We had a busy busy weekend. We spent Saturday selling shave ice – it turned out to be a beautiful day. Rain in the morning then it cleared off. Not too hot, a little breeze. A perfect day for a wonderful benefit day for Cale Jarmes. Then Sunday was spent getting the camper ready for our coming trip. Joe worked on the outside, I worked on the inside. It’s sparkly, shiny clean on the outside and organized and clean on the inside! (All except the toy cupboard. That will have to wait for a day I don’t have Drew around). Now to get salads and desserts made and clothes packed and we’ll be ready for a fun family weekend. We also took a break one eveninb, got some ice cream and drove out to Belva Deer where we saw this sweet Canadian Geese family going for a walk. They didn’t even care that we were behind them – they just kept waddling towards the pond!
Cutie Patootie
Drew wanted to help me today finish mixing up the flavors for shave ice. I’m sure you can imagine how much help a seven year old boy is around lots of liquid and sugary syrup! But, all in all, his help outweighed his hindrance and I’m glad I agreed to let him. At one point he did something, I don’t even remember what it was he did, and I thanked him and called him Cutie Patootie. He immediately said, “Mom, I live for those moments.” When I asked him what moments he was talking about he responded with, “When you call me Cutie Patootie!” Just goes to show, you never know what your words mean to others! He’s not only my Cutie Patootie, he’s my Monster Man, Silly Willy, Monster Magillaguppie, Sneaky Pete, Pete Monster, Drew Bear or just plain Charlie or Pete. Guess I’ll use Cutie Patootie more often though!
And a sid note – for some reason I’ve always called all my boys Pete when they were little. I have no idea why. But one day when my dad heard me call one of them Pete he asked me if I knew my Great Grandpa Asbery went by Pete. I had had no idea – but I guess somewhere, somehow I knew the name Pete meant something to me!
Getting Ready
Wow – where did Wednesday go? A day sure flies by when you’re busy! No nice slow summer days around here for awhile. I started getting food ready today for our family camping trip next weekend. Barbecue Chicken and Sloppy Joe’s are in the freezer. They make great quick lunches – just warm them up, slap on a bun, add some carrot sticks and fruit – perfect quick meal! Next week I’ll make a couple salads and a dessert, grab some things out of the freezer and we should be good to go – food wise anyway!
While the chicken was cooking away in the crock pot and before I scrambled up the hamburger for Sloppy Joe’s – I worked on getting shave ice ready. Every year I think it won’t take long and every year while diving into it – I realize it’s going to take at least two days to get everything ready! We are selling this Saturday at a Fun Day being put on in remembrance of a young man who passed away last year in a car accident. His family is putting it on – all freewill – and they have a huge day planned. Lots of food, games, tournaments, entertainment and fellowship. It should be lots of fun. So today I started cleaning out the trailer, cleaning all the jugs and supplies, and started mixing up flavors. What a job!
I ran out of sugar and had Joe stop at WalMart on his way home from work to pick up more. Which worked out fine because he had to stop there anyway to get a tire for the trailer. We weren’t going to get far with the old one as it was flat as a pancake! I had thought I would mix up some more syrup when he got home but by the time supper was over, all my camping food was in the freezer and the kitchen was cleaned up – I was just too tired. It shouldn’t take too long to get the rest mixed up and ready to go though – now that everything has been organized and cleaned up. And come the 4th of July – all I’ll have to do is make sure we have enough syrup mixed up – all the hard work will have already been done. Yeah!
Quiet
After a busy weekend it was nice to have a quiet Tuesday. Drew must have been wore out from the weekend as he was calm and quiet all day. I got the house picked up and vacuumed, the kitchen and the bathroom cleaned. We didn’t venture outside anymore than we had to due to the heat. I was happy to see my peonies finally bloomed. I love peonies – they are so beautiful and they smell wonderful! Too bad they don’t last longer!
After supper Joe and Drew headed over to Dad and Mom’s so Joe could help Dad repair his mower which gave me a nice quiet evening at home to stitch – I don’t get quiet evenings at home much this time of year so I really enjoyed my stitching time and watching Calling the Midwife! It’s funny though – I looked forward to this time – a couple of hours of quiet alone time – and yet I was more than ready for my guys to come home!
Hot Hot Hot
Oh my goodness did we have a hot weekend. We had near record highs all weekend – extreme heat and humidity. You would sweat just standing still outside. And to top it off, the bugs have come out in full force. We’re having July/August weather in May. Very unusual.
Since Joe worked outside all day Friday he wanted to take a break on Saturday so we took Dad and Mom to look at campers. They bought their camper last year but there’s a couple of things about theirs they aren’t completey happy with and we took them to look at what else is out there. We had a fun day. Nobody came home with a new camper but there sure are a lot of options out there.
(Before the blood, sweat and tears)
(After – looking so much better!)
Then Sunday Joe and I worked outside. Talk about blood, sweat and tears – all of that and more went into this project! Sweat was running off both of us, there were a few “tears” as there always is when we try to work together on something like this – at least I don’t get mad and walk away and leave him to finish on his own. After all these years together we’ve pretty much learned how to work together without it getting to that point! And Joe smashed his finger and cut it open while trying to cut one of the cement blocks so there’s the blood! Nothing major – no trips to the ER or anything like that but he sure has a sore finger. But, we got it done and it’s looking wonderful! It’s so nice to have things finally starting to look nice! Unfortunatley it’s so hot and buggy we can’t really enjoy it yet. But the time will come! We still have to extend the deck to get it where we really want it and to really be able to use it.
Yesterday was a real do nothing day for us. Drew and I slept in. Joe mowed the yard. I worked on a menu for our family camping trip coming up the second weekend in June. Then we ran to Oskaloosa to get groceries – I stocked up. I have somewhat of a menu planned for the next two weeks and the camping weekend and outside of milk, bread and fruit, I should be able to steer clear of grocery stores and any stores for that matter for quite some time. I’m looking forward to just staying home and not running. No running to town twice a day to take Drew to school and bring him home. Maybe I’ll be able to get some things done around here for a change!
First Day of Summer Vacation!
(Before it got too hot and while Bayah was asleep - we went outside and made slime!)
Drew didn’t get to sleep in on his first day of summer vacation – he had to be up by 5:30 so we could leave the house by 6:00 but he was fine with that. He got to spend the day with his nephew and niece – something he loves to do. He and I drove to Kalona to babysit for the day – what a great way to start off the summer!
(Bayah snuggles!)
Just Like That
And just like that my baby is a 2nd grader! Yesterday was the last day of school for this young man. As you can see, he didn’t want his picture taken. He wasn’t in the best of moods. He told me on the way into town he wanted to be homeschooled. He wasn’t going to miss his friends because most of them annoyed him. He was just plain grumpy. In other words, he was unhappy that it was the last day of school and so his way of handling it was to grump! School only lasted three hours so when I picked him up at 11:00, we went uptown and toured the new antique store. He takes after me – he loves, loves, loves to wander through an antique store to see what treasures can be found! Today he found an old canteen to go along with his coon skin cap! Then I took him out for lunch. He was so excited. I asked him if he wanted me to ask Eric to join us for lunch and he was adamant that it only be me and him. (I told him by the end of the summer he would be really tired of it just being me and him!) And then we came home and played cars and legos!
Homemaker Mode
(My Clematis is blooming – so pretty!)
I seem to go in spurts – I can be in homemaker mode one day and the next – not so much. Usually homemaker mode for me means planning ahead, experimenting and being frugal. The past few days I have been in homemaker mode. I pulled some chicken breasts out of the freezer and cooked them up in the crockpot. After shredding them I now have chicken for Sweet Chili Chicken Pizza, Chicken Spaghetti, shredded chicken for a lettuce salad and enough to freeze for later.
(Cheesy Creamy Chicken Spaghetti – yummy!)
I made the Sweet Chili Chicken Pizza and it didn’t turn out the way I had hoped. We love this pizza from our local Pizza Ranch and I am hoping to be able to make it at home. For one thing I didn’t have any pineapple and it was definitely lacking the pineapple. I also used too much pizza sauce and instead of using mozzarella cheese I used what I had on hand – which I think was Cheddar Jack. I’ll definitely try again and make a few tweaks and hopefully I can come closer to the Pizza Ranch one we like!
I also picked up some blocks of cheese on sale at Hy-Vee and shredded it. Now I have shredded cheese in the freezer. I don’t like actually shredding the cheese – I always make a mess and it’s somewhat time consuming but – I like having it stocked in the freezer – I think it tastes so much better than the bags you buy at the store.
I did some research on chives as my chives are blooming right now. I harvested some and froze for later. I plan to freeze a bunch more. Then I harvested the blooms and have some chive blossom vinegar infusing in the cupboard. I’m hoping to make a Dijon mustard vinaigrette later this week with the chive infused vinegar to put on our shredded chicken salad. I hope it turns out as good as it sounds! We had chef salads for lunch over the weekend and it was so good to sprinkle fresh chives from the garden over the salads! I also chopped some up and mixed with a container of cottage cheese. Yummy! I’m planning to transplant some later in the season and bring in for the winter – hopefully we can have fresh chives all winter long!
(The color of the vinegar is so pretty!)
I made a big batch of potato salad to have for supper meals. It’s always nice to have a big salad to eat on throughout the week to go along with whatever we have for a main course. And it’s a great way to use up eggs when I have an abundance.
I also tried pickling some eggs with our over abundance of eggs. A couple we camped with last year brought jalapeño pickled eggs to the campground and Joe loved them so I thought I would try to make him some. In three weeks we’ll know if they turned out or not. It’s always fun to try new things and see how they turn out!
Early Father’s Day
When Joe ran into H & M on Saturday to get a replacement tube for the wheel barrow tire he mentioned that they had these tractor planters that reminded him of his dad and he thought it would be nice to have one in the flower bed along with the stone he got from Albert’s funeral. He wondered if I would have anyplace to do something like that. Now this is not something Joe normally thinks about doing so I thought I would run back in sometime during the week and get one for him for Father’s Day because he had obviously put some thought into it. But then I didn’t know where I would put it so he wouldn’t find it. So, on Sunday I suggested we go in and look at it and if he wanted it it could be an early Father’s Day present. I should have taken a before picture because we got it home and Joe immediately took it down to the shop and “Oliverized” it! He used the paint he had leftover from when he refinished his Dad’s original Oliver tractor to paint the wheels red and the grill yellow. The little planter came with a free flower and he picked out a begonia – a flower his mom always liked. I think it’s just perfect and a perfect addition to this little spot under the kitchen window!
I Will Not Complain
(Before transplanting day lilies, digging out rocks and dirt)
We went into winter last year in a drought and earlier this spring we were still considered a drought area. So, when we get rain we’re very thankful. Which is why as much as I want to, I will not complain! We had plans for the weekend. Such fun plans – working on our landscaping projects. And we got a good start. We’re almost done with filling in the flower bed. As usual, we decided we need some caulk that we don’t have so until we get that we can’t be officially finished with that. But rather than run for one little item, we decided to start on the this bigger area.
(All dug out and nothing but mud!)
We have it all cleaned out now. This was a project unto itself. Raking rock and dirt, shoveling it into the wheel barrow and then hauling it out to another area in the yard to use as fill. Until the wheelbarrow tire went flat. While Joe worked on repairing that I proceeded to fill buckets with rock and dirt and carry them across the yard. What a workout that was! I wasn’t fast but I did get it accomplished! It turns out Joe couldn’t repair the tube so we decided to get cleaned up, run to town to H & M for a new tube, and then on out to Belva Deer to visit Dad and Mom. And while we were out there – it started to rain. We had to get home as quickly as possible because we left all our tools and everything outside with the intention of coming back and working some more and hopefully finish this project. And well, it rained a lot. And then Sunday it rained some more. And so now, instead of an ugly, rocky, weedy area outside our backdoor, we have a huge area of mud! According to the forecast, which changes on an hourly basis anymore, we are to get rain on and off all week. But, I will not complain. We need the rain. This project isn’t going anywhere. We will just have to be patient and work on other things until we can get back to it.
That’s what we did yesterday after the rain. Joe put up the new backdoor light. The one we had hadn’t worked for years and it’s so nice to have a light out there again. I’m sure people who visit in the evening will enjoy it too. We have a yard light but there’s a tree that blocks most of the light from the door so this will be wonderful to come home to when we come home at night. It’s motion sensored and I just love it! We cleaned out the gutter above the backdoor, which needs to be done on a regular basis thanks to the trees around the house. And we put the new solar lights on the posts on the front deck. Now they look so pretty at night! Sooner or later, things will get done and I will not complain about the rain. It is so very welcome around here right now!