New friend

I got home from work yesterday around 5 pm. As I got out of my car and started to walk towards the front door, I noticed a cat, obviously belonging to someone as it had a collar on, sitting by our downstairs neighbor's deck. 

She is a very friendly cat and was very insistent that I pet her and give her plenty of attention.

You'd think she was attention starved, the way she curled around my feet and refused to leave me alone. Of course, being the animal lover that I am, I crouched down and gave her the attention she so badly needed. 

This, however, was the reaction I got when I stood up to go upstairs. 

She was less than pleased. I honestly thought she was going to follow me all the way into the house. She was right beside me until I got to the front deck. 

Oliver was not happy with me when I got inside. He ignored me the rest of the night. I must have stunk of other feline. 

A night at the Gardens

We spent the night Tuesday at Frederick Meijer Gardens with my two aunts, Karla and Diane. They hadn't been there in a while and there have been a lot of new additions lately, and we have a lot of fun together!

We spent most of the night at the Japanese Garden, as it is the newest and fairly large. 

Here are Aunt Karla and Aunt Diane doing their best meditative pose. 

There is a large hill at one end that gives you a great view of the whole area. 

There is a walkway that goes around the whole garden. Along the path there are a couple little waterfalls.

It was a perfect night to wander through the gardens. Great weather, beautiful flowers, and fantastic company!

Pizza Enchiladas

What do you do when you want pizza for dinner, but all you have is cheese and pepperoni, but no crust? 

You use what you have available, which for us happened to be tortillas. 

A little sauce in the bottom of the pan, roll up your favorite pizza toppings and cheese in the tortilla and top with more sauce and cheese and you have pizza enchiladas. 

We did decide that the shredded mozzarella didn't give us enough cheese in the enchilada. Next time we are going to try string cheese. Just slice one in half lengthwise and put in with your toppings. 

They were really good and much better for my blood sugar than regular pizza! It's a win-win! 

Cute little frog!

Some of my shifts at work mean that I am there at 3:30 am. It isn't always fun, but sometimes you get to see things in the early morning hours that you wouldn't otherwise.

Like this little, tiny frog. 

It had been raining Saturday morning and this little guy was hanging out on the window ledge outside my laundry room. Luckily he hung around long enough for my to get a picture!

Mashed Potatoes!

When you have been craving KFC mashed potatoes and your wonderful husband comes home with KFC for dinner.

Thank you Mom!

Can I take a minute to brag about my mom? Not only did she help out so much with our wedding, but she has also taken time (a lot of it) to put together a wedding book for us. I am not nearly as talented at that sort of thing as she is. 

The front cover

The pages are nice and thick. No worries that they will bend!

And the back cover. 

I wish I could share the whole book with you. It is exactly what I wanted. But, since I can't, you will all just have to come and visit and see it for yourselves!

We can't thank you enough, Mom. We love you!

What a life.

The other day I found a cat tent that I had bought at Ikea a few years ago. Oliver has decided he likes it.

Too many books!

How is it time for school to be starting already? Didn't summer just start? I hope you all had a relaxing Labor Day. I had to work in the afternoon, but we had a nice quiet night. We went to my mom and dad - in - law's place for dinner. We hadn't seen them in a while, so it was nice to catch up.

I was supposed to be doing laundry today, and, as we don't have a washer or dryer at our place, that is quite a chore. So, instead of lugging the laundry down to the laundromat, I decided to do some decorating, rearranging. I'm not sure what you want to call it.

You see, we have a problem over here. We have a lot of books. We have two bookcases in our bedroom packed with books (some of them laying on top of other books because both bookcases are completely full) and another bookcase in the living room with more books and some dvd's on the bottom two shelves. 

Until we move and have more room for more bookcases, there isn't really much I can do with the two in the bedroom. So, they are staying the way they are for now. 

The bookcase in the living room, however, has some wiggle room. Instead of just having the books and dvd's thrown on the shelves, I wanted it to look a little more stylish. 

Here is the before:

The dvd's are on top and everything else is just kinda put on any ol' shelf that had an open space.

Here is the after:

It is still a bit fuller than I would like, but I am much happier with it. Someday we will have room for another bookcase!

Foul!!

Every year Andrew's work does an outing to the minor league baseball team in our area. Last Saturday was the day. It wasn't the best day for it. It was drizzly and wet for some of the night, but the temperature was down so at least we weren't sweating!

For the most part it was a quiet game. Our team had a hard time getting into the swing of things at the start of the game. They figured it out by the end, but we still lost 7-6. 

Normally I don't pay much attention to the foul balls that head into the stands. They don't come anywhere near us, so it isn't a problem. I am glad I paid attention this time!

I'd like to say that we have a great story of how we came to have this ball. You know what I'm talking about; he had to jump clear out of his seat and snag it out of the air with his bare hands, or it just about hit me in the head and he grabbed it at the last minute. Sadly, neither of those are true. 

The real story is much simpler than that. The turnout to watch this game wasn't as good as usual. I think the weather kept people home. So, by the time this foul was hit more, more people had gone home and the stands had thinned out. Especially by us. There wasn't anyone in front of or behind us. Our team hit a foul ball and sent it into the stands farther up than where we were sitting. It hit something and bounced down towards us. Andrew reached behind us and grabbed it as it rolled by. 

Not a very exciting story, but we now have this fabulous minor league ball. Fun, right?