Bye

Goodbye to 7 days once again.... until next time, the Summer 7 days run.  I'm super excited for it because it will be LeakyCon!! And I'll meet a few online friends.


(87/365)

Six

Getting Leia to do a trick.  Carus day 6.


My new gnome.  I'm not usually a fan of garden gnomes (they tend to creep me out) but I found this guy last weekend and I liked him, so I brought him home. I haven't decided what his name is yet.  Any suggestions?

5th day

85/365
I made ribs for dinner. I was taste testing a piece before putting the platter on the table.  They were a preseasoned package I got from the grocery store and they were okay. Not the best ribs I've had though.



Carus's day 5

"Can you guess what I'm watching?"

7 days, day 4

84/365
Today was my last vacation day.  I took the kids shopping to Walmart specifically to pick up The Hobbit and to Goodwill to look for a new suit for Adam and band concerts (see below for a pic of how that went). I broke both pairs of my sunglasses recently so I'm in the market for new ones - I tried on like 50 of them today....didn't like any of them.



Adam suited up!

Reading.

Day 3

New earrings from a friend - clip-ons.


83/365
Making dinner, like I do.  Sometimes it feels like its all I do - make dinner...

But since I'm still on vacation I didn't have work today so it didn't feel as much of a chore as it usally does.

Dinner:
Oven fried pork chops
Roasted red potatoes
Salad

Dessert:
Cheesecake sampler (Choice of two from - regular, chocolate, strawberry swirl, and caramel apple)

7 Days is Back!

Day 1, 81/365
Wine with dinner.  My second glass, actually.  We were still in Washington visiting, and having a grand time. The boys had spent the day on the shooting range and the girls shopping Hobby Lobby (I need one of those stores near me....or maybe not). It was also day 1 of 7 days, spring. I nearly forgot, but thankfully a browse through Instagram reminded me.



Carus's day 1.
Sophie was mid yawn.


Day 2, 82/365
Road tripping home.  The drive home was much quicker, and went better.  We had Leia stay in the back and though she occasionally tried to climb over onto the kids, she did much better.  I'm going to start working on her riding-in-the-car manners.  Her car rides are usually to the dog park, 2 minutes away, so it's very exciting and very quick.  Yoda got to chill on top of the pillows and folded blankets.



Carus's day 2.
Can you find her?

Last week and road tripping

Wow, I'm nearly a full week behind in uploading.  Hadn't planned on that.

But really, does anyone plan to get behind in things?

Anyhoo - I left off at last Tuesday, with an evening full of band concert attending for this goofball. Just a quick "look what we can do" concert.
77/365

 I think most of these concerts are to encourage parent support up through high school.  High school is where they get really good and I think it's where the band teacher, who teaches 5th grade through 12th grade on very limited funding and purchases sheet music out of his own pocket and drives to 3 different schools everyday (middle school and high school classes during school hours and then upper elementary band after school hours), gets to enjoy all his effort.  He really loves to listen to them play, and to teach; and that shows.

78/365
Knitting to unwind after a lllooooonnngg day.  Changing colors, which I learnt thanks to Youtube.


79/365
Playing with Leia after work before I had to start packing for our spring break road trip we took this weekend.


80/365
We went over to eastern Washington to visit some family friends for the weekend, and had a lovely visit.  The drive out took longer then it should have, and then we expected, because Leia is a turd and wanted to climb into my lap (no room for her with Yoda on my lap) and/or Robert's lap (which doesn't work well with him driving). But we made it, and a good weekend ensued. They have a 4 month old shihtzu puppy, Sophie, which Carus attached herself to and carried around all weekend.  Thanks for having us Dave and Eula!

Gardening!

I read on a blog One Hundred A Month about how well it works to plant potatoes and peas on St. Patrick's day.  So I did some planting myself.  We decided against peas this year in favor for more room for what we are planting.


Potato tower attempt #2 - the cover as they grow method. (Attempt #1)  I put the seed potatoes down and covered with soil.  When they've grown a few inches above the soil level, I'll cover them again.  I had extra seed potatoes so I started some in the garden, the "usual" way.

Also around the yard and garden this spring.


My lilac bush.



Garlic.  The bigger ones are from last spring, they didn't get that big.  The smaller are from when I planted (at the correct time) last fall.


I planted a row of carrots and a row of radishes.


75/365 - Front garden bed with pretty flowers.  The dahlias are coming up too.


More front garden flowers.


And a little bit more front garden flowers.


Daffodils.


76/365 - And while I was working in the garden yesterday, I finally trimmed my lavender bush - which I should have done in the fall.  I took some of the trimmings, dipped them in rooting hormone and I'm hoping I'll get 4 more lavender plants out of it.

Weekend is gone....again

72/365
Thursday was 3/14/2013

Pi(e) day. You know, like pi as in the math number - 3.14(1592...).  Get it?

I swung by the grocery store on the way home from work and picked up a chocolate cream pie to surprise the kids with for dessert. It was pretty good.  It was a looonggg day so I cheated and just used my Instagramed phone photo.


73/365
Friday was a pretty good day.  I wasn't feeling too creative or inspired for a photo.  I noticed there were very little clouds out.  No clouds means lots of stars.  That's a plane in the lower right of the photo.  The exposure was 5 seconds long.  Can you see Orion?


74/365
Saturday turned into a really lazy day.  Didn't do anything.  Didn't go anywhere.  Did cuddle in bed with Yoda pug and watch some shows online though.

Adventures in urban suburbia

70/365

I think spring is really here.  *knock on wood*

The chill is gone from the air and 50 degrees feels different than 50 degrees felt just a few weeks ago, and we're getting more then 50 degrees on a regular basis.

And, unlike a majority of people, I am in love with Daylight Savings in the spring. I LOVE having the sun still up when I get off work at 5:30, and staying up for more than just minutes.  I am always very happy to see the next season when it arrives.  So YAY for spring.

Yesterday I took the dogs out to wander around the yard, well mostly to watch Leia run laps and wear herself out.  Yoda isn't too playful in his "old" age, but even he was getting bouncy.











71/365

Today, the weather was so nice I opened up the sliding glass door to get some fresh air.  It also allowed Leia to run back and forth and play without trying to insist I throw a toy for her every five seconds (which isn't conducive for me working).  I opened the door, she took off into the backyard, and I suddenly hear a chicken freaking out.  I figured Leia was sticking her head under the fence to the neighbor's yard (there's a hole just the right size for a lab's head - Leia's or one of their three) and bugging their chickens.  I was surprised to see a chicken in our yard.  Leia was rather excited about the possible new toy/playmate.  The chicken, however, was not interested in playing.   I don't mind the visit - they eat bad bugs and I find them extremely amusing - and someday I plan to have chickens too, but I don't want to be responsible of Leia getting carried away.  I caught her (fairly easily) and took her back to her yard.

And of course I had my camera and had to get a picture first. (The purple is my shirt - I was aiming and snapping half blind with one hand.)

69/365

Still sick

I'm still sick and I'm ready for bed so I'm going to catch things up quickly and get on with the bed time.

*  *  *  *  *

Thursday (65/365) I took a sick day and NyQuil and slept all day. Didn't make me 100% but did make the sore throat well enough I could swallow again. And it was the start of the head congestion trying to move to my lungs.


Friday (66/365) I went back to work.  It was okay, it wasn't too bad but I was functioning so back to the grind. I spent my lunch break sunbathing with Timmy...again.  Springtime sun breaks have me sunbathing like this every chance I get.


Saturday I woke up a little stuffed up but feeling better so I went grocery shopping to get it done and by the time I got home I wasn't feeling good.  I started to lay down for a nap, but then got up and did more things and more things and by the end of the day the crud was really moving into my lungs and I felt like I was dying.

 (67/365) Daffodils are blooming.  The tulips aren't too far behind.


Sunday, today, thanks to NyQuil and my inhaler my lungs feel better but I still feel blah.  But I still didn't relax and rest like I probably should have. I think I have spring fever and I'm itching to be outside and gardening.  The weather wasn't as pretty today as it was yesterday, but still...  And Carus is sick now, but with her having a fever she has been just resting today...while I planted pretty pretty flowers in the front garden bed.

I needed some color and spring and flowers.  Besides this ranunculus (Persian buttercup) pictured below (68/365), I planted some grape hyacinths, pansies, violas, English mums (which I can't find online of so you'll have to wait until I take of picture of mine...maybe tomorrow).  I also planted some bulbs I had laying around for awhile waiting for me to plant - foxgloves, daylilies, lily of the valley, gladiolas, and cone flowers/echinacea.  Hopefully everything comes up and fast.  The pages I linked to aren't necessarily the exact color of the ones I planted. 

Three days down

Two days to go... I'm ready for the weekend.

62/365
My just cause flowers.  I was having a blah day, which Robert noticed from my texts, so he brought me some flowers.


63/365
Leia is learning some new tricks.  She does pretty well with holding the treat.


64/365
I'm cheating with an phone shot.  I am sick and spent the day in bed, with my two feet warmers.

Park day

Yay for spring coming and it drying up enough to go to the dog park for a game of fetch. Leia was super happy about it.

61/365  - Carus enjoyed swinging.

The week in photos. Also, there are words.

Things got away from me Monday and I didn't get my 365 uploaded and shared, and didn't get around to it Tuesday and then before I knew it the week was over.

And now my weekend is over so I figured I better get on things before I get too far behind.  Maybe I should continue sharing weekly instead of daily (or mostly daily).

55/365
An itty bitty ant that Robert made using resistors. It's about as big as a penny.  He got a big kick out of scaring me with it.



56/365
I finally finished knitting the shawl I've been working on for like 3 years so I decided to start a blanket.  These were the new "tools" I got for that blanket.



57/365
My new yarn basket for the living room.  I grabbed it because it was marked 50% off, then I got to the register and found it was an additional 25% off of the sale price.



58/365
I make my coffee about once every 2 weeks.  I make the first pot REALLY strong and then run a second pot through it and combine them for a perfect (still strong) mix.  I keep them in canning jars in the fridge and heat up a cup at a time if I want hot coffee, but mostly I just use it for iced coffee. Thursday was a make coffee day and the jars had a lot of condensation on them.



59/365
Pretty Timmy kitty.



60/365
Homemade pizza night - BBQ chicken pizza and pepperoni.  I tried a recipe for sourdough pizza dough so I could use some of my starter. It was good, but it needed more rise time and the regular one out of my family cookbook was liked better.