It's Been a While...

It's been so long (except for wishing Charlie a Happy Birthday) I almost don't remember where to begin. We were just getting ready to go visit Quinn and family I believe. We went back and forth trying to figure out if we could leave on Wednesday or wait until Friday because of a conflict with H's work. Finally things came together quickly and we decided to leave on Wednesday. We also decided to take "the Mustang" on this trip, it's longest road trip so far. We left around 8:00 a.m. but by 8:45 H wanted to pull over so I could drive!! Now, keep in mind, the Mustang is a 5 speed manual and I've only driven it once and haven't really driven a stick (except for that one time I drove the Mustang) in many, many years. We were pulled off the Interstate and I was going to have to get us back on there and get us going. Yes, I was nervous but I sucked it up, shifted into first and got us on the road. After all, the sooner we got on the road the sooner we got to see our little grandbaby!!

It was a long day and we didn't get in until almost 10:00 and Quinn was already in bed so we didn't even get to see her that first night. Thursday was H's birthday and what a nice gift to be able to spend it with Quinn. We also spent it unloading Amber's old fridge into coolers and taking delivery of her shiny new stainless steel fridge! Since it was a work night/day for Amber & Andy we fixed H a birthday dinner at home. We did eat red potatoes that I brought from the garden though and boy were they good!

H took on a project while he was there of installing under cabinet lights in their kitchen. My project was taking care of Quinn while Mommy & Daddy were at work! I did take a little time Friday afternoon to go to the pool though. I hadn't been out of the house in a day and a half so I figured it was time!

Here she is sitting in her new high chair! Such a big girl!
Saturday Amber and I spent a little time at the pool relaxing while H continued his work in the kitchen and Andy spent quality time with his daughter. We also went out to a local micro brewery/restaurant for dinner that night.

Here's the cross-stitch wall hanging I've been working on for 6 months. It's now hanging up in Quinn's room.

Sunday wasn't very sunny so we took a quick trip to the mall instead of going to the pool. Before we knew it our time with Quinn and her family was over and we headed back to Michigan. We try each time to find a better/quicker route but this time we weren't successful. Both coming and going we added more time to our trip than we had hoped. Sadly, the quickest way is the most boring, on the toll roads through Ohio and the Pennsylvania mountains. I hope we fly next time, that's all I'm sayin'.

I spent a couple hours in the garden on Thursday. It needed some serious weeding and maintenance, not to mention harvesting! Look at this bounty!


We had this potato (and a couple of his friends) for dinner last night.


It was big enough that H and I shared it! There is nothing, I say NOTHING, like the taste of a fresh potato. The texture is so different from the store bought ones. I think this one is a Yukon Gold variety. It was amazing with just a little butter, salt and pepper. Even Scott, who usually loads his up with sour cream, skipped it last night and ate it with just the butter, salt and pepper. Digging potatoes is like a treasure hunt though, you never know what you're gonna get. When I found this one I was shocked. It's the biggest one I've harvested so far and I've found some as small as a grape. I'll definitely be planting more of these next year.

I spent a little time this weekend turning one thing into something else. For example, I turned these



into these.



And then we turned this, an empty dining room because we sold all our old dining room furniture yesterday (YEA!!!)


into this.


We moved my old legal secretary desk and my mom's credenza up to this room to turn it into an office. We are trying to use pieces we already have and spend little to no money converting it into a space we will actually use. Today I was cleaning this desk and was just amazed at the workmanship. We bought it over 20 years ago from the law firm where I used to work. They were converting all these old typewriter desks into the new modern L shaped desks that were made of metal. This desk is made of solid wood. The drawers are dove-tailed joints, no nails. The pull-outs (yes, it has one on each side) are also solid wood. It even has wood paper shelves inside the drawers. I've been oiling it and oiling it and it's just sucking up the oil. We still need to move the computer, printer, speakers, etc. in but H will have to do some serious wiring before that can take place. I don't even know if the phone jack in there works or not. I'm not usually one for change but I think this might be a good one when it's over. However, my main goal is to do it as cheaply as possible. I think we will have to buy a new chair though as we don't actually have an office type chair. We've used a kitchen chair at the computer desk up until now. Now, if we could just sell that piano!! It's like an elephant in the room!

In other news, Amber, Andy and Quinn are out in Colorado this week for a family reunion. I know they both need the time away to rest and relax and I hope they are enjoying that fresh mountain air.

Tyler just finished his English camp week and is now looking forward to two weeks off. He'll be staying pretty close to home though because he can't really afford a vacation just now. He just posted these beautiful pictures on his Facebook so I thought I would steal them to give you an idea of where he's living. It looks like a beautiful area.



Scott has one more week of summer classes and an interview tomorrow for a paid internship. It's a marketing internship so it would be good experience and of course, the money would be nice too. He's getting closer to leaving the nest too. He's put a deposit down on a house that he will share with one of his buddies come September 1. While I do think this will be a good experience for Scott, after all, he is 21, almost 22 years old, I will also miss him and worry about him. I know he'll come visit often though, at least so he can see these two.



Speaking of which, if I leave soon we will have enough daylight left to enjoy a couple frisbee tosses. They've been following me around for hours waiting to see if I will grab my keys and say, "let's go"!!

Have a good week!

Happy Birthday Dear Charlie...

Charlie is 3 years old today.


You would think he would be starting to mature. But no, he's still just a big goofball. I'm hoping male aussies mature by 5?? I'm hoping.

No special plans for his birthday today but I did give him a couple extra cookies as a treat and I will probably take him to the park later, if he keeps being such a good boy today.

Grandbaby Time!!

I'm packing. My suitcase has hardly cooled off from my Bunco Girls Summer Weekend but it's being called up for service again. H and I are on our way to see this little darling!!


Look how excited she was when Amber gave her the news!! She's 6 months old now and getting cuter and more animated by the minute. Just hope she gets over this little virus she has before Mimi and Grand-daddy H get there.

We can't wait to spoil this little darling and cover her with kisses!!

Another Bunco Girls Weekend

This weekend was our summer Bunco Girls Weekend. Four of us headed up north Friday morning and the 5th followed later that afternoon. As soon as we decided our room and got settled and had a few snacks, we headed into downtown Traverse City for Friday Night Live. All kinds of interesting things were going on. They close down a couple blocks and you can just walk down the middle of the street.


The film festival starts Tuesday so we were a week early for that. A couple years ago when we were up there it was during this week and it was reported that Madonna and Michael Moore were both in town for the festival, both Michigan natives.



There were several small bands up and down the street.

We spent an hour or so walking around looking at the sites. Then it was back to the house for some girl time and visiting.


Not much of a sunset the first night as it was pretty cloudy but still a pretty nice evening.


The next morning, after a leisurely breakfast and rain showers, we headed up to Sutton's Bay for shopping and lunch. It was cloudy but only drizzled so it wasn't too bad walking around.



After lunch we decided to take a boat ride we had taken a couple years ago and had remembered as being fun. Here we are, looking forward to a fun time. Right after this picture was taken the boat loaded up with about 40-50 Indians, moms, dads, and many, many kids. Instead of sitting down on the benches they decided to stand along the railings, blocking our views and talking so loudly we couldn't really hear the captain telling us about all the lovely sights we were taking in.


The weather was still cloudy but at least it wasn't raining, yet.



Here are some lovely sights we saw along the way on our boat ride up the shoreline.





When we got home the light was so different looking on the golf course. It was almost like a fall sunset.



After being cloudy and gray all day the sun finally fell below the clouds and produced this gorgeous sunset for our last night there.



We enjoyed a dinner of appetizers and snacks we had all brought, sat outside on the deck talking until it started drizzling again and then decided to go inside and play a couple hands of Euchre. We stayed up a little later than planned and much later than I've stayed up lately. It was close to 1:00 a.m. when I finally turned the lights out.

This morning when we got up we were greeted with this beautiful sight!


Too bad we hadn't had this the day before but all in all we couldn't complain. At least it wasn't a total rainout.

It was a nice relaxing weekend, no drama, everyone got along. Can't complain about that!

It's Been Hot...

It's been hot, real hot. And humid, don't forget that. When possible I've tried to stay in the house and declutter and decide what goes and what stays. However, I have had to leave the house occasionally and have spent a good amount of time outside this week.

On Tuesday I took my young friend, Jade, for our long awaited visit to Commerica Park which is still Tiger's Stadium to me. She had been looking forward to going since I told her about it last fall. We headed to downtown Detroit and found the stadium with no problem. It was just Jade, me and two business men for the tour so we got lots of undivided attention. She got to see the visitor's underground batting cages and she got to sit in the dugout where the opposing teams sit.


We visited the broadcasting booth and The Champion's Club where she got to see the real Champion's trophy. She had a brief walk on the field but since they were working on the turf we couldn't go far.



She had a good time and learned all about the Tiger's and their history.

Wednesday I was out at the garden and harvested a few more things. A couple of my potato plants were dying back so I pulled them up and got a couple redskin potatoes. I harvested another head of lettuce too but about half of it was rotten inside.



This is the garden looking toward the community part and the corn. It was planted in two plantings so it's different heights and can be harvested a couple weeks apart. Last week a rain storm and some strong winds came through and we all got an email saying to come check our plots because the corn had been blown over and was horizontal. Today it looked just fine so I guess they got it all propped back up ok. The tallest portion already has tassels.

Even though it was hot, I took the pups up to the field most days. I had to be careful that they didn't overheat though. Zoe will run until she drops if you let her. When we get back home they are pretty tuckered out.

On Friday my friend Cheryl and I headed out to the Lavender Festival. Thankfully we had a little cool front come through on Thursday so even though it was hot it wasn't quite as humid and we got in and out of there before it got too hot.

Saturday morning H and I had to get up early for our turn working the farmer's market for the community garden. We made it out there by 7:30 and soon our table, tent and veggies were delivered. Before long it had gotten pretty hot out there! We were mostly selling squash with a few eggplant and cucumbers thrown in. We had mass quantities of patti pan and zucchini squash. I had never really heard of patti pan squash before and apparently not too many people had either as they kept asking us what to do with it. H googled it and was able to give people some ideas about how to cook it. We only made about $35 for the garden but the best news was, we put in 9 hours of our 10 hours of garden time. I had already put in another hour weeding onions so at least this year I have made the goal of 10 hours of service to the garden! Yeah me!!

Saturday afternoon I went to a graduation party for the daughter of the special ed teacher I worked with last year. It was held at am American Legion post and I wasn't sure what to expect. When I finally found the place they had a beautiful outdoor pavilion right on the LAKE!! It was very nice and breezy there which felt great after sweating at the farmer's market all morning. It was so nice to catch up with a few of my co-workers and hear all about their summer. One friend just got back from a trip to Alaska!

Sunday morning H and I worked out in the front yard trying to save our evergreen trees from possible death. I had an expert come out a week or so ago because the branches are losing a lot of their needles. We thinned out what we could but it was hot work as it was really humid. Poor H had to wear a long sleeved shirt so the branches would stick him and when he came out of the middle of those trees his face was bright red!! It wasn't especially hot but it was so humid. You would drip sweat just standing there! From there we started cleaning out the basement which hadn't been deep cleaned in a long time. We moved things, decluttered and vacuumed behind and under things. One of the more interesting things we found was a bone one of the dogs had hidden under a bed and it was covered in this strange powdery mold! Gross!! From there I vacuumed the main floor and then the top floor too so by the time I was done I was really done. I took a shower, 4 Advil and then a nap!! Since I was too beat to fix dinner, H ordered pizza for dinner which was a real treat. I can't remember the last time we had pizza!

I tried to get this post ready for last night but just couldn't make it. Which turned out to be a good things because I really wanted you to see this!!

This morning, after taking the pups to the field and delivering the farmer's market money to the parks & recs dept., I went out to the garden and worked for a couple hours. I needed to pull what was left of the radishes and harvest what was ready and do some weeding. While I was there another gardener came by to tell me she had just seen a SKUNK in the garden!! I kept waiting for it to come down to my plot but thankfully it never did. I thought skunks were nocturnal!! But the really exciting part of this harvest was the potatoes!! I harvested 7 redskin potatoes!! Just look at them! They are so beautiful!! I actually grew potatoes.


And then I discovered I had grown carrots too! I grew carrots!!! Look how cute they are!! And they taste good too! I am so daggone impressed with myself!!

The zucchini is still going gangbusters. What do you do with all that zucchini?

Make zucchini casserole, of course! Did I mention, Zoe loves zucchini??


I put up 4 bags of chopped zucchini to make for her this winter. She will love me so much!

Early Harvest

I went out to the garden this morning but before that, in an effort to beat the heat, I took the pups up to the field for a run. It was only 9:00 a.m. so it wasn't too hot yet but it didn't take long to wear them out. This is how I like them to look! Relaxed and tired!


Especially this one. Though for him to be really worn out I'll have to do it again this afternoon and I don't think that's gonna happen as it's in the high 90's and super humid.


I dropped them off and headed out to the garden. It has been almost a week since I'd been out there. I really should have gone on Sunday because look at what I found.


The broccoli is winding down, at least the two I've already harvested whole heads from. The other 3 plants don't look like they are going to form heads at all. Weird.

This head of lettuce is really good size. H bought these iceberg heads by accident but we decided to plant them anyway and they've done pretty well, at least this head has.


The green bean plants were loaded and I got a pretty good harvest.


And the zucchini, there were 11 of them with at least 5 being way oversized. Last Wednesday when I checked them they weren't even ready yet. Guess this heat has really helped them take off. Now I gotta get busy making some zucchini casserole and I think the rest I'll freeze for the dog's food. Zoe especially loves zucchini.


I couldn't stay long, maybe an hour, because it was just getting too hot. I did promise to come back Friday evening to help harvest for the farmer's market on Saturday morning. I think I'm gonna sign up for that gig too. It's gotta be easier than weeding, right??