The Weekend

It was a busy weekend, a good kind of busy weekend. Hannah and I drove to Auburn to fetch Joe and bring him home for the weekend. He doesn't have to work until Tuesday evening and I decided to seize the moment while I had opportunity. I did not go grocery shopping, neither did I go to the bank. Maybe I'll do that tomorrow... My cupboards look pretty full, but I could use a new box of trash bags and maybe some French vanilla coffee creamer... maybe.

Saturday dawned cold and gloomy. The weather forecast promised sunshine and warmer temperatures but I began to doubt its validity and cooked up a pot of chili for the church picnic rather than a cold salad. The picnic started a five o'clock and, whadda'ya know?, right about 4:30 pm the clouds dissipated, the sun came out, and the temperatures became tolerable. I kept my sweatshirt on, cause I'm a doubter, but it stayed nice.

Sunday afternoon our kids brought over a Father's Day picnic lunch and we had some family time. (Two picnics in two days!!!) We had chicken, bacon cheese burgers, salt potatoes, corn on the cob, baked beans, and watermelon. It was a good day.

Nothing quite like a family picnic, except maybe one where there are friends too.

Grandpa even got a little help down in his garden.

Words, Big Words

Persnickety and rambunctious. Words of the week. One word to describe my vehicle, the other for my grandchildren. It looks nice outside, but here we are in the house instead...

First my van... Five times it has refused to turn over. Twice at Target, then before church Sunday morning, again Monday afternoon at Panera Bread, and then again (after having a new battery installed) last night at home when we were headed out to play mini golf. I don't regret the purchases of either the jumper cables or the new battery. They've helped narrow down the real issue, which is apparently a switch of some kind. This morning, at my husband's suggestion, I put the van in neutral and turned the key. It started up like nothing. I switched it back into park and once again she started right up. Persnickety. Yup. Our mechanic is ordering a new part.

The grandchildren... They're bouncing off the walls today. First they got out every toy on the shelf. (They move faster than I can see and there are three of them.) Of course it took them over an hour to get it all cleaned up again and in the midst of that there was plenty of squabbling, name calling, and generally forgetting they were supposed to be picking up anything at all. Lucas dropped his muffin midway through lunch and a small dog quickly gobbled it up. Loud wailing commenced but failed to produce another muffin. Then there was the biting. The middle child discovered biting effective before his first birthday and now that he is four I think that habit needs to stop, and fast. (They always say to bite them back...) Three children have been banished to the couches for a time of quiet rest which so far has produced neither rest nor quiet. I'd kind of hoped to take them outside long ago but between their rambunctiousness and the rain, it hasn't happened.

and later on....

We got outside, finally, in the rain. It was the "scoop" that showed up to dig a hole in Mr. Conner's yard across the street. Simon was so excited he couldn't stand it and came running into the living room shouting "Yuke, Yuke!" (Which translates, "Luke! Luke!") He didn't want his brother to sleep though all the fun. He just had to wake him up to watch.

And then, since they were already wet, we went out into the back yard where one discovered the barn downspout and thought it made a good drinking fountain. Blech! I think he spit out everything he sucked in. At least I hope so. By the time their mommy showed up they were in need of dry clothes. I was just glad we got out of the house for a little while. It was gettin' stuffy in there.

Another weekend has arrived. I'm planning a drive down to Auburn again to find my middle son and bring him home for the weekend. I think it will be nice to have him around for Father's Day. Besides, I don't want him to be lonely or feel forgotten. I kind of like the kid. (Twenty-six is still a kid, right?)

:0)

Happy Anniversary!

It almost didn't happen. Six months ago it looked helpless, two months ago highly unlikely, but today my son and his beautiful wife are celebrating ten years of marriage. God is good. Miracles still happen.

(Last summer's photo)

Wednesday

I did something different today. I volunteered a few hours to a local elementary school, the one where my sister has been long term substitute librarian for the past year.  For a few hours I sorted books on the shelves, making sure they were in the proper order and fixing them if they weren't. It wasn't hard aside from my feeble brain wanting to forget what number I had just read from the spine of each book... (582.34 GER, 577 SCH, 599.8 WEX,...) After a time a break is imperative simply because one begins to go cross-eyed and the number blur together. In all honesty, it was kind of fun, and I think perhaps I might need to find a semi-regular volunteer position somewhere.

This afternoon I took a walk about the yard. I went round in circles, back and forth, up and down. Yesterday I took photos of Indian Paintbrushes, today I mowed them down. Well, they weren't actually the same ones I took pictures of, those are still standing, but they looked the same. One should never let the lawn get out of control (not that it was) or it will become necessary to run down and destroy something almost beautiful. I tried to pretend I didn't see them.

Assault and Battery

Today I bought a brand spankin' new battery for my van. I'd gone to lunch with a few friends and afterward found my van to be a bit uncooperative. When I turned the key it didn't even go click. I called My Darling but he was 45 minutes away. I called Hannah who came to my rescue, but we found that even with the two vehicles attached to my shiny new jumper cables, still my van did not make so much as a click. (sigh) I called James back. With no way to help me, Hannah went back home and I wandered about the Dress Barn while waiting for my night in shining armor to arrive. He was able to get the van going and I followed him up the road, around the corner, and into the Auto Zone parking lot where a  pretty new battery was installed in my vehicle.

Not much going on at home. Hannah went out to play Frisbee tonight and came home with the announcement that "girls are dumb". She didn't elaborate. Maybe I'll have to go pry it out of her. :0)

Garden Guy

Monday, Monday... I put two girls on the bus this morning and then set out to fight off the headache I'd forgotten to medicate earlier. A little ibuprofen, a little more coffee, and I was set to go, but go where? Instead of going out I stayed in. Did a little laundry, a little kitchen cleanup, and cooked up a little breakfast for Hannah and me. (Eggs over-easy and corn tortillas) It was a quiet day, aside from the vacuum cleaner. I even fell into a deep sleep before the bus returned on its afternoon run.

Evening found James checking out the vegetable garden. I sneaked out with my camera to see if anything interesting was happening.

The beans sprouted overnight! That's pretty cool. I watered them just the other day and the only sign of them were two long cracks in the ground where the seeds were expanding. I think perhaps there are green and yellow beans in our future. One day soon I'll be sitting out on the back porch snipping a big pan of beans and sipping a big iced tea. Yeah, that sounds like a plan...


And then there are the chives. Someone with a lawnmower ran down the bunch up by the house, so these are the prize chives now. I love their blooms and can't resist taking photos. Just so pretty (in spite of their onion-y odor). Maybe we should have a garden row of plants that come up every year; chives, asparagus, rhubarb... I wonder if all those plants like each other? They would make a cool looking row while waiting for everything else to grow, but I ramble....

Bonfire

Ben planned it, Hannah helped send out the invitations, and I have to say they really had a great group of friends out there. We really do have the perfect spot for hosting bonfires and yesterday brought the perfect weather for one. Friends had been invited, food prepared, and firewood stacked. We couldn't have asked for a better day. Our guests were young, I can't at the moment think of one who was over the age of 24, but they didn't appear to mind me wandering about among them, attempting to be inconspicuous.

Pickup trucks are perfect for parking around the perimeter of our backyard bonfires. It's a little bit country, I think.

We served chili and hotdogs, and filled a box with fixings for s'mores. There was way more food than these kids attempted to eat. I think they mostly enjoyed hanging out around the fire. There was a lot of friendly conversation, a little bit of Frisbee, and ample amounts of laughter. I didn't really count, but there must have been close to 25 or 30 people out there. Enough to make it a party, but not so many that it got out of control.

One of the girls at church thanked me this morning for hosting the bonfire. She's home from college for the summer and hopes maybe we'll do it again. Could this turn out to be the Summer of the Bonfire?

Things finally wound down around midnight when the last of the guests pulled out of the driveway and we finally made our way upstairs to bed. It was a nice night. I'm hoping we do it again too.

:0)

Blue Lu

I did not have time to blog yesterday, I was too busy chasing children, doing a little garden work, and watching a movie with My Darling. It just didn't happen yesterday, but I did want to tell you about "Blue Lu"...

It was a beautiful day. Hannah took off for Bethany's house and the grocery store. I took my three small grandchildren outside to play. In an effort to keep them not only entertained but somewhat contained, I got out some new sticks of sidewalk chalk and dragged an old chalk board out of the barn. It started out tame and gradually became a hysterical game.

I had "Blue Lu" wash his face before we went in for lunch and by that time Hannah had returned from her errand. She brought Jake and Josh home with her and we had five grandchildren instead of three. We went back outside for some more fun after lunch ...

Like a good grandmother, I sat back, camera in hand, and took pictures... (Looks kind of like a boy's version of a make-up party.) "Hey, how'd you do that?" Josh asked his blue-faced cousin.
"I drew a big circle, like this," answered Lucas, and he drew a big circle on the chalk board and colored it in. "Then I rubbed my face on it." He proceeded to demonstrate.

It'll be another busy day. My kids have a bonfire party planned for this evening and I'm going to make a pot of chili after I go shopping (or maybe before, who knows?).

PS. Lucas and his blue face reminded me of a poem  my dad used to read us when we were kids. It's here.

Air Conditioning

Did I say it felt like summer? Silly me. I thought I could get away with wearing flip flops today but gave up partway through the morning when my feet started turning blue. I have memories of a distant summer, the summer of 1992. It was the year of the cold summer, the one where our garden veggies turned white because the nights were too cold. I would recall only two hot and humid days that entire summer. It was the year we bought seven half-price airline tickets and took our five children on a three week vacation to New Mexico. I vowed to move to Albuquerque if we ever had another summer like that. I'm hoping I don't have to rent a truck...

I honestly don't know what to do on days like this. We had three small grandchildren. There was no sense in trying to clean. It was cold inside and cold outside. (Sixty-two degrees Fahrenheit is cold, right?) I decided, against my better judgement, to make cookies. Baking doesn't really warm up the house, you know? All the heat stays inside the oven unless you prop the door open and the cookies don't bake evenly that way.

I opted not to take "the wild ones" over to Bethany's yard sale. I had a flashback to last week's visit to Target and realized that our presence might be more of a hindrance than a help. Simon decided not to be quiet during rest time... He did not get a cookie for an afternoon snack. I warned him and he laughed. Guess he thought I was kidding. I wasn't.

Would you believe I am wrapped in an afghan? I have shoes and socks on but my feet are still cold. For heaven's sake, it isn't snowing or anything! What I'd really like to do is submerge myself in a tub of hot water or crawl under my bed covers. What I probably should do is hop on the treadmill and get my blood pumping... Ah... maybe I'll have one of those cookies instead. (ha ha!)

Hide and Seek

It's been weeks since we moved our refrigerator in search of the foul smell in our kitchen. I looked everywhere but couldn't find any dead rodents. I was distressed about the stench that seemed to come and go but there was little to be done. I consoled myself with the fact that my sniffer is stronger than most folk's.

Today we tossed some saw horses, a couple old doors, and my fold-up table into the back of the little pick-up truck for transport to Bethany's house. She's having a yard sale this week. We unloaded a few boxes into her garage and she proceeded to unfold the fold-up table... "Oh, no!" she exclaimed for there inside the fold-up table was a mouse carcass. "Oh, yeah," she assured me later, "It's old. It's nothing but fur and bones." (Ew... gross.) Looks like he was after that peanut, but never got there...

I'm somewhat relieved that he isn't going to fall out of the table at a family picnic or something.

Something Different

I promise not to write the same blog and post the same pictures three days in a row. (Not that the last two blogs were exactly the same or anything...) Allergies have hit hard this year and I'm extra spacey and lethargic. In spite of the lethargy, I did manage to help My Darling plant a bit more of the garden this evening, mostly flowers and a bit of cilantro. No amount of coffee keeps me energized during the day. However, staying awake in the middle of the night doesn't appear to be a problem. ha ha!

I've been enjoying the quieter days and attempting to catch up with a little bit of house cleaning, or maybe I should say clearing. What I really need to do is keep up with clearing things out. It's a constant battle for most of us. Things come into our space, set up housekeeping on our shelves and in our closets, and then begin to spill out into our living spaces. I'm working on it a little at a time and am reminded of "how to eat an elephant." (One bite at a time.)

For Judi/Gmj (Because I love her)

We jumped right into July today when the temperature soared to ninety degrees Fahrenheit. It's kind of hard to believe I was shivering and wishing for the furnace to kick on just a few days ago. We've been working on our vegetable garden this past week. One day we're wondering if the cold will kill our plants and the next they're looking like they have heat stroke. Oy!

For my friend Judi, a few more flower photos...

Springing into Summer

Our weather is still confused. One day I am shivering and wishing for the furnace to kick on, and the next the mercury declares it summer. My garden flowers aren't quite sure what to make of it either. Unfortunately, the late spring has done little to deter allergy season. Another few weeks of sneezing, clawing at my nose and throat, and rubbing my eyes and it will all be behind us for another 10 months. Meanwhile flowers have been busting out all over the place! I do love summer!