Friday, Friday

One of my favorite summer gigs is Story Hour at my local library. We average about 15-20 kids each week. I like when it is closer to 15...it's amazing what a difference even one more kid makes. We start our hour with reading. I have been doing this for I don't know how many years. LOOONG time. I had last year off and I did miss it so I was thrilled when this year worked out! 

Last week I read a book about Raccoons, being the education major that I am and having a love for listening to littles, I always try to ask questions while I'm reading, to keep them engaged, get their imaginations working, and maybe help them learn a little bit. Well Raccoons were an interesting topic to bring up, I started off with: "Have any of you had an experience with a Raccoon?" Duh, Jessica we all live in rural America. One little boy had quite the saga including his dad, a raccoon, maybe some cat food, and definitely a shot gun. I actually have had the same saga played out on my homestead before...but that''s neither here nor there.

Anyway, this week is the last week-I'd say it's been a great month of Story Hour-alright I'm off to read some stories. Have a happy Friday!

Blessings!

Thrifty Thursday

Thrifty

Thriftier; Thriftiest 

1. Thriving by industry and frugality: prosperous. 

It's Thrifty Thursday, the time of the week where I share my thrifty finds from garage sales, antique shops, and of course thrift stores. 

I love the eyelet, love the color, and its cool and comfy.

$0.25? Did that really happen? YEAH IT DID. Not only did I get this deal-this deal probably made my week.

The thrill of the thrift: you never know what you are gonna get-kinda like what Forrest's Momma said.

Blessings!

60 years

Eeek, I've been a bit absent from my blog. Sorry about that. Things have been busy and last week just flew by! Last weekend we had the blessing of celebrating my Grandparents 60th wedding anniversary, cousins, aunts, uncles, and friends all came to help celebrate this milestone.

Ahh I love my state.

We started off the weekend with a birthday party for a very special little girl. It was nice to have a little downtime for talking and laughing before the boatload of other people showed up the next day.

Mom and I headed up the decorations department-shocking, I know. We decided to go pretty neutral and simple because we were not for sure what colors the flowers were going to be. We have a plethora of canning jars in our basement so they were just perfect for the centerpieces. We simply added some glass rocks we had at home, tea lights to the jars, and some little scrapbooking embellishments and I tell you what, those tables looked so nice! We had my Grandma's wedding ring quilt on the picture table that held 4 generations. All the decorations spoke so perfectly of my Grandparents. 

The weekend filled with lots of baby holding. So much so, the day after we got home I felt odd not going and scooping up baby E. She's such a sweetie-she's started to smile and it's just darling. 

Ok, I'll stop gushing now. 

The weekend was also full of ring-around-the-rosie.
It was nice for all the little cousins to get together and play. Some of them do not get to see each other often.

I feel a bit silly not having a picture of my grandparents on this day, but they were busy! My Grandma was totally in her element-giving hugs to everyone in sight, having quippy jokes ready for people as they walked in. They had a wonderful time and that's what it was all about.

While looking around and thinking about all the years I couldn't help but think, I hope my marriage and family can emulate theirs because this is pretty dang special."

So like my Mom said "Here's to 60 years of putting up with each other!"

Blessings!

Just A Thought

This photo was cruising around facebook. I thought I would just share it here. You know it's so true. I've been reading "The Omnivores Dilemma" and I've become so aware how unconnected I am-heck how unconnected we all are from our food and other goods. We don't think about where things comes from, what goes into growing it, harvesting it, getting it to the store and then us buying it. This process used to short and simple-grow it, eat it. Today its a complex series of processes and like the plastic spoon, we perceive all of this to be less effort than the grow it, eat it mentality. I'm not saying that gardening is a piece of cake but I am saying if we all thought of the resources, the waste, and the prices of what we are eating and buying, shortening the process wouldn't sound so frightening. 

So I guess the moral of the story and this picture is to think further than just if you want the green apple or the red one, if you want to buy real spoons or disposable ones. If you want have a stash of cloth diapers that you only have to throw in the wash or smell the disposables in the trash (because trust me disposables smell wayyy worse-its the chemicals in them)and again take out the trash all the time- and run to get diapers every time you are out (more resources), I guess I'm learning to weigh and consider more factors, not just the ones in front of my face. I'm trying to be a better stewardess of God's creation.  Just think about it. 

p.s. yes that was a cloth diaper plug-it's because of my internship at Country Drawers...diapers are on my brain about every day of the week. 

Blessings!

mum's the word monday

Blessings!

mum's the word monday

Blessings!

Roughin' it

Senor Smarty Pants and I took the boys camping again, well most of them anyway. As it always is when we spend extended periods of time with our adolescent male siblings it was full of laughs, shakes of the head, rolling of the eyes, potty humor, and some mildly inappropriate innuendoes. 

Usually Senor Smarty Pants is just a little worker bee. This time he decided he wasn't doing as much. So we set these two boys on the task of staging the tent. It took them longer than anticipated-but we feel it was a good learning experience...

Then we had a bit of a hiccup in the events. The small tent door has some zipper issues so we usually just avoid using it. So we went to option 2. Apparently it's zipper is shot. So shot that we could not get the thing zipped back up so we could just avoid it and go to our 3rd and final option-the last working door. We wrestled with it and decided to try to duct tape it, we ran to the lodge, spent an obscene amount on tape and came back. Check out this handy work:

I do not consider myself a redneck, just a little country but this was about too much for me to handle. the next morning we were so happy it didn't rain, but our duct tape job barely held through the night. As the breeze picked up throughout the morning the tape kept coming undone, soon my duct tape was in the trash. 

Thankfully we were able to find other camping accommodations for our last night.

The boys went fishing and swimming-I had to work in the afternoon, but that was ok with me. Work is air conditioned. 

Those are a sign of a good night. You know, I think people camp because of the evenings. There is something about the anticipation of the coming evening. As the sun is setting on the lake, the cool starts to settle in and the fire gets started. Then you get to listen to the crickets and chit chat as everything you say gets funnier the later it gets. Plus, everyone looks better when lit with the light from a campfire. Even my brothers' ugly mugs...

Blessings!