Tuesday at the museum...

Stuff that's happened in July...

July has blown by. We did get our algae under control in the pool, so we all returned to the water.


Zane has taken over a huge part of the mowing duties around the house. He's learning the trade this year and working for money next year.


OK... we had a most unfortunate series of decisions occur on the part of our boys, leaving them unable to get along with each other. After figuring out they had too much time on their hands with nothing constructive to do, we put them to work TOGETHER washing the picket fence. And we're thinking that Zack is Tom and Zane is Huck. At least that's how is seemed to play out on this day!

Summer Bible Study is always a highlight of my summer. These are most of the chickies in the study I got to be in this year. We had just finished our wrap up dinner. We missed our friends who couldn't make it, but we had a really sweet time wrapping up our study of Mary Kassian's Conversation Peace.

Six weeks after Kelsey got her wisdom teeth pulled, Zack had a turn in the extraction chair. Two uncooperative baby teeth landed him a visit with Dr. Don. With a quivering lip and an "It hurt," he hobbled home to recover. Later that day he announced, "I didn't think any of it was funny." "What?" "That laughing gas. It didn't work because I didn't think any of getting my teeth pulled was funny." So noted.

And wrapping up the middle part of July, Kelsey spent a week at volleyball camp. I looked for a picture of her actually playing volleyball, but all I could find were photos of her and her teammates climbing on furniture and dancing.

My new lunch box...

Everything old is new again...

For years I talked about my time as a teacher. Past tense. I was a teacher. I taught six years. I coached cheerleading five years. I had babies. I quit teaching. I worked as an assistant to a collegiate cheerleading coach and choreographer who ran a cheer gym, cheer camps, cheer competitions and started his own line of cheerleading apparel.

Then I got my real estate license and sold houses. Then I did lots of volunteer ministry stuff. Then I taught journalism at our kids' Christian school.

Which brings us to now.

Now I am going back to work full time. And all the old things... the lesson plans, the grading, the conferences, the meetings, the psychological exhaustion at the end of the day, the housework that is still there even though I'm not, all those things are new again.

When my kids head back to school in a few weeks, so will I. I'll be there all day, just like they are. I can hardly wrap my mind around what that is going to look like. Yet one thing is becoming abundantly clear.

I'm not going to be blogging with any consistency at all. Sort of like this month. When life is relaxed, the creativity flows. When life is planned down to the minute, not so much. I've been reading 7th and 9th grade literature. Interesting. Truly. But I haven't had time to blog.

While this blog is a little like the hand-in-the-bucket-of-water, the one that I really will miss is the Christmas blog. Sadly to say, there is no way that I can Celebrate Christmas in the blogosphere this year. So if you are one of the Friends who celebrated Christmas with us last year by contributing to the blog, I would love to hand it over to someone else. Posting a holiday blog everyday from early November through early January isn't for the faint of heart. But it is a huge blessing. Interested? Shoot me an email. :)

Well, that's ironic...

Our pool is a botanical paradise. I'm not talking about the plants growing around the pool, although there is a lovely Japanese maple that's my favorite. I'm talking about the lovely algae colony/colonies growing IN the pool.

For the past few days, we haven't been able to keep chlorine in the pool. Jimmy cranked up the chlorinator to the max and STILL, where we're supposed to be between 1.0 and 3.0 (whatevers per whatever), we're at 0.2. Hmmm... So you know what you've gotta do. You've gotta get the water sample and head over the the local pool company for testing.

Bubba over at the Pool Supply company ran the sample through the fancy testing equipment, printed out the results, and said, "What's your water look like?" We say, "It's clear, but it looks like there might be algae growing on the walls all of a sudden. And we can't keep the chlorine level up."

Bubba says, "Well, you have an algae problem." Really? Hmmm... what gave you that idea? The test numbers or the fact that we said, "... it looks like there might be algae growing on the walls..."? In defense of Bubba, it was both. What tipped it for him was when we said it looked like algae was starting to grow on the walls of the pool, that explained the very low chlorine reading and the very high phosphate reading. Plants, evidently, thrive on phosphates. (And yes, I know algae is technically in the Kingdom Protista in the five-kingdom system, but I'm simple and two kingdoms is about all I can handle.)

So, a lesson in the eating habits of algae and $186 later, we head home with a bunch of chemicals and a plan. What's ironic is that, while I can't seem to keep anything green alive in my house, I have no problem doing it in my pool.

The other irony is that as I type this, we are watching Caddyshack on AMC. They just did the scene with Chevy Chase and Bill Murray... pool or pond. Pond would be good for you.

Our pool IS pretty much a pond. So I suppose ol' Carl would be right at home. Natural mineral waters and all...

66 West...

Yesterday was the fourth of July. We had a great day, waking up around the time we'd like to get up everyday and spending time leisurely checking a couple of things off the "To Do" list. Gramma came over for a cookout, bringing with her homegrown green beans and our family favorite potato salad. We love it when Gramma comes to visit. Our family is getting so small, and everyone is so busy that we rarely get a chance to enjoy being family. Holiday celebrations are extra special when we can be together. After we ate, Gramma headed home, and I fell asleep at the foot of my bed waiting for 8:30 to come.

At 8:30 every July 4th, we load up the truck and head out to see the fireworks. We always go see the same show, but part of the fun of the night is trying to find the best place to watch it. For a few years, we discovered the hill on a major road where we would pull onto the grassy median and watch two fireworks shows at the same time. But the grassy median is grassy. And buggy. And we spent a good amount of time after we got home checking for ticks and putting lotion on mosquito bites. So we decided to hunt a new spot. Last year we found a pretty decent one, so we headed that direction there this year to see if we could improve the view. Oh. My. Word. We hit the jackpot!

We found an asphalt-covered viewing spot that only about 10 other vehicle-loads of people knew about. It was epic. The spot was directly in front of the fireworks show, far enough away not to get covered with ash, but close enough that you could hear the swoosh of the launcher and feel the boom as the powder exploded. About 15 minutes into the show, we heard rival fireworks. Sure enough, looking just slightly west of where we were sitting, we could see the show from the next town over. Two shows, just like in the grassy spot. No bugs. No crowds. Just lights and booms and oohs and ahhhs. It was a great night.

We're thinking next year we might head out a little earlier, with some friends and a homemade ice cream maker. Want to join us?

I finished something...

I finished a project! This summer! So technically, I can go back to work having accomplished SOMETHING around the house. Yay!!!

So... here's the nightstand I found at Goodwill for $9.

And here's the nightstand-turned-side-table after a couple cans of high gloss black lacquer paint... (And, yes, there is a saga to the refinishing process, but it's ugly and complicated, and I want to go to the pool this afternoon, so I'm just not going there.)

Done! Now I'm going to the pool. :D