes.

Roses are nice enough to look at
(although certainly not my favorite flower)
but, being in charge of trimming them,
I must say that I have a certain
amount of disdain
for rose bushes
and their rather painful thorns.

And, of course,
our Mr. Wilson,
who, when we let him outside
to 'do his business',
finds a sunny spot and sleeps, instead.

(but notice he is currently cone-free!)

On another note,
at the end of the week
I will be heading back East
to take the comprehensive exam
for my graduate program.

I am excited to see family & friends
(and take some good photos along the way)
but also pretty stressed/anxious about the test.
So please keep me in your thoughts
& send me some good vibes on October 29.

Finally, please leave photo suggestions/requests
in the comments! Do you want to see more of
our house, food, random machinery?
Let me know...I think it will be fun
for me to work with a theme in mind!

Around (outside) the house

Just a few outdoor pics to add to
Outdoor Wednesday
put on by Susan
over at
A Southern Daydreamer.