Why am I cold in June?
OK, so I have lived in Michigan all my life. So why does it surprise me that last week it was unbearably hot
"no kids we can't go outside...wow look how burned I got for standing on the front porch for a minute" HOT.
BUT
This week....the past few days especially I have contemplated wearing sweatshirts. Go figure.
When it's not raining we have been riding bikes and organizing the garage. One day we found this in the garage:
It is a Black Swallowtail (
Papilio polyxenes) or at least that is what I could figure from this butterfly website.Last Saturday we took the boys to see a fireworks show in Port Huron. They both did so well and we all enjoyed the show very much. Manu didn't even flinch at the "booms" (he cries at loud noises normally) he just was contently sitting on my lap. We hope to catch another show sometime this weekend.
Happy Birthday Denise!!
I just wanted to steal Denise’s blog for just a moment. On this day the love of my life came into this world. We grew up about a mile apart and probably crossed paths many times when we were kids. We’ve been a couple for over 14 years now (married for 10) and I haven’t been happier in my life. I can’t begin to imagine what my life would be like without Denise in it. If it wasn’t for you I’d be standing for hours in front of the bananas at a supermarket somewhere trying to figure out which bunch to pick.
Thank you for being a wonderful mom to two crazy little boys. I know it’s not easy being a Working stay at home mom trying to stay at your computer to get your work done, getting the boys dressed and fed, keeping them from beating each other up, then worrying about making a sensible low calorie dinner. But it could be worse; we could be trying to sell the house. You give more of yourself every day to your work and your family than most people do in a year. You are a fun, thoughtful and loving person and the boys and I are lucky to have you in our lives.
Happy Birthday Denise! I know I’m not that great at making good decisions for events like today, but I hope you have a wonderful day!
I love you!
Chad
Is that Chad or is it Smokey???
Yippeee Summer!
Happy belated Father's day to my wonderful husband Chad! How wonderful is he you ask? Well Saturday he (with assistance from Daniel) took Belle to the vet...when he left the house was realtively peaceful. When he came home I was standing in the living room knee deep in loveseat and couch cushions and pillow "insides", with my mom's steam cleaner in hand. I turned to him and said "WE HAVE to get these in the washer! I can't take the smell anymore!" Well instead of turning around and running from the crazy lady he helped. After we got the covers in the washer, he steam cleaned the back of the couch and helped pick up more and THEN proceeded to vacuum all on his own.
OH I guess I should explain about the "smell". It goes back to our dear kitty Tess, whom we still miss terribly. Well at the end she was kind of peeing on lots of things....one of those things being the couch. It was only certain areas and I think we have treat those to an acceptable point. But I could still smell a small funk. I realized that she may not have peed on the cushions themselves....but she did lay on them. The last time we put the covers in the washer it was kind of a hassle. This time not so bad, and the smell seems to be gone for now. At any rate we are in the market for new living room furniture.
We had an awesome day together yesterday, it was so nice that it also happened on the first day of summer. Our church has been having fundraisers for a teen mission trip so I "hired a teen" to mow the lawn. So Chad got a break from that, and we got to spend a quiet Sunday together. He even got to go to Home Depot all by himself.....no child to take along. We also spent some time with Chad's dad on Saturday. We took him out to dinner and they watched a ballgame together while I took the kids for a walk. For not planning much or having any kind of agenda, it was a great weekend!
Tada! And other things:-)
So we have been a little busy around here the past few weeks. Mostly with house projects. I already blogged about the garage sale. I am proud to say that all of that got moved back into the basement and is actually organized for the next one......
whoo hoo yay us!
Oh......the week before we had our garage sale, it was our anniversary. The Friday evening before we had a picnic and then went for a hike in a beautiful state recreation area by our house. We LOVED it, Belle loved it. We had a nice family hike, we SWORE we were going to be back again and again.....heck we even noted that it would be a great place to take Chad's dad fishing. Then we came home.....and found ticks! Lots of ticks! The poor dog never got such a bath and inspection. So.....we won't go back. Even with a repellent, it is just not worth the risk to any member of our family. OH well. We have great pictures to remember it at least.
The next night we went out for the night, and left the kids at Papa and Grandma's house. It was weird to be home without the kids, dog, or cat (sniff), for a whole night and morning. But it was needed. We went to pick up the boys and from there headed to Greenfield Village with some friends. We got to ride a train....but I think Daniel was a little disappointed. Because now when he says he wants to go on a train, he clarifies it with "I want to go on an inside train".
Manu kept asking to get down about halfway into the ride......and well that was a little scary since it was an open air train.
This past week we finally finished up the front flower bed. We need to add some mulch. I choose cedar. I like the bright color, but mostly I hope they will keep the bugs around our house at bay. We have a lot of open lots around our house with standing water which can
attrack bugs. We keep bugging (
lol pun) the village and association about it hopefully it will be cleared in the summer.
I am really happy with how it turned out. I have some roses planted that won't bloom until maybe next year so more color is on the way. But it is so much better than what it was.
I still want to brick in the space to the right of the house. We just put mulch down so it looked finished until we can get to that project. Oh now our porch is "fixed", but we'll see how long it lasts. There is more drama to that, but....I will just move on.
Next we need to work on organizing the garage so we can get the van in:-)
And as promised, my finished (
ahmm sorta) vegetable garden. We still need to put up a
trellis, but I have a makeshift one for the snap peas in the meantime. I am just so happy it's pretty much done. Chad did a great job!
Now there are a bunch of projects that need to be done in the house. Ones that involve me to be organized and neat and clean.......things I am not
lol!
Garage Sale update
Well the sale didn't go that bad. At first we were kind of disappointed with the slow pace. But then we started to find out from neighbors that they made less and had the same traffic problem. Today at church I mentioned to the pastor's wife that we had a garage sale this weekend and she said they had one too. She only did slightly better than us, and she has older kids and had more items out. We figured that we were both in sub sales....and there were so many going on all over, people were just driving by and thinking "oh maybe I will go back to that one" but never coming back for whatever reason (spent to much already
lol). So while participating in a sub sale we help get more traffic, it must also overwhelm buyers...plus the people who shop at them...may have been holding there own.
At any rate....we kind of caught the garage sale bug. The "good" stuff that didn't sell....we are just going to put back in the basement (we have enough room) and try again next time. We feel kind of challenged and want to figure out what to do different. I know there is still a lot of things we can put out there.
Having cold drinks, chips, and cookies seemed to help. It especially helps to have a cute little boy trying to sell them. We bought things that we could eat or drink after so the cost isn't really additional.
We did get a lot of yard work and other things accomplished while holding the sale. We did so much yard work on Saturday we never noticed the lulls to much.
I am so happy that we finally tackled the front flower bed. It is almost done it just needs some more annuals and mulch. Of course while doing that I decided on another project so the front isn't quite done. But it feels so much better to look at flowers instead of nasty hard ugly dry clay. I will post pictures soon (
ok I won't say promise...but I am honestly so happy with how it turned out I can't imagine I would forget.
Hope everyone had a good weekend. Today is the last day of our vacation, and I know it is going to be a long day tomorrow.....if you know where I work and watch the news you should know....a really really really long day.....what a way to time a return from a vacation.
Garage Sale
We had decided a while back to take this week off. Mostly to officially "move in"....there were still some odd boxes laying in various places and just some general
disorganization that was driving us nuts. After making that decision some people in our neighborhood message group had decided to have a garage sale this weekend. So we decided to join in, and just make that our motivation to get some other stuff done. Some things I have learned
- Yes we do have enough "stuff" to hold a garage sale
- Yes people actually do show up on Thursday at 8 am
- The people who show up on Thursday at 8 am, can be a little quirky
- The thing you figure won't sell....will be one of the first things to go
- I have the urge to explain why I am selling everything. But I am sure the lady buying the "our cat" brag book doesn't need to know that I bought that years ago and the cat just died and I feel awful for never using it...she was such a good cat....blah blah blah....hey at least I didn't tell her just silently told myself in my head....I'm not crazy.
- Daniel is a good salesman, he got 3 ladies to buy the snacks and cold drinks we bought.....he promptly turned around and tried to buy some himself with his earnings.
It is muggy and raining right now (
whoo hoo the air is being installed as I type)......it is supposed to be nice the rest of the week. So hopefully we will sell out.
Maybe I should do a live blog on Saturday
lol.
Adventures with a new home
So, I am very very VERY grateful to be out of the old house and here in the new house. You can't imagine the number of times I stop and thank God for my home. Especially considering where we live and the economic times, we are well aware of how lucky we are. However.....that doesn't mean we still have our own aggravations.
I mentioned a
couple of posts ago about getting our porch fixed. Well after telling us nothing can be done until July, some guys just showed up and started to tear it up. While there was no warning and not any time to discuss it, I was happy. My porch was getting fixed.
Of course while they were taking out cement, digging, and pouring....the boys eagerly watched. Imagine the excitement when the loader pulled up into the driveway to take away the debris. Well as they watched, I also watched. I thought it was kind of funny that they didn't really prepare the ground as I expected. I watch my share of home improvement shows and well don't you put gravel down? I thought it was different that they just piled more dirt up in a mound.....but heck what do I know right....when they pour they will do all that....right? Well um no.
So last night while out walking we started chatting with another neighbor who has the same style house with the same issue. He wasn't to happy either. All of the things that bothered me bothered him as well. At that point he had already started to make calls and complain.
So this afternoon when they cam to finish the job. I was all ready to fight and ask my questions. "Why isn't there gravel down" "How do I know this isn't going to happen again".....Well the first question he couldn't answer, the second question he said "well you get it fixed again" (gee thanks)...and then he proceeded to tell me "my boss told me to do this house, that house...so I got to put these down"
....(
ok and trying to remain PC....but English was not this man's first language, while I don't have a problem with that.....it kind of stalled my smack down)......
So after a few minutes of back and forth (
lol I think at one point I said something like "yes you say it's dry, I agree it's dry, God and the whole heaven agrees it's dry....but is it fixed?") he finally said "
ok well I can call my boss, you don't want me to put these in"
and I said "No, sorry you got stuck in the middle of this"
After that I watched him go to the neighbor. That conversation looked more interesting. Bonus, he got on the guy's cellphone at some point (probably to speak to the "boss")...he was sent away from there....and the same thing happened at the third house. I laughed to myself thinking "ha, yes, I stood up to THE man....strength in numbers.....who
hoo aren't I a toughie"
That is when I remembered my arm..........
Hey it may be temporary.....but it sure makes mommy a bad @
ss;-)
It is a Black Swallowtail (Papilio polyxenes) or at least that is what I could figure from this butterfly website.
