Praying Mantis

I promised a picture of the Praying Mantis. Here it is. Not a very good picture but you can tell what it looks like. The wings are made from some sort of blade, the neck and back are made from metal shovel parts and the remainder is made from iron rebar. It's about 2 feet long. The strange thing is that it is so NOT me but I just love it!!! I'm not a big lover of "garden art" but I just had to have this. Now I just have to find the right place for it.

Yikes! Cold Weather!

I really wasn't prepared for it to be so cold when I went out for lunch today! I'm totally spoiled - there are days when I go straight from my house to my car to the underground parking garage to my office to my car to my house without really even knowing what the temperature outside is! Today is just beautiful, clear skies, bright sunshine and, I know now, COLD!

Spent the weekend with my mother in Warner Robins and she and my husband and I went to the Mossy Creek Festival, an outdoor craft festival which is held every spring and fall. The weather could not have been any better. Just cool enough to allow us to walk without getting overheated and just warm enough for my mother not to freeze (she's exceedingly cold natured - anything below 85 is cold to her!). Mostly just walked around and looked at things. I did buy a metal praying mantis for my garden but don't have a picture as I'm having to wait for it to be delivered. My husband is still giving me strange looks over this one. It's one of those "you have to see it" kind of things. Ought to look great with the blue and copper lizard I have hanging on the fence {grin}. I took a few pictures of some of the booths, etc. and didn't realize until we returned home that I didn't get a single picture of any of us! D'uh!! Now to see if I can scrap a page without pictures of us on it!

Plans are completed and firmed up for my trip to the Clay Carnival in Las Vegas in December. Now I've got to spend a few evenings making 75 polymer clay poker chips to swap with the other attendees. I've decided on doing inkjet transfers with an oriental theme (I know, I know, you knew all along it would be oriental didn't you). I wish they had decided to do ATCs instead of poker chips but we'll just see how they turn out. Cutting out 75 little circles. Making 150 transfers (1 on each side). Hmmm, maybe I should plan on getting started tonight!!

I Am SO Proud of Myself!

I am so proud of myself!! I won the birthday card contest sponsored by Ztampf. I worked really, really hard on the birthday card I submitted (shown above) and am extremely proud of it. And it was one of the winners! The prize is fantastic: Three kits of my choice free and a 50% discount on everything in her store from now until next October. That's pretty fabulous considering her designs are some of my favorites and are the reason I entered the contest. I'm really stoked.

Now I've got to get busy and get some new layouts done. But first, I've got to get some sleep so I can go back to the salt mine tomorrow.

Buffalo Wings

I have just got to stay away from those Buffalo Wild Wings!! I had them for the third time this week. I'm becoming addicted. We went Tuesday night because they're cheaper on Tuesday and we had decided we would go only on Tuesday night. Well, Gene had a club meeting Thursday night so where I do go to eat? Home? Not a chance. Burger Place? No way! Buffalo Wild Wings? YES!!! So would you believe we went there again tonight!?!?! I have no restraint. It's embarrassing. And fattening. And wonderful. Sigh.

Glorious Weather

Beautiful, beautiful weather here in not at all Hotlanta! The skies have been crystal clear and the light quality is amazing. Everything seems to have a golden glow to it. Nights have been almost cold and the days have been just glorious. Of course, I have to spend the largest part of each day behind walls 47 floors off the ground, but those lunch time trips out of the office are fantastic. And I'm seeing more sunshine at lunch than usual - two weekends ago they imploded the building directly across the street from us and it's amazing how much more light there is, primarily because you now see beautiful blue sky where once you saw dirty white marble. It wasn't a huge building, not nearly as big or as tall as the one in which I work, but it still filled up the space. Better enjoy it while we can, an even bigger building is going up in its place.

I just love the weather when it's like this. Warm days and cool nights. With lots and lots of golden light.

Troop 47 Retreat

What a beautiful weekend to spend in the north Georgia mountains!!

Our annual secretary's retreat (we call ourselves Troop 47) was this past weekend and the weather could not have been more glorious. We had a 4 bedroom cabin off of Aska Road in Blue Ridge, Georgia and it was fabulous, with a large, screened-in porch!

The view from the porch was fantastic, with a lake off in the distance and lots of beautiful mountain tops and trees to gaze at.

There were 7 of us this time, me, Linda, Bonnie, Sandy, Iris, Jan and Janice (Bettye had to cancel at the last minute). Friday night was really cold! We sat out on the porch with jackets and blankets and warm shoes for as long as we could, then finally gave up and went inside to the warmth of the gas log fireplace. Jan and Janice cooked hot dogs and hamburgers on the grill and we made little piggys out of ourselves. Saturday morning Sandy made French toast and we all sat around in our jammies being lazy. And we spent pretty much the rest of the day doing the same thing, except for the jammies part. Saturday night, Iris, who's family is from Cuba, made us a traditional Cuban dinner with pork loin, rice, beans and plantains. That girl can cook!! It was delicious. Fortunately, Saturday night wasn't as cold as Friday night so we all sat out on the porch some more and gossiped our little heads off. Sunday morning checkout time was 10 a.m. and it came much too early. But it was a fun, fun weekend.