Firemen Rock.....no pun intended here.....

I love firemen....they are brave and they keep us safe and they risk their lives for us and THEN they are so sweet and kind and rescue animals too! This is a heartwarmer!

Bad Iceland Volcano

Really glad we don't have a volcano here....they are kind of cool and pretty when they erupt as long as they are far away from humans unlike what these people in Iceland are dealing with and now the ash cloud coming over to Europe. Pretty much if you put any natural disaster to music and in slow motion....it looks cool and can drop your jaw from the incredible power of nature and then the reality sets in very fast of how awful it is and the people and animals affected.....sometimes nature sucks.....

Volcanic Eruption in Grimsvotn, Iceland May 21 2011 from Jon Gustafsson on Vimeo.

MASON!!!

I have no words on this one....animal spirit and human love....you go little buddy! You will be okay and loved much and spoiled......

So Lucky!

Found this video today of the Tuscaloosa tornado.....I can't understand what they are saying but they are sooooo lucky!

Mazzy Star, Cowboy Junkies, Radiohead, Zero 7, Counting Crows, etc

Totally forgot about Mazzy Star for a while and then I heard "Into Dust" tonight. That led me to a melancholy You Tube obsession of hearing some pooky music. "Into Dust" is one of my favorites and is so going on one if my Ipods. I like the video version I found that had the lyrics. Somebody put it together and it is cool. The rest of the videos are just the ones I like enough to post and that I was led to hear again. I need a separate Ipod just for this type music....

Then that led me to "Fade Into You".....another fave:

Which led to "Flowers in December":

Which led to the Cowboy Junkies "Sweet Jane":

Which led to Radiohead "Fake Plastic Trees":

Which led to Radiohead "High and Dry":

Which led to some Counting Crows "Raining in Baltimore":

Which led to Air "Playground Love":

Which led to Zero 7 "Home":

Which led to Zero 7 "In the Waiting Line":

Which led to Adele "Chasing Pavements":

Which led to Adele "Someone Like You":

Which led to Sting....YES....I said Sting...."Fragile":

And more Sting, "A Thousand Years" (this version done live on THE night of 9-11):


This could go on way too long......there are way too many songs like this that I just love and each one has meaning and reminds of certain times in life.....good stuff....

Storms

So many stories of loss and hope and generosity and love here in the south after the tornadoes. Don't know where to start or what I want to say yet. Just pray for all the communities here in the south that lost so much and for all the volunteers that are working around the clock to get them back on their feet. There are so many people her locally and soooo many from across the country that are giving so much....thank you....

Random

Really have nothing to say here.....just a random picture of the kids when the power was out during the storms....they were chill and snuggly!

Peonies

So continuing with the previous post and flowers....our peony went nuts this year! Could not believe how many flowers we got this year. We gave flowers out to neighbors and still have vases full of flowers! They smell like Heaven and are so beautiful!
Here they are before we picked them:

You can see just the first flowers and then ALL the buds in the background. Here is one of the peony and a bud up close. So many delicate petals and they smell unbelievable!

Here is the vase we had on the coffee table....can't believe how many we had....

We have a magnet vase on the 'fridge so they went there too:

AND more on the mantel......

AND more in the kitchen window....

Every year we get more and we are so grateful for them. God blessed us with a beautiful and colorful and smell good world! YEAH!

Wrought Iron Flowers

Every year we try and replenish the deck with fresh flowers. We try and buy flowers to attract our yearly hummingbirds. We have done bougainvillea...which is much loved but our favorite nursery closed its doors and can't find any that were as beautiful as the ones we found there. We have done the geraniums. They have held up but some summers here in the south it is way too hot. No matter how much you water, they just burn up on the deck which gets super hot direct sun.

Down the road from our house is a wrought iron store that has some really cool stuff. This year we started noticing their flowers. DING DING! A light went off. So tired of spending tons of money on flowers that were just dying sooooooooooo we did this:


We found the pot at Costco for $50 and then we were trying to figure out what to fill it up with to hold these flowers. We discussed sand and soil. Decided it was too heavy. As we were going around Costco we found recycled tire mulch....perfect! It was not too heavy but heavy enough to hold these flowers in their place.


We did get some geraniums to go around and fingers crossed they will survive once it gets really hot but if not.....these flowers aren't going anywhere!

Sutures and Abscesses

Oh yeah....it has been a fun couple of days. Buried further down in the blog is the adventure of Daisy May having emergency bladder surgery last November. Well the fun with that continues. Apparently when they do that kind of surgery, there are 3 layers of sutures. Not all of her sutures are dissolving. They are working their way to the surface and causing little hot spots on her belly. She has had 2 come through with about 3 or 4 more to go. She went through a round of antibiotics for the first one. Yesterday we went to the vet to check on another one. Thank goodness we only have to put Neosporin on it. It is fine. When I took her yesterday, LulaBelle went along for moral support.

I picked them up yesterday afternoon. On the way home, LulaBelle started freaking out and trying to get at her side. She was jumping all over the place and flipping around. I got to our place and pulled up by our mailbox. I leaned over to check her side and see what was going on and all I could make out was blood and pus (sorry....don't want to be gross, but it is what it is). I drove around to the house and handed Daisy off and zoomed back to the vet. Turns out Ms. LulaBelle had gotten bitten by something and it abscessed. The vet shaved that area and cleaned it out and now she has a hole a little smaller than a dime in her side. Had no idea it was there......she must have rubbed it up against the seat in the car on the way home and that made it come open (yuck)! So we went home with what we are calling the "cone of shame" and she has been miserable ever since. She does not like the cone and will just freeze and not move but it is the only way we can keep her from licking and biting at it. Took it off last night so she could sleep and I just kept an eye on her alllllll night. We did not sleep much. Daisy May was a good sissy last night and kept checking on her.....
First...."cone of shame":

Then Daisy jumped up to sit with her:

What you can't see from the picture is when Daisy jumped up there she put her paw on Lu's leg letting her know she was there....so sweet:


And today, my Mom had a great idea.....LulaBelle is now wearing her little fleece jacket that covers the bad spot where she can't get to it and we have been able to do away with the "cone of shame"! She is much happier and I also went by the vet and got her some pain pills. That should also help her chill out a little....

AND you can thank me for not taking a picture of the abscess....it is gnarly!!!

New Zealand Earthquake

You have by now seen all the devastation in New Zealand from their most recent earthquake. It is so sad.....keep saying prayers for them! But to me, this pic shows how incredibly strong this earthquake was.....I mean I can see buildings and houses coming down but to bend railroad tracks like this....that is crazy:

I Would Be So Mad!

Okay....granted...this is really kind of cool but NOT if you are behind the dang semi!

The Iron Lady

Meryl Streep is starring in a new movie, "The Iron Lady", about Margaret Thatcher. There is talk about how accurate it is but the only thing I wanted to show here is how Meryl Streep can transform herself....she is awesome! Would love to see the movie if it is accurate but in this political world....who knows....I will do a wait and see on the actual movie......here are the pic comparisons....Margaret Thatcher first:

Now Meryl....obviously looking a little younger but I didn't realize it was her...she is good!

Darth Vader

Come on! Of all the Super Bowl commercials....tiny Darth Vader was the cutest and then you find out about the kid playing Darth! For the love......here is the commercial with the follow-up:

Now here is the unveiling of this cutie-patootie! I swear he could be Meg Ryan's son before she had all the work done! Watch it...am I wrong on that one? But bless his heart...literally...he has a congenital heart defect and at the age of 6 he has a pacemaker.....soooo stinkin' cute!!!

XM Radio

I have an XM radio in my car. My fave stations are The Spectrum and Alt Nation. I have heard so many incredible bands that are not played on terrestrial radio. It is so sad that terrestial is so taken over by the record companies that original artists can't be heard. I just think the satellite option is incredible! There is so much great music out there that most people don't get to hear. I decided I would start throwing out some music that you might not have heard. I will do it in video format but don't worry about the video so much as hearing the music! I am throwing out songs I like to work out to and songs that just make me relax and music that just makes me happy and my toes tap! I hope you like....here are a couple of my new faves....

So stuck on Florence and the Machine..song is the "Dog Days Are Over".....just makes me want to dance.....loading this on the ipod for the elliptical....it starts out slow, but just wait...I also don't understand the video but whatev....music is great!


Read about Sarah Jaffe on the Whitney Matheson's "Pop Candy" blog on the USA Today website. Love the blog and she is really into new artists. Fell in love with this song, "Clementine"....


Ray LaMontagne.....love his voice and this song, "For the Summer". It is so peaceful...kind of James Taylor like but his voice is cooler....

And here is his other song that I am loving off his new album, "Beg, Borrow or Steal":


And then there are The Avett Brothers.....this is the first song I heard, "A Head Full of Doubt":

and this one,"I and Love and You":