this little life of mine

Wordless Wednesday: Bathroom #photoadayjune

An unintentional retro-style lounge in the ladies room.

G is for Green #bloggingfromatoz

For today's entry for the Blogging from A to Z Challenge I'm on the letter G and chose to feature the colour Green.  We didn't get all that much rain during the regular winter season, but have been getting some late storms this spring and are even expecting some rain to show up sometime this evening and continue through the rest of the week! A lot of people are grumbling and groaning about it, sick to death of the cold, wet weather, and longing for springtime and sunshine, but I'm excited! For one thing, if it really does rain, and we get a good soaking, I can skip watering the front lawn and backyard plants for another week, which will save me some money. For another thing, I love how beautiful and fresh and green the hillsides have become since we've had rain. Here are some shots of the surrounding area I took on the commute home last night and early this morning.  Enjoy!

 

Cats and Dogs

For today's catch-up post for Blogging from A to Z, I'm doing C for cats and D for dogs. 

First up: C is for Cats. A few years ago we had our backyard landscaped. It's awesome, and I love it, but one of the plants they put in is cat mint, which is something the neighbourhood kitties apparently LOVE. There are two of them in particular that we see making the trek through our backyard stopping to rub their fuzzy little faces on the cat mint and taking little nibbles of it. One day they were both hanging out at the same time and seemed surprised to see each other. 

I loved watching this one kitty on the fence as he watched the other cat enjoy the mint!

Eventually the two hopped over the fence and disappeared into our neighbour's yard. A few moments later, the one with the big, fuzzy tail (the one in the grass int he first picture), hops back up on the fence and continues on his way home. I don't know what if anything  transpired between the two, but I've seen both separately since then, so there were no injuries sustained to either at least!

Next we have D for dog, and shot of my aunt and uncle's two pugs, Bow Wow and Trixie chillin' out on a Sunday morning. 

They are very cute, extremely sweet dogs, and though they are slowing down a bit with age, are still a lot of fun to be around!

Cheers!

 

Teaser Tuesday: Under the Never Sky by Veronica Rossi #teasertuesday #undertheneversky

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

•Grab your current read
•Open to a random page
•Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
•BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
•Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

This week I'm reading Under the Never Sky by Veronica Rossi. So far I'm enjoying it, but it's hard after finishing such a remarkable book as The Snow Child. Under the Never Sky is a good story and the characters are interesting, but the book itself isn't as lyrically or as beautifully written as the The Snow Child. There are so many short, choppy sentences that I was unable to find only two to share that would make any kind of sense, so I'm cheating with my teaser and sharing several sentences from page 73:

Aria tried cruising to a beach Realm. One of her favorites. She stiffened as the wrong images streaked through her mind. Burning trees. Smoke that moved like waves. Paisley's wide-eyed terror. Soren on top on her. 

Happy Tuesday!

Sepia Scenes: Vintage Valentines

Teaser Tuesday: Divergent by Veronica Roth

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

•Grab your current read
•Open to a random page
•Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
•BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
•Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

I just got Divergent by Veronica Roth from the library, so I set aside Nicky the nook so I can read the book and get it back in time. I've heard great things about this book - it's been compared to The Hunger Games!! - so I'm very excited to start reading it. Here's my totally random teaser from page 214:

She gets up and stands behind the members sitting in the doorway. In a second, her serious expression is gone, but I still feel rattled by what she said, half confused by the idea of Four being "nice" and half wanting to punch her for no apparent reason.

Okay, now I've piqued my own curiosity! Can't wait to get started on this one! 

See It Sunday: Shine

You Capture: Still Life (with Lemons)

New Art Wall Display

I finally got around to printing up some new pictures for my Art Wall. There are shots here from the Coppola Winery from last year's Rehab 2011 Napa Valley Wine Tour, Atascadero Lake and my own backyard. The shots were enhanced in Instagram, dumpr.net and picnik.com. Enjoy!

See It Sunday: Repeat

Award winning wine from uncorked at Oxbow tasting room in Napa, CA.