Scribbles and Scrambles ~ So...Hope You Aren't Expecting Brilliance...Oh, Wait, You Probably Are NOT...

after all, you are here.

And in the total random style of my blog you probably never expect brilliance.

You will not be disappointed. No brilliance here, just keep on moving down the road, kids.

There was a long babysitting session on Saturday. My daughter is amazing and young. A good combination because, dang, as great as the kids were, the energy level was OFF the CHARTS. Not mine, mind you. 

A crazy thing....the puppies, with three kiddos and their huge nieces, Lily and Lola around for the majority of the day, had a PERFECT accident free day. Woot! Woot!

And the puppies were plenty pepped up, too. As evidenced by the fly-by crazy half face photo bomb. 

And since I haven't shopped for games lately, I was amused to see these two on the shelf. Doggie Doo and Pop the Pig! I may have to put those on my list. 

Scribbles and Scrambles ~ Long, Hot, Week that Left Me with A Total of1 Hour to Blog

However, I did write an article, and went to a going away party and a family get together and a violin lesson. I also spent a few dozen hours in the sun, or the rain with puppies frolicking amongst the weeds.

Here's hoping you had a good and relaxing week.

Scribbles and Scrambles ~ Hump Day Chillaxen

New trick. Able to puncture a water bottle lid for a DIY water fountain with one well aimed chomp.

Scraps and Snippets ~ Coming Soon to This Blog Near You. Vegan Recipes of Yumminess

Scribbles and Scrambles ~ First World Puppy Problems

 The pups had a busy weekend. They visited my folks place with me and saw a whole different world. The last time we were there they were wee little mites. This time they found uber things to explore. One of those things was traumatic. Oh, so traumatic. 

My mom and dad have this awesome collection of fun yard ornaments. One of those collections includes a Billy goat family. At one point we came around the back side of the papa Billy goat and Gertrude started a barking frenzy. I couldn't figure out what the problem was until I saw her focus. The goat. After strongly encouraging her to stop barking, I tried to coax her to meet the goat. She was having none of that. Her sister finally made peace. After Gladys's brave show and my tapping on the goat and getting tin can sounds she loosened up. A nose sniff and all was good. Crazy puppy. 

The other craziness? I bought a bag of treats that are banana. They love peanut butter and sweet potato treats so wouldn't they love banana? Not so much. Seriously. Like turn their little noses up and look at me like I've ruined their lives. I swear if they had opposable thumbs they'd be noting my failures in little notebooks for future visits to their psychologists.

Banana treat issue solved. 

And worse case scenario. I dumped the banana treats in with the peanut butter treats and now they are forced to taste the banana ones before spitting them out. Here's what I did. I melted equal amounts of peanut butter and honey (about a 1/2 cup each) with about a TBSP of coconut oil. Then I dumped all the treats in the bowl and stirred. I dumped that mixture out on a greased cookie sheet, baked it at 200 for an hour, stirring every 15 minutes or so. Then I turned the oven off, leaving the sheet in there and when they were cool I broke them up and put them back in the treat bin. Let's just say there is no complaining now.   

Scribbles and Scrambles ~ My Next Repurposed Project

 I shared that I was on a crafting mission and have repurposed some items that have been waiting for a new life.  I had one more. 

I didn't take a picture of the item in it's circa 1989 glory but wait for the description. 

Ready? Remember the sunflower craze? And the checkerboards with the decorative accents painted around the border? This tree board used to be a sunflower bouquet topped checkerboard. I painted the whole thing over and tried to come up with a creative idea to utilize the shape. A tree. Bingo. And a tree with birds even more BINGO! 

This was actually pretty easy to do. And it's going to look terrific on my wall. 

Scribbles and Scrambles ~ Pickle Dots and Skewishness...

Perception is as unique as fingerprints. And as convoluted as a blown up picture of the whirls and swirls of an thumb.

I had an amusing conversation with a 90 year old patient yesterday. She was a real sweetie with quite the attitude. She shared that she has a family member a few years older who has never been hospitalized a day in her life. But one doesn't ask how she is because that opens a flood gate of complaints. Even though she is alive well into her 90's and basically as healthy as it gets she is a miserable little thing. Had my patient known about Sweet Brown she might have said "ain't nobody got time for that!"

My patient then shared a little about her own skewed perception. She has failing vision and in certain lighting really has trouble. She was given a sandwich, chips and pickle slices one day for lunch. She had almost cleared her plate but for one stubborn pickle that just wouldn't cooperate. She leaned over and asked to use her grandson's fork as hers just wasn't cutting it. 

He looked at her. "Can I help?"

"No! I just need a better fork for this pickle. Besides what can you do that I can't?"

"Well, Grandma, I can see that the stubborn pickle is actually a decorative green polka dot on the plate." 

We both had a nice long laugh over that. 

After she left I got to thinking about my own perception. How many times do I miss the forest for the trees? Or complain about the minutia when I've been given so much?  Or chase green polka dots hoping that they'll feed a need?