Guys N Dolls.... Sneak Peak

It is finally here.... the week of the musical. We wait all year for this. I may not be doing a lot of blogging for the rest of the week. As soon as I get off work I am usually up at the school for dress rehearsals, with my camera of course. The kids get home about 10:30, go to sleep and then start all over the next day. The first photo is Caleb and his buddy Trent. Caleb is Sky Masterson and Trent is Nathan Detroit. This is so much fun!! Jordan is a mission girl and a hotbox dancer (in yellow). She loves to be on the stage but prefers to have non singing parts.
Here is Caleb and Lindsey (Jordan's best friend) who is playing Sarah Brown whom Caleb falls in love with and marries at the end of the musical.

From the time Caleb was in grade school age we knew he was gifted in theatre and voice. We have so many wonderful memories of all the plays and musicals that he has participated in over the years. I have a feeling that this will be an emotional weekend for me since this is Caleb's last high school musical.

For our family and friends that live close we hope to see you this weekend. Friday and Saturday performances are at 7:00 PM and Sunday is at 3:00 PM.

Happy Easter

Happy Easter Dear Friends and Family.
These photos are 2 years old. You may have seen them before but I thought it was appropriate to post them again today. Zoe is every one's friend no matter what type of an animal you are. This was Sundae, Jordan's beloved pet rabbit. Sundae no longer lives with us. She went to live on a farm when Jordan outgrew her rabbit days. Jordan loved Sundae. We allowed Jordan to have a litter of bunnies with Sundae each spring. Somehow we always managed to find homes for all the babies, even when she had 9 one year!!

Weird Object Friday

I'm not sure if you can call my object this week "weird" maybe more unique. And in honor of Easter this Sunday I decided this would be a good week to use this object. My Grandma gave this to me a few years ago. It a seashell with scenes of Jesus carved into it. I don't believe that it is hand carved. It looks to me like it might have been drilled. The top center is the manager scene and the bottom scene is the last supper. I'm not sure what the top two sides are. Some day I plan to take it to church and ask Pastor Ron if he can tell me.
It's very detailed and beautiful.

If you would like to see some bird photos that I took today head on over to my "Viewfinder" blog.... click here.

Hamster the Acrobat

This is the bruised battered and beaten hamster that I posted about a few weeks ago. I really did not think that she was going to survive. We barely saw her move at all for days. Slowly she has come out of her shell. I think it took her awhile to figure out that she was safe all by herself. In fact she has become even more active than the other one now.
Her favorite thing to do is climb the bars of her cage. I can't tell if she enjoys doing this or if she's trying to find an escape route. (Click to enlarge this photo and check out her nose and paws)
I think it's amazing that those little bitty paws and claws can grab like that.
Only problem is she doesn't know how to get back down so she crashes to the bottom all the time. It must not hurt her because she does it over and over.

More feathered friends

It's such a dreary rainy day. And I am sick. I have the worst head and chest cold and I can barely squeak a few sounds when I try to talk. Just a few days ago I was saying that I made it all the way through winter without getting sick... guess I spoke too soon. Getting through this cold I can handle. What I am worried about is Caleb catching this and the musical is next week. That would be a disaster. Jordan and Craig have both already had it. I suggested to Caleb last night that he should go and spend the rest of the week at Grams so he doesn't catch this but I don't think he took me serious. I'm just staying as far away from him as I can. I left work early to come home and take a nap but I couldn't help but spend a few minutes with my birds. They are coming in droves now! When I walk outside I get serenaded by the sweetest sounds. They are all over the trees just chirping away.
This finch feeder usually has a line of birds waiting for their turn.
This is a terrible blurry photo but I wanted to post it anyway. Can you see 4 different types of birds? A chickadee, a goldfinch, a downy woodpecker, and a white breasted nuthatch!

I love these little red breasted nuthatches but they are fast little birdies and I never get a good shot of them.

This is what I was most excited to see when I got home. Craig and I just hung this up last night... my suet woodpecker feeder and already Mr. Redbellied is enjoying it. I hope you are not tired of all my bird postings. I am just really excited to finally have some feathered friends.

Did you wear green today?

Happy St. Patrick's Day! I can't say that I am really that into this particular day. I came downstairs this morning and Jordan says "You're not wearing green Mom". No, why should I when as soon as I get to work I have to change into blue OR scrubs. I'm not trying to be a stick in the mud, it's just one of those days that I never give much thought to. Maybe if I was Irish I would think differently.

One thing I have found interesting is the dyeing of the Chicago river green on St. Patrick's Day. I think someday I might like to witness it as I only live 100 miles from Chicago but I probably never will. I can imagine the crowds are really bad in downtown Chicago today. I wondered how they did it and why they did it and I found this explanation on a Google search.........

"Chicago is famous for a somewhat peculiar annual event: dyeing the Chicago River green. The tradition started in 1962, when city pollution-control workers used dyes to trace illegal sewage discharges and realized that the green dye might provide a unique way to celebrate the holiday. That year, they released 100 pounds of green vegetable dye into the river—enough to keep it green for a week! Today, in order to minimize environmental damage, only forty pounds of dye are used, making the river green for only several hours."

Did you wear green today?

For the birds

This morning I saw 4 new varieties of birds in the yard and around my feeders; cardinals, mourning doves, blue jays and starlings. Things are coming along nicely with the birds. There have been about 4 of these little downy woodpeckers flying around this afternoon. And we have been busy all weekend finishing our bird houses/nest boxes. Craig did the sawing and assembling. I was in charge of sanding.

Here are the finished products. All except the holes in the front. Craig didn't have the right hole saw sizes so tomorrow the holes will be drilled. The far left is a robin nest box. Middle is a wren house and far right is the blue bird house. We made 2 of each.
Craig also threw this together for me. It's a suet woodpecker feeder. I saw one in the store and tried to explain it to Craig. I think he did a wonderful job on it.
And lastly I wanted to show you these. My parents were displaying in a home and garden show today with Mom's orchids and other house plants. After church I went to see them at the show and look around. There was a lady there that was selling gourd items. She grows these gourds herself and makes beautiful items with them. I bought these two. The long one is a bird house and the other has about 3 holes and is full of organic wool material. The birds pick out the wool and use it to construct their nests.

More to follow when we get the houses and feeders hung.....

The birds are coming, the birds are coming!!

A few weeks back I reported about what a failure I was at attracting birds to my yard. I've been giving it my best shot and it is starting to pay off. Very slowly..... the birds are starting to come. I've had my feeders up for several weeks and just 2 days ago I saw my first bird. Woo Hoo!! And even though they are still really sparse I am happy with the variety I have seen. Just today I have seen robins, red breasted nuthatch, white breasted nuthatch, chickadee, goldfinch, house finch, and even downy woodpeckers and red bellied woodpeckers. I sat at the kitchen table today with the binoculars really enjoying the scene. I'm hoping that the few birds that are around will start spreading the word.
This little goldfinch was the only fellow that allowed me to photograph him. I'll get the rest of you little birdies, you just wait and see.

Craig helped me make our first bird house this morning too. I was really happy with it. I'll show you tomorrow what we came up with. We are getting ready to go back out into the garage to tackle a few more.

Jordan had her oboe state solo judging this afternoon. It was almost a disaster. We were already in the car on the way there and I asked her if she had the judges copy of her music. All I got was silence..... Apparently, she never got the original copy back from the district judge. This is a problem as the judges will only accept original copies of music and not photo copies. To make a long story short she was nearly disqualified. The judge was not happy and expressed his displeasure but under the circumstances he allowed Jordan to proceed. Alls well that ends well. Jordan received a 1 rating, the best you can get and proudly walked out with her division 1 metal.

Chapel in the Pines

I know I said I was done with vacation posts but I wanted to show you all the "Chapel in the Pines". It really moved me. This is a tiny little log cabin chapel in the middle of the old growth white pine forest at Hartwick Pines in Grayling. It was quite a hike to get there especially as cold as it was that day. I was aware of the chapel from reading about it at the welcome center but I figured there was no way that we were going to end up walking all the way back there to see it. We started on what I thought was going to be our short little walk and before long signs were telling us it was just ahead. I really wanted to see it so we proceeded on. Apparently someone anonymously donated the materials back in the 50's for this charming little chapel. It looked like it couldn't seat more than 15 people
It only had one window in the shape of a cross. Below the cross was the most amazing plaque inscribed with a nature prayer. I stood there reading the prayer and when I was done I had to compose myself before I could utter a word. I wonder how many others have had the same experience that I had there. It really was a gift.
As Craig and I were walking away I said "Craig, I want to get married there.... Oh yea, I'm already married".

"Nature's Prayer"
Our Heavenly Father Creator of all that is nature. We humbly come to you in the midst of nature's splendor to thank you that as Americans we are free to worship as we please, work as we please, and move about as we please to enjoy all that is nature....It's mountains, it's hills, it's valleys, it's lakes, it's streams, and the living things that dwell therein; We pray unto you that someday the world may be at peace and all men be free to enjoy nature's abundance. We ask you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ that we be guided to protect this priceless heritage which we in America are privileged to enjoy. Amen

A sure sign of spring

My Dad told me that he saw a Robin a few weeks ago. I found it hard to believe that he had seen one this early but today I saw my first one. It was in the courtyard of the hospital (seems like a lot of birds are visiting me there lately). I never really liked robins much. I guess because they are so common that they are easy to take for granted. Even if I do nothing to attract birds a robin will be in the yard. But... I've decided to like robins this year just for that reason. Because no matter what a robin is always there to greet me. And the Michigan state bird is the robin so I should like him!

I didn't take this photo. I stole it off the Internet. But I'm sure soon robins will be allowing me some photo opportunities.

Craig returned home late last night from California and we are glad he's home!! He made the comment that he hasn't been home on a weekend in 4 weeks in a row. He's done traveling for a while.... Woo Hoo! We are celebrating with pizza tonight!!

Profile Photo

I was leaving a few comments this morning and noticed that my profile photo was missing. It was a pine tree that I had gotten off a google search a long time ago. I don't know what happened to it but when I logged into my settings it said the photo was invalid. I figured this was a good time to switch to a more personal photo, one of my own. I used my current favorite of the chickadee in Jordan's hand. So if you see a chickadee on your comments it's still me!! :-)

Jordan's Portrait.

I'm not sure how well this will show up but I wanted to post this. I posted about this portrait of Jordan before. Jordan has been very good friends with a special someone named Emily since they were 3 years old. Through the years she has become a very talented artist. She did this portrait of Jordan in chalks and gave it to Jordan as a gift to her for her 16th birthday. Emily's family had it professionally framed and we are just now getting it hung. It is in Jordan's room. I love the sayings across the top. It is so Jordan.... we love it!

The Old House

I took a drive today just so I could take pictures of this old house. It's located about 5 miles from my house on a dirt road way out in the country. It sits all by itself in the middle of farm fields. Not another house can be seen.
It's been empty and uninhabitable for as long as I've been aware of it. I love this house!! It looks like it has so much history behind it. I wish I knew it's story. Who built this house? They must have been wealthy. Who were these people? What kind of family did they have? What was their occupation?
In it's day I'm sure this house was magnificent!! If I had an indispensable amount of money I would buy this house and bring it back to it's glory.

I heard a rumor that a dairy farm recently bought this house and all the surrounding land and has plans to demolish the house. It saddens me. That's what prompted me to go take photos of it. I don't know how much longer it will be there. I stood out on the road and took the photos. I wanted to walk up to it and peak in the windows but I didn't have the nerve.

Weird Object Friday

Here is my weird object Friday. This too came from my friend at church that was having the barn sale of really old stuff. My parents ended up with it because they can use it for what it was intended. The first photo is the end of it. It is a sturdy metal with a long wooden handle.
This is my Dad holding it up so you can see how long it is. I would guess it is 6 feet long.
This is a demonstration of how you would use it. What is it????
This photo should give you a clue.
It's a chicken catcher!! You use the hook to grab the chicken around the leg. It works too.

Happenings from home

It's been a boring week, but I'll take boring over crazy busy stressed out anytime. It's a really slow week at work too, which I was not expecting so I'm trying to find things to do to fill the time. You don't hear me saying that very often, usually there isn't enough time in the day! Here's a list to catch you up on the Mullauer's...

Caleb & Jordan at Silver Lake last summer
1. Caleb has taken a leave of absence from his job to get him through these last few months of school. Mainly the musical. Rehearsals are getting frequent and intense and there was just no way that he could keep it all up. Craig and I always told him that school was his first job and that work was optional during the school year so we stand behind him on this decision. Soon his job at the golf course will be starting up and the timing will be better.

Jordan's speciality
2. Jordan's busy too. Last week she had Science Olympiad competition. Her and Emily placed first in music and instruments. They built their own instruments and had to play music with them. First place out of 19 schools!!! I was impressed. She also went with the band to festival. The band received all 1's... she was pleased. She is also in the musical as a hot box dancer and loving that. She's trying to fit oboe and dance lessons into all this and then to top it all off track started this week. I don't know how she does it all.

Father & Son
3. Craig was gone to Indy last week for a trade show. His company was displaying there. This morning Craig left for California for another trade show. This one he is not displaying in. He is looking at products. He woke me up at 3 AM to kiss me goodbye and about scared me to death. And the big news is that he finally finished my car this week. That was a huge job and I'm so grateful that he knows how to do these things. My car is purring like a kitten.

Seadra & Zo-Zo
4. Seadra is doing better and has only a slight limp from her shoulder injury. She either dislocated it or pulled a muscle. She was laying around here crying for days. I'm expecting she will be all better soon. And Zoe is..... well just Zoe. She's my happy go lucky, never has a care in the world dog.

She didn't really put her lips on it
5. The hamsters had to be separated this week. For a long time we thought they were playing with each other but it has become evident that they are fighting. One bullies the other. It got so bad this week that I think one was near death. She just laid in the corner for 2 days. The other one would jump on her constantly. The final straw was when we noticed that she had bloody paws and a hole bitten right through her ear. Jordan was beside herself and quickly relocated her to another home. She still isn't moving around a lot. I'm thinking she's trying to recover from the trauma. I keep telling myself.... "It's only a rodent".

Mommy & Seadra from last summer
6. And I am ready for spring!! You know our whole family loves the snow and we have fun playing in it but the time has come to be done with it. The snow melted so much this week that I could see the grass in spots. But that also revealed how much yard work there is to do and I am ready to tackle it!! I'm starting to get a little cabin fever. Yesterday I took a drive over to Sarett Nature Center. I thought I might watch the birds and take a walk on the nature trails. I didn't know that Wednesday was classes for home school children so I couldn't get into the observation rooms to watch the birds and then I decided it was too cold to walk the trails. I did pick up a list of classes and things to do. Hurry up spring!!

Caleb & Jordan Wizard of Oz from last year
Tonight I am going to the musical rehearsal. Since this is Caleb's last high school musical (I'm wiping away tears) I decided to volunteer and get a little more involved. I am in charge of newspaper articles and advertising so I'm going to take photos and write up a press release. And I am also in charge of organizing food for dress rehearsals the last week leading up to the show. The kids are fed dinner and snacks the last week to help with the stress. I have to call all the parents and arrange that. And then my favorite thing is that I am the official photographer. For me that is fun and creative. Last year I made 4 big poster boards and displayed them in the halls showing the kids rehearsing, having fun, and getting ready. Anyway, you can see I'm getting excited about the musical.

Can opener anyone?

So tell me, do your canned goods look like this after you open them? I'm going TODAY to buy myself a new good old fashion can opener!!! The manual kind that you crank with your hands. I can't tell you how many times I have been in this situation in the last few years. We have one of those "gizmo" electric can openers. It works pretty well.... if people remember to put it back on the charger. And I will admit that I am guilty of this too. It took me 10 minutes and multiple tools to try and get my can of tomatoes opened. But alls well that ends well. My beef stew is in the crock pot and dinner will be ready at 6:00.