I don't need it translated...

Our Memorial Day...

Was partly spent thrifting! We were looking for corner shelves for the girls' room but didn't find any at all. However, I did come across these lovely owls! Sorry for the crappy pictures, I was in a hurry to get these done and didn't take time at all.



The pair is carved and painted balsa wood. The white one is an Avon lotion jar from 1974(going for $3-8 on etsy and ebay). I paid 49 cents for each piece and just LOVE them!!




These are gorgeous in person, the colors are so much richer than seen here. I think there are 29 blocks I can use. My plan is to sew 10 of them together and make a few scarves from them. It is frustrating to find vintage crochet pieces that are coming unraveled. I found out this is actually an instruction in the 1977 BHG crochet/knit book I bought a few days ago though. It says to clip the yarn an inch(AN INCH!!) from the work and weave in! An inch is NOT enough yarn, no way no how. Sigh. Most, if not all, of these will have to have the last several stitches redone and tied off better.




This was probably my favorite find! The small one is a Wagner size 5 pan which goes from $45-$100 on ebay and other sites. The larger griddle pan is a Lodge brand, new at Bass Pro for around $23. I paid $6 and $7 for them and plan to get them ready for use asap!!




A neighborhood friend tore down her water trough garden and gave us the trough to use as a doggie pool. The girls couldn't wait to get it set up!!








After these shenanigans we went to Mark's parents and had a bowl of ice cream to honor his father's service to our country as a Marine stationed in Okinawa and Hawaii. I bet his mom asked 20 times if we'd eaten already or if we wanted her to cook us some ham. She's getting real bad.

Today I've got laundry out the ying yang, as my good friend Lisa puts it. Wish me luck!

a kitty video and in other news...

Here's Tallulah trying to groom Jasper. Tibert shows up to see what's going on outside.



In other news...

I made Susan's(Blackberry Creek in my blogroll) pumpkin pound cake yesterday afternoon, complete with the caramel sauce! It is oooooh soooo good!!

The boys went fishing early this morning and had a good time. We're strictly catch and release here. Our area lakes are known for high levels of mercury and pcbs so and Mark doesn't like killing/cleaning them.



We took the piggies out again for more grass munching. Sarah discovered a lump on Rainbow's belly and another one on Meadow. We are hoping it isn't what killed our Shimmer. Its in a different place and could be mastitis or a mammary cyst maybe.

Then there is this:

Mountain Lion sighting. Yay. (hint, watch the video, the guy looks like Brad Pitt but more rugged)

We're going to take a mega-load of stuff to the women's shelter thrift store after lunch, hope they are open! I'm looking for wooden corner shelves to use in the girls room and in my bathroom. Mark might have to break down and make some though.

Saturday Catch-up...

(as always, click each picture for a bigger version)

Saturday:

I woke up at 4:30 with a bad headache, something I've not had in years. I thought it was from sleeping on too many pillows so I did some gentle neck stretches and went back to sleep. At 6, I realized it was probably a weather-related headache so Mark brought me some Advil. I didn't wake up again til 10:40 but I'm still tired.

Now I'm puttering around the house and hanging out with the girls. Mark is helping a friend rewire a boat motor and Ryan is working. We're going to make homemade pizza pockets for dinner.

Friday:

I paid $4 for a 12-inch mixing bowl from Marshall Pottery at Hope's Closet that sells for around $38 on eBay. Mine is probably not real old. It has a hairline crack in it so I might plant some cactus in it or use it for popcorn or something. Tibert loves it! I also found a copy of the South Beach Diet, an awesome BHG Crochet and Knit pattern book and 7 acrylic catfood bowls from Fancy Feast. Apparently we got a great deal on the bowls, they are selling for $6-7 on eBay and we paid 99 cents each! Sarah feeds the cats, then collects and washes the bowls out in the bathroom sink.









Thursday:

Homeschool park day at White Oak City Park. Had about 40 kids, it was wild!!! These aren't pictures from this Thursday, I took them on our last outing there after most of the group had gone. Its a great park because its completely fenced in and the kids can go back and forth from the play structure to the spray pad. We've got it in our rotation.





Tuesday:

You know how my Wednesday went.

Sarah's birthday was May 11th but we waited a week to get her bike because of our trip to Ft. Worth. She picked it out and just loves it!











Monday:

We finally gathered up as many of the pickerel frogs from the pool as possible and took them to a local park with a creek for release. Of course when we came home there were at least 20 more still around.

The ones on their backs weren't dead, just out of sorts. When Amy poured the bucket out we used sticks to turn them right-side-up and they were fine.













We also took the girl piggies outside when we cleaned their cage. They were not real sure about the great outdoors but came around when they figured out the grass was edible! They are called pigs for a reason!!



Guess that's about it. Now you know why I haven't blogged much lately! Things sure do get busy around here sometimes. Now its about to rain and I'll have to fetch Ryan from work soon. He put in many, many hours this past week.

Enjoy the long weekend everyone!!

I should be in bed...

After what I did today. I promise I'll head that way after I publish this.

First, I took Ryan to work at 8:30 because his boss said that's what time I needed to have him there. She didn't show til 9 so we had to wait there for her. Then I came home and got the girls so we could drive an hour one-way to get raw milk for our co-op. For some reason I had the order down as 10 gallons but added mine to it and ended up paying for 13 gallons(and came home with 10), it still confuses me! Stopped by our house to drop off my milk(that wasn't really mine but I didn't know it yet), took the rest of the milk to the distributor's home. Stayed and visited waiting on the egg lady to bring our eggs. Visited more and realized I needed to pick Ryan up from work. I called, he said they were ready, so Sarah and I took off for the rink. When we got there he found out that they'd be there at least another hour or more. Sarah and I rushed home so we could eat and put the eggs up and I grabbed the milk that wasn't mine before going to get Ryan "for real". We then dropped off the milk, and ran by walmart to return a night gown, get my medicine(for high blood pressure, imagine that!), dog food, and ice. Then home for a bite of chicken, a shower, and a short(very short) nap. Off to drop Ryan at his youth group's place and then the girls to their Wednesday church thing before going to PetCo to see about the kitties(they are fine but I haven't got to see them yet). Met Mark at Mugshots, drank iced tea before running out to get the girls. Brought Mark back to his car and came home. He had to go back out to fetch Ryan and we ate our dinner at 10 minutes til 10 tonight. Whew.

I promise to have frog pictures, piggie pictures and more in the coming days! Things have been a bit strained as Mark was forced to resign from his job last Friday. He is doing some consulting for a friend and thinking it will be permanent in a few months but the pay is considerably less than what he was getting. Still, we consider ourselves very lucky and blessed that he has the connections and friendships that lend themselves to this type of situation.

Fishing trip...

(the girls waded)


(the boys tried to repair the motor)


(the girls were bored)


(the mom was bored)


(then things picked up)


(Sarah caught a perch!)


(then Mark caught a crappie)


(and Ryan caught one too)


(the sun went down)


(and we enjoyed the evening)

And now for something completely educational...

Last week Ryan found one of THESE in the swimming pool!!! Isn't it creepy? He is very lucky it didn't bite the peewaddle out of him!! We assume it was in the pool because of the tadpoles. They are fast becoming pickerel frogs and so far Sarah has managed to capture 26 of them to be released at a local park. I wish they weren't so stupid to get in our pool. Neighbors beside and behind us have water gardens so I guess they just view the pool as one more habitat. We also have tree frogs and some kind of ugly black one with tiny legs(looks kind of like an olive). Anyway... here's the Giant Water Bug.





I went looking for some food fun to do with the kids this summer. We watch Bizzare Foods with Andrew Zimmern and LOVE it! However, I don't think I'll be frying up any grasshoppers or squid hearts anytime soon. Instead, we'll be trying breakfast foods from around the world. Its an interesting jumping off point, now I have to research the recipes! But really, how fun does that sound to learn how different cultures do the morning meal? This page has them divided into 19 different categories but we'll probably tweak it to fit us better. I'm thinking this will be something to do on Saturday mornings rather than a weekday. That way I'll have an adult helper and he won't have to miss out on the good cooking.

In other news...

We're going fishing this afternoon when Mark gets off work. Not so much to fish as to allow Mark to fix the boat motor. It quit working last time they went out and he tinkered with it enough that he thought it would need professional help. He worked on it Sunday and got it running again but it needs some fine tuning in the water.

I wish I could find my camera cord!!! We had a super time in Ft. Worth at the zoo and botanical gardens, I highly recommend this trip! I can't show you any pictures yet though, darn it! Hopefully soon.

Attention MORONS(and responsible people too)...

PLEASE SPAY AND NEUTER YOUR PETS!!! And, if you have cats, consider keeping them as INSIDE ONLY cats!!! This happens far too often.




The kids and I had a full day of park and skate with the local homeschool groups. We got home around 4pm to find these precious babies in a flower pot next to the front porch, dry but their umbilical cords were still damp. It was 90 degrees today. Mama kitty nowhere to be found. We think she's a stray we've seen a few times, possibly feral, definitely not tame. She's probably not going to come back. I've got newborn formula for them but the black and white one isn't eating well and seems to be the weaker of the two. We are going out of town tomorrow for the weekend or this wouldn't be such a crisis. Fortunately I have someone to foster them over the weekend and possibly another person to take them til they are weaned. Provided they survive through the night with me.

Again...

PLEASE SPAY AND NEUTER YOUR PETS!!!

Ack, I forgot the title!!...

(nap session, from top left, Tallulah, Tibert, Gypsy and Jasper)


(Jasper isn't the only one who takes care of Tibert, now its Gypsy's turn)


(they stayed this way over an hour)


(Tallulah and Tibert gassed out on my computer chair after a hard play session)


(she loves having a younger playmate since Jasper and Gypsy, at 19 months old, are outgrowing that energetic stage)

In other news...

I found one of my rotary cutters so now I can work on my 9-patch!!! It isn't one of my good ones so I'm hoping to limp along and get at least a few blocks worth cut out.





And, it is raining!!! YAYYYY!!! I dragged my planters of Wandering Jew out to get a good soaking. My friend Sharon gave them to me a few years ago when she moved and I thought they'd died(or were nearly dead). Last week I gave them a whole two quarts of water and they leapt back to life! They are soooo beautiful!! Wow, it is really coming down now. Good.

If we hadn't gone, we might not be here...

(she assured me they didn't need to wear their vests)


(her class was the largest with 19 regular attendees)

Last night was Sarah's AWANA award ceremony. She completed her first book, got extra credit work, a friendship award, and an award for good manners. YAY!!! The funny thing about this AWANA stuff is that sometimes when I dropped her off the teacher would show me stuff to do "with" Sarah. When she got home, however, she squirreled her book off to her bedroom to do it "herself". I NEVER even opened the book, never even saw it. She said it took her a while to learn how to read it by herself but she did it! YAY!!!

Anyway, after the ceremony they had a pinewood derby which lasted forfreakingever. Sarah won the third heat so we got to go home earlier than many....

Which was a good thing. When Mark raised our garage door we noticed a strong, burning, acrid smell. He thought it might be his boat batteries which he'd put in the store room to charge(they weren't on the chargers though). It wasn't. We finally located the source of the smell, a fluorescent light fixture that had quit working late last week. Mark and Ryan got in the attic to see if the wires were messed up and they were fine. Mark turned off the garage breaker, just in case, and removed the bulb which was glowing red at one end! We left the door up and opened a window to get the smell out. About 20 minutes later I went out to check and the smell was still there! I climbed up the step ladder to see if I could spot something going on with the light fixture and as I put my hand on the ceiling to steady myself, found the ceiling was HOT!! Again Mark went into the attic but the other side was only warm. We decided to check the spot periodically to make sure it was cooling off and not heating up. It finally was cool when we went to bed, the power to the garage remains off.

This was truly a God thing. If we had not been gone it is possible that we would never have smelled the smell which alerted us to the problem. We would have been inside the house while it got worse and worse. Maybe someone would have gone into the garage but probably not. We are SO very blessed to still have our home and our lives!! Thank God!!!!

In other news...

Karen asked if we'd get Mr. Tibert a playmate and the answer is NO! He has bonded with Tallulah, Jasper and Gyspy very well, Jasper especially. They all romp through the house like crazy cats but he always manages to snuggle up with Jasper to take his naps.