September 2011 Concerts

It seems like there are always some good concerts around my birthday.  Last year we saw Jimmy Eat World and Flyleaf.  This year we were able to see Mike Garrigan and My Chemical Romance.  Here are some pictures from both concerts:

We saw Mike Garrigan at the Evening Muse on Sat. September 17th.  It was supposed to be Mike Garrigan and Mark Kano, but Mark had a family emergency and couldn't come.  It was still a great concert wtih Mike playing for over an hour - just him and a guitar.  He is definitely one of the most talented musicians I've ever seen.

We saw My Chemical Romance on Tuesday September 20th at Verizon Ampitheatre.  Chad is not a big fan and really hates going to Verizon for concerts, but he went with me because I really wanted to go.  I may have pushed him too far though because they frisked everyone on the way into the concert and he was VERY unhappy about that.  The actual concert was very good, but I don't think I'll be able to get Chad to go back to Verizon anytime soon.

Artwork from their album "Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge".

Artwork from their album "The Black Parade".

Artwork from their album "Danger Days".

September 2011 Cat and Bird Pictures

The weather has finally started to cool down, and the cats really enjoy having the windows open.

Recently we've had a LOT of hummingbirds at our feeder.

I was able to get some really good close-up pictures.

Jessica's Birthday

I was lucky enough to have a nice long 4 day weekend for my birthday this year.  Chad and I went to eat at Carrabbas and basically just had a long, relaxing weekend.  Here are a few pictures from my birthday weekend:

The beautiful roses Chad gave me for my birthday.

The cake Chad got for me - it was VERY good.

Chocolate with cream cheese icing!

One of my gifts from Chad - these AWESOME shoes!

Harris Teeter had triple coupons the week of my birthday.

I got all this for less than $30 and SAVED over $37 with coupons!

Childhood Photos

After going to the Matthews Alive festival this year, I was inspired to scan some of my childhood photos.  I spent my first few years living at the beach, but we moved to Matthews when I was in elementary school and going to Matthews Alive (it was called the Stumptown Festival when I was a kid) was one of my favorite things to do.  Here are the pictures I scanned:

Personalized License Tag

For whatever reason I've always drawn and liked Plaid Cats - hence the name of this blog!  So, I was VERY excited to get a new personalized tag for my car!  Here are some pictures:

Jarren and Brystle's Wedding

Chad's cousin Jarren got married over Labor Day weekend.  We were very happy that we were able to attend and see them start their new life together!  Here are the pictures:

August Garden update

Well, we got a LOT of squash and zucchini this year, but some of our other plants were quickly overshadowed by the squash plants.  They grew so big so quickly that other things planted in the same bed didn't have a chance.  The cucumber plants did manage to get through all the zucchini and thrive - until some type of worm began eating them all on the vine.  I have to say my biggest accomplishment this year with our garden was that we were NOT defeated by the squash bugs!  I was definitely on the lookout for them and almost daily I would look for egg patches and squash bugs to kill them - I said that Chad & I were squash bug vigilantes.  We did still have some squash bugs, but not the infestation we had last year, so to me that's a big accomplishment - and I think the fact that we got more squash and zucchini shows that as well.

Unfortunately our second garden at Chad's parent's house did not fare very well.  It was just so incredibly hot in the early summer and we just couldn't get over there every day to water like we needed to, so everything pretty much shriveled up over there.  We wanted to take advantage of Chad's parent's offer to use their yard, but it's just too hard to maintain a garden that's not at your house, so I don't think we'll try that again.

Here are some pictures from our garden from August 2011:

Here are the garden pests we dealt with this year:

August 2011 Pictures of Sandy

Here are some pictures of Sandy - I'm not being partial she just kept getting in these cute positions!

Miscellaneous August Pictures

Here are some various pictures from August:

Chad surprised me with these roses!

A goldfinch on our feeder.



I think this may be a female goldfinch in our tree.