Too Much and Too Lazy

Well, that about says it.

We have been pretty busy since the boys finished up the school year.  We've watched a lot of baseball  and gardening.  Game Boy is at the tennis academy this week, and both boys are either attending or working at vacation Bible camp.  The Collar is up in Spokane at a training meeting.  I've been riding my bicycle, I've started the couch to 5K (actually, the couch to 30 minutes!), and trying to keep Wiz busy.  (Thank goodness for piano.  He loves it.)

Yes, sounds about usual.

I have some pictures of the garden, but would have to go up and get the camera.  As I said, I'm too lazy right now to do that.  We are growing herbs, salad greens, rainbow chard, and tomatoes.  I buried a potato, so I suppose that counts too.  The boys each have their own garden (one of the volunteers gave me a couple of earth boxes) and Wiz is growing strawberries, and Game Boy is growing melons.  Maybe tomorrow I'll upload the pictures.

Happy first day of summer!  Maybe ours will finally show up.

40 Is Busy

or it has been so far.

Since my birthday, I've been to Spokane (COM Meeting), the farmer's market opened, I've made ice cream three times, the Bishop came down, we had the Balloon Stampede, I've ridden almost 90 miles, and have done the usual things.  OH, and The Collar also turned 40.

I haven't had as much free time this year, and when I do, I have so many things I want to do.  The blog gets dropped, because it's easier to update twitter or facebook than it is to write a coherent post.  I'll stop now, and let you see some pictures of the balloons from this weekend.  All of these were taken Sunday morning, from our back yard.  We are right in the flight path, so we had them going over early in the morning.

And for those of you who don't know:  balloons are loud.  Seriously.  Those burners make a lot of noise.

A Winter's Walk

Today is MLK, Jr. Day, and all of us were off work or school. It's not usual for us to have that opportunity, so we took advantage of it. The weather cooperated, too. It was somewhere in the 60's today, so we went off to the park with the dogs in tow. (It's still winter--see the snow on the mountain?)
There weren't as many birds around today, but we did spot this pair of ducks.

I'm always last, because I take pictures. Of course, it means I take pictures like this. Lulu is some where ahead of us but here are all the boys and Maisie.

The water sparkled today--the sun may not be out for long (but it's out longer EVERY day), but when we see it, it's spectacular. With few clouds, and the sun, the sky is that intense blue I remember from last spring. I've really missed that blue.
Even when the earth is fallow, you can see the beauty of this place. The fields are waiting for spring, and the mountains are still in their winter mode. Spring is coming, and after today, I can actually believe that.

Pictures courtesy of the new camera. I love it.

Other news:

We still haven't heard about Wiz's biopsy results. I expect that this week. I'm trying not to think about his upcoming surgery. I'm saving the Bearfoot yarn for while he's in the hospital. Maybe.

I'm halfway finished with a pair of mittens for Game Boy. I'll try to take pictures soon. I'm also working on socks for the Collar (which look really strange) and a pair of fingerless mitts for my sister (one is completed, one is halfway finished).

Oh, and I did knit some Christmas presents. I'll tell you which things were presents next time.

A Good Beginning

We had warmer weather and sun today. We took full advantage of this fact, and went to Pioneer Park with the dogs. I took the new camera.

We always wander around the aviary. The birds were pretty busy today.
While the sun was out, the views were their usual stunning selves. Now I have a camera that can capture it better, too.

It was a lovely wander. By the time we made it back home, the clouds were back and the rain started.

Occupo lumen! Especially when you live pretty far north.

What's New In Pictures

and a bit of text.Woo! New bicycle. (Game Boy has adopted my Kona Dew. I need a bicycle to ride around town. Therefore I bought this.)

New hair color--really red in the light. More subtle when it's not.
And new glasses. With new lenses. Aren't those ear pieces fabulous?
Meatloaf, striped hat shape. It was quite nice.

In other news, we shed a few things around here. We SOLD THE HOUSE. After 18 months on the market, it finally sold. We are so relieved. It was a good house, but it needed to be someone else's good house. Now it is, and two families are having happier Christmases because of it.

I also have turned in my last set of grades for the forseeable future. I just couldn't keep up with two "part-time" jobs, so I gave up my teaching job. It will be better for me, because I won't be as busy as I was. It will be better for all of us.

Sometime next week I'll do an end of year wrap up. Maybe. Who knows? I certainly don't.

New Frames

Not a planned purchase, but completely necessary. I think I like them. I know I like seeing.

Now it's November

and I have more pictures. Right now, weekdays are really busy. I haven't felt like blogging because I'm tired of doing anything much on the computer.
We had our usual skull shaped meatloaf--later than usual but we had it.

We had the first Saturday in forever when we didn't have any place we needed to be. So we went to Rook's park.
We saw a Great Blue Heron, who seemed to like to pose.
Wiz wasn't actually annoyed at this point. Maybe he was--I had just told him that it wasn't bamboo, but horsetails on the bank.Here are all three of the guys.

And here are the Blues, from town. That is snow up there. It seems to fall, then it melts, and it comes back. I don't mind the snow--if it's up there.

Halloween! and other things

Um, bad blogger here.

I started a new job. Did I tell you? Between that, the courier job and the teaching online gig, I've been a wee bit busy.

We had Halloween (and a party at church) complete with pumpkin carving. The Collar made the famous kitty litter cake (I've never been so glad to have an excuse not to eat gluten), and the kids (and me!) carved pumpkins. (Mine's the spider, Game Boy's is the one with the saw sticking out of the head and the tongue, and Wiz's is bottome left.)

Game Boy also carved one at a birthday party. Blades in the head are apparently this year's theme.A blurry picture of my jack-o-lantern, all lit up.

Game Boy is playing basketball this year (and I avoided even seeing Kentucky play when I attended) and he's in jazz band (someday I'll send you to the link of his concert). Wiz is in crazy medical time (this month, so far: neurology, hematology, and cardiology--January already has a neurosurgery appointment), and I'm busy with the new job. The Collar is ALWAYS busy. I suppose we have no time to get into trouble.

I'll try to post more often. It's been a crazy time this year.

Keeping Busy

It's fall, the boys are in school, I'm teaching, and we are always, always busy. The grapes are ripening and the leaves are starting to change.
I knitted another Christmas stocking, single row stripes, using a new to me technique that required no weaving in ends.
Finally, I found a laptop desk that will work extremely well for holding patterns.
Saturday was a nice day. We didn't do anything that we had to do. We went out to breakfast, we went to the farmer's market, we went to Sheep to Shawl, we went down to Milton-Freewater and wandered the pottery studio and went to the cidery. I forgot my camera, so there aren't any pictures of any of that. Sigh.

At some point, things will have to slow down, right? It might be nice to go out and do something fun without feeling like we're playing hooky.

And in other news

The basics for this week:

• Game Boy sprained his ankle (Sunday morning was spent in the ER).
• The boys started school on Tuesday.
• The first day of school included both boys' schools being on lock down, and requiring parental signature to get out. (There was a standoff down the street from our house!)
• I rode my bicycle 114 miles this week.
• I'm over 1000 miles for the summer.
• I haven't had much time to knit. Even at knitting this week, I sewed a project together.
• We went to Whitman Mission today, but that will get its own post, with pictures.
• We finally picked three tomatoes. They aren't doing well this year. :(
  

And that's the news this week.

The Garden

It's been a very difficult week around here.

The good:

• Game Boy took a class in computer animation. He wants to make a cartoon of his own. Game Boy and I played tennis together.
• I was able to get in one bike ride this week (31.87 miles).
• I made it to knitting the second week in a row.

The hard:
Game Boy and the Collar are going to camp next week, so we're working on getting all of that ready.
The week after that, we're leaving for Kansas City (6 days of driving during the round trip).
The Collar had two funerals this week.

I'm posting pictures from the garden.

Sage and cilantroRosemary and some greens

One of the roses

Another rose

The rosebush, which has even more roses on it now.

Wildlife

I've been riding a lot of miles lately (it's cheap, it's fun, and I really like it). Besides seeing all of the great scenery (mountains, orchards, wheat fields, onion fields, and vineyards), there is often a lot of wildlife that I didn't see when I'd ride in Kentucky. (No, Kentucky was mean dogs that lived at the TOP of the hill.)

I've seen deer, California quail, pheasants, and hawks of various types. Magpies are every where! There are a variety of waterfowl to see too. Apparently, the kildeer here don't like bicycles, because they always go straight to the pretend to be injured phase so that I don't hurt their babies.

Yesterday, it was rabbits. A pair of rabbits came running out of the brush from other side of the road. Instead of going straight across the road (which would have been helpful), they ran out in front of me, stopped, looked at me, and then ran a weaving path back to the other side of the road.

Once in a while, squirrels like to play chicken. Stupid squirrels.

I wonder what I'd see if I stopped and looked down at the creeks. There are probably lots of interesting things to see there.

Walking to School

What we saw this morning on the way to Wiz's school.

Not a bad way to start the morning.