Weekend Activities AKA I need a nap

Friday night, I went to Maddy's town to attend one of their free summer concerts with her!  They try to go every week but Matthew was out of town and Maddy didn't want to go alone.  She got more knitting in and we got a lot of chit chatting in.

The Death Stranding birthday party for Ryan and Jen, on Saturday night was a lot of fun!  

SO much pizza and goodies!  Leon had even made a cake.  I made the buttercream frosting for it.  Thank goodness Maddy brought a veggie platter.  I made a salad using lettuce and the toppings of a couple slices of pizza & said vegetables.  

mmm  and snuck a few boneless bbq chicken wings.  I need to knock THAT off!

Meri and Josh were there too and even Aggie joined in on the living room fun as Ryan forged his way into the sequel for the game.  Even though Matthew was several states away at a conference, he was able to connect via Twitch and watch the action too.  He texted several times about events going on in the game.

Sunday, after church, some church friends stopped by and helped me work on my rider mower to fix the bent wheel.  They ended up using the two parts I'd purchased after all and identified another crutial piece that got bent also. The front axle.  I asked a neighbor for a tool I didn't have and he came over and fussed over the mower along with Seth.  So much grease!  I felt so bad for getting them into the nitty gritty of it all.  I thought it was going to be a quick fix.

Seth will be back later this week with a pipe wrench to see if he can bend the axle back into place.  

In the meanwhile, I mowed the front yard afterwards and it handled SO much better than it had been doing!  Instead of a ten point turn at every corner, it was only 3!  PROGRESS!!!

Oh, plus they tightened the steering wheel!  So it's not so jiggly! Whew.

While Aggie and Jen played in the kiddie pool, I pulled thistle weeds out of my hostas and cement hill and finally planted my hydrangea plant that Meri gave me for Mother's Day.  It actually broke apart into two plants! So winner winner!

I opened a bag of mulch that had been sitting there all last winter to spread around it and low and behold there was a mass colony of ants living inside and they spilled out all over my tennis shoes and gloves!  Yikes!  and they were biters! 

That was about when I decided I'd had enough for one day.  Besides sweat was dripping off my face like a faucet was on.  I left my shoes on the porch so the ants could go find another home.  yuck.  

OH and I sprayed the air conditioner with the hose a lot!  I'm guessing that's why it's not keeping up very well with the heat.  It was pretty dirty.  So now we wait again to see if it made a difference.

Got a lot of weeding in this morning before work.  If I can get 30 minutes of weeding in a day, I think the yard will be good by Christmas.  You know.  Under a foot of snow.

above: dressing up with Mom
below: reading to herself.

I cried at church yesterday. Widows being given back their sons.  I'm not jealous but well, maybe.  It's a widow thing.  Always rehashing the actual day, wondering if I missed something or didn't pray at the right time or not do the right things.  And wouldn't you just know it?  The first service I hadn't brought tissues to the pew with me.  Even though I didn't get Robb back, God has been taking good care of us and Robb is having a beautiful time while he waits for me to catch up.

Well...

Back to work Mr Zook!  Thanks Dave!  * Robb always rolled his eyes at me for quoting that old Sioux City car dealership commercial!! * :)

Goals

Isn't this place ADORABLE?!!!  One of my dear friends from our local widow group bought a house and fixed it up for an AirBNB and it is SO cute!  She has a mug tree with a coffee bar, a game room, a fireplace, etc.  So cozy!

Um and a hobbit door!!!

Our widow group had a dinner there on Friday and got to tour the house. AND eat lots of goodies!  If I had one ounce of her creativity, I believe I could do this too!

We talked cruises. :)

 

And isn't this funny?!  I believe there was one point in my life that I thought Austria and Australia were the same place too.  I may have been 8.  But because of the Sound of Music, I eventually knew the difference.  They don't say G'Day Mate in Austria.

And my rhubarb is starting to come up.  Goals...

I attended an ASG meeting on Saturday and got a huge bolt of fabric to use for curtains in my new office/sewing room from the free table. :)

That afternoon, watched Witness with a couple friends at the nursing home.  Ada is a huge fan of Patrick Swayze as well as Harrison Ford so this is the 2nd time in 12 months I've seen Witness with her.  I've seen Dirty Dancing around 4 in the last 12 months.  I found out my other friend is a fan of Night Shift and I own the DVD so since it is fairly risqué, I snuck it to her in a plain brown paper bag at church Sunday.  :)

Also on Sunday, Maddy, Matthew and Leon played catch in the yard that afternoon.  Meri and I watched from the deck.

Leon starts baseball soon and hadn't practiced much at all yet.  He has a good arm!

And I see a lot of home projects just from this pic that I need to attend to.  

Won't be today though, too windy.

I made a crockpot of chili along with a loaf of bread in the bread machine.  Unfortunately, didn't realize the machine blade hadn't made it into the pan before I made it, so I had a hot mess waiting for us when we got home from church.  Oh well, I had other rolls.

How was YOUR weekend?

What In The World Have I Been Up To?

 The weekend started off swell!  Frank tried to be Evel Knievel and walk on the upstairs railing.  I have NO idea how often he's tried this that I haven't noticed.  Leon was on the couch behind me and saw him.

Silly cat.

Maddy and Matthew stayed over on Friday night and we went on a self designed 2K walk instead of the usual 5K that we go on for Scandinavian Days.  We wanted to go at our own pace and bring the dogs.  It was going to be a 5K of our own choosing, but ended up around the 2.  We walked past Meri's house and she ran out with some water for each of us. :) Just like a real triathlon or something!

Then we all met up for the parade and coffees.

And our favorite countryside market float gave out watermelon slices! mmmmm

Meri and Ryan

Aggie even enjoyed the festivities and got to meet Robb and my former bosses across the street!

Yep - she's one of our clan!!  She's got the McVal look.

We moseyed down the town and visited a craft fair, had lunch by the pool and then explored the park activities as we had seen a sign for Silly Sally!  

We saw a woman in a tent doing face paints and the girls got ALL nostalgic, "It's HER!!" but the line to get up for painting was super long.  So the girls decided to have their picture taken with her discretely...  without bothering her while she concentrated on a little butterfly for a little girl.

See them in the background? lol!

THEN went around the corner and saw the ACTUAL Sally!!!  The line was much shorter and we got to visit with old neighbors while we waited.

The girls got their pics with her again and also got balloon animals!!

Silly Sally was the entertainment for both Maddy's 3rd birthday party 

AND Meri's 3rd birthday party a few years later!  

Sally was pleased that some satisfied former clients came to see her.

After all the festivities, I spent the afternoon and evening burning branches and old bits of our patio room.  Will have to do more of that in the upcoming weeks.  Leon and Ryan joined me and we made s'mores.  I also dug into the woods and cut down lots more branches and weeds so that Leon could explore the woods easier.

Every time I feel like I should get some things done outside, I look for a new project instead of the stuff I should ACTUALLY work on.  Is that a bad thing?

The poor plants I have laid out for planting need to get IN the ground!!!  Maybe today.

Maybe not.

Misremembering Memorial and plans

 Memorial Day isn't until NEXT weekend, not THIS one! Whew!  But no matter.  After Biolife this morning, I stopped and picked up some flowers for both Robb's stone and his dad's.  Will get them put out this weekend with help from the kids.

I took the Aggster for a walk yesterday and she's waving at the bus barn.  AND the cardtrol company was giving out free hotdogs and chips as customer appreciation so we picked up a couple meals for the gang back home.  I think they're still in the fridge.  Oh well, Leon can eat them tonight.

I'm headed to my hometown for a baby shower tomorrow.  Looking forward to spending some time with family.  Hopefully back in time to help Jen change out a bathroom air vent and a patio light.  Plans, plans.

I got some Aggie time in this morning while Jen got ready for work and hoping to have a bonfire, firepit tonight with Leon and the gang.  I've got a lot of branches and junk to burn and I'm thinking Leon wants to cook some marshmallows or hotdogs.  We'll see.

I ordered a cake for one of the confirmands at church this weekend.  The gal at the bakery did NOT understand the word confirmation and repeated the words back to me, "Congratulations on your consirmation".  Um, what's that?  That's supposed to be an "F".  I had to spell it for her a few times until she got it, I hope.  "F" as in Frank!  I guess Sunday will be the big reveal! :)

Oh well, It's not MY kid being confirmed!  That's not for another 2 years.

I joined a long hair for women over 50 group this morning.  I just got it cut on Wednesday!  

This is my intro picture for the group.

I feel so lightheaded...  Eh - it was a trim.  I've had bangs most of my life except for a few times when I thought, hey, let's look like Christy Brinkley! (as in my senior pic on the top shelf) and then thought again.  When it grows into my glasses, it's time for a trim.  I don't do it myself anymore because my hairdresser will just shake her head and feel like upping her price.  I can't have her doing that!

Have a beautiful weekend!

Life and how we *spend* it

 What a weekend!!  Where to begin...?

Leon was here!  We watched another episode of one of our shows and he rode his scooter over to Meri's to meet me there to care for the cats.   I'm still pet sitting.  While I was working outside, I saw him cross the street and as soon as I turned my back for a second, heard him start screaming.  He'd hit a patch of gravel at the end of the sidewalk and wiped out.  He had scrapes and dings all over and just wanted to go home.  I helped him to the car, finished my chores and took him back.  He claimed he wouldn't touch his scooter for probably 3 months.  :) that changed the next day.

On Saturday, he went with me to a couple garage sales in the morning.  Then in the afternoon, he attended a meeting with me and our pastor to get ready for confirmation classes coming up.  He's growing up!

There were also free carousel rides and yes, I rode one too!  I was so afraid it was going to break with me on it, I clung to the pole!  I won't be doing that again.

I made 9 trays of flavored dehydrated cucumber slices and ate a whole quart of some just this morning.  I may need to ease up on the salt for future batches if I'm going to plow through them like that again.

I got to hold Agnes a lot this weekend and I think we've imprinted!  

She calms down when she looks me right in the eye and she's smiling more!  

I had planned to burn branches but the breeze kicked up late in the day so that plan was cancelled.

Reedus being lazy.  Yeah, I always lay down to eat too!

Maddy and Matthew came on Sunday and we all got coffee after church and hung out with Aggie for a while.  

The dogs all had a play date in the backyard.  

Like Maddy's bones costume?  She got them all matching ones for Halloween!  Cute.

Speaking of Halloween... It's not even September yet and it's all up at Sam's Club!  While I am loving it, yikes it's too soon!  Leon has already decided that I'm going to sew him a Link outfit, like from Zelda.  We'll see how it goes.

I took him back to his mom's yesterday and when I got there, they noticed smoke coming from my engine...  !!!  Looks like an oil leak somewhere is leaking onto the engine and causing the smoke.  I've got some long car rides coming up this week and don't want to get stranded on the side of the road!  I put in a call to my car guy but no answer yet so put in another call to a different company and have an appointment set for tomorrow.  We'll see what we find out.  Hopefully nothing too expensive.  I've already got the rider lawnmower in for repair this week too. 

Living is expensive! shoot.

Weekend Thriving

I had such a good time on Friday night with my college friends.  They were all, at some point, either roommates or housemates with Robb. Well, except for the girl on the far end, but she did attend our college at the same time as we did and since then has married the guy next to me, Robb's old dorm roommate.

Things got a little emotional and it was awkward but helpful to have a group hug in our row.  It's impossible to wrap our heads around what has happened and so many people are hurting.

But anyway...

The game was a lot of fun and I ate my weight in popcorn that progressively got chewier and chewier.  It was pretty humid... I didn't realize how that affected the popcorn until it did.

I was still flossing it out of my teeth the next day. :)

The balls kept getting hit foul into our area and at one time, Joel was able to protect his wife from a stray one that ricocheted off a seat in front of us.  WOOHOO!  A souvenir!!!  He gave it to a daughter who attended with us.

And instead of the kiss cam, I think they need to implement a "Cringe Cam" because we were doing LOTS of cringes from rogue balls...  And they were hilarious...  

I left as soon as the teams shook hands because I still had a drive home that night.  They were all either at a hotel or one of their daughter's for the night.

I met up with them again the next morning and we attended the farmer's market.  And I JUST remembered the cheese that I bought!!!  I know what my morning snack will be!!

When I got back into town, I immediately changed and went over to Meri's to mow her yard.  It was completed finally and I turned off the mower to go get a refill on the gas.  And then it wouldn't start...  That's always just the way, isn't it?  So I sat in my car and watched the Abyss on my cell phone, waiting for the mower to cool.

In the meanwhile, Meri got home from work and invited me in.  We spent the afternoon together working on projects around her house and enjoying some lunch.  I'd forgotten to eat.

Then when she had to head off to an engagement party, I headed out of town as well on the mower.  Since the bridge is out and the alfalfa field that I'd been using as an alternative way to get across the creek that splits our town in half, had grown taller than the mower since I'd cut through it,  I had to drive the 4 miles around on the detour...  REALLY?!!!!  

Yes. really...  

I pulled my t-shirt sleeves up over my shoulders so I wouldn't get the farmer's tan thing going and headed out of town.  SO.MANY.CARS.PASSING...  I lied to Meri and told her that I only got flipped off and honked at twice.  She felt bad so I had to tell her those were lies.  Everyone was super patient to drive around me.  Found out last night that a friend from our Grief Share group saw me and wondered if she needed to turn around and follow me in case I ran out of gas. hmmm..

I'm glad she didn't!

In the course of a solid hour to drive the detour, I got some color in my cheeks and rest of me.  Robb would have gotten sunburned completely in the first mile.  But my melanin is a bit different than his was so it's just a light tan.  Also got covered in sweat and dust from the gravel road part of the detour.

I quickly mowed the front yard as soon as I got back to my house and before turning off the mower, because you know... it overheats...

Then I walked back to Meri's for my car.  This is what I COULD have driven the mower down and back up if I'd opted to go this route.  I still think I could have done it, but Meri says no.  It's pretty steep...

And THIS bridge is supposed to be done a week from Wednesday.  I'm taking bets on the actual date...  Because I don't think they're going to make it.  There's still a pretty big gap to fill in on both sides of the bridge.

I had a good soak in the tub when I finally got home and don't think I even ate supper.  My lunch was at 3:30 anyway, so not a big deal...  Leon calls that "lupper".

Then lots of stuff happened on Sunday and it was all a blur.  Just normal, rushing here or there, church, the last Sunday School til fall, getting my students in trouble by giving them whistles, picking up the boy, dropping off stuff at MIL's, Grief Share, DUO call with Maddy, etc.

Meri and I will finally be going to that Godzilla movie tonight.  I hope.  And maybe Leon will go with us.  That remains to be seen...

Already plotting out next weekend!

Living for that weekend baby!!!

Weekend in Brazil

Wouldn't this be a great front door mat??!  I think it might be the next one after our "Go Away" welcome mat...

 

I shared all the amusing things I found on FB with Robb as we headed to the big city to celebrate our "anti cruise", as Maddy dubbed it.

We stayed at the Embassy Suites and pretended we were on the cruise.  

Well, except for the absolute stillness of the hotel with no pitching on the waves at all... and no warm view from our window.  The temps were in the negatives most of the weekend.

There was a whistling wind outside our window though.

And to our chagrin, I got paged this weekend with a HUGE issue on a client's server.  Uggg.. I put in a lot of hours here and there babysitting it until late Sunday when I realized why there were so many files to process...  AHA!  That dropped it from 150,000 files down to a reasonable 2600...  

If only that extra work magically appeared as more money...  We would SO side the house.

Anyway, this is us this weekend in the almost exact same place we took the one from 3 years ago.

2018

2021

Robb noticed he had a lot more gray and was wearing the same shirt.

Our room was right off the elevators and apparently that's where the cool kids hang out.  If we were in the living room of our suite, we heard them laughing and talking.  I'm not impressed with the language of modern kids...   But I guess they impress themselves.

A couple teen girls knocked on our door and when I answered it they said oops - wrong room.

Robb thinks they'd dared each other.

FUN GAME GIRLS!!!

If they would have knocked again, I'd have made sure they were embarrassed greatly by their "mistake"... Where's my negligee?

On Saturday, we ventured out in the cold and saw a movie made for video gamers.  We were the only ones in the theater except for a couple young nerdy guys in the back.  Milla Jovovich kept things interesting tho and I enjoyed the movie!  Robb thinks I hated it.  This is the man who picked out No Escape for our anniversary one year and then wanted to take me to John Wick Chapter 2 on a date.  I've just grown accustomed to action packed movies with a lot of people killed.  It doesn't HAVE to be a romantic movie when we're on a date weekend...  

After the matinee, we went to a restaurant with a Brazil theme, that was AWESOME!!!  We didn't drink any wine but the rack of it behind Robb's chair was REALLY cool...

And I almost said it had a Brazilian theme, but that's totally something else, right?

This restaurant had a huge salad bar and on our table, we had a little wooden stand.  Red on the bottom and green on the top.  If we had the stand with green on the top, the waiters came by every few minutes with various types of meat on the skewer...  It was wonderful!  Better than the breadsticks hand outs at Fazolis and a LOT more frequent!  KEEP IT COMING!  We were stuffed by 4pm when we finally flipped it over to the red side.  So we didn't need any supper at all.

We'll need to take all the kids here sometime, but probably not Leon.  They don't sell hotdogs here.

It was a great weekend and now we're home...

What I've been up to and a cliffhanger

 My goodness!  The last several weeks have been a rush!  And it hasn't slowed down...

I'm still hoping to finish up that wedding dress soon.  I'm sure the bride would like it back before the wedding...  There's hand work so of course I'm procrastinating...

I'm also dreaming of other clothes that I need to make for myself, as I made the mistake of putting some of my sewn knit tops in the dryer...  UGGG now the texture feels weird on them and some are pilling...  I'm a firm believer these days in hanging up handmade things to dry.  Well, not leggings...  But tops, yes.

Last week, we discovered that our little neighboring burg had a beach!!!  Who knew?!

Well, my girls did!  They apparently went swimming there many times during high school.  But I took Leon down to it.  It's more just a rapids area of the local stream thru town and some sandy build up on the shore.  But it's perfect.

and quiet.

Well, until we got there...

Leon spent part of last week with a mask of V for Vendetta that he'd got a while back.  He painted it all black, then added more color over the top of that.  He's going to have me make him a black hoodie sweatshirt and then wear this for Halloween.

You know... IF we can even trick or treat this year...

Last week, Robb, Leon and I went to a grad party for one of my nephews.  

They live out on the winding-est road of my old home town on several acres of land.  The kids have made trails through the woods below their house with a 4 wheeler.  Back in the day, my parents riding lawnmower was our 4 wheeler... ;)  

Leon and I went on a walk about down there.  Beautiful!

They have a shooting range, a huge pile of dirt to dig in, an archery area, everything. 

Well, except for an outhouse.

THAT would have come in handy...

They had a swimming pool too!  So while the family was greeting other guests, Leon went swimming.  It was a HECK of a time getting him to agree to get out after some other young ones were getting jealous.  HEY!  GET OFF THE POOL DECK!

Also, last week, on 7/24, I was on a walk.  I always listen to Flashdance or Full Monty or other sound tracks via Youtube on my phone while I walk(dance, run,whatever)... I heard a commercial about Conqueror events and a virtual walk you can do around the Ring of Kerry!!  It's 124 miles, but if you get some team members with you, you can divide that up.  Each of you gets a medal at the end.  So we've been walking to our hearts content in small town Iowa, but racking up miles in Ireland.

Some day, I want to walk it in person again.  Well, not the 124 miles, but just 1 mile.

on a beach.

Maddy, Meri and I are doing it as a team.  We're about 30 miles into it so far!

We've got until October some time to complete it, but I think we'll be done in another week or two!

The app is cool!  Whenever you log your steps/miles/etc, you can see exactly where you are on the walk, thanks to Google Earth!  

And you get a postcard in your email whenever you reach a milestone.

Currently, we are here.

I've been updating my background profile pic on FB with our progress if it's significant.

So I've been walking a LOT lately.  I hope it soon means that some more weight will come off.  So far this week, I'm still up 4 pounds from Sunday.  The "going home from college town" pizza is really taking it's time coming off...  So is the salt from too many car chips that day...

THEN Leon and I have been trying to play Bears vs Babies once a day.  We haven't so far today yet.  I need to remedy that.

Leon is having a blast creating the monsters.  We've modified the rules so that he doesn't have to wipe out a monster until the very end when we tally up the points.

Here is one of his that he was especially proud of...

 THEN the produce from our garden is finally taking off!  We picked a bunch of cucumbers Tuesday and I managed to get several jars of refrigerator pickles done.

Wow was THAT easy!!?!

Our garage fridge may just be renamed the "Pickle fridge".

 

They are delicious!!!  I've eaten a whole jar just by myself today...

It was a small jar...

And a good one of Robb and Leon goofing off one day after work.

AND I have some news but until it gets booked today, I'll wait to tell you another time.

Have a great Friday tomorrow!