Dawn's Lawn

My grass is looking nice and thick. But I'm not sure what type it is. I'm still thinking of going with the reel mower.











I think I have a holly tree, but the leaves are smooth. Is it a different type?


















I have a beautiful climbing rose.
It's been beat up do to the weather though.
Does anybody know its name?











This little shrub has cute little pink flowers on it. But it's getting crowded out. Anybody know its name?











Anybody know what type of pine this is?

Crape Myrtle?

I think I have a crape myrtle in my back yard. But it is looking sad.

One branch is definately dead, and I will cut it away.

I know a lot of people trim their myrtles way back this time of year. But I have also read where that is not a good idea.

I'm also concerned about the green fungus that's growing on it.

Another cute bird vid

Again, Sami is being her usual cute self. She just wanted to borrow my pen!

She gets a little camera shy at the end

"Caught!"

Home making

Just took a few pictures around the house. And my attempt of making a house a home.
We have a lot of work to do yet. We still need to finish painting the living room.
But I feel like I'm done with the family room. That's where I'll be spending most of my time anyway.
I'm not really sure what to do with the living room. A formal room would be nice. I'd like to decorate it Moroccan style, but I need to find the furniture.





I really like my kitchen. But even with all the space, I still have to watch out for clutter

I got a little gardening done yesterday. I put a small plant into a bigger pot. I trimmed my climbing rose that's along the southern side of the house. I had some pretty roses on it. But a rain storm beat them up last week. I also trimmed a shrub. And I got my bird feeder set out.

Painting

We got some painting done today on the house. We got the family room painted and part of the kitchen.
Quite a full day, and I'm pretty tired right now.
I only helped paint one time before.
My husband has never painted before.
We got off to a rough start. Including somebody's foot getting into the paint pan.
But I think it looks pretty good. The family room really needed a paint job. The walls were dirty.
The living room is probably next. The bedrooms can wait. The color is called "Toasty Tan". I think it looks more like a yellow cream. I'm hoping to have everything ready by my party next week. One other thing I wanted to point out. The blue bandana on my head belonged to my Mom. It has some paint blotches on it that are "Sundance Yellow". That was the color Mom and Dad painted the farm house years ago. I loved wearing it.

Awards banquet

I can't believe it myself, but I have been with the Walt Disney World Co. for more than 20 years.
My hire date was back on Feb. 11th, but the awards banquet was on Monday night.
It was at the Contemporary Resort. We had a very elegant evening. It started out with a reception with
hors d'oeuvres We had a lobster tail and steak dinner. There was live music. Then desserts and dancing afterwards.

The best part was that the banquet was for people who have been with Disney for 20 years or more. So I got to spend part of my evening with Barbara and Marina. They have been with Disney for 30 years. Barbara retired this past summer.
It was cool that they had a special presentation for two gentlemen who have been with Disney for 40 years. There was actually a third, but he wasn't able to attend.

House

This is it!

The left hand pillar is the corner of the house. What you see past that is the neighbor's

Best Overall Pumpkin!

We had a pumkin carving contest today at work.

And I won Best Overall!

Sally

My Sally Pumpkin.
If you don't know, she's a character from the movie, The Nightmare Before Christmas.

My pumpkin was mostly painted with carved details.
I cut grooves around the pumpkin and poked holes with a metal skewer. And I literally sewed up my pumpkin.

The whole project took twice as long as I thought it would. And it was getting pretty late.
And I just couldn't sew anymore. But I remembered in the movie, Sally had to sew herself back up a number of times. So I left part of it unfinished, and stuck the needle in the top of the pumpkin.
I had cut a hole in the back of the pumpkin to clean it out. I didn't just want to leave a hole where you could see my loose threads. So I took the circle that I had cut out, whittled and carved, and grabbed a few toothpicks.
And I had a Peek-a-boo Jack!

Some of the other entries

As I dropped of my pumpkin off early, I only got to see a few of the other entries.
I heard there were quite a few.

I don't know who the other winners were.
But some of the other catagories were
Funniest and Scariest
We had a Headless Horseman





















A group reproduced a Mickey VinalAnimation
















A Pumpkin King

















And Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter

Another project

Lots a little hats! These cute ornaments went on sale. A lady bought about a dozen of them and wanted them all personalized.

I set my pen next to them so you can get an idea of the scale. The ears are about the size of a quarter. So longer names can be a real challenge

Latest projects.

Just a few projects that I have done in the past few months.

The white ornament was from the other day. My guest wanted a ghost face on one side, and the date on the other. I have fun with the spider webs too.

The frame was from this past week. I did all the lettering and the decoration around it.

The pink ornament was a bit of a challenge. It had some yellow blotches on it. My manager thought I might be able to clean it up. So I wrote "First Christmas", and used lots of magic pixie dust and hearts to cover up the rest.

And politics aside, The Obama photo was an interesting project. This couple bought it at the American Adventure at Epcot. They wanted their names on it along with Walt Disney World. Interesting souvenir

The Chili Cook-off

On Monday, at work, we had a chili cook-off. I entered using my twist on my Mom's recipe. I didn't win anything, but I had a great time.

The judges were Vivian, Chelsea and Tim.

Vivianne is a resturant manager who attended Le Cordon Bleu (sp?) in Orlando.

Chelsea is a store manager who really doesn't really like chili.

And Tim is a college student, who, well, he's a college student.

The winners

Earl won first prize. His chili was made with smoked chipotle. I loved the smokey flavor and it had a serious kick. "It's making my gums recede." was a comment from an attendee.

M.J. won second prize.

And Annie won third prize.

I don't have a photo of Philip. He won "Cast Favorite". That was really cool. Philip is from Belgium. And his chili was only the second one he has ever made. He got the recipe from Food Network. It was really good.

The Awards

The awards were Mickey Vinylmation figurines hand-painted by Jorge. There is a fork and spoon on the ears. It might be hard to see, but there's chili stains on the fingers.

Beth sponsored our contest.

mehhh

I have now been awake for more than 21 hours.

I'm sure I can make it now. But it's taking a chunk of will power.
My husband is awake. I hope he slept well.

I heard the first mocking bird singing at 6:15
Working afternoon shifts, I usually miss that.
:-)

It's even getting tough to focus on my typing.
I'm constantly having to hit 'delete' to make this legible

I watched Fellowship of the Ring up until "Fool of a Took!"
I had to turn it off. Even though my favorite part was coming up,
Gandalf's battle with the Balrog
:-0

Dunno how many LTC's I made. Definitely not enough.
I'm thinking of turning the stamp into a personal traveler. But I have a load of those now.

Trying to decide what to do next to keep myself up and running.

Running out of options

Hitting the wall

It's 4:32 am. And I've hit the wall.
I knew this would be about the time it would happen.

But hey! I carved a stamp!
My first self portrait, not that flattering. But I think it conveys exactly how I feel right now.

I'll see how many limited edition LTC's I can churn out tonight. If you want one, you know how to contact me
;-)

I used scrapbooking paper in this. I've done this before. I like the way the paper inspires me.

I watched Return of the Jedi on tv. He's Luke's father?!
Nothing on now but info-mertials.
So I popped in a News Boys cd to get me by for now. I might watch a bit of Lord of the Rings later.
A bit more stamping for now