iceskating

We had a wonderful weekend.  It was so full that I didn't even check my email or post here.  It was sort of nice like that.  There was some birthday partying, a monster truck show, bunches of swimming, almost as much canning and yard work.  

This ice skating trip was from Tuesday, Bee's birthday.  She wanted more than anything to go ice skating.  

This is her third time I think and Lou's second.  

For the first 40 minutes we had the rink almost all to ourselves. 

 

I think I'll share the monster truck show tomorrow!  It was pretty cool.

our turn

It was our turn, finally, to have a yard sale. When I looked at everything, I though, "Gosh, it's all old junk."  I guess that's what everyone puts out; their old junk.  My sister and my mom were in town so I made them sit out with me all morning. 

I had a few extra of these:  They didn't sell.

My sister brought this picnic basket which I traded her a weed eater for.  The suitcase didn't sell, probably because I had $3 on it.  I have just seen them for craft projects lately and I knew someone would be crazy for it.  They weren't.  It was in the box of things my Grandma sent over.  We were going to give my cousin the profits for his Eagle Scout project.  I think I have $4 for him. 

I put out a few of these cabinet doors for my neighbor.  One sold to a very happy man.  Apparently he had been been looking for such a door.  My sister bought a few to make a headboard.  I can't wait to see it.

I sold ALL of these old patterns.  They were in a bunch of boxes my Grandma and her sister sent me to go through.  There must have been 5 boxes. I kept about 2 1/2 boxes worth of the stuff and put some in the yard sale. A little just got tossed (shhhhh). I kept most of the fabric, but some of it, scraps mostly, I bagged up and sold to a woman who was so excited to find them that she hugged me.  We got talking and she even came inside to see my sewing area.  We are pretty much best friends now.

Bee and Lou had a lemonade stand.  Between that and what they put out, they each made about $6.  Hubby always does the best.  He sold our old grill, his golf clubs (finally!), and the old-school nintendo he bought a few weeks ago at a sale (for a profit!), old hunting clothes and some sirus radio antenna thingy.  We have $4 for my cousin's Eagle Scout project which isn't going to get him very far.   I think my sister and I mostly traded with each other so we both probably broke even!

like a new shelf

I have mopped the floors at least twice a day since Monday evening.  Bee says it is slowly getting less sticky. I have removed the last piece of glass from my feet and all seems well. I need to replace the broom, the kitchen rug, and the dustpan.  But, hubby quickly fixed my shelf. 

When the shelf crash happened I was interested in seeing the brackets and screws to see why it fell. Imagine my surprise when I realized that there were 3/4 inch screws holding up that heavy shelf.  Good grief, I'm not sure the wooden shelf should have been able to be supported.  They were only long enough to go into the drywall, not into any studs.

When we bought this house in December, the former homeowners had heavy antique crock mixing bowls on the shelf.  I commented on what a strong shelf it looked like.  They assured me it wasn't going anywhere!  Lesson learned; never trust someone else's shelf installation skills.

Hubby fixed the problem with anchors and longer screws.

  

And some real big bad boys to go into the studs.  See that big one against the old little one.  We're going to be sturdy now. 

Each of the anchors is weighted to hold 75 pounds each.  The screws in the studs should be about the same.  I'm not going to push it though. 

I have much less up there now. I won't be putting anymore weight up there than this.  I had a few jars survive the crash and brought up anything else I had stored away in the basement.  This is everything now.  I'm trusting Hubby's good shelf installation skills.   

We'll have no more of this:

I'm jumping right back in and have grape jelly on the plan for this weekend.

surprises

After an additional hour of cleaning, I do have an update to the shelf crash fiasco of the other day.  But in the meantime, here  is something I already had ready.  

When we returned home from our holiday travels we had a number of surprises.

The first surprise was that a neighbor trimmed one of our big trees in the backyard. They took a chainsaw and started chopping up limbs. everyone was sick of our tree dropping limbs and pulling down the power lines.  We finally figured out who did it and to maintain friendly neighborly relations (they bring us ribs!) I had to thank them repeatedly for all their hard work.  I didn't thank them for the 4 hours of hot sweaty chainsaw work, wood stacking and leaf burning we had to do the next morning.  I also didn't thank them for the two large piles of limbs that remain to burn.  Hubby and I thought we were going to overheat and pass out and had to call it a day.  Bee's pool party is this next weekend or I'm sure they'd stay all summer.   At least there weren't limbs in the pool or crushing the trampoline like the last time we were out of town. 

A less work requiring surprise was some HUGE yellow squash. The two that look little are regular size.  The two large ones were too big.  I scooped out the seeds though and we ate them anyway.  The seeds get a little crunchy if they get this big.  I gave the little ones to the neighbors. 

The best surprise was this guy:

Two of our tadpoles are growing up and loosing that little kid tadpole tail.   The whole time Bee was holding this guy she kept whispering to herself, "Don't freak out, don't freak out, he's just a frog."

We still have several tadpoles left to go and the froglets will be released this week.  They haven't spent anytime near the water since hopping out and I'm thinking they aren't eating.

Have you ever come home form a trip to surprises?

three (plus a whole bunch more) hours I won't get back.

Today is my little Bee's birthday.  I had a birthday related post to work on last night.  Instead, I spent three hours cleaning up this mess.  Three hours.  If I was going to clean for three hours, the bathrooms might have benefited from some attention. 

Before the crash and my scream:  This picture is last week, before this weekends two additional batches of jam.  (You see where this is going, huh?)

After the crash and my scream.

Thankfully I was the only one in the kitchen when it happened.  There was a bit of yelling, some crying and a bit of swearing.

I can't even describe the mess, the glass, the stickiness, the tears.  The shelf took out everything in it's way so I also lost a large fiesta-ware pitcher and a completed etsy order.  The glass went around both corners and down the hall.  Blueberry jam was down the walls and under and in every spot available.

Jam.  Chicken broth.  Corn.  Pickles.  Spaghetti sauce.  Jelly.  More jam.  Turkey broth.   Sticky peaches.  Relish. 

After two hours of cleaning, Hubby excused himself to finish up his work downstairs and I heard a word come from him that I haven't heard in years. The ceiling was leaking chicken broth.  The floor, the kids work table, the chairs.... all sticky with peach juice and chicken broth.   I may or may not have repeated the word. 

All of this cleaning happened with a swollen hand.  I was stung by a bee about two hours prior.  I was stung in the finger and I could hardly move my finger.  My entire hand was swollen tightly.  Every move made it ache.  I was singing in my head that song Have a Bad Day the whole time.  

stuff from the 4th

Goodness it's been a week now and I've finally just uploaded pictures from the 4th of July. We were out of town for the week and then had people here almost immediately after we got home. Here are just a few of the fun things we did while visiting family over the 4th.

We are early to bed normally so we don't often see lighting bugs.  What a treat.

Oh my, this photo shows a fluffy hair day for Lou!

Grandma and Grandpa picked up a cool water slide for the kids.

We joined some friends and family for fireworks.  The house where we watched them is right on the edge of the park where the fireworks were launched.  Great seats and a convenient potty.

and entertainment to boot.

Turns out Hubby's aunt is a face painter.  Who knew?

Later, Lou fell asleep on my shoulder on our way back to Grandma and Grandpa's house, that cute little web face left a tidy print right on my shirt.

This was our first year for sparklers. Last year they were both scared of them.

There was a very nice firework show.

The lawn where we sat was closer than even the park guests were able to sit.  At times we felt sparks on our legs!

Bee and Lou spent the time collecting the pieces falling on us.

Perhaps we'll scoot back and little next year!

jam mess up and a jelly go

This has been several weeks back now, but the kids and I went strawberry picking and came home ready to make jam.  we were leaving for a trip the next day and I was packing and cleaning and making jam and I really messed it up.  I realized pretty quickly that it wasn't looking like it was going to set up properly.   In fact, it turns out that it's more like strawberry syrup.

It was supposed to make 8 jars and I think and I ended up with 12.  It's sweet and yummy and good on ice cream, so it's not a loss at all.   I'll just buy some store bought strawberries and make another batch. 

I picked up some fresh peaches and put them up too.  I forgot that canning peaches isn't fun.  It's messy and slippery and it never seems like it makes much.  Probably I'll forget that this winter when we are enjoying the peaches.

I tried a new recipe for jelly using store bought juice.  It's a little bit like cheating.  We chose blueberry pomegranate and is really delicious so I won't tell if you don't.  I've given away a few jars and am left with just a few.  I'll have to make another batch.

Here's what I have left from last summer and what I've already put up this year.  I have 2 jars left of green beans, out of the 17 from last summer.  This year I'll make sure to out some up in pints instead of just quarts.  There are a few jars of turkey and chicken broth left, the new jars of peaches, beans, one jar left of corn.  I'll do much more this summer.  Only two jars of pickles are left.  Some batches were so good, we'd eat a jar in one day!  The new jam and jelly are here.  There are 5 jars of spaghetti sauce left, no one besides me likes it.  There are 2 jars of relish left, so that's worked out pretty well.  I love it.  I have the last jar of ketchup in the fridge right now.  That worked out pretty well too and will be a must on this summers list. 

Off topic:  I just finished writing this and looked up and both hubby and my sister are asleep on the couches.  My mom went off to bed hours ago.  We got up super early this morning and had a yard sale, so we are worn out.  I think they have the right idea.