Keeping the shades closed today as there is a thermal property to them and last I looked it said it was -29 outside (that does not include the windchill).

So then, this morning, I started seeing sunlight on the shades and just had to venture a peek.

There’s is:

Sunrise, though anemic.  Not delivering a lot of heat today….so the shades are still down to help keep the furnace from running all so much. Maybe we will save a little on the heating.

Mandy: Oh sure, save on heat, but does she let me do my business inside…NO! She just yells at me, ‘Hurry, Mandy, Hurry!’  I will say that I am no longer taking my time out there. Dang!

Lemme: Hey Mandy, got a box for ya! Heh Heh.

Happy Wednesday!

 

The sun is coming…but will mean next to nothing in the weather department today. I mean it is good to see the sun and all…but…just sayin’.

So supposed to be even colder as the week goes on. Maybe breaking a record here. But then probably most of you all can commiserate as you are feeling the cold as well.

Mandy wants me to share something with you….

Mandy:  Pleeze put in plumbing for an indoor doggy potty station!!! (see my bathroom above).

Mandy:  Purdy Pleeeezzzzzuuuhhh!

You know, she goes out there and messes around when I am yelling ‘hurry Mandy…hurry!’ Then she starts spinning around and runs in without doing anything.  Only to have to redo the entire act 10 minutes later because she didn’t go.  I try explaining it to her but I am met with this:

which leads to this:

Then in a short time we are back to this:

Rinse and repeat.

Fidget: Mandy Schmandy, the litter box is a cats only facility. Heh heh…cats rule, dogs have to pee outside. Sucker!

Stay warm and Happy Tuesday!

 

 

Looking for that beautiful sunrise this morning but seeing nothing but clouds. Looking off to the left you could see the sun was up, but that is all I have been able to see of it. (below)

I hope the clouds ease up today and let the sun have a little face time.

A friend of mine sent us some photos the other day, THANK YOU!

Pretty cool, so I will share them.

These are my girls way back when.   Now they are 40 and 37 years old.  The oldest is holding Happy Bear (she named it).  Above is not taken at our house, but I can’t recall where it was taken.

And there is Grandpa Ralph with the girls.   He passed a little over a year ago – Ralphie we sure do miss you!!!

Here we are out hiking with a close family friend.  Youngest daughter shown here I believe and that is her God Mom in the Navy top…we won’t discuss the other person holding her hand, but Dad is bringing up the rear.  My guess is that oldest daughter is out in front with the person taking the photo. She might even be taking the photo…??

There she is! Over Dad’s shoulder.  Looks like it was a fun time!  Thanks again for sending the photos.

Today it looks like this, and we are hitting a very cold streak of weather. So we won’t be hiking for a while.

Mandy:  I am pretty unconcerned about it all most of the time however, my bathroom is a awfully cold.

Happy Wednesday!

Sunrise!

Not the sun…meet Mr. Moon.

Full moon last night and it was The Super Blood Wolf Moon Eclipse.  The lack of trees and city lights gave us a pretty good view, though I should have gotten out my good camera to capture it, it was very cold and I am pretty lazy, so I used my cell phone.

They came out ‘okay’ not great, so please bare with me here – there are much better photos and videos online.

Anyway, you get the drift. We thought it would be a little more dramatic but not so much at least from our vantage point.  Plus the camera doesn’t do it justice, but we did see the slow eclipsing of the moon and it did turn in color to more of a rust.

It didn’t start until the moon was pretty high in the sky and the night was very cold, like below zero, so we didn’t set up outside. It was in and out of the house all night to view it.

You could see the stars all around the moon, the sky was nice and clear. That is what the white dots are in the upper right quadrant of the photo.

Moving on to wild life around here….

Yes, the four legged kids provide some pretty wild moments on occasion.

This is Fidget who managed to find the automatic hand soap dispenser when he got up on the counter in the kitchen.  Since it is a definite NO NO!! I kind of feel a sense of justice in the whole thing, but am wishing I would have had a video camera set up.

I didn’t know he was up there until I heard the sudden crashing and yowling as he tried to escape the kitchen sink that the pump hangs over.

The photos were delayed due to a freaking out cat who thought he was being attacked by something wet and foamy.  I will add that no animals were harmed, but I did laugh so hard I nearly sprained something. (just kidding) Took a while to catch him so I could clean him up.  (Plus I had to get photos.)  I will also add that he hasn’t been up there since and I might get more of the soap dispensers to keep him off other places he goes to cause trouble. 😉

Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and a Happy Monday!

 

And now the Amazing Mandy presenting us with a new Yoga position:

It’s called the pissed off dog.

Mandy: It is so fricken’ COLD outside…how would you like it if your bathroom was 8 degrees below zero!

Happy Sunday!

Fire in the distance?

Nope – just sunrise!

Clouds are impeding the beauty, but we get to see a little of it.  That was pretty much it this morning.

Mandy, time to rise and shine!

Mandy: Ugh, Mom, so early. You’ve got to be kidding.

Mandy: Okay, okay, I moved, so back off.

🙂

Happy Friday!

Lemme always chooses the smaller box.

 

Fidget chooses the couch on Mom’s lap.

And….

Mandy is just ignoring me…hoping I won’t make her get up.

Mandy: Go away, Mom!!!

Happy Thursday!

Sunrise.  Something we have been unable to see for the last couple of days due to clouds and a very grey overcast sky, though it was warm for January in Minnesota.  And now we are in for an extremely cold spell.

Meanwhile:

My kids – living in Chicago are on vacation in Mexico and send me photos.

Nice.

Happy Wednesday!

New rug in the front room!  This is a big deal to one individual in our house.

Mandy was like…what have you done with my old carpet, I had it smelling just right. (yep that was part of the reason to give it up.)

And apparently she decided to take matters into her own paws.

 

Well Mandy, I see you are making it smell a little more like you…is it soft enough?  Is it going to pass inspection?

Mandy: Hummm…still deciding.

Mandy: Okay, not bad, nice and soft, but I will have to work on the lack of odoriferous dog odors.

So far so good with the new carpet!

Something else I will mention we saw yesterday:

Target just remodeled our local store.  There must have been some event or something because when we arrived to do a little grocery shopping this truck was pulling off the sidewalk and employees were directing it trying to get it out of there.

The weirdest part was who was inside….

I believe his name is Spot? Thank goodness he wasn’t the driving.

Happy Monday!

There it is! The view out my window…another day on the rise.

Looks like it is going to be a pretty nice weekend:

Not a bad forecast for a Minnesota January.  Been kind of a mild winter all in all, still no snow…makes me a little nervous, just waiting for the ‘other shoe’ to drop. 🙂

Mandy is two ears up these days!!  She was having so much trouble with one of her ears, I won’t even go into detail, but even a punctured ear drum.  She would keep the left one mashed down flat to her head all of the time.  It has taken us nearly a year to get a grip on her ear problem.  But as you can see, she’s listening with both.  So either we are saying a lot more interesting things around her, or it just feels better…good enough to raise.  Actually it looks a little odd when she holds her ears like that…I think she’s listening for the sound of Cheese, her favorite.

Mandy: And you know, cheese is pretty quiet, so it takes a good listener to be able to hear someone bite into cheese. I hear more than I let on.  TCHEESEIF

Happy Friday!

Uhhh….sunrise???

Nope, no beautiful sunrise photos to share today…that is fog.  Very cloudy from the upper atmosphere down to the ground.

Fidget: Not a spot of sunshine to lay in ANYWHERE. Yes, I’m grumpy….

About the most exciting thing happening the last day or two is that Mandy has decided to do weird things with her paws….like hold them like this…for no good reason.

Mandy: Boring me again, Mom.

Happy Monday!

Sunrise!

You can still see stars (planets – for you DH), it is such a beautiful clear sky.

A few light ribbons of clouds forming towards the top of the photo.

 

Good morning!

Coming to the end of the first week of 2019, well it is Friday…TGIF!

YaY! (The emoji that is supposed to look like me….;)  So weird.)

Fridays my husband works from home causing Mandy to be SO confused about where to lay…the office or the living room???

Mandy: Mom, can you please go sit in the office. I need to keep an eye on both of you.

Mandy: Compromise is tough…no bed, but I can see both of you from here when I need to. Just keeping my priorities straight.

Mandy: Or from here….

Mandy: We need a bed in the hall by the front door! You guys are making my life difficult.

Happy Friday!

Sunrise!

It’s all about the sunrise today!

It progresses so quickly.

And starts to take over the entire sky.

So vivid.

So beautiful!

 

Mandy: Yeah, beautiful.

Mandy: Is that all ya got today, Mom?

Mandy: Hummm….an even more beautiful sight.

Mandy: Now we’er talkin’ progression.

Mandy: zzzzzzz

Happy Thursday!

Sunrise!

Another beauty! Just want to mention that these photos are taken with my Galaxy 9 Note cell.  No enhancements.

Panorama photo above.

Winter is definitely here, but the holidays are over so the decorations began coming down.  The tree in the back yard is all snuggled in its box until next year.

Most of the decorations were put away inside but:

Yup…still up. We love the lights of the tree so it is getting one more week and then away it goes until Holiday season 2019.

The outside lights are still up, until the weekend as well. As it was pretty cold the last couple of days and we are hoping for a little bit of warmer weather (not with a windchill below zero), to take them down.

Mandy: Mom…

(quick stretch and yawn)…blurred sorry.

Mandy: You are boring me to zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz….

Happy Wednesday!

          Happy Birthday, Mandy!!!

11 Years Old! Waiting for her Birthday treat, still doing a mean tail spin and playing with her toys.

Of course there was a lot of this after all that playing – see below.

We love you more than words can express, Miss Mandy.

And

Wishes to all for a wonderful 2019!

Some of our kids come over to celebrate New Year’s Eve with us, which is fun. But let’s start with New Year’s Eve DAY!

Some snowing and a LOT of blowing going on.

Was also really cold outside, BUT it was warm inside.

Wish I would have thought to take a couple of photos before folks got here, but you can still see there was plenty of goodies to eat (and drink).

Games played, initial munching completed, we turned to Rock Band….a New Years Eve favorite.

Meet one of our drummers!

And our main drummer is below:

You go girl! 🙂

Because we moved in just a couple of months ago, the drums needed to be re-assembled, so we put our best people on that.  These are our roadies/techies….above.

One of the guitar players.

The other Guitar player.

Me…well….I tend to vocalize or do some drumming…occasionally both at once even when no one wants to hear me.  I am also paparazzi…if you want to purchase a photo of any of these famous rock stars, please let me know. 😉

Mandy: I am going to start a ‘GoFundMe’ page to purchase ear plugs.

Happy Tuesday!

and

HAPPY NEW YEAR!