Slacker.

Yup, that's me.  I've been slacking on my bloggy blog for a while.  It's not like I mean to do it, it just happens.  We've been busy.  Sometimes (most of the time) when I have too much to do I freak out and shut down.  Take today for instance.  This is our first reallllllly nice day of weather this year.  It was in the 80's.  I had such grand plans of cutting the grass, weeding 7 different garden plots, planting grass seed, trimming bushes out front, planting some more hostas, doing laundry, cleaning house.  It turns  out that plans are all they were.  I got up early and went to an estate sale with Nancy and was home by 10.  I got home and Tim was laid out on the couch.  He has pink eye.  It's gross.  It made him grumpy.  Not fun.  The kids had been looking forward to the warmer weather to go out and play with their water guns.  That is what we did.  By the time we got out there for the water battle, it was too hot to cut the grass and I just wasn't feeling the weeding.  Oh, but we did release our butterflies out into the big scary world.   I can mark that off my list.  Wait, that wasn't on my list.

I guess tomorrow I'm going to try and knock off as much of that list after I get my weekly shopping done.  It's supposed to be really nice tomorrow too.  I'll get up first thing and go food shopping.  No, actually I think I will get up and cut the grass first thing.  Then I will start a load of laundry and by the time I get home from shopping I can hang a load out. I'm very proud of myself for hanging laundry out.  In the last two weeks I've saved 5 loads from the dryer.  At first I felt kind of weird about hanging our clothes out because no one in our neighborhood does that, but then I thought "screw it".  When have I really cared what people think.  Ok, so yes...I know what I must do when I get up in the morning.  Won't my neighbors love me for cutting grass first thing in the morning on Sunday.

Next week is going to be a busy week.  If Tim ends up working from home because of his pink eye, that is going to make it tougher.  We are in the final weeks of school and we are dying to be done with it.  Connor decided today that he wants to double up on his lessons so that he can get done sooner.  Little does he know that I have workbook sheets for him to work on all summer.  =)  He was excited though to get an invitation to be in Gifted Science next year on top of his Gifted Literature.  I sat down with him and told him he was going to have to do labs and report his findings and be part of a research assignment and he was all for it.   We are pretty proud of him.  Aidan is doing great too.  His teacher did his benchmark testing last week and said he was progressing fine and was doing great with his reading and writing.   This has been a tough year so I will be glad when it's over and I'm hoping next year will be easier.  We have gotten into the swing of things with me teaching both of them and Connor is getting better at working on his own.  That being said, we are all looking very much forward to a little bit of a summer break.

I think that is all I have for now.  I have to do some planning because next weekend is Connor's weekend as he turns 9.  We are taking him to a gem show and then we are letting him pick out where he wants to go for dinner.  He has chosen Red Robin.  Well, he chose Chuck E Cheese, but that was ruled out.  He's chosen Mississippi Mud Cake for his cake, so we'll go to dinner and then come home and have cake.  Sunday I think we are going to take the kids to Claws and Paws.  It's a "zoo" that is near us. I'm kind of scared to see what it's going to be like, but the kids will enjoy going for a drive and seeing some animals.  

I'll leave you with some pictures from last week:

My hostas are up. I love the heart shaped leaves on this one.  I'm going to "save" some tomorrow from certain death down the street.  A couple of doors down they are getting ready to tear up the yard and put in a parking lot.  Last year they had the most beautiful hostas surrounding their tree (trees been cut down).  The new owner of the house is just going to destroy them.  I will not stand for that.  I have a nice shady front yard that they will be welcomed into.  I just have to figure out how to dig them up without getting caught.

This is rhubarb.  I've never seen it come up fresh in the Spring.  When I planted it last year it was a plant and wasn't going through it's bloom.  I've been fascinated watching this. It looks so alien.

Last weekend Connor fed a butterfly out in the yard.  We were going to let them go last weekend but then saw that the forecast called for lows in the 20's and that was too cold for them.  We took care of them indoors for another week.

This is from today.  Aidan got brave and decided that he wanted to hold one and release it. He did an awesome job.  All of us tracked the butterflies as they finally tasted their freedom.  I think most of them ended up on our neighbors Lilac bush.

I knit a new dishcloth.  I've been in a crafting hold pattern lately.  I'm trying to finish Tim's scarf (almost done) and I'm nearly done with my needlepoint.  I needed something fast to whip up and I needed some new dishcloths.  Voila.  I'm pondering attempting a quilt.  I found out that there is a quilters association in our area and one of my friends is the incoming President of said association.  I might take the quilting plunge.

The kids and I found this mama bird yesterday on Nancy's front porch.  She was very tolerant of us.  The kids were so excited.  They ran in and called Tim at work and wanted to call Nancy at work.  I didn't let them bother her at work but as soon as she drove into her driveway they were out the door to take her to show her the bird.

Here are the boys from last weekend and our hike.  We had a delightful time with Jeff, Heather, Miss Mess and Max.  The place we hiked at wasn't that great but it was nice to get out in the fresh air, have a picnic and catch up with good friends.

And last, but not least:

Patchy.  You see all that stuff around him?  That's his mess.  He fell asleep in the middle of his toys, his shredded paper, his dismembered stuffed animal and his peanut butter jar.  It's like having another child to pick up after. 

I hope everyone is having a great Spring weekend and I hope that I can get back in the swing of things and post more than once every ten days.

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. =)