Busy Monday, June 23

Today's 'To-Do' List

• Write this Blog 
• Write Menu
• Lunch with Husband
• Grocery Shopping
• Laundry
• Take van to mechanic - The van is down at the shop I've been coming home suffering from heat exhaustion from just the short drive from work to home so I really need to get the AC repaired. It'll take them 2 days so for now my husband and I are doing the car shuffle. 
• Contractors in to work on siding <<All day event>>
• Cat's Litter Box
• Other household chores -- My husband says I need to write myself another list since I do better with lists. Of course at the time my only thought was... yeah and you need to stop playing video games and help. <<Thank goodness he doesn't read this.>> In any case we will see where I get to. 

Menu

• Lean Pockets
• Hamburger Helper
• Pizza
• Tacos
• Breakfast for Dinner
• Steak w/Baked Potato
• Hamburgers

As always my menu is never in any order and yes there are veggies thrown in there I just haven't decided on what kind yet. 

This Week's 'To-Do' List

• Go to the gym at least twice.
•  Clean up around the house
• Sweep up attic space from blown in insulation and see how much room they left me for storage.
• Buy larger storage tots to combine items and lessen confusion. (Put it this way my husband started throwing things down from the attic because he didn't know one had a porcelain doll in it since it was so light... 
• Clean the fridge. - Today I cleaned out stuff from the fridge but I need to scrub out the whole thing. Maybe I'll get to that today but I want to set the bar so high I fail.  
• Continue to dust around the house... You'll see why. 

Last Week

So last Wednesday construction started on the house. It took them 3 days to get the insulation all put in. We went the weekend with no siding on the house. We had aluminium siding on half the house and that stuff is not replaceable and then we found out our vinyl siding had been painted so there was no matching the color so we've ended up going way over budget and having all the siding replaced on the house. 

During the course of the insulation EVERYTHING got covered with the blown in stuff. It's all over the yard, in all the flower beds and when they did the attic though I know they tried to control stuff it got all over the house. I've been having to do a LOT of dusting. This was our air filter! 




Last week I got together with one of my friends and we went out to starbucks and had sat around for the evening. I had a skinny iced mocha without whip topping. See I was being a good girl... which is really hard to do because you don't realize how many calories are in things like mochas or even shaved ice! 

This weekend Peter and I went to the Botanical Garden for the big balloon event they do every year. This was the first year I've been able to go so I was really happy about being able to. 

I got to see all the pretty flowers but also the damage left over from this last winter not even at the botanical garden could they come out of the deep freeze this year without damage. The daylilies were thriving everywhere though. 

Now here's a laugh. Peter and I both have a phobia of heights but I wanted to go up in the hot air balloon. They had a tethered one so it didn't go super high and was a short ride and we went on it! It didn't bother my husband and I at all! It was really neat and I totally want to shoot for a longer, higher ride sometime! 

There was a live cover band playing on a stage and Peter got Kettle Corn which he loves and I got some flavored shaved ice. 

During the evening paper balloons were sent up and Peter and I even got to light one and let it go up. It was beautiful to see all those specks of light. 

I took a ton of pictures but here is just a few. 

Well that's all I can remember right now. Oh and before someone gets on me... no things did not go as smoothly as they sound in this I had a rollercoaster of a time this past week but I survived it and truth be told can't remember what I was stressing about... well other than money but I'm sorry with the van being as it is and the whole construction on the house I'd be silly not to be stressed about that. 

Oh and one last thing... I decided to play with decorative glass pebbles and an old candle jar. All I have to say is lots of hot glue!

Busy Monday, June 16

Today's 'To-Do' List

• Write this Blog 
•  Mow Front and Back yard
• Write Menu
• Lunch with Husband
• Grocery Shopping
• Pull peas & plant beans
• Finish washing Laundry
• Move items from attic into kids' room. -- We never got to this last week
• Talk with Lowes about getting insulation ordered & waiting for hopefully Wednesday. We never got new siding on this past weekend because last weeks rain put our contractor behind schedule.

Menu

• Lean Pockets - Yes being lazy
• Grilled pork w/garlic herb rub, baked potato & some sort of veggie
• Lloyd's Pulled Pork (not bothering making it myself for just myself and my husband (curses and I forgot to purchase buns today))
• Hamburger Helper
• Pizza
• Grilled chicken, mashed potatoes and some sort of veggie
• Spaghetti w/meatballs

This Week's 'To-Do' List

• Order insulation
•  Clean up around the house
• Spray weed killer in the many various places it needs it. 
• New siding & ceiling insulation may start this weekend depending on Contractor.(Anyone else notice how many things I have left from last week....)

I'm sure there is more stuff but truthfully I'm pretty tired so it hasn't come to mind. 

Last Week

So Monday I did not go into work but decided to stay home and try and take care of some things. Truthfully I can't even tell you what I all did since it all became kind of a blur to me.
Tuesday when I went into work I got pretty slammed so for the rest of the week I was working over my quitting time and my supervisor had to keep coming into my office to remind me what time it was so that I would go home.

Tuesday after work I went by the farmers market for the first time in several years. I wasn't overly impressed though that may be because I had to do it after work which means many things may have been sold. This is apparently 1 lb of red potatoes and 2 onions and just that cost me $3. I like supporting local farms but sometimes it takes quite the toll on the pocket book.
After I went to the farmers market I made it a point to go down to the gym and work out since the last few weeks have been so rough that I haven't been doing that. I also did that Thursday and of course as soon as I got in my new pedometer from Humana had come in the mail. The goal is 10k steps per day! You actually would be surprised how annoyingly hard that can be some days especially if you have an at the desk job. 

Peter getting an autograph
from the voice actor of GIR

Starting on Friday Peter and I were at the OMGCon which if you don't know what that is that's okay! Most people wouldn't. It's a smaller convention focused on Anime. 

Peter was there Friday from opening and I got there around 1 o'clock after I got off of work. 

We spent the rest of the weekend from 9am to 11pm-1am at the convention just driving back home a few times a day to check on the pets. Thankfully the convention this year moved to our town which is why this is the first year we've gone to it. 

We went to several panels and went through the shops drinking what I like to call marble soda. It's a japanese soda that instead of having a cap like we are used to it uses a marble to seal it that you have to pop down. 

My new backpack. It's Happy from an anime called Fairytail.

Pikachu 3 car! 

Peter being a dork.

I had to make this picture big for y'all because it is too cool! This man made his 'chainmail' out of pop tabs from cokes and such! He said it was a real pain and it is much heavier than it looks!

This hall is full of video games. Tables and tables of TV's
hooked into Xbox's, playstations, etc.

There were a lot of people cosplaying.

Lots of shopping this a very narrow
 view of just a few shops. 

This last one was a dance Party we went to Saturday Night. Having it on the 3rd story floor was probably not a smart idea. I wasn't bouncing... the floor was! I heard later from people in late night panels that the whole building was moving. 

Busy Monday, June 9

Today's 'To-Do' List

• Write this Blog 
•  Go to work? - I haven't decided if I'm going in or not today. I really won't know until later. 
• Finish washing Laundry
• Get plants in ground in garden - Yes there are still some I haven't transplanted. I've been bad! 
• Move items from attic into kids' room. (I need to wait on Peter for this one too dangerous to do alone.)
• Talk with hospital. They messed up my appointment and have it down for a Thursday! There's no way I can take that much time off in the middle of the week from work. 

Menu

• Eat Out - We are taking our house sitters out to dinner it is our way of saying thanks for watching the pets. 
• Lasagna
• Hamburgers & Chips
• Pizza
• Unknown - OMGCon this weekend so playing it by ear
• "..."
• "..." 

This Week's 'To-Do' List

• Order insulation
•  Clean up around the house
• Spray weed killer in the many various places it needs it. 
• New siding & ceiling insulation may start this weekend depending on Contractor.
• OMGCon Friday-Sunday this probably will take up all of that time. 

Last Week

So after I got home from work I wanted to spend some quality time with my girls. Now Katherine (on left) did not want to paint fingernails because she's not a girly girl but I had her paint her sisters and that made all the difference and then her sister painted hers and they giggled and laugh and they got nail polish everywhere.

 I'm not sure why they decided to sit so far apart at the airport. Or why they decided to wear the same clothes. I swear they own more than that one outfit. In any case seeing how we had to leave for Nashville by 2:30am I wasn't really going to fuss at them since I was so tired since Peter and I didn't get to bed until like 11 o'clock the night before as we tried to make sure all the suitcases were properly put together and paperwork, tickets, IDs, etc were ready.

We did make it to the airport on time though and I got the girls through security alright. I spent the day snoozing in and out and tightly grasping my phone as Brielle lead her sister through Denver airport. I swear every bad thought was going through my head.... They were going to leave their carry ons (2 purses we tried to keep it small so they wouldn't have to use the overhead), they were going to miss their connecting flight, they were going to get lost, the plane was going to go down...... I mean every bad thought!! It's pretty nerve racking when the airline says your 13 year old is an adult and can lead your 9 year old through an airport! I'm very glad though my girls are very experienced fliers having flown every year pretty much for the last 5 at very least if not longer. The kids did make it to Portland, Oregon where my parents picked them up and they have been off having adventures there. Peter & I will pick the kids back up at the airport next month.

Picture of the geese and their babies. I wanted a better shot but I was walking to my car from work so my arms were full so it was hard to dig out my phone. Yes, we have a lot of geese that like all of our ponds at work. The babies are so cute! It's also funny to watch the adults get after the babies when they do something wrong.

Last week I also got some eggs from my friend who has a farm and collected some other food from people to donate to a lady whose household of 6 just had their food stamps cut dramatically.
It is always nice when a small community of friends can make something come together to help someone else out.

Saturday I finally got around to canning the Mulberries. I Juiced them a day or two prior (days are blending together for me) and I knew I had to get them canned up soon. So I made just Mulberry Jelly and then I made Mulberry Jelly sweetened with local honey.
That big tub of mulberries made 4 jars. Not a whole lot but maybe if folks like it next year we can get out earlier in the season and do several batches. My tree had dropped a LOT of them by time my friend and my children got around to picking them.

There was some other stuff that went on. Big card game at the house. Lots of stress but it's a new week so I'm going to move past that. While my schedule may not look busy it really is a lot more and I know it but I'm trying not to put too much strain on myself considering everything that is going on.

Hope everyone has a wonderful week! 

Busy Monday, June 2

Today's 'To-Do' List

• Write this Blog 
•  Go to work
• Finish washing Laundry
• Make sure the kids get packed
• Shop for airport friendly snacks (need to do research on this too see what kinds of things the kids can take)
• Pick dinner up out. 
• Early Bedtime for entire family

Menu

• Eat Out (I don't feel like dishes tonight)
• Unknown at this time I'll figure this out tomorrow. 

This Week's 'To-Do' List

• Take kids to airport. They will be flying to Oregon to see my family until the start of next month. 
• Clean house
• Finish putting away sleeping bags (I got them washed and dried and rolled but that is as far as I got last week)
• Go out looking for siding. Call around asking about siding. - You're going to hear a lot about siding. Peter and I are having our house insulated. We didn't have enough in the roof  apparently (though I think a big part of that is we have no air flow up there even though we have put in various additional venting systems) and our exterior walls don't have any insulation. So we are having someone  rip off the aluminum siding and putting in insulation. It's not cheap but it is something we've needed to do for years. (the things you don't think you need to check on when you buy a house...)
• Who knows what else other than I know work and my husband is on-call so that limits plans. 

Last Week

So yes I missed last week. It was Memorial Day and then the rest of the week was very busy with it being the last week of school for the kids. So, I owe you 2 weeks and I'll try to highlight it the best I can. 

The Friday before our camping trip we had Katherine's big school project we had been working on and thanks to one of my friends who sewed the bonnet and the apron we were able to pull it off. Katherine's famous person was Laura Ingalls Wilder. She did a very good job and Peter and I made a point to head over there and see her at the school! I never get to see the school projects and events because I'm always at work so I took off early that day so I could make it a point to see her. 

So for Memorial Day we didn't go to Mammoth Caves this year because my teenager decided that she wanted to go to Holiday World (theme park) with the rest of the Orchestra that day. Seeing how they don't do these trips in High School and many people will not be in Orchestra in High School because how they schedule things it's really hard to stay in (trust me they had to do a lot of juggling for Brielle). In any case, it meant that someone (thankfully my husband) was going to have to travel back to town to pick her up so we needed a much closer camping spot. We decided to go to Rough River. 

While there we went down to the water and played on the beach and we saw some friends who were visiting family over there and they showed us around the area some. We went on a nature walk but only one because the ticks were horrible so none of us were brave enough to go adventuring again. Our campsite was on this very steep hill so we put the kids tent in the graveled tent area that was flat and Pete and I took a hill and would wake up every morning having slid down our bed and our feet hanging over. I was very off balance when we came home and would suddenly get the sensation of being on a slope. 

You may noticed no pictures with Brielle walking with us. Our adventure was Saturday while she was gone but Katherine's friend who had never been camping came a long with us so the kids had fun.  

Brielle had yet another Orchestra concert. She failed to even tell us about it until we were unloading the van Monday from the camping trip. Ah teenagers.... 

I took a goofy picture of my husband while we were out to dinner for our 14 year anniversary.
We went out for a nice dinner and because it was the middle of the week we got great service.
Nothing was in the theater we wanted to see so instead we went to Sam's Club to wander around and we ended up running into friends there and talking until nearly the club closed on us! 

I got rather stressed out this past week so when I went down to Hobby Lobby for a silver Sharpie I saw this book while I was walking in and decided that I needed something for me and I knew I had some money left on my gift card from Christmas. Now I just need some time to do projects. 

Brielle was all dressed up for her last year of Middle School. My girl is a High School-er come Fall!
I picked her up early from school though not as early as most students were picked up because I was at work. I missed her Middle School graduation which was sad. I woul have really liked to have been there. 

After school we went downtown to the DMV and got her a state issued ID which made her feel all grown up. 

Saturday we went down to order our family pictures. Oh you don't want to know the costs. It's going to be strange though to take the tapestry down in the living room. I'm probably going to hate it for awhile since I really dislike change.

Saturday morning before Peter and I left to go order our pictures (see above) one of our friends came over and picked mulberries off of our tree so I need to process the berries this week too.

Saturday night we had friends over for a BBQ/Potluck. We had 7 adults and I believe it was 10 children! We had really good food and Peter set up the projector outside for an outdoor theater for the kids. I was a bit flustered but thankfully one of my friends snapped a shot of the theater.

That evening Katherine's friend spent the night too. We had a lot of bumps though because our teenager was so emotional. She was tired and didn't want to admit to it. The next morning I asked her how she felt after I had made her go to bed and she said a lot better and gave me a hug. Our babies will always be our babies won't they. 

Sunday before Katherine's friend went home we all sat down and made stain glass butterflies for a friend of mine who just had a baby and is doing the baby's room in butterflies. 

Later Sunday I tackled a stained shirt. I may or may not have mentioned that Brielle (my teenager) left a root beer flavored chap-stick in a pocket and not only did it go through the wash but the dryer and stained a lot of clothing. Well around ground zero of the accident I tried scrubbing it with soap, with goo gone, with dish soap, with laundry bars and washed it several times over. I even tried using a magic eraser and I used dry cleaning chemicals! This was the result of all that previous work.

It was still pretty bad. So then I started Google searching and I saw WD-40, Dawn and Baking soda. While this did work though a really long process it made my house smell like WD-40 (which isn't too pleasant) and it was a lot of work, especially since the whole shirt was stained.
So I took an old LARGE pickle jar (yes I hoard) and stuffed the shirt in it, covered the shirt with olive oil and then put the lid on and started shaking to get the oil worked around and then let it sit a little bit while I gathered my supplies outside since thing were going to get messy. I then proceeded to cover the shirt in baking soda (I went through half a box by the end of this!) and I scrubbed it with an old tooth brush. I then scrubbed dawn into the shirt. It took a lot of elbow grease. I then put the shirt back into the pickle jar and covered it with vinegar and let it foam up and sit. I would then put my hand in and squeeze and move around the fabric in the jar before emptying the jar (which I did on top of some weeds in the drive so hey double duty! since it kills weeds well). I did this several times over with the vinegar until it was white and no the 'yellow' the oil has been making it. I was very stubborn but here is my result. -->
Other than I noticed I tore part of the shirt during everything, the shirt was good as new. I pulled out my sewing machine and fixed up the seam that had torn and that was one shirt done! (now only like 6 more to go but they aren't as bad).

Sunday night in the rain my dear husband went out with me (since I had hurt my back during the course of Sunday) and and we picked up a baby swing someone donated (Facebook version of free-cycle) and we took it over to my friend's house so she could have a swing for her baby. It was a very nice swing and my husband I went out and bought some batteries for it. My poor dear friend got tripped up by her cat while carrying the baby so she hit the floor pretty hard we were a pretty sorry pair though thankfully my husband was there and helped take care of the baby for a bit.

Well I think think that pretty much finishes off the recap and I'm at work right now actually just putting the finishing touches on this so I can upload it.
I hope everyone has a wonderful week!