Surprised to see one of these blooming this time of year.




First time seeing purple mushrooms. Found them off the walking trail a ways.




Matches my mood.


I wanted to hike this trail that's a little bit out of town, but my camera battery was running low. Maybe tomorrow. My oldest wants to go for a walk when she gets home from work anyway. Need to work in my garden this weekend. And perhaps I'll bake more cupcakes. Depends on my mood. Today, I've been moody (mostly grumpy moody) and everyone and everything is getting on my last nerve. So I spent the majority of my morning and early afternoon cleaning. (Plus that's one way I have of avoiding things; things I don't want to do but should and things I want to do but shouldn't. Better than obsessing over either.)

What I'm listening to.

Some type of bolete mushroom.




Another coral mushroom. I'm hoping it's not rainy tomorrow because there's a couple places I want to hike and (hopefully) find more mushrooms for pictures.

I've been losing track of time organizing/sorting stuff in the basement. But I caught myself early enough today to enjoy some sunshine and write for a little bit. Then I wandered out to my garden to check my tomatoes and look at all the transplanting I need to do yet. (Which is what I'd planned on doing but got side-tracked by the basement.) Then I found a lot of lovely mushrooms in my yard.





This second is my favorite. I've only seen coral-type mushrooms in photos before.



Just a bunch of little yellow mushrooms.

My youngest is making dinner (a giant popover; I love breakfast for dinner.) After that, she and I are going to watch movies. I rented "Pain and Gain" and "The Great Gatsby." She's not interested in seeing the second one, but that's okay. I'll watch just about anything Leo is in (with the exception of "The Titanic" which I would have never watched if my sister-in-law hadn't lent it to my oldest.)

I was a good girl last night (in spite of being a bit aggressively hit on by one drunk and propositioned by a younger, recently divorced man who oh-so conveniently lived in walking distance.)

Dinner's ready so it looks like it's movie time.

So, my youngest was watching "Columbiana" earlier and towards the end, Johnny Cash did NIN's "Hurt." So I made her listen to the original...and that made me want fto listen to more NIN...so, my two favorites of theirs...




I can't hear the second one without thinking of one of my friends from overseas...big, tall, goofy guy with the most beautiful huge green eyes with super long eyelashes to match. (A kind of funny and cool fact about this friend of mine; his name is synonymous with a famous brand of whiskey.)

Anyway, my oldest wants to hear from me within 17 minutes so I'd better hurry up and finish getting dressed.

Looks like either I'm on my own going out this evening, or I go to some little bar out in the boonies. One of the sisters of my future son-in-law is the birthday girl, and she doesn't want to go into town. I guess I can go to this out-in-the country place. It will be something different. (And maybe I won't get hit on by guys half my age for a change. That would be a very nice change of pace.) My oldest tells me not to dress-up, to wear jeans and a t-shirt. (I was planning on jeans, anyway. But I guess I'll have to leave the dressing up to one of my new pairs of panties, some pretty little lace ones.) Kinda nervous, going somewhere new. (Where there's different people, and omg, likely to be closer to my age than what I'm used to! It is easier to put off guys that are much younger, though. I have lots of practice with that, starting in my twenties (yes, I got hit on by teen-age boys; on the greyhound from San Francisco when I was 20, got propositioned by a 14 year old and the sad thing was his mother was there and encouraging it!) Thank god I don't get hit on by teenie-boppers anymore, but it is a bit awkward when a kid who graduated a year before my oldest flirts with me. I really do prefer men close to my age (and maybe a little younger) but as I'm well past the age of sowing my wild oats...though I do sometimes forget I'm as old as I am.

Tired from errands, cleaning, and cupcake making...I think I must have had my youngest take about 4 dozen to her dance. Which is great because when they sell things at their dances, the money goes towards the eighth grade trip at the end of the year. I enjoy baking. It's not quite as fun in a tiny, little kitchen, but still way more fun than say chaperoning at one of the dances. My oldest was talking about just popping in "whenever" so I told her maybe I wanna take a shower. And walk around in my towel. (Actually only sorta kinda what I wanted to do but the thought of people just coming here at any given time put a damper on that.) Besides, she said something about cutting a certain cutie's hair...oh, if I were my oldest's age, I would have the hugest crush.

Cupcakes in the oven, trying to kill some time quietly. It was this or read...at least while on the computer, I can keep my eye on the clock. Have somewhere to be in about 45 minutes...I didn't think it would take so long to make the batter...and I'm really wishing I had another cupcake pan. This batter seems really thin. Guess I'll just have to wait and see how they turn out. They're just plain vanilla ones (which I'm sure I'm going to try several of to find the right one.) Later, I'm making chocolate mint ones.

A Mourning Cloak. The ones I took yesterday didn't turn out; I couldn't get close enough. These are from last August (before I learned how to use the zoom feature.)




A view of one of my favorite beaches.


My youngest has her first school dance of the year tomorrow. She wanted to bring cookies but I was like, will cupcakes work? So I've gotta jump in the shower quick before we can run to the store. Got a little dirty digging in my garden. But this will be great; I can make a couple different types of cupcakes and not worry about a bunch sitting around here, tempting me.

I was invited to a bachelorette party tomorrow evening but I'd be passing even if there wasn't the school dance. Maybe if they were going out instead of having it at their home I'd think about it. But it's farther than I want to drive and I have no desire to spend the night with a bunch of drunk people, most of whom I probably don't know.