Friday, May 31, 2013


I've got a couple of things today. First, the photos I mentioned from our birthday camping trip.








 Wow! I'm SHOCKED that Blogger uploaded photos finally! Anyway, this was the weekend of Hubby's birthday.
  In other news (in case you missed it on Facebook), my darling daughter got the Difference Maker award at her school today. It's like Student of the Quarter. I've got a video here, though it's hard to understand what her teacher is saying so I'm including a transcription for you:

My Difference Maker for the quarter is a student of mine that has quietly been an absolute role model the entire year. My Difference Maker is somebody that will be a friend, somebody that’s always working, always quiet and peaceful and helpful  AND gets work done. My difference maker has grown so much academically and as a person and I am duly honored to say my Difference Maker is Miss McKinley. {applause} {then another teacher starts talking and we don't really care what she said...LOL}
 
 

So, there you have it. Until next time...

Sunday, May 26, 2013

Hello again. Happy Memorial Day Weekend! We're having a pretty lazy weekend. Hubby went gold panning yesterday with his buddy. The original plan was for them to stay overnight and come home today but the other guy's wife got sick so he had to get home to be with her. So, they came back yesterday. When we asked the kids if they wanted to go camping/gold panning this weekend they declined. Guess they had to rest up from last weekend. Last weekend was hubby's birthday and he wanted to camp at the reservoir. The temperature was nice, not too hot, not too cold. But the WIND! It blew and howled and blew some more. That wasn't so pleasant. But the fishing was better. The last several times we've fished there we haven't caught anything. But Hubby caught a catfish and a couple of carp. MoMo had one on her line that got off. Big R also had one on the line that got away. Oh well, maybe next time. Overall, it was a pretty nice weekend. But this weekend we're just hanging out at home.
  I've been working on some projects, too. I don't even know how many projects I'm working on right now. A lot. But here's Eric's quilt. Eric's quilt I decided not to use the leftover triangles. Mainly because it would be quite a bit more work and he's already waited 5+ years for his quilt. Plus, I want to have more time to work on my other projects! LOL But I did use some leftover strips and pieced a border with those. I can't decide if I want to add another black border to the outside or not. What do you think?
  Here's a project I finished a couple weeks ago but waited to post since it was for a birthday present. But now she has it so I can share! Hunger Games iPad case I paper pieced the Hunger Games symbol then used that block to make a zippered and padded case. I also threw in some personalized notepads and stamp. So, happy birthday! I'm glad you like it!
  I also started sewing triangles together for the triangle baby quilt. I have 2 rows done. triangle quilt 2 rows But then I got a bee in my bonnet and decided I HAD to start another project and that it HAD to be done first. So, I've spent the last couple days cutting these. 168 circles, 168 squares Yep, that's right, 168 circles and 168 squares. The squares I cut with my rotary cutter so they weren't so bad but the circles are all cut by hand. Needless to say, my hand kind of hurts. I'm ready, though, to start sewing them together now. So, in a little bit (after I finish this post) I plan to do exactly that. And no one better get in my way!
  I did also want to share some more pictures of the garden. Because I know you are all as excited as I am about it! It's getting big. And sort of being taken over by tomatillos. We did not plant any tomatillos this year. But we got a TON of plants this year that came up all on their own! I obviously have lots of jars of canned tomatillo salsa in my future. :) Also, there are lots of johnny jump ups that come up on their own every year. I planted some in a pot several years ago and they have spread and spread. Even into my vegetable garden bed but I don't mind. I love seeing their cheery faces in the midst of everything else! So, here are the garden pictures...
Main garden bed
Tomatillos
Main bed with johnny jump ups
Potato planter
Spinach, tomatillos, sunflower, etc
Tiny lemon!
Ripening strawberries
Blueberries
Front yard bed
Blackberries
Volunteer pea
Giant pumpkin
And here are our girls. Well, hopefully they are all girls. We haven't discovered that any are roosters. Yet. Right now we usually get 2 chicken eggs and 1 duck egg a day. But our Valentine's Day chicks are almost old enough to start laying. Then we might get as many as 8 chicken eggs a day!
Our girls
Our girls 2
  Alright, I think that's it for now. I think we have a few pictures from last weekend but they're on the other computer so when I copy them I'll try to post them here. Hope you have a great weekend!

Friday, May 3, 2013

Hello. So, today was Big R's follow up appointment for his finger.  It truly is fractured and he ended up needing an actual cast on it. For at least 6 weeks. Yay. Well, he's actually pretty excited about it right now. He thinks it's pretty cool and "science-y." Because the cast material goes on flexible then gets hard. We'll see how he feels when it gets hotter and it gets hot and sweaty under there and he can't swim and all that. Blogger is (still) having problems with uploading photos so I'm uploading photos to Flickr again. You can just click on the orange text which is linked to the photos. He did get a manly colored cast. Blue. And a bit of red tape. So he's kind of patriotic. Big R with cast

And our gardening is going pretty well this year. We've got spinach ready to harvest now. Spinach And lettuce growing fast. Lettuce The strawberries are blossoming (blossoms) and we've even got strawberries growing. Berries I can hardly wait until they're ripe! We planted Italian (flat leaf) parsley last year and it has reseeded and spread like crazy. strawberries vs parsley In the front yard we cleared a space and planted zucchini, yellow squash, and pumpkins. MoMo had brought home a cabbage plant from school and she planted that up there, too. front yard bed We built a rough planter out of pallets and filled it with compost we had made and planted 10 pounds of seed potatoes in there, both Yukon Gold and Red Pontiac. The plants have come up and seem to be thriving so hopefully we'll be able to harvest plenty of potatoes in a few months. Potatoes We have some tomato plants but we haven't put them in the ground yet since the weather is still unpredictable. It's been mostly warm but a couple of nights ago we had freezing temps overnight. So we've been moving the tomatoes (and dwarf lemon tree and dwarf fig) inside on nights where it is likely to freeze. We've still got more we want to plant--some peppers and cauliflower and things. Maybe we'll get that done this weekend.

I've also been cutting some fabric. I signed up for another I Spy fabric swap. I had 6 fabrics from previous swaps that had enough to use for this swap. I Spy squares Which meant I had to get 4 more fabrics. I cut 20 squares from 10 different fabrics for a total of 200 squares. Then I get 200 different squares back. So, I cut the squares from the 6 fabrics I had and I'm waiting on the other fabrics to come in the mail. I Spy fabric on order I also have a big pile of triangles cut out for the triangle baby quilt, just waiting to be sewn together. Triangles I've got a couple of other projects planned, as well. May totally snuck up on me. I saw something a couple of days ago that said Mother's Day was 12 days away or something. That took me completely by surprise. In my mind it was further away. And right along with Mother's Day I've got no fewer than 3 birthdays this month. So, yeah, it'll be a busy month.

Well, I think that's all for now. Have a wonderful weekend!