St. Johns Reflection, originally uploaded by Tokenhippygirl.

This is another one taken with the iPhone at Cathedral Park this last Friday. Friday, by the way, would’ve been my dad’s birthday. He would’ve been 66. I kept thinking about him all day, and ended up playing a little bit of his music when I got home. Makes me cry to hear him, but then I’m so glad I have that. So glad I have him singing and playing his pedal steel, which he loved almost as much as he loved all of us. I miss you dad…. and I love you.

Seeds Anyone?, originally uploaded by Tokenhippygirl.

I just wanted to blog this since I’m finally feeling like it’s spring, and this is a sure sign of it. Ah… spring, I vaguely remember you from last year. Occasional sun… brilliant flowers… occasional sun. I love this time of year.

Oh my… we’ve had a weekend.  And, it’s not even over yet.   We still are going to head to the racquet center to hit against the ball machine.  This is after we hauled 80 cement blocks and another 40 slightly smaller cement blocks yesterday.  That’s unloading them from the truck and then stacking them.  We made four trips from the sand and gravel place to our house.  The pups came along for the ride every time.  I wonder if they thought… oh, so this is our life now.  Back and forth to and from this strange place, home, and then in the truck again.  Makes me laugh to think about what their reaction might have been, or what they might have been thinking.  Maybe they just thought… wow… what a great adventure this is… we get to go, we get to hang in the truck with them, we get to get loved on pretty much all the time we’re driving.  And we don’t have to haul those big blocks.  Not a bad gig.

Yesterday, drove to Nonna Emilia’s for dinner, picked up our new hot tub cover (the cover is new, not the hot tub), ran through Lowe’s purchasing stuff for the yard, and then came back home to unload said stuff, take a dip in the newly covered hot tub, and then watch a pretty good movie.  But I’ll get to that in a minute.

Today, ladies and gents, we got up, had oatmeal (so healthy, I know), and went to work outside.  Karen cleaned off the back deck, and did some weeding.  I cleaned out the Japanese garden, and then started to pressure wash the front deck.  We’re trying to figure that whole thing, the front deck thing, out after our major stain faux pas last year.  We’ll prevail.  I know we will.

April 6.   It’s tomorrow… well, it’s today, but tomorrow as opposed to the previous part of this post.  And… I’m explaining too much.  But there’s a reason… you see, I got up early this morning.  No, not my usual early.  I got up really early.  The alarm is set for 6:30.  It’s set that early so I can get up, get on the treadmill, and then have time to get ready for work (my work day starts at  8:30).  This morning, however, I said no to the treadmill.  First time in two weeks, but seriously… we worked so much this weekend I’m beat up.  I needed a day off.  So I’m like… woo hoo… I’ll just re-set it for 7:30 and get another hour of sleep.  Which I do.  So… it’s 7:30 and it goes off and Karen says… get me up at 8:00 (she decided to sleep in herself a little I guess and since she works at home, she can do that on Mondays… no early meeting).  I get up.  I take a shower and I’m looking at the clock in the bathroom seeing how much time I have, so I know when I have to make sure I get Karen up.  Then Karen walks in and she’s like… uh, it’s only 6:45.  I’m sure, and I mean sure, that it’s not.  I say… no… it’s 7:45.  She says… the clocks all around the house say 6:45.  I think… no way, the clock in the bathroom says it’s 7:45.  Then she turns the clock.  It’s actually a clock on a little stand, looks like a large pocket watch (pretty cool… thanks Mary), and sometimes it gets turned in one direction or another.  So Karen turns it upright and I see… oh no… it’s only 6:45.  Apparently the clock in the bedroom thought it was the time and date to spring ahead last night.  It’s on the old daylight savings time schedule.  Damn the old daylight savings time schedule!  At this juncture all I can do is laugh… and relax.  Now I have a lot of time to get ready this morning… drink a cup of tea, finish this blog, stop at the grocery store on the way to work, mail back the Netflix movies, and mosey on in.  A minute ago I was rushed… now, I’m calm and mellow.  The pups, however, are not into this early rising thing.  Weston was like… oh no… I’m not getting up, and he didn’t.  He burrowed himself back under the covers and is sleeping in the bedroom.  Riley… she’s right here, in the office, but she’s fast asleep in one of their little beds.  They think this getting up early is a bit ridiculous.   Who could blame them… so do I.

Now… back to the post.  We didn’t end up playing tennis on Sunday.  We decided we were too sore from all the heavy lifting this weekend, so instead of trying to swing a racket with really sore shoulders, we took the dogs for a walk.  Which was better anyway because the pups got to come along.  And let me tell ya… they love when they get to come along.  The walk was good.  It was actually warm out… really warm.  T-shirt wearing warm.  Nice.  The pup’s hair is too long though and they both got too hot.  We gave them water at one point, but on the way back to the car Weston decided he was done and he wandered over into the grass, in the shade, and laid down.  It was so funny.  He looked at me like… OK… this is it,  I’m staying here.  I actually picked him up and carried him the last 100 yards to the car.  He would’ve walked, but what can I say… we totally spoil them.  Plus… he didn’t look super sporty at that moment.  He just looked ticked off, hot, and was panting a lot.  Who can refuse a face like that?

April 8… Yes, it’s days later.  I saved this post as a draft and am just now finishing it up.  Sad.  I’m a sad excuse for a blogger.  Life… what can I say?  It’s more important than blogging.  Shocking?  Maybe.  But true… so… let’s get to it.  The blogging that is.

The movies… we watched a couple of pretty good movies this last weekend and one not so good.  We give two thumbs up to Seven Pounds and to The Secret Life of Bees.  Both, in their own way, good stories.  They were both also sort of predictable, but we didn’t seem to care.  Some beautiful cinematography, and some great what I like to call snap shot moments.  Times when the camera lingers on an image that’s stunning.  Seven Pounds, starring Will Smith, was the better of the two (the the reviewers on Rotten Tomatoes didn’t seem to think so, but oh well… it’s all subjective anyway right?).  Pretty compelling, well acted, and again… nice direction and cinematography.  The ending wasn’t a surprise to us, even if it was meant to be, but we didn’t mind being able to figure it out.   We wanted to watch anyway.  The summary… man loses woman he loves, man decides to help seven people, man has unexpected interruption of his plan, and then the plot thickens.  Check this one out… it’s good.  I don’t think it got the attention it should have.  As for The Secret Life of Bees.  It’s one of those feel good after watching it movies.  Plus, it’s full of really great women, with a few really great guys as well.  Well acted, and just a good feel to the film.  I can always tell when I like a movie because I watch what we call in our house “the stuff”.  It’s all the extras they have in the special features section on a dvd.  If the film is bad… I don’t care to watch the stuff.  Sometimes even when a movie is just OK I don’t watch it either.  But when a film is good… I watch.  I want to know more about the film making process, some of the background, etc.  Karen doesn’t ever like the stuff… but she actually watched it on the Seven Pounds dvd.  Trust me… that’s saying something.  The movie we didn’t really like…  Cleaner.  It had Samuel L. Jackson in it, but even he couldn’t bring it around.  Not terrible… just a tad boring.  Needless to say… we didn’t watch the stuff.

And so ends the saga of this late post… this after the fact post.   Whew… I feel better getting all of that off my chest… and out of my draft folder.   OK… now back to our regularly scheduled and on time blog….

 

Pups as Art, originally uploaded by Tokenhippygirl.

We went to the park, Cathedral Park, on Sunday. The pups enjoyed their walk, even though it was a little too hot for their longish hair. This is them, posing… well, sort of posing.  That would be Weston on the left and Riley on the right.  

Rising Up, originally uploaded by Tokenhippygirl.

One last photo from our walk in the park today. Yes, also taken with the iphone.

K, originally uploaded by Tokenhippygirl.

Two of the most important things in my life. My honey, and Riley. I love this photo.

Dry Drop, originally uploaded by Tokenhippygirl.

I’ve been messing around a lot with tone and color. This one was tweaked slightly toward the antiqued version of it’s former self.

The Bench, originally uploaded by Tokenhippygirl.

When I see empty benches, no matter where they are, a part of me always wonders who has been there before me? Since this bench was installed… what’s it’s history? We passed this same bench, on a previous walk in Cathedral Park, and a woman was sitting on it, holding her two small dogs. She and the dogs looked tired. Another time it held an older couple. Several times, several different people or combinations of people and their dogs or kids or other peeps, have occupied it as we passed. If it could tell it’s tale I bet it would be pretty darn interesting.  Man… am I waxing philosophical or what?

Monolithic, originally uploaded by Tokenhippygirl.

We went to the Home Show today. Two and a half hours of walking around, getting overwhelmed, and grabbing pamphlets. It was fun… tiring, but fun. Afterwards we headed to Noah’s Bagels on 23rd for a bagel dog. If you haven’t had one, try it. I’d recommend the asiago bagel dog. Tasty.

Following the show and the eats we went to Cathedral Park, once again, to walk the pups. They deserved it after being such good sports about spending some time in the car. We kept promising them… don’t worry, you’ll get a walk. We didn’t disappoint. Cathedral Park is a favorite spot for them… loads of good smells and such. Very entertaining if you’re a dog, and not too bad if you’re a human either. We all had a good time.

I took this shot standing under the St. Johns Bridge. I think I’ve taken loads of photographs of this bridge. I never seem to get tired of it.

Dusk on the Columbia, originally uploaded by Tokenhippygirl.

We spent a couple of evenings in the last couple of weeks taking the pups for walks around Cathedral Park. It’s one of our favorite spots to take them and now that Riley is old enough we can go more often. I love this shot as the sun was going down out past the St. Johns Bridge.