Friday Fifteen...

(squirrel on the roof!)


(sunshine on the oaks)


(flooded yard)


(mostly cleaned out garage)


(table project, not yet underway)


(favorite mug)


(Sarah)


(girls bunks)


(new color for the laundry room)


(Papaw's yard clean-up)


(book purging)


(kitchen in the morning)


(bird and/or cat watching)


(Papaw)


(Sarah's friend)

Friday 15, in no particular order...

One day I'm gonna share about our hoarding experience(my mother-in-law) but all the pics are on a computer I don't have access to right now. For now, I'll focus on the work and play from earlier this Spring...


(house minus some really ugly bushes!)


(Boopa and Macaroni)


(Amy having her arm signed by members of A Bullet for Pretty Boy)


(pine root in the front yard)


(spring flowers)


(rescued frog at Papaw's, a snake was after him)


(testing new paint color for the porch and shutters-Secret Garden by Valspar)


(Wisteria at Papaw's)


(Daisy from the block)


(mossy chair)


(new light, new paint-day)


(at night)


(perigee super moon)


(Sarah's piggy butt)


(Jefferson Mardi Gras)

CRRROOOOOAK!!!

My day...

Sunday night I got a call from my brother. Seems he found "the" table set that he's been searching for all his life, in my neck of the woods. Nevermind that he lives almost 1000 miles from me...


(this is the best pic I have)

I can see how it would be hard to resist. It isn't really my style, unless, of course, I had the whole 50s kitchen thing goin' on, but cute nonetheless. The 80+-year-old couple who owned the table set had it since it was new. I called yesterday morning and it was still available so I made arrangements to pick it up early today. Aaron had also sent a link from the same seller for some quilts. I asked about them when we were finished loading up and the owner of the table said the seller was working with her things on consignment so the quilts didn't belong to her. However, she wanted to show me one she did have(but not for sale!). Her mother-in-law made this one probably back in the 50s or so. The hexagons are in between the size of a nickel and a quarter, in other words, TINY! It is just gorgeous! It came to her unfinished so she and her sister sewed a few stitches and hand-quilted it. I was positively drooling and politely asked if I could take a few pictures of it. She obliged...

(click to enlarge)








Oh, and an emu runs the woods behind their property...

Carpetless...

And loving it!! There are small pieces from 3 closets left but the rest is gone, gone, gone! Mark took up the tack boards in the living room but they're still down in the hallway, our bedroom and the girls' room. We are still not sure if we want paint or stain. There are some major dark chocolate stains in the living room, probably from woodwork my dad did when building the house. If it doesn't come up we'll just have to prime over and paint. We are also trying to decide if we want to take up the linoleum in the kitchen/dining/utility rooms and entry hall. It makes more sense to do it all at once but it is a lot of work! It would be nice to have this all done by Thanksgiving but I'm not holding my breath. With Mark working an hour away our evenings are kinda short, weekends are pretty busy too. Furniture will have to be moved out, the entire area will need swept, mopped, vacuumed, and the concrete will need prepped with chemicals. I'll try and get pictures from each step and post our mishaps as well.


In other news...

My brother has been learning to kayak over the past few months and has bought a camera to film his adventures. Here's part of his latest trek.



It is raining like crazy here, expecting up to 2 inches, more in some areas. I'll be willing to bet we've already had our 2 inches here! I can't recall a wetter autumn that didn't include a hurricane or two. Our front yard is a lake and was yesterday too!

I'm working on a new crochet project, another afghan! Just plain half-double stitches but in gorgeous fallish colors from I Love This Yarn put out by Hobby Lobby. Pix later. I'm also working on basting a quilt so I can get started hand quilting it in November.

Apples don't fall far...

My kids are taking after me in ways I'd sometimes rather they did not. This is a water snake of some kind that had been about to enjoy a meal of bullfrog... Until Ryan yanked it from the water and stuck it in this bucket. It measured about 33 inches long. They did release it after an hour or so, it was too aggressive for them to hold.
(click any image to see it bigger)


Remember this cutie pie that I found in the woods back in early April?...



He has turned into a giant hair-eating monster!!!


**
And his cohorts have taken up all the good places to sit.


**

In other news...

We've decided to start on the carpet next weekend. We found the tools we'll need and have been encouraged by other folks' successes. I think we're going to paint the kitchen this week, at night. I've also got plants to pot and some yardwork to get done during the days. Fun, Fun!!

** taken with Mark's phone camera.

Sounds of Summer...

One of my favorite treats of summer is listening to cicadas sing in our oak tree. Of course, I can also hear them singing in the trees throughout our neighborhood, they are quite loud! When the kids were little they would collect bread sacks full of empty cicada shells but they've thankfully outgrown that. Very rarely have we had the pleasure of watching one hatch from its larval shell.


Longview News-Journal photographer Les Hassell braved mosquitoes and who-knows-what other creepy, crawlies to get these spectacular images of a cicada emerging from its shell. They are truly spectacular!

In other news....

We are going to the Pritchett Okra Festival tomorrow!! I hope to come home with a bushel of goodies. Homesick Texan just posted a recipe for pickled okra, how timely is that? I'm planning on making a few pints at least, depending on what my haul is.

Look-ee what we made!!

I totally forgot to bring the camera to the park for how-to pictures but oh well. Many thanks to all who participated(and brought stuff to share), it wouldn't have happened except for y'all! We had a great time making these and I hope they survive!

Here's the results...



(Sarah's terrarium)


(Mark and Molly's Buddha terrarium, the moss and plants will grow, they're about the size of a dime now)


(Amy's terrarium)


(new family member, Pickles Turtle rescued from the middle of a brush pile many many yards from water, slightly bigger than a quarter)

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!!