Smile for the day.

A good friend of mine had this linked on their chat. It is amazing. And sorry for it being to big. I'm trying to figure out how to fix that. I might have to wait for the great Timbo to get home.

Big day!

After checking on our little cocoons every day we were very happy to see that two of our butterflies emerged today.  I found them out around 11:30 this morning and the kids were so excited.  They have been monitoring them all day.  At one point I was down on the treadmill and both of them came running down the stairs excited that the butterflies were fluttering around.

This is how a good part of the day was spent by these two.  =)

Waiting for his wings to fill up and get stiff.

Stretching his wings out for the first time.

I guess he got hungry.  I hope they like fresh oranges.

This picture pretty  much sums up my day.  Butterflies, knitting, school books, and my trusty computer.  

I think that is all for now.  You may go back to your regular programming (week).

Lack of gardening posts.

Sorry guys.  I haven't really posting any gardening posts because it's still too damn cold to garden.  I'm listening to The Prairie Home Companion right now and the local station just said "Tonight lows around 20".  Ugh.  When is the warm weather going to stay put?!  Spring teases us with one nice day and then goes right back to snow and cold, windy weather. Boo.

My indoor plants are starting to look kind of sad.  Next year, I will know not to start my seeds so early.  I actually have green beans that have grown already in their little pots that are waiting to be put out.  We planted peas a couple of weeks ago outside and I haven't seen anything yet.  

I guess my biggest problem right now is that I am trying to push the season.  I need to sit back and enjoy what I have now.  The warm weather will be here soon enough.  I just need to somehow keep my tomato plants alive and kicking.  

Hmmm, what else is new?  Not too much.  The kids have off from school tomorrow.  I'm not sure what we are going to do yet. I guess it will depend on how warm it gets.   I know that I have to make some bread tomorrow.  Did I mention that I got a new bread book?  I don't remember if I've mentioned that.  I'm dying to get into it and start making some bread.  First read through and I'm slightly intimidated, but I will look at it as another experiment.  I did attempt a loaf of English Muffin bread last week and for some reason it would not rise. I think it was too cold in the house.  It finally rose a tiny little bit and I threw it in the oven.  It tasted really good, but it was really dense.  I made a couple of loaves of bread last week and made pizza dough for our Friday night pizza night and with all the kneading that I've been doing, I'm going to have Popeye forearms.  

I'll close with just a couple of pictures from last week:

Patchy turned 2 this week.  He's still the best doggie in the world.

We did have one nice day last week where the kids and I played outside for a couple of hours.

The kiddies outside of The Bullfrog Brewery where we had a fine dining experience with some friends!

And last, but not least, this is for Laurie.  Look at what I learned to do.  =)

My first attempt at serious crochet.  Not too bad.  I ended up doing several of these for coasters around the house and now I'm ready to branch out into bigger and better.

I think that is all for now.  Nothing really exciting going on around here.  Next weekend we have a  hiking trip planned with some friends from NY.  I hope that it's warmer!  I also hope everyone has a great week.

Perfect Spring day.

Today was a perfect sunny Spring day.  It started out kind of chilly but it finally got up to around 62 and nothing but sun and bright blue sky.  It was a nice change from the last couple of days.  I spent the day running errands yesterday and it was so cold and bitter and rainy.  Yuck.  Today made up for the last couple of icky days though.  The sun was actually up bright and early and we were able to get up before 8.  That is usually unheard of on Sundays.  

I got up and made a batch of pancakes and Tim finished up his school project and took his exam.  Aced it, of course.  Then Tim and Connor took a nice long walk along the river dike.  Aidan and I spent the time in the basement going through bins and trying to get organized.  We sort through the Spring/Summer clothes and weeded out what won't fit them anymore.  Let's just say that their cousin Bryson is going to be getting a nice big box of clothes soon.  We also worked on a lot of laundry.  I only do laundry once a week now so that I don't have to think about it during the week. I have too much other stuff to do than to worry about laundry.  I got the load of whites done and then a load of towels.  I threw the towels in the dryer and started it.  I then pulled the door open and stopped the dryer.  I had a little conversation with myself.  Self...I said, go upstairs, go outside and string up the line.  Hang those towels out in the bright sun and cool breeze.  You can save at least one load from the dryer.  So that is what I did.

Ahh, crunchy towels right off the line.

Tim and Connor came home and then the kids and I ended up spending 2 and a half hours outside.  Aidan drew a big racetrack on Nancy's parking lot and they had their scooter/bike races.  They dragged a bunch of toys outside and just had a blast.  During bath time tonight, I was noticing how cute they were with little pink cheeks.

Now it's almost bed time.  Connor has it in his head that he wants to listen to A Prairie Home Companion so I have to get their radio set to the station and then they will be going to bed.  I think I will do the same thing, go to bed and listen. 

The only other exciting thing going on around here right now is that we are waiting for butterflies.  We got 5 little caterpillar pupa on the 20th of March.  They were so tiny.  The kids have had so much fun watching the inch around and grow bigger and bigger.  We kept the cup on the big desk in the classroom and we kept tabs on them daily.  They finally made their little chrysalids on Friday and now we are waiting for them to emerge as butterflies.  We have to get sugar water and some flowers ready to feed them when they come out.  I hope that by the end of the week our temps are warm enough so that we can release them out into our yard. 

We got these little guys March 20th.

They got huge.  This picture was taken March 30th.

Turned in chrysalids on April 3rd.

Oh, and then there are also these guys:

our 30+ tomato plants that are waiting to go outside and get planted.  I've been putting them outside during the day to acclimate to the outdoors.  I would have liked to have planted them today but we are forecast for possible snow in a couple of days. I hope we don't get any.  It's Spring dang it...keep our temps warm.

I hope everyone had a good weekend and have a great week.  

Binghamton.

I was shocked to see the news today.  Quiet, little Binghamton, NY all over the news.  When Tim and I got married he was living in Johnson City going to school there.  I moved up there when we got hitched.  We lived there for two years.  Connor was born there. 

 It was a nice enough town. Moving there was a culture shock for me.  I had pretty much grown up in Central Florida.  I often marveled at the  local news in Binghamton.  Instead of the home invasions and murders of where I grew up, the news was about someone retiring after a certain number of years...or news about the bridge being redone or something.  It was quiet.  When we lived there, I didn't particularly care for it becuase I was used to a bigger city and much more things to do.  We moved to back to Florida and stayed there for three years.  Then one night I had a dream that we back to Binghamton.

We didn't ultimately end up there but it got us back up into the North East.  We often go up to Binghamton to see friends.  We have a lot of good memories there.  It's sad that it's in the news for such a terrible thing.  Unfortunately, with the economy the way it is and more and more people finding themselves out of work, I fear what happened today will be something we see more and more of.  I know Binghamton is a great town and the people in that area will pull together and get through this.

Oddly enough, we had planned on going to Binghamton tomorrow for a rock and gem show for Tim and we had decided to not go before this happened.  Tim has a school project that is due on Sunday and now with the shooting I'm glad we had made that decision.  It's going to be a zoo there with every news station swarming around.

We'll be back to you soon Binghamton.  Who knows?  Tim might end up back in your school soon enough.  My thoughts are with all the families affected today.

Excited.

Last weekend I signed up for a two day class at our local dairy farm. Have I mentioned how much I love love love our dairy farm. We get fresh milk that is completely free from growth hormones. The kids love to go because the farm lets wee ones wander around and look at the animals. And the ice cream...oh, the ice cream. Well, the farm is going to have a food preservation course to teach how to can and freeze food.

We canned last year. I think we were pretty successful with it. We're still alive. We did have the one unfortunate event with the tomato sauce but that will be remedied this year with the pressure cooker. The pressure cooker. Can I just say that thing scares the hell out of me. I think I'm going to let Tim use it the first time.

Hmmm, what else is new? I've been feeling icky and yucky for the last couple of days. I don't know if I'm fighting a flu bug or something but I feel achy all over and my tummy doesn't feel all that swift. I feel like I could sleep all day. Thankfully the sun is out today and that is helping a little bit. It's still kind of cold out though. I'm seriously ready for some warm temperatures.

Oh, I know what I need to do. I need to get on the kids and have them write back to their pen pal. Sorry Brian. It will be in the mail soon.

I think that is all for now. This was kind of a random post. Hopefully I'll have a more thought out one next time. =)

A nice Spring day.

Treasure hunt 3-28-09
Originally uploaded by busybeebiz

This is going to be a short post because we are going lights out in 17 minutes for Earth Hour. I just wanted to post a picture of what I got today in my second day of going to tag sales and a community sale. Let's just say that I left the house with 26 dollars and I came home with a ten still in my pocket.

I also got to work out in the garden today. We got some manure put down into one of the garden beds and I planted two rows of sugar snap peas.

The only other thing that I did that I'm excited about it I signed up for a two night course of food preservation. I'll see if I can find a link to it later, but I need to go get kiddies in jammies and everyone's teeth brushed before it goes dark.

We did Earth Hour last year and the kids have been excited to do it again. Last year we all piled into our bed with flashlights and made shadow hand puppets on the walls and ceiling. We told scary stories and then we all passed out asleep. I'm hoping the sleep comes fast tonight to the wee ones, but I have my doubts.

We have no plans for tomorrow, so I'm hoping I can post more tomorrow.