Desert Road Trip

My awesome shoulder has limited my outdoor activities over the past year, but now that it's on the mend, Doug and I decided to take the quad out for a ride last weekend. A two-hour drive from our home gives us this:

I'm always just a little bit nervous watching Doug back the quad out of the back of his truck. He's a pro at it!

Every time we head up to these parts (between Globe and Young, Arizona on US188) we see something different. This time, the saguaro cactus were in bloom  and oh so pretty!

And speaking of pretty, these prickly pear cactus blooms were everywhere. I got a little too close to one of these bad boys and got a knee full of cactus stickers. OUCH!

~sigh~

Imagine our surprise after sitting on a rock for a while, me getting stuck with a cactus followed by drama, and then getting back on the quad and seeing a bighorn sheep sunning himself at the top of the hill. He was completely unconcerned with us, and I got a bunch of photos of him as he finally stood up and sauntered into the brush. It's so cool to see stuff like that out in nature! Of course, Doug paced it off and determined that the sheep was 76 yards from us. :o)

You can see Roosevelt Lake in the distance, between the canyon walls:

It's our favorite picnic spot - a great place to relax and unwind.

♥

How about you?

Do you have a favorite place to land for a picnic?

PS: If you "like" PaperTurtle on Facebook you can see a video I uploaded. :o)

Three-day Weekend Recap

What a fun and busy and relaxing three-day weekend we had around here!

Our weekend was spent doing things around the house, eating lots of yummy food, and even a little road trip on Sunday. I ended up with a bit of a sunburn {don't worry, Mom, it's not that bad}, two itchy bug bites, and a bunch of pretty pictures. I'll share road trip photos later in the week, but for now I'm sharing a few of the Instagrams I took this past weekend.

♥

Rexy was out and about quite a bit this weekend - must have been the nice weather...or the fresh cantaloupe...it's a toss up...

The weather was just beautiful, and we enjoyed grilled burgers outside on our patio Saturday night.

My girl C planned an impromptu road trip with some friends, so I did a little baking on Saturday so she'd have some snacks to take along. I made banana chocolate chip muffins...

And some little brownie bites. These were so yummy, and on Sunday I was sorry I'd sent so many of them on the trip with Carrie. {No leftovers were brought home either.}

Right about now you're probably wondering what I made for Douglas so he wouldn't feel left out, eh? Trust me, he had his fair share! I did make these little cherry pastries that were a snap to make. {I used Pillsbury crescent roll dough - laid in a muffin tin, a teaspoon of cream cheese in the bottom, a spoonful of cherry pie filling, baked and then drizzled with a simple glaze. Yum!!!}

On Sunday we took a drive out of town and had a picnic at the edge of our favorite canyon lookout. The weather was fantastic, company oh-so-sweet, and it was a really fun adventure.

When Carrie goes out of town, her pup comes to stay with us. Doug kept Marcus entertained yesterday afternoon with one of his favorite doggy activities - biting the water spray. Seriously, Marcus never gets tired of this!

Coming up this week? Busy, busy, busy at work which makes for a tired me at the end of the day. Tonight I have my final physical therapy appointment for my awesome shoulder {YAY!!!}. I still have a ways to go before my shoulder is "normal" again, but I'm getting there!

Wishing each of you a week full of laughter and blessings!

♥

Just a Quote for Friday

"Life's blows cannot break a person whose

spirit is warmed by the fire of enthusiasm."

~ Norman Vincent Peale

Sometimes it's good to be the only one.

{not my photo}

Last week I offered up my copy of "Thelma and Louise" in a pass-the-DVD fashion.

Who knew that DVD players are different in the UK?

Just one of those things I never even thought of, but hey, now I know.

Anyway! Not only has Alison not seen the movie "Thelma and Louise" {I thought

Carrie and I were the only ones who hadn't!}, but she also mentioned in her comment

that she owns a "multi-region DVD player" {she lives in Spain}. So...

Congratulations, Alison, you have won the prize. :o)

{I have your address so I'll package up your movie and send it your way.}

♥

When all else fails, do this:

Meet my friend, Carl.

Spunky, sweet, "take-my-picture" Carl.

This little boy was one of the guests at his grandmother's 75th birthday party where I took pictures last Saturday night. When I came home that night and uploaded all the photos, this shot was the last one I had taken, and when I saw it I laughed out loud.

In fact, there were several shots of little boys doing crazy things. I thought about doing a post called "Boys will be boys" but getting permission to use the photos of a whole bunch of little boys I don't know would have taken a while. Carl's mom graciously said yes when asked if he could appear on my blog.

I had fun taking pictures at that event on Saturday, and I ended up with some really nice shots {if I do say so myself}. My favorite out of almost 400 photos? Carl.

How many times during the day do you wish you could just make this face?

:o) ♥

Weekend Recap with Instagrams {as usual}

Hey there, blog friends.

I hope everyone had a great weekend.

Ours was a busy one, but we managed to fit some fun stuff in. Wanna' see?

* * * * *

Since weekends officially begin on Friday evening, this was my first weekend shot: my guy ready to break on the first round of pool with Carrie. I even took a few shots myself and the ol' awesome shoulder held up just fine, thankyouverymuch. I didn't want to push it though, so I sat back and watch D & C duke it out.

I recently participated in a Mail Art Exchange sponsored by the lovely Ginger of Ginger's Life of Spice {don't you just love the name of her blog?}. I received this super fun and pretty package from Jemma. :o) Very cool! {Thanks, Jemma!!!}

Doug spent his Saturday working outside and finishing up some things in the backyard. We've decided that we will most likely never be "done" with all the stuff there is to do around this house, but that's ok. We like it here just fine!

I did some grocery shopping on Saturday and I can never resist the pretty blooms they have in the flower department - which, by the way, is RIGHT at the entrance of the store. {Gets me nearly every time.} I took some pictures of these babies and plan to use them on greeting cards for my mom and Grandma this week.

Oh, Whiskers Jay. You are such a goof ball.

Sunday I was feeling blue because I have been worried about my mom. Carrie insisted on getting me out of the house and having pedicures. And she was right, it did lift my spirits.

Well, time with her, the pedicure, and the frozen {loaded} yogurt lifted my spirits!

I also attended a 75th birthday party Saturday night where I took photos for my niece's family.

I have asked permission to share my favorite photo - one I took of a

little boy named Carl who I just fell in love with. :o) ♥



Wishing you all a fantastic week!

Let us count our blessings, friends.

♥

Just because everyone else is doing it doesn't mean...

Here's the thing about me: I shy away from "everybody's doing it" type of things. Call it a bit rebellious...ugh...or maybe I'm a snob about stuff like that. I don't know. However I look at it, that little quirk of mine has held me back from jumping on the Project Life bandwagon for several years now.

In the three-plus years since I've been blogging I've seen my share of Project Life posts. I have always been struck by my blog friends who love this project, and their dedication to keeping up with it is nothing short of admirable. I was actually a little surprised when my own daughter insisted on purchasing the starter kit, and even more surprised that she continues to stick with the project after a few months now {sorry, Carrie, but you know what I mean...}.

Carrie's excitement over Project Life has been contagious. She managed to convince me that what I really wanted for my birthday was a Project Life binder and some pages to fill. "Ok, ok," I thought. "I'll give it a go."

Friends.

I love it!

I already have a few pages filled - still need to take some time for journaling - but I can already tell that this will be an ongoing project that I will continue to love as time goes by. It's kind of like coming home to scrapbooking again, in the most basic form. It's the pictures-and-notes-and-ticket-stubs kind of scrapbooking - an old fashion, basic, and awesome approach to documenting your days.

Look out. I'm on the bandwagon.

♥

Kind-of-a-Chick-Flick Pass-the-DVD

Doug was on a hunting/camping trip with his brother last weekend and Carrie and I made the most of our time together by planning a girl's night in with a chick flick and a bottle of wine. {It's cool having an adult daughter!} Our movie of choice was "Thelma and Louise" and we chose that because we'd heard that it was Brad Pitt's first movie role. While he wasn't in the movie as much as we would have liked, it was still worth watching.

We were determined to watch that movie, and when all attempts to rent it locally were exhausted, Carrie ended up ordering a copy from Amazon. What we have now is a copy of a movie that we enjoyed once, but neither of us cares to store it in our growing collection of DVD's.

My girl C had a brilliant idea:

Pass-the-DVD similar to Sian's Pass-the-Book idea.

Cool. So, if you've never seen this movie

{or if it's been a while and you'd like to see it again}

and you would like to borrow it, feel free to leave a comment on this

post. I'll draw a name and announce the winner next week

{on Wednesday, May 23} and send the DVD to you.

Sound like a plan?

PS: This movie prize does not come with a bottle of wine and/or

an amazing daughter to share it with. You're on your own with that. ;o)

Rexy's Home - The Atrium (Before and After)

I've had some questions about Rexy's habitat, and it's been a while since I've done a "Before and After" post showing remodeling progress around our house. So in the interest of time and my world of multi-tasking, I'm combining the two and laying it down...

The photo above is now, the photo below was taken just after we got the keys to our house {last August}.

This little ficus tree was in sad shape when we moved in. It hadn't been watered in over a year and we were back and forth about what to do with it. While it would have been nice to save it, in the long run we knew it would eventually grow too large for this space and have to come out later on. So we decided to take it out.

This space is about 6'x6', is screened in on top, and is right off the kitchen. The window on the left is my craft room, and the one on the right is Doug's office. Though this next statement will be obvious, I'm going to say it anyway for the record: Doug did all the work on this space. I stood back and offered my opinion, but he did all the back-breaking-shoulder-intensive stuff.

The window trim and corner pieces all had to be replaced, and there was a lot of patching to be done before Doug could paint. From the start I wanted white because I wanted there to be some awesome light reflection going on out there. It's hard to tell, but if you look at the photo below you can see that we have a strand of white lights going around the top of the atrium. It looks so pretty at night! And yes, that is a cat door leading out to the space but neither of our cats is interested in squeezing through it.

We were undecided what to do with this space, and then along came Rex the Turtle. We {Doug} sectioned off a space for dirt and a little swimming pool, planted some grass seed, strawberry plants and some daisies, and called it good for now.

There's still some potential for a few more plants and creative touches, but it already feels like a sweet sanctuary.

And I'm not the only one who loves it here.

♥

Mother's Day Weekend Recap

Good Monday morning, friends.

♥

If you're a mom in the United States, I can only hope that your Mother's Day weekend was half as good as mine. :o) My girl C treated me right from Friday night through Sunday - mostly by giving me the gift of her time. Here's a look at my weekend...

Doug was camping/hunting with his brother so Carrie and I had a girl's weekend. We started with dinner at our favorite Mexican food restaurant Friday night, followed by watching "Thelma and Louise" on DVD and Carrie sleeping over that night. Neither of us had seen "Thelma and Louise" before, and we did so on Friday only because we'd heard that it was Brad Pitt's first movie role. The movie was good, actually, even if Brad was only in it for about 5 minutes {and that was a fine five minutes!}.

All I wanted for Mother's Day was for Carrie to go to yard sales with me. We haven't done this for a while, and it's something that I love to do with her. Saturday morning we hit a couple of estate sales, a yard sale or two, and a farmer's market. We managed to find a few little treasures, including some vintage place mats and napkins, and these two little cookie cutters:

Carrie made dinner on Sunday night, and Doug made dessert - homemade ice cream from his mom's recipe. The first time I met Doug's mom she was standing at her kitchen counter making ice cream. ♥

Carrie gifted me a binder and page protectors for Project Life for my birthday, and Sunday I got started. I'm still thinking about how to share it on my blog, if much at all. In fact, I've been thinking about my blog and how my new job is really getting in the way of my former blogging routine.

And isn't that how it is with life in general? Times and routines change and we adjust in the best way we can. Between a busy work schedule, and physical therapy for my awesome shoulder two nights a week, my precious time is a bit tapped out, leaving time on the computer low on my list of priorities. I felt a little guilty all day yesterday that I hadn't put up a Mother's Day post in honor of my own lovely mom. She deserved that and so much more! Fortunately, she understands that things have changed for me.

But, it's all good.

Without change there would be no butterflies.

Spread your wings this week, my friends.

♥ 

Just a Quote for Friday

My sweet father-in-law on his 80th birthday last weekend {what Doug will look like in 30 years} A quote that reminds me of him: “The best thing to give to your enemy is forgiveness; to an opponent, tolerance; to a friend, your heart; to your child, a good example; to a father, deference; to your mother, conduct that will make her proud of you; to yourself, respect; to all men, charity."

Benjamin Franklin

Butterflies fly away {and the art of letting go}

Greetings, sweet friends.

♥

My regular readers already know about my butterfly project. Actually, it's not MY butterfly project, but rather a little off-shoot of a much bigger plan that you can read about here.

While I didn't meet my goal of collecting 51 handmade butterflies before my 51st birthday {I received 23}, I can't begin to express how touched I was by all the butterflies I received, and how much I appreciate those who participated and sent butterflies to me. Each butterfly was a beautiful work of art, and I was surprised {and admittedly a little disappointed in myself} that when the time came to bundle them up and ship them to the museum I really didn't want to let them go! I felt a little selfish wanting to keep them, but I knew from the beginning that I these were meant for the museum project to remember the innocent children who perished in the Holocaust. One and a half million children. So I set them free and sent them to the museum this week.




I had them all packaged up and ready to go to the post office on my lunch hour on Tuesday when I received an email from Cheri telling me that the one she had stitched "51" on was for me to keep. I was back and forth on whether to unwrap the box. I wanted to keep it! Wanted to hold on to it as MINE but in the end I left the box taped up and let that beautiful butterfly go to the museum with the others. {Big of me, no?}

Now, as I sit here this morning typing this blog post, I look over and see the tip of a beautiful pink butterfly {made by Annie} that has been buried in a stack of birthday cards and didn't make its way into the photo above or the box that's already been sent. {I'm so sorry, Annie! And now I wonder if there are others that are missing...} I will mail Annie's butterfly today and will feel a little pang of "Oooohhhh...I want to keep this for my own forever!!!" all over again.

And isn't that the way it goes with us humans? We hold on to things that are dear to us. Sentimental fools are we, to think that a little token completes us when really, that token was never meant to be ours forever. What will be mine forever is the sweet memory of each of these butterflies, made in honor of my birthday and my 2012 One Little Word, but most importantly to honor all those children who perished during the Holocaust who never got to celebrate turning 51.

I am blessed beyond measure.

♥

Edit: I just realized I didn't include Stephanie and her daughter's either! Oh what a hot mess I am!!! Sorry, Steph! Anyone else I'm missing? Please let me know. I know that Steph's are in the front of the cool book she sent me.

Also, I want to make note that Jacky's women's group made 20, and my non-blog-friend Denise and her family have made several. That, my friends, puts me OVER the 51 goal. Hooray for me! Hooray for all of us!

Rexy Boy

We should have known that it would only be a matter of time before I came up with a nickname for our new turtle. Rex is now known as Rexy - or "Rexy-boy" when he's being really particularly cute. {For the record, Doug still calls him Rex.}

♥

 ~ out for an afternoon stroll in the backyard ~

{This photo by Janae}

When Janae brought her 3-year-old-littles over, I quizzed them before they left my house. "What does the turtle eat?" They didn't remember. But when I asked, "What's the turtle's name?" Kiki sweetly replied, "Rexy!"  :o}

He's just so much fun to have around. He's clumsy and entertaining and...well...I totally dig him!

You would call him Rexy-boy too.

:o}

♥

Weekend recap from our house

Happy Monday morning, my friends.

♥ ♥ ♥

Phew. Now that was a weekend - packed with friends and family and oh-my-gosh calories. Come on in, I'll show you what I mean...

You know, my weekend always starts with Friday night, and this one was a treat. My friend Janae came over with her three-year old twins for ice cream and turtle time. This photo was little miss Kiki's sundae. She didn't want chocolate, caramel, whipped cream or a cherry - just lots and lots of sprinkles.

Whiskers Jay, enjoying the morning paper with Doug.

And speaking of pets, Rex is pretty much settled in. I took a bunch of photos of him this past weekend, and I'll share those later in the week. Here he is snubbing lettuce and carrots: 

My sweet father-in-law turned 80 on Saturday, and we attended a birthday party in his honor. Saturday was spent helping to prepare for the event. A friend of his {who used to be a pastry chef} made all the food, including these over-the-top delicious white chocolate cupcakes. I'll share more about this event later in the week.

Sunday was a whirlwind. We met my FIL and his friend for brunch, I did six loads of laundry, stuff around the house, and I squeezed in an art project as well {can't show all of this until it lands at its destination}.

This morning I am rushed and a little bit frazzled...reminding myself to breathe and relax in my head. I didn't participate in Sian's Storytelling Sunday this month as I knew I wouldn't have time to read all the lovely tales that others had posted. I'm setting my sights on Friday because next weekend I plan to relax and spend some time crafting with my girl C {it will be Mother's Day weekend here in the US}.

Wishing us all a fabulous week

full of blessings and laughter!

♥