Boo time is around the corner

and I have a new handmade decoration to add to the mix. I put together the adorable wreath below that my friend Nikki created as a class. Isn't this too cute?

It uses the super cute kids from the "Blackbird" line by My Mind's Eye. You can't really see it, but there is also a spider web stretched across the back and on the edges. I put this together last night while watching the Vikes ALMOST beat the Jets. So close, yet no banana. 

Snail Killings

Last Thursday, my darling husband and I noticed a large pile of snail shells on our back porch. They hadn't been there the night before when he had swept the porch, but gross enough, there they were. We kept bouncing ideas back and forth about what happened. He wanted to blame the beautiful bushy tailed squirrels who perform death defying leaps from tree to tree in the back area of the complex, but I insisted that these were not refined squirrels with a taste for such delicacy, no these are your good ole down home squirrelies. Dear hubby of course resorted to the internet to see if squirrels eat snails, which they do, but only in certain circumstances. The next afternoon we opened the blinds to find more in the same spot! Not as many this time, but now my hubby was adamant he was going to catch the culprit. Last night he came in from B.P.I., (Back Porch Investigation), to report that he had found a nut in the pile as well so it HAD to be the squirrels. Well, based on circumstantial evidence I was hard pressed to come up with a defense for my squirrel pals. Then this afternoon, we had a breakthrough in the case. The culprit returned to the scene.
Here he is, friends.....

Tell me that isn't the look of a trouble maker right there? It seems a relative of this cocky bird has decided that our back porch is perfect feasting grounds. He lands in the potted plants, hunts for his morsels, and then breaks them down, leaving the shells for the "help" to sweep up. We know this because he was brave enough to do so while my hubs was watching out the window. To add insult to injury, this meddling Mickey is also taking nuts that don't belong to him. Yeah, remember the single nut found at the crime scene? Well, it is believed that the once suspected squirrels buried the said nut in one of the potted plants on the back porch for winter keeping and this brat dug it out and moved it to his pile of shells. We believe this because he unearthed one today too. 

When dear hubby was telling me this revelation, my reply was, "You know what that poor squirrel is saying, right?"

No? 

"Stop messing with my nuts!" 

Taking a breath

I know it has been a moment at least since my last cryptic post. I haven't been creating much, so I haven't been inspired to blog. Tonight though I need to take a moment to open up. I am generally a pretty private person, not because I am selfish, but because I know we all have our paths to walk and I never really figure someone wants to hear everything I see along mine. My grandfather, the one and only who has ever come close to fitting that title, passed away unexpectedly this morning. I am sorry that he is gone, not so much because there is a loss in my life, but because I know that his wife and my mom are now hurting very much.

There is a natural order to life that I have never realized fully until today, but if life works as it should, each of us will be an orphan at one point in our lives. That is a harsh reality and may sound callous in this moment, but please do not mistake my tenor.

Tonight I am taking a moment to breathe. To inhale what is life and to thank my stars that I had someone who I could call "Grandpa" even if neither of us were ever sure what that was really supposed to mean. I am also thanking my stars that I have my parents for yet another day.

Safe journeys, Grandpa.