Part Of Something Good

So, there I was yesterday afternoon, perusing Facebook and semi watching football, when I got a friend request.  It was from someone I didn't know, and we had no mutual friends.  I went to her page, thinking it might be someone I once knew but forgot I once knew, but didn't recognize her.  Still, she posted a lot of similar things to what I post, so I accepted her request.

Almost immediately, I got a PM from her.  She asked me if I knew how to get in touch with another friend, Betsy, because she thought she had Betsy's dog.

Betsy and her family had adopted Rocky about the same time I got Jesse.  The people at the shelter warned them that he was a runner, and they weren't lying.  Rocky has run away several times, and they have to go find him.  He's like the opposite of Jesse.  Rocky is a runner, and Jesse is velcro-- as in Mr. Clingy.

Anyway, this girl, Chelsea, had found him.  She tried to call the phone number on his tags, but for some reason, the call didn't go through.  When Betsy didn't answer the phone, Chelsea looked her up on Facebook and sent her a friend request.  Betsy ignored the request because she didn't recognize the name, and they had no mutual friends.  Next, Chelsea turned to me, because she had seen that I liked most of Betsy's posts.  To make a long story only slightly less long, I passed along Chelsea's contact information, and Betsy's husband went and picked Rocky up.

And that, my friends, is how a Mississippi girl helped a Missouri dog find his way home.

Except I'm still a Texas girl;  I just live in Mississippi...for now.

Back to my regularly scheduled weekend wrapup.

You know you work a lot when you consider a two day weekend as a "long weekend."  What did I do on my long weekend?  Well, for one, I finally got my new comforter out and onto the bed.

I'm not sure why I was thinking the set included a bed skirt, but it doesn't.  I'm going to have to find one, so I can use the space under the bed for storage.  I mean, I already do, but the skirt will help hide the junk.  Not that anyone goes into my bedroom, but still.  I want my junk hidden.  So, I'm getting a bed skirt.

Now that Cody has his own place, I think I'm going to move the curtains from his room into mine.  That was kind of the plan all along.  I'd bought the black ones when I first moved in, just to have something to cover that window up.  The plan here is to move the black panels into the craft/computer/snake room, and move his blue ones into my room.  When I figure out how I want to decorate what will be his room when he's here and a guest room when he's not, then I'll buy new ones to go into there.  You can see the blue curtains at the top of this photo.  I think they'll coordinate with my comforter just fine.

I got my mantle pieces stained.  They are gorgeous.  I wish you could see them in person.  Tomorrow afternoon, I'm going to put the polyurethane coat on them.  Then comes the hard part:  getting them back on the wall.  I can do this.  Really, I can do this.

Saturday, I painted that little bit by my bathroom door.  You remember where I had to patch when we changed the door frame out.

Today,  I had to go pay some bills in town, so I ran by True Value and got the paint for my ceiling.  Funny, it was one year ago today that I first painted the bathroom.  I feel like I've been in limbo for so long waiting to get that tree cut down.  I didn't want to spend a whole lot of money on house stuff, because I needed to make sure I could pay for the tree removal.  Now that it's done, I can finally get back to working on my house.

In the spirit of creativity, I picked up a whole bunch of paint brochures at the hardware store.  I just might let y'all help me pick out colors.

Won't that be fun?

A Day At The Museum

No, nothing came to life.

I'd been wanting to go for a while.  I even took a day last week to go, but GLF begged me to cancel it.  Well, they gave us a long weekend, so today I finally went.  Where?

To the Mississippi Museum of Art.

I got up and headed out with my handwritten instructions that I got from the website.  Turns out they weren't very good.  Add to that the fact that the road I needed to turn on was closed due to construction, so  I ended up having to eschew my Luddite ways and use my GPS to find the place.  But find it I did.  Finally. 

Once I got there, though, I really enjoyed the exhibit.  We weren't allowed to take photos, so I downloaded a few of the paintings they had there to show you.

I think this was one of my favorites.  

Duchesse de Polignac Wearing A Straw Hat, by Elisabeth Louise Vigee Le Brun

Jane Avril Leaving The Moulin Rouge, by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

There were two Monets

The Beach At Trouville

Nympheas (Water Lilies)

Monet did several paintings of water lilies.  It seems that it was one of his favorite topics.

And here we see Monet himself, as painted by his friend Pierre-Auguste Renoir.

There were, of course, other people in the museum, too.  There was one woman who had a teenage girl there with her.  Not sure if it was her mother or grandmother.  The older woman looked to be in her mid to late 50s, and the girl looked about 14, so I'm thinking grandmother.

You could tell the poor girl didn't want to be there, but the woman had apparently dragged her there to educate her.  The older woman was reading all the placards out loud to the girl, and I do mean out LOUD.  You could hear her bellowing all over the gallery.  The poor girl was simply mortified by the older woman's behavior, and was trying to stand as far away as she could without getting into trouble.

And naturally this woman knew absolutely everything about art.   She was acting like she was such an expert, but was feeding that poor girl a load of crock.  She was really getting on my nerves, but I nearly lost it completely when she bellowed

Yep, that's a Ree-nore.  I thought it looked like Ree-nore.

Yeah, an art expert who can't even pronounce Renoir. 

Before I left, I spent a few minutes sitting with Vincent.

Whovians will understand.

There were many, many more paintings than I have showed you here, but I couldn't put them all into the post.  Also in the museum was a display of absolutely gorgeous quilts, some Native American pottery, and paintings and photos about Mississippi, and the people of the state.

It was a very enjoyable trip, even though it was freezing in there.

After I left, I went by Bass Pro Shops, and was going to go to the mall, but it seemed that everyone in Jackson was also headed to the mall.  So, I just filled up my gas tank and came on home. 

And that's how I spent my day off. 

They said at work that we'd completed our schedule for the week.  I hope it's not this second housing bubble bursting.  I'm not sure I can make it through another 5 years of 4 day work weeks. 

No WIPs This Wednesday

Yes, I know it's Wednesday, and the day I normally post my WIP update.  However, since my knitting mojo seems to be somewhere in Barbados, I haven't really finished anything since last week. 

Something has Jesse's tummy upset.  He's been off his feed and today has had diarrhea.  I think it's all related to getting his heartworms treated, because since we did that, he's had lots of accidents in the house.  That's why I've put him back into his kennel while I'm at work.  I'm hoping it'll all clear up in a couple of weeks.

Anyway, he had diarrhea this morning on the carpet, and again in his kennel while I was at work.  So, after cleaning the carpet-- including shampooing it-- cleaning out the kennel and bathing Jesse, since he'd gotten it all over himself, I'm just too tired to knit. 

So in lieu of a WIP update, I give you this: