Some "randomness" and a whole lotta linkin'

Its Sunday, about 5:36...and I am knackered.

We spent about 2 hours in the back yard, pulling weeds and getting rid of the jungle-ish look about the area. Now....by "WE"...I mean "I".....and by "back yard", I mean "the area behind our house" because we don't really have a "yard" in the terms of what most people would think. What we do have is some dirt, a lot of really nice trees and plants and whole lotta pretty weeds!! Oh....my kingdom for some green stuff that you would actually need to purchase a lawn mower for. We have a weed wacker that we use sometimes, but with the boys around that thing just becomes an accident waiting to happen...so I like to call the manual labor, 'gardening therapy'.

Today...the weather was absolutely beautiful. The temperature was about and this means I'm just taking a wild-ass guess 90 degrees. The K-man and I were talking last night about how it is hot,yes, but...the humidity is relatively low, not so high...yet. It is still nice. But.....if there were a contest of "how much sweat can pool in your eyebrows"....I'm thinking there would be a good chance that I would win. Yes, I was a raging beauty today....but the yard looks good, so that's all that matters.

Oh...and by the way...if there were a contest of "how much can you whine and complain and not really do anything but work really hard to get your gloves on and then complain that you're thirsty while your mom does all the work"......there would be a tie between Issei and Koji!!!

~~sheesh~~

So...in my general cleaning today...I had to say "good-bye" to my absolute favorite travel cup. A very dear friend was at Starbucks and saw this for sale and because of the flamingo design, thought of none other than yours truly. I love it!!! But...sadly...as it has been dropped a couple of times over the past few years, the bottom developed a leak and water had gotten into the inside of the cup. I'm pretty sad. This is one thing that will be hard to replace. **sniff sniff**

Did you know that Crocs made these cutie-patootie rain boots?? They belong to my friend, Tomoko's little girl, Aiko-chan. Both Koji and I thought that those boots looked "just like something Aiko-chan would wear" and that we both really wanted a pair!!!

Oh....how I would love to eat some of this right now. Somebody....go.....eat some for me, okay?


In my cleaning on the inside of the house today...I found this card I had bought a few months ago. It's an Eric Carle print. Isn't it great?!?!

And now...for some good ole' bloggy-type lovin' bling to pass on. The other day, I found this had been given to me by my new very good friend,
M.E. at "nextdoor2myex" and I was just thrilled to get this award!!! See how pretty she is!!! She is the "ArteYPico" award...and I think I'll keep her!!

Here are the rules for this little beauty:
For those that were nominated:
1. Pick five (5) blogs that you consider deserve this award for their creativity, design, interesting material, and also for contributing to the blogging community, no matter what language.2. Each award has to have the name of the author and also a link to his or her blog to be visited by everyone.3. Each award winner has to show the award and put the name and link to the blog that has given her or him the award itself.4. Award-winner and the one who has given the prize have to show the link of “Arte y Pico” blog, so everyone will know the origin of this award (http://arteypico.blogspot.com/)


There are many, many people that I would like to pass this on to....A couple of the blogs I had first thought of have already received it (if you got it from someone else and I read you, I was just late, I guess!!).....So...here are my nominees for this award (in no particular order!!):


1. Lauren who gently pushed me into this whole blogging thing to begin with. She was one of the first blogs I ever read and with the Presidential election coming up, she keeps me 'up' on the Democratic-side-of-life. Though I don't agree with absolutely everything, she makes me think.

2. Marie Millard is one blog that truly makes me smile. Her sense of humor and way of looking at life in general, is nice. She does have a wicked way about her, so I'm glad I'm on her 'good side'!!

3. Though Lauren helped get me started in this blogging adventure, Gina helped me make it a part of my daily schedule. It was her idea back in February to post every single damn day!! It was great!! I didn't win the challenge, but I did get a few really good prizes for my efforts!!! Her daughter is also a blogger and she, too, is going to be a force to be reckoned with someday!!!


And now for the "whatever language" part of this award...there are two people I want to give this to:
4. My very good friend, Noriko was a student of mine for a couple of years, until her husband was transferred to a place, though still in Japan, very very far away from Nagasaki. Her blog is in both English and Japanese. She was one of my favorite students...but the breads and cakes she would make for class made her a favorite with everyone...that and the fact that she's really cute and fun!!! She has never lived in an English-speaking country, but thanks to her very strong determination to study this language, she is now studying 'translation'....she is amazing!! The pictures she posts are also so beautiful.
and finally....
5. One of my newer friends, Mr. Farty...though technically an English blog...he is from Scotland so I sometimes find that reading a Japanese blog might be easier!!! I love his sense of humor...his weekly music quizzes that never fail to stump, yet tickle the crap out of me, his Merkan-English Dictionary that has shed light on quite a few misunderstandings.... and as I read his posts, I have Sean Connery's voice in my head making it sound very cool. Mr. Farty wrote about a comment I had posted on his blog , "Lola - (that's me...Lola Divine) FSM forbid that we should mess with your head, it wouldn't be fair to pick on a poor farm girl who's been plucked from the Merkan midwest and then dumped unceremoniously in the middle of a foreign land. As it were."
The man is a nutter and is definitely deserving of this award!!!

And with that....MY job is done!! Have a good Sunday, everyone!!
(Now really...will someone go and eat some of that ice cream and then tell me how it was?!?! Thank YOU very much!!!)