Sunday Bench
This is not my favorite. But it has to be included because it’s part of the greater bench vision. This is the Mary Tyler Moore bench. It’s kind of dark and simple. And there’s something about the colors that don’t mesh well together. I’m not sure if it had more to it at some point, but this is all I captured on my camera.
Surprisingly enough, there are still a lot more to come! I’ll be running out of bugs in 2 days, but the benches go on forever!

This is close up.

And this is from across the street. Still looks weird to me.
My Lottery Dreams are not looking good
Obviously I am going to have to earn money the old fashioned way. Poo. My tickets are losers (although the Mega Millions rolled over again—170 million—that’s better!) And my dream for even $35,000 is looking shaky. First off, I don’t have 35 tickets to input. And second off, I didn’t know scratch-offs counted too! I actually threw away some of those. I still didn’t have 35, but I would have been closer! Oh well, I guess I better buy the rest of my books and get ready for school. It doesn’t look like there is going to be any way around it!
So it’s Sunday morning. The kids are STILL gone. I was hoping to have them yesterday, but the plans got changed to something more exciting and they are still on vacation! Lucky ducks! They start school Thursday, so I guess they should enjoy themselves while they have the time to play.
It’s a broiling 84° already. It’s been hot every day. In the 90’s. It feels hot, it looks hot, it just makes you tired. Today it’s actually windy. Hot, dry wind. Like oven breeze. I hope it blows all the leaves off my patio, then I can scratch, “sweep” off the list! I’m going to spare everyone the actual list of things I need to do (but know that I have a good, long one!) even though it’s my sister’s favorite part of this site (haha). In fact, I am going to her house today for a Pampered Chef party. She’s making chicken! Or something. I actually do want to go because I want to buy this amazing pitcher I just discovered. It has a mixer right inside it! I know I’m the only lady over 35 in America that probably didn’t know about this already, but I don’t look at a lot of catalogs.
I was going to say that I’ll take a picture of it and post it later, but I just realized that I probably won’t have it later. I think I have to wait for it. Hmm. Oh well, if they have one on display I’ll take that picture. In the meantime, please enjoy this picture of our new coffee maker!!
We had to. The other one was leaking. And this one has a timer and auto shut-off. We paid $30. Big spenders! AND we went white this time! To match my beautiful toaster I received for Mother’s Day from my son. It’s especially nice because it has a blue display, a color that I find particularly soothing when I see it in the middle of the night, glowing brightly and casting shadows in the kitchen.
If you are keeping count, this is the third coffee maker we have had since the BF moved in. He brought a lovely, large, coffee making machine, with him. Then we had the black one you saw in pictures. And now we have this beauty. That’s four years and three makers. That’s not too bad.
Here’s the pic:
Dodge Challenger 11
It’s been a long time for me to find one on the road! Here it is, shiny and parked at the Arby’s! Less talk. More pics:
Cocoon Update! Soon to be followed by a Butterfly Update! (Real soon!)
Almost immediately after the caterpillars were in the milk container they began the process of making their cocoons. We had eleven caterpillars, and we have 11 cocoons. It is pretty amazing. It took them only a few hours to create the cocoon around themselves. And now they hang. Waiting. Time and temperature decide how fast they metamorphisize. We estimated June 18.
Follow the whole story HERE. (First posting)
These are pics of the caterpillars when we first caught them.
The SECOND day. What happened overnight?
Here’s the pics from a few days ago, below:
(These are the best I could get without disturbing them, since after all the trouble my neighbor and daughter went to making a place they could hang from, they just attached to the top of the milk jug.)
Dodge Challenger 9
Luckily, this one was sitting still. I have seen many in the last few days. Well, two parked at a dealer, and two on the road. So that’s four. I felt like the dealer ones were cheating. And the two that were driving I just couldn’t get my camera/phone out fast enough.
This one was sitting at the local park. Baseball game. The people in the lot most likely think I’m crazy, but it’s all for posterity.
Today is going to be a lot of driving—going to a party far, far away from my home—lots of chances to see another Challenger in its natural habitat.
How sad for me! I need a life! But, fingers crossed! Pics below.
These are so hard to catch!
I know, I know. But it’s only the second one I’ve seen and it was just sitting there. I didn’t take the picture if that makes any difference. (My son did–and he took a picture of a camper trailer too—kooky kid…)
It’s the Camaro. It’s at a dealer. And it’s black. Have to keep your eyes on the enemy.
(I thru in the trailer too, just in case you were curious)

Do we live in the country, or what?
Giant Spider. Giant. Spider. Giant. F-ing. Spider.
Eeewww. Yuk. Creeped out. Goosebumps. Hair standing up. Bleh bleh bleh…. Still.
I almost went into cardiac arrest last night getting up to turn off the light.
The LARGEST. The HAIRIEST. The BLACKEST. The CREEPIEST. Spider I have EVER seen in a house, was on my floor last night. Chilling and reading a magazine. I think I saw a cup of coffee in one of his hands? Claws? Pincers? Yuck. Yuck. And Yuck.
I’m no baby about wildlife. I’m not really afraid of spiders. The concrete slab we live on is full of creatures from the underworld that like to come topside every now and then to remind us that we are NOT alone. Fine. Whatever. But this was NOT a “spider”. This was a SPIDER. Like how a tarantula is a spider. Huge and in its own weight class. Yuck. Just typing it is making me feel all creepy inside.
Ok. So I see it, from across the room. Stop dead. Like not moving. I was immovable. Like stone. I barely looked at the BF to alert him to the situation. He saw it. You really couldn’t miss it. I’d say it was the size of a tealight candle. A black, hairy, tarantula tealight on my beige carpet.
Now, if you don’t think that a tealight is all that big and most likely not scary, try scattering a few of them around on your floor and then decide. And remember: It’s a spider. It can move. Fast. A hairy, black, fast-moving tealight. Yeah. No thanks.
I sneak into the kitchen so it doesn’t see me and get like, 10 papertowels in a bunch, to hand off to the BF. The BF made ONE step toward the spider and it just casually backed into the space between the TV and a speaker. Like, whatever, good luck, you ain’t getting me, I SEE you.
OMG! A spider with acute vision and brains. It’s like a damn hamster. Luckily it had no where to go except back out the front. The BF could see it from the top with a flashlight, just sitting there on the floor. The BF says, “If I just had something to coax it out with, like a stick or something…” Oh, OK. Good idea. I get the backscratcher. Straight, long, even has the curvy, scratch part you can use like a handle!
So the BF puts the stick down into his spider lair and holds the papertowels by the opening between the furniture. (I am way over on the other side of the room, by the kitchen door. I did go get a shoe to smash him with, just in case he made a dash my way, but I wasn’t looking to be a hero.)
I wish I was lying when I say the BF was literally, NUDGING this giant ass spider out between the two walls of the furniture. Nudging it like a mouse or a gerbil or a CAT. Yikes! I’m like, “Can you see it?” He says, “Oh yeah…he’s coming.”
What?!? Oh geez…it’s like pushing a fussy child toward the other kids on the playground. The spider had, like, 6 of his legs all locked down and in fighting stance while the BF is trying to push it out into the open with a back scratching stick that seems woefully too short at this point. The spider was holding onto the stick with his other 2 legs and trying to wrestle it away from the BF. Like tug-of-war, arachnid style. Thank god, I was not home alone. I would have had to go to a hotel or something. There was no way I would have been able to sleep knowing that spider was just hanging out, waiting for it to get dark, so it could come out and crawl on me. I’d throw it a sandwich and get the hell out of there.
Since this is real life and NOT a movie, the humans prevailed. The spider was overpowered; pushed into the light and squeezed to death in a wad of papertowels. I promise you, there was no way I was able to take a picture. I could not stop shaking from the heebie-jeebies. Trust that this spider was huge. No exaggeration. The BF is very level-headed and not prone to over embellishing a story like I might do….and even he said, very casually, “yeah, that’s a pretty big spider…”
So there you have it. A pretty big spider. Pretty dead spider now. I do feel kind of bad though. We had a large spider, (female, I chose to believe at the time–just a guess–nothing scientific), hanging out on our kitchen window. The outside. She had a huge web strung from window to house to eave, and she was just SO big! I felt that a creature that fearsome and strong, that could survive long enough to get that big, deserved to live and be left alone. I would just give the window a WIDE berth when going past to get in the back door. Those kinds of spiders jump when they’re startled and I did not want it jumping on me. Legs out, fangs sinking into my neck. I’d be dead before I even hit the ground from the shock. Mouth open, heart stopped, pants crapped. There wouldn’t even be a sound. She hung around for a few weeks and then she was gone.
At the end of summer last year, we had another large spider hanging off the free standing basketball pole/net thing we have next to the garage. This spider wasn’t so smart, though just as fearsome, and pretty lucky apparently. It was huge, but couldn’t seem to get the hang of stringing a web from the basketball pole to the garage. Too much gap. It finally settled on the garage gutter before it disappeared into winter. This one I took pictures of. I was scared the whole time but I think I captured it’s terrifying essence.
Keep in mind, the pictures are close-up, and against a standard roof top gutter. It is huge. It was huge.
But this one was still SMALLER than the one inside the house. If that was a quarter, again, the one in the house was a TEALIGHT. Wearing pants.
Take a big drink. Swallow. And peek through your fingers at these:
The Crayon Box
I tried to keep them in magical, Rainbow order. (ROY G BIV +) But mix them up if you like, they get kind of janky toward the end anyway.
1. Lil’ Red Riding Hood / Sam The Sham & The Pharaohs
2. 99 Red Balloons / Nena
3. Red House / Jimi Hendrix
4. Red Hot Java Blues / Matt Hendricks
5. Redneck Woman / Gretchen Wilson
6. I Saw Red / Warrant
7. Little Red Corvette / Prince
8. Red Red Wine / UB40
9. Red House / Buddy Guy
10. 99 Red Balloons / Goldfinger
11. Orange Crush / R.E.M.
12. Orange Amber / The Vines
13. Tequila Sunrise / The Eagles
14. Sunset Grill / Don Henley
15. Amber / 311
16. Mellow Yellow / Donovan
17. Goodbye Yellow Brick Road / Elton John
18. Yellow Submarine / The Beatles
19. Yellow Ledbetter / Pearl Jam
20. Green Cotton Dress / Correatown
21. The Green Manalishi / Judas Priest
22. Pale Green Stars / Everclear
23. Green-Eyed Lady / Sugarloaf
24. See Green, See Blue / Jaymay
25. Blue Sky / The Allman Brothers Band
26. Blue Letter / Fleetwood Mac
27. Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain / Willie Nelson
28. Blue Bayou / Linda Ronstadt
29. Blue Jeans / Silvertide
30. Behind Blue Eyes / The Who
31. Blue Denim / Stevie Nicks
32. Blue Moon / Sha-Na-Na
33. Devil Dressed In Blue / Right Away, Great Captain!
34. Post Blue / Placebo
35. Forever In Blue Jeans / Neil Diamond
36. Devil With The Blue Dress On / Good Golly Miss Molly / Mitch Ryder & The Detroit Wheels
37. True Blue / Madonna
38. Blue Jeans And A Rosary / Kid Rock
39. Blue Suede Shoes / Elvis Presley
40. Suite: Judy Blue Eyes / Crosby, Stills & Nash
41. Blue Shadows / The Blasters
42. Blue Highway / Billy Idol
43. Blue Lamp / Stevie Nicks
44. Gray Or Blue / Jaymay
45. Silver, Blue and Gold / Bad Company
46. Mood Indigo / Nina Simone
47. Don’t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue / Crystal Gayle
48. Violet And Blue / Stevie Nicks
49. Violet / Hole
50. Purple Haze / Jimi Hendrix
51. Purple Rain / Prince
52. Brown Eyed Girl / Van Morrison
53. Brown Eyed Handsome Man / Waylon Jennings
54. Brown Sugar / The Rolling Stones
55. Bad, Bad Leroy Brown / Jim Croce
56. Mr. Brownstone / Guns N’ Roses
57. The Boys Of Summer / Don Henley
58. Brown Eyed Girl / Everclear
59. Back In Black / AC/DC
60. Little Black Backpack / Stroke 9
61. Black On Black / Dalbello
62. Black Hole Sun / Soundgarden
63. Black Magic Woman / Santana
64. Paint It Black / The Rolling Stones
65. Black Betty / Ram Jam
66. Black / Pearl Jam
67. Black Eyed Dog / Nick Drake
68. Welcome To The Black Parade / My Chemical Romance
69. Black Dog / Led Zeppelin
70. Man In Black / Johnny Cash
71. Man In The Long Black Coat / Joan Osborne
72. Long Cool Woman (In A Black Dress) / The Hollies
73. Black Balloon / Goo Goo Dolls
74. Black Is Black / Los Bravos
75. Fell On Black Days / Soundgarden
76. Black Velvet / Alannah Myles
77. Black Horse And The Cherry Tree / KT Tunstall
78. Black Or White / Michael Jackson
79. Black And White Thunderbird / Britt Savage, Fred Mollin And The Blue Sea Band & Jaime Babbitt
80. White Wedding / Billy Idol
81. White Horse / Taylor Swift
82. Dirty White Boy / Foreigner
83. White Flag / Dido
84. Pretty Fly (For A White Guy) / The Offspring
85. White Houses / Vanessa Carlton
86. White & Nerdy / Weird Al Yankovic
87. Silver Springs / Fleetwood Mac
88. Grey / Amie Miriello
89. Pink Houses / John Mellencamp
90. Black & Gold / Sam Sparro
91. Gold / John Stewart
92. Heart Of Gold / Neil Young With The Stray Gators
93. Gold Lion / Yeah Yeah Yeahs
94. Gold And Braid / Stevie Nicks
95. Streets Of Gold / Needtobreathe
96. After The Goldrush / Neil Young
97. Almost Golden / Courtney Love
98. Sister Golden Hair / America
99. Gold Dust Woman / Fleetwood Mac
100. Bold As Love / The Pretenders
101. Karma Chameleon / Culture Club
Dodge Challenger 6
These were taken by the BF driving home from work yesterday. He says, “Sorry, not as skilled at taking pictures with my cell as you are, while I’m driving. Especially when I am doing 65 on the expressway.”
But they’re not bad. Check out the arty, side view mirror shot, looking back. Very “in motion”, and “moving fast” like.