For Karen-

This is my new "wall art." And some flowers from my flower beds. They always start blooming again when it cools down in the fall, which I love.

It's next to impossible to find square frames for cheap (or at all)... The only ones I saw were black and they were on sale so I spray painted them white. I like it. It goes with my apron curtains and random other vintage kitchen paraphernalia. :)

Blessings.

I need suggestions

For books to read. I've pretty much finally made it through all of Bob's books... and mine... and there are still two and a half months until Christmas. (Which means new books!)

I just read 'Riders of the Purple Sage' and tried to read 'The Last of the Plainsmen' by Zane Grey. I wasn't impressed. Maybe I was expecting them to be more like Louis L'Amour books, but yeah, how was he famous? He does description really well, but I kind of just wanted to slap the girl upside the face in 'Riders of the Purple Sage.' The other one was boring. :)

Anyway, we had a nice quiet weekend for a change. It was heavenly. I went to a few garage sales on Saturday, and actually found what I was looking for! We don't really need anything and our house is full, but I couldn't resist a cool milk glass vase... and some old handkerchiefs. My big project for the rest of the weekend was framing them with two I got from my Grandmas. I hung them over the kitchen table.

Blessings.

Water Woes

Bob called me Monday to tell me that we had a leaking pipe in the crawlspace... um..um... but, we're having people over on Tuesday! So, he shut the water off and called K and K. Who were in Indy. (And having a hard time getting home- what a Monday for them!) But they thought they'd make it back early enough to come look at it... so we got Subway for supper. I asked Bob if it could be tradition when we don't have water and he looked at me funny. He obviously didn't grow up in a third generation farm house with not up to code plumbing or electric and sharing utilities with the pigs.

Monday is laundry day and it desperately needed doing, so I went over to Bob's parent's after supper to borrow their washing machine and shower. It was after 9 when I got back and K and K had had more issues so.... still no water. Eventually, they decided to turn our water back on and just let it drip until morning. And it was fixed when I got home from work on Tuesday. Hooray for good landlords! And hooray for renting! I was not sad we didn't have to deal with it.

So thankfully we still got to have Luke & Heidi and Mike & Katie for supper Tuesday night. It was good to see them all again. And considering that we've been married over a year and hadn't had them over yet, it was about time. :) I didn't burn anything, so that was good. And we had plenty to drink.

Blessings.

I'm gonna pitch me a tent, won't have to pay any rent

Today's the day I'm going camping! Name that tune...

Anyway. So last Friday night we packed up and headed out into the wilds of Spring Lake. (Seriously, south of pekin, need I say more?) We met Dale, Meg and Maria, John, Mike, and Kevin at the campground.


Maria's such a good little camper.



We had a pretty gourmet supper: hot sandwiches, sauteed peppers and onions, soup, fried apples, pudgy pies and cookies all over the fire.


Kevin brought his ukulele and serenaded us with 1920's love songs after we ate. It was dark so I didn't get any pictures, unfortunately.

There was a nice soft carpet of pine needles on the ground, plus we had our foam pads and Dad's thermarest mattresses; we slept very well. We had egg sandwiches for breakfast and cinnamon rolls warmed up over the fire. Yum. Everything tastes better outside.

We decided to get everything cleaned up and packed up after breakfast before we went exploring, which turned out to be a good thing since it started raining. I hate dealing with wet tents and camping gear and was very glad it was all safely in the car.

It's dove season so a lot of the trails were closed for hunting and we were walking down the road to check out the lake when it started pouring. Well, it started out as a drizzle and then it poured. We took shelter under a tree (I know, I know, still not safe in a storm but it kept the worst of the rain off) until it let up a little bit. Hooray for walking in the rain. I don't think the drowned rat look is a good look for either of us. Oh, and Bob did finally get his hair cut yesterday. :)


Maria looked like she was enjoying the rain...



One brief glimpse of Spring Lake



Dale and Meg bought a new piano that they needed to pick up farther south along the river, so after the rain passed and we dried out a little we went with them to load it up. Meg and I watched.

And then we came home and unpacked and got cleaned up and went to potluck. Which was great fun as always. Good times.

Pincushion

I have so many mosquito bites on my legs, some from camping this weekend, some from being out in our backyard. They're driving me crazy. Specially since every time I walk anywhere my skirt rubs them and makes them itch even more. woot.

Nasty creatures. I wouldn't mind a little bit cooler weather so they go away.

*tsk*

How did I manage to register for a melon baller and not for a pastry wheel??





I did use my melon baller last night so as not to waste the last of the watermelon. So good.

Fir and Festivities

Um... I seem to only blog about my weekends. Sorry. That's kind of my focus when there really isn't anything exciting going on during the week (which I love). Other than Bob killing a massive spider on the wall.

At work today I was feeling slightly mischievous... there have been two filing cabinets sitting in our hallway for a few weeks. They don't belong to anyone, and nobody knows why they're there... they are up on wheels for moving. It was really bugging some of the more concrete sequential scientists, plus they were in the way and a safety hazard... anyway, my coworker and I turned them perpendicular to the hallway on either side with about 5 feet in between. So to walk down the hallway you had to walk to the left and then back to the right around them like a maze. Hehe. So funny. They're gone now. I don't know who removed them.

So yeah, we kept busy again this weekend again. Saturday afternoon Bob, young Matt and I went to Grandpa and Grandma K's to trim their bushes. They trimmed, I raked. Not my favorite job in the world... at least it smelled like Christmas with all the cut evergreens! And it looks pretty nice from the road.

One of our friends from U of I got married on Sunday in Taylor, so the plan was to get up early and ride down with Dale, Meg, Maria, and Matt. Yeah, so I was up and ready to go and Bob started feeling sick.... um.... lovely. I must confess I do not deal well with how often Bob's not feeling good, he's always got allergies and all sorts of other ailments. And I rarely get anything that a little tylenol and some rest won't fix. (Today I was trying to convince myself I didn't feel good so I wouldn't have to get up and go to work... didn't work, I'm totally fine.) Poor guy, he doesn't get a whole lot of sympathy from me, mostly just frustration. Anyway, they ended up leaving without us.

Thankfully, he was feeling better enough to leave in time to make it for the wedding, so we did get to go. It was a really pretty Sunday morning drive, the leaves are just starting to turn and it was sunny and the sky was blue. There were lots of dead skunks by the road. ick. The wedding was really nice, it was good to be there and Matthew and Alicia were quite cute. Scott was there too... the 4th weekend in five that we've seen him, which is awesome. *grin*

Matt rode back with us after the reception. Good times.
Blessings.

Labor Day Camping

So, we camped out last weekend with our potluck. It was great fun and super relaxing, which I love. Here is our tent on Friday night:


We were a little bit worried it would smell a lot like boys since Matt took it to Wabakimi a few weeks ago. (and you must get a starry look in your eye every time you say it, plus a ghostly echo: "Wabakimi-imi-imi") Thankfully, it just smelled like camping.

We were right next to Greg, Mary, Max and Nora... good thing we both sleep soundly and didn't hear the kids at all! This is Dale, Meg and Maria's little tent and Brent, Janelle, and Londyn's mansion. :)


Relaxing by the fire:



Max busy eating his supper. He had the cutest pajamas; a little King of the Wild Things sleeper. It was so funny to see him in it running around the fire... it was too dark for pictures, but it was adorable.



Saturday morning the guys made breakfast. Bob fried up the bacon. They made eggs, biscuits, and gravy also so we could build our own Stacks.



This picture is funny... Janelle was heating Londyn's bottle in hot water heated over the fire... I think Max or Nora just fell off a chair which is why Mary and Meg's expressions are so great, and Maria is very blissfully unaware.


Dale spent most of Saturday smoking meat for supper. It turned out fabulous.



Bob and I had to go home for a little bit to mow the lawn and I needed to clean desperately. And then we went back out and relaxed some more. They have a really great sandbox that all of the boys enjoyed playing in. :)


We all went home Saturday night and then came back out after church on Sunday. Bob and I went exploring with Dale, Meg and Maria down to Mud Creek. Us girls went wading, which I love. And Bob taught Maria how to look for worms under rocks. She liked the sand box too.


Then we sat around the fire and cooked our suppers and relaxed some more... and then we went home. Good times. Much laundry.

On Monday I got up and finally gave the front door a second coat of paint. Then I went shopping. Then I came home and did lots of laundry. woot. I also attempted to grill pizza, which turned out ok, but it would have been a lot easier with more grease on the grate and oil on the crust. There was some stickage and burnage but overall it tasted pretty good. Not sure if it was that much more incredible that it makes it worth it to not just use the oven...

Blessings.

Poetry amazing-ness

Something random I learned the other day- any poem in ballad meter can be sung to the tune of the Gilligan's Island theme. Therefore, you can sing Emily Dickinson's "Because I could not stop for Death-" to the tune of Gilligan's Island. Along with "Amazing Grace" and "The House of the Rising Sun." (And vice versa) You know you want to look up the words and try it right now... *grin*

Because I could not stop for Death-
He kindly stopped for me-
The Carriage held but just Ourselves-
And immortality.

Kind of changes the tone of the poem.... but O, tis fun!

Our labor day weekend was good, but my pictures are still on the camera... wait for it...

Blessings.

Man may work from sun to sun

But woman's work is never done.

I'm feeling it. And I'm really looking forward to this weekend and hopefully just relaxing. I got a bucket of tomatoes from mom and got them all pureed on Tuesday. I made sauce with about a third of them, and waited until yesterday to cook up the rest of them. I'm at 31 pints.... not sure if I should do more or not. We'd probably eat it if I made it- I love all things Italian and homemade sauce is better than from the store. It just takes so much time that I don't have and I end up trying to scrub little drips of tomato sauce out of the carpet.... note to self: carpet in the kitchen is not a good idea for someone as messy as me.... not to mention slightly unsanitary... not that the unsanitary part bothers me all that much *grin*.

Anyway, so last night I was busy with tomato sauce, supper, getting food made for the weekend, and getting all our stuff together and ready to go. Yeah. I was tired. Some days, ok most days, I have two full time jobs. woot.

Life is good though.
Blessings.