Broomstick Parking Only

Here is my witchy front porch. These broomsticks are made completely for free from branches from my yard and ancient twine from my grandpa's woodshop.

Haha, get it....toad? hahahaha.

H-A-L-L-O-W-E-E-N-!

Ohmyheck.

I know most of my posts are about creatures in my yard, but guys, my house is seriously like a freakin' wildlife refuge or something. My worst bug related fear happened a short time ago. I have had more than one nightmare about these things in the past. I like bugs, when I was little I collected them in jars every day of the summer. I wanted to be an insectologist. They may give me a scare when they suddenly appear while I'm gardening, but then I see that it's just a bug and I move on, but this is the bug I am really afraid of. And it was in my house! It was a Scorpion. Granted, it was a very wee scorpion, but that didn't stop me from running to Cody, waking him up from the dead of sleep, and standing on a chair squealing in the next room watching Cody scoot it into a cup. Bleh.



I wanted it to be gone, for good, but I hate killing things. Just the thought of them crunching to death under a shoe gives me the heebies. That is why my yard has millions of snails. So....I decided to be a big girl, I actually HELD the cup the scorpion was INSIDE of and....walked it down to the end of my street (with a flashlight on it the entire time so I knew it was still in there) and threw it far, far into an empty lot. Yeah, I'm a dork.

Love you, Olive.

I lost my baby girl this week. She is very important to me and I am finding it very tough to deal with. I forgot how hard it is losing an animal that belongs to me and I belong to it.

Olive was such a good cat. She came running whenever I called her, she knew to never use her claws and teeth when playing with me and she was such a little love.

This really sucks.

Some might think that she is only an animal but she was my baby. My first "child" as an independent woman. I got her when I moved out of the folks house and she has been my partner ever since. I had plans for us. Silly but true. She was supposed to be my kids kitty and live til she was very old and wise.

I may sound like a crazy cat lady, but that's ok.
It's probably true. haha.

The worst part is not knowing what happened to her. I have lots of creative ideas that won't stop running through my mind, though. awesome. I'm sorry to go on about my cat like this. It's just so weird not having her around. Everywhere I look I see something Olive or cat related.
Oh man, this hurts.

Ok I'll stop.

I miss you Olly.

My birthday was in May...

And I'm just now setting up this beautiful b-day gift Cody gave me. Cool, no?

It's a photo mobile and it holds 20 pictures. I thought it looked best with all b&w photos so it's taken me this long to gather 20 black and whites. It looks very cool in my sun room and the pictures move around when the a/c is on. I love it. Thanks babe!

I Just Died

...For this photoshoot I found by Wildflower Photography. Why didn't I do this for my wedding photos? A.ma.za.ing.

Magic.

Ahh! What is in my tree?

I was sitting on my couch when out of the corner of my eye I saw something moving in my apricot tree out back. I thought it was a squirrel. I got closer to the window, I thought it was a cat, I got closer, and found it was a fox! I ran and got the camera and went outside, he saw me and booked it, but I did get some great pictures. He sat on my brick wall and let me get really close! Until he saw my dog lulu come around the corner. He ran fast. He must have thought she was an overgrown mouse.



I felt bad for scaring him away. He must have been hungry to go after my green apricots. I left out a bowl of water for him but I don't think he will be back. Lulu-belle must be terrifying.

Phoot Phamily Photo

Recently I took pictures of my sisters family's feet. Haha. It may sound strange, but I just love tiny little baby feet next to big giant daddy feet. So here they are.

Aria (9 months) and Adam (her dad)

Aivree (2 Years old) and Adam

The whole Family (Aria, Aivree, Aimee, and Adam)

Demons of the Lawn

I have a yard from Hades.

It is so much work to keep it up, and my work is never ever ever done. I am not a fan of outdoor physical labor as I usually get physically ill after only an hour of it. My yard is so beautiful but I'm finding it hard to enjoy because everywhere I look I see millions of weeds, or some kind of pest problem, an overgrown lawn, apricots that need to be picked, hedges that need to be trimmed, bushes and bushes of roses that need clipping, trees that need pruning.

Oh, and did I mention the weeds? I pulled a couple the other day that were about a foot taller than I am. I spend hours and hours picking weeds, and a week later, they are back. They take over everything. I love this yard but I sure am overwhelmed by it. It's taking over my life!
Anyway, now there's yet another issue. There are holes and mounds of dirt in the lawn and gardens, a new one every week or more. We thought it was a gopher or something, but then, as I was clipping roses, I saw something furry in the lawn... It looked like a weird rat thing. Turns out it was a mole.

Mr. Mole. It looked like he lost his ear somehow. Poor dude.

Eating some grass while awaiting his sentencing.

We let our animals sniff at it to see what would happen. It bared its nasty long yellow 2 front teeth and threatened to take Olive down. It was pretty ugly. We caught it in a planter pot and decided we only had one choice. We had to poison it. We put the rodent poison in there and 5 hours later I began to have regrets. After all, they only eat gross bugs and worms, perhaps he was only trying to help our over populated yard. Awww. Poor little moley. But alas, it was too late. Little moley was dying.
We thought our holey lawn problem was solved, however, this mole must have had a family who is now seeking revenge by creating a massive underground tunnel system. Now I walk on my lawn and in places, I think I am going to fall through. It's kind of... spongey.
Anyway, operation poison-the-holes is under way. Those yellow tooth-ed demons are going down!

22 Candles

Happy Birthday to Me! Ok this is a couple weeks late. But I am now 22 and Cody gave me quite a magical birthday.

There was a tribute to 16 candles.

A candlelight dinner.

A delicious Barbie Fairytopia Cake

And a pretty new mexican embroidered boho dress, and a perfect little play teepee covered in lights and filled with cute presents. Coolest gift ever! I don't know what I'm going to do with it but it looks so cute in my sun room. Cody gets an A+.

Nature is a Cruel, Cruel Mistress...

It's been forever since I did a blog post. I've been so dang busy working on my new boutique. I sit in front of a window over looking the backyard. Along with seeing Olive and Lulu wonder around out there, I see sooo much wildlife, it's crazy how much we have!

Sometimes it's pleasant. Just today I saw a little baby bunny hop in front of the window. Last week I saw a big toad in the same place. And there are tons of birds out there. But when Olive is involved it's usually not pleasant at all. Since moving here, she has become a wild hunter. She climbs trees and scales walls to get at birds. Last week she brought a bird into our bedroom and tore it apart. Bleh. Then today she chased in a BIG lizard. It ran behind some furniture and despite searching for an hour, I did not succeed in finding it. So there's a lizard in this house somewhere.

Anyway, every year a humming bird builds a nest on top of my hanging lantern on the patio. Now that I'm living here I decided to document it for my blog. We new she had eggs in there because every time we came outside she would hover around us and not leave us alone.

Here are the 2 tiny eggs.

Keeping her babies warm.

A couple of weeks later they hatched. Here they are just black things with little pokey feathers sprouting out.

As I said, everytime we would go out there she would have an attack thinking we were going to get her babies. It didn't help when I would open the window and stick my camera up there. Other than that we tried to leave her alone and not stress her out.

And then it happened. We went out of town, came back....and the babies were dead! It made me sick. One was upside down on top of the nest, and the other was on the ground. Mommy bird was not around. I came to the conclusion that mommy bird couldn't take the stress we were causing her, so she figured it would be better to just ...kill her babies and leave. It really does make me sick just typing this. Animals are weird. And I miss those little tiny beaks sticking out of the nest. Sad.

Happy 101 Award!

I got an award today! Yay! Thanks Randi! So I get to feel special and list my 10 favorite blogs and 10 things that make me happy. I read a LOT of blogs so this will be hard.

And so...
The Award goes to....
A Beautiful Mess
Aura-Joon
The Dainty Squid
The Bloggess
Rockstar Diaries
Geninne's Art Blog
The Pioneer Woman
S.T. Lewis
Bluebird Vintage
Elisa+Kevin=Elevin

Most of those blogs are super popular and will never even know they won this amazing award. Haha. They are all written by absolutely magnificent people, though.

10 things that make me happy:

1. Cody. Codycodycodycodycody.
2. My pets. Lulu and Olive are humans to me!
3. My Family! They are so important to me. I don't know what I would do without my insane, verbose, loud, obnoxious, beautiful sisters and genius geeky cute brother.
4. Food. Eating is one of the best parts of living.
5. Homemaking. Decorating makes me so very joyous. Gardening is satisfying to the soul. And I'm not much of a cook, but I make a mean salsa.
6. Photography. When I see something, I can't help thinking how I could photograph it. It's constantly on the brain.
7. Good surprises.
8. Making stuff.
9. Summertime - Camping, barefeet, swimming in the ocean, heat. It makes me feel alive.
10. Disneyland.

White Board Art

I drew this on a white board yesterday. No one better erase this masterpiece!

Wow. Just...wow.

Today I am overwhelmed by Casey O'Connell's freaking amazing art. How did I not know about this girl? I need to buy one of her paintings. This one is my favorite.

Yeah. I just died.

Photographia

Pictures I took today in my "sun room."

Bag Photo Tag

I got tagged! (Thanks Randi) I am supposed to show yall what is going on in my giant purse of magnificence. Enjoy!

Items Include:
My Beautiful Purse bought from my fav store Forever 21
Ipod in green ipod sock
Headphones
Burts Bees chap stick and Lipsmackers Lip Gloss in Celestial Strawberry
Hair Ties
Vinnie's Tampon Case - the coolest kind of tampon case one can own. It features a little dude named Vinnie with "Tamp Case" tatood across his knuckles.
The book "Pride, Prejudice, and Zombies" It's a good read and has pictures too!
Sun Glasses
Keys
Phone
A Spoon (That has been in there for-e-ver. It has proven itself handy. You never know when you will need a spoon)
Extra Gum - Polar Ice
Peacock Compact Mirror
Hair Brush
Best Wallet Ever/ animal print checkbook
Random receipts and grocery lists

This was fun! I tag...whoever likes tags.