Ready, set, go.......

I am trying to get ready to go to Burlington, VT tomorrow morning. We are going up for Jason and Shelly's wedding. The wedding will be on a boat which will sail at 7pm sharp. It is a 5 hr. trip from here to VT and because of that we will staying over night and returning on Sat. morning.

Josh and Jackie are bringing the girls down on Sat. morning for Matthew's birthday. They are planning a trip to the zoo until we get home Sat. afternoon. We will all be together for dinner on Sat. night and then Sunday afternoon is the party. I am so very excited to have 4 of my 6 grandchildren together. Yes, I realize it would not be wisdom for Jon to come as long as he is still unemployed. I am praying that something will become available before his severance is up. Not just a job but one suited for him. He has worked for the paper for 10 or 11 yr. since they moved to NC. I don't understand the papers decision to cut out the entire ad department in 2 of their 3 offices. I am sure it must have something to do with people reading it on line and not subscribing to the paper.

Another project is finished. No, not the bed......maybe next weekend. Another bird house lamp. I love it. Both these lamps were the favorites in my birdhouse collection. There was just no place to put the birdhouse collection so making them into lamps was really a way to keep part of it and still get rid of my clutter. Yes, even things we love can be clutter if we really don't have room for it. I do so want to get the clutter outta here. The garage sale we had last month at Susan's made a huge dent in what we had.

A dog and her boy

When we bought our house 3 yr. ago, it had a doggie door . Zoe would never use it so we put the cover over it and then I put the bottom of my hutch over it (I use it for recycling). Yesterday, William decided to try to see if Ali would use it. At first she was hesitant, however, before the afternoon was out she had been in and out more times than I can count. This morning when Matt came, he discovered Alice was using the doggie door. I am sure you can guess what is coming next. Yep, Matt and Ali both came in the doggie door. "Wow, Gramma, it is so fun to pretend to be a dog".

You will never believe how Matt's pumpkin patch is growing. Actually, it is more like overtaking the back yard. It is way beyond the frame that Papa and Matt made for it.

It goes on beyond what you can see in the picture but that was as much as I could fit in the viewer. You can only see the corner of the frame in the upper left corner of the picture. Matt checks the progress every day. So far we have gotten some tomatoes from the garden, but we do see evidence the beans are coming. We have some hot banana peppers but those were not our intention for our garden. Maybe my DIL likes them, they are coming down this weekend for Matt's birthday. I can't wait. I miss my girls! They are planning to go to the zoo on Sat. while waiting for us to get home from Burlington

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Perks

One of the great things about my "job" is the perks. Well, first is the obvious that I get to spend all day with my grandson. Another is that Susan added extra lines for both Wm. and I on her phone contract. Well, the other day she told me that I could get a new phone for free under the contract. I really did not need a new phone per se but at the same time mine was not holding the charge like it used to. It came yesterday, here it is: Pretty fancy, eh? How do you like it? It is a camera phone like the other one, it is just purple. I am sure I know of two special little someones who will think it is great because it is purple!
Wm. was working at the church Sat. morning. When he gets home I have to get groceries, a gift card for the wedding and I would like to look for a dress to wear. My friend, Betsy got one to wear to a wedding last weekend at Dress Barn for 1/2 off. I will look anyway.

On Thursday, Matt wanted to have another restaurant. So he began gathering things for his restaurant while I got the food he wanted to serve. Now while it started out as a great idea, it ended with the "waiter" taking off his clothes with the exception of the apron and underpants and sitting down to eat the food himself: All righty then!

Update

Yesterday was my doctor's appt. for what I was sure was a sinus infection. It was and I am now taking my z-pack. I got the results back on my bone density scan and the bonivia has helped.

Today Matthew and I went with Uncle Roy to ToysRUs so Matthew could show us some of the things he wanted for his birthday. His first choice; well that would be a John Deere tractor with a canopy and dumping trailer. For only a mere $349.00 Yikes! He said "Please Gramma, it is really a fancy one". He had a shirt on today that said :If I am quiet, you had better come find me". You would not believe how many people came to us to ask if that was true. Uncle Roy took us to lunch at KFC/A&W Root Beer. Matt got a kids meal and we were very impressed how he sat right up and ate it. It has only been a little while that he has been actually eating chicken strips (nuggets, etc).

Speaking of Matt's birthday, it is Aug. 3rd. I can not tell you how happy I am that Josh, Jackie and the girls are coming down for Sat.& Sun. I miss the girls so much and to have 4 of my 6 grandchildren together is a real blessing. I don't think I have mentioned lately how glad I am to be a grandmother. I am not happy that Jon Christian, Donna, Morrigan and Max will not be coming. It was the plan that they would come for the week as we have Jason's wedding on Fri. night up in Burlington. Since having his job terminated, they did not feel it wise to plan a week long trip up from Raleigh. Please pray that he will find something else before his severance runs out.

Matthew wanted the theme for his party this year to be Scooby Do. I can not believe how much he likes that show. His cousin, Tyler, told him it was the best show ever and since then, it has been his favorite. I will interject here that I did not like it when his mother was a kid and I really have not changed my mind. Last week he told me that he could use a ham sandwich to calm his nerves. That took me aback, and it actually took me a while to realize he was quoting Shaggy from Scooby Do. (the biggest hint: he hates ham)

A thousand thoughts

OK, so maybe not a thousand thoughts but a lot of unconnected thoughts.
When we got Alice, she had had 11 puppies and needed to be spayed. Wm. took her to for a check-up a few days after we got her. I was supposed to call and make an appt. to have her spayed sometime in the next week. I didn't. You probably know where this is going......yep, she is in heat. We have never had a dog in heat before. Poor little girl is confined to the kitchen I really feel so bad for her and guilty. At the time, my reasoning for not calling was that Will would have to take her and I didn't know how busy he was and when the best time for an appt. would be. I know, pretty pathetic, right?

We put up a bigger pool for Matthew 'cause he wanted to "swim". He could not be happier, yesterday he spent the entire day with the exception of his nap and lunch (and the 20 min. we went across the street to my neighbor's garage sale) in the pool. I am glad he likes it so much but it was sooo hot and muggy, I just wanted to be inside in the air conditioning. (I am so thankful this house has central air; yes, I realize I may have mentioned that before)

We worked some more on our projects......OK, Wm. worked on the projects, I helped as much as I could, which was not a lot. Hey, I held it up so he could fasten it up and I hung the curtains once he was done. I could not be happier with the way this looks. Don't you love it? I never liked seeing the hardware for the curtains. It is the same as the window seat he built when we moved in. (Like you really needed me to tell you that!)

William put the new faucet on the bathroom vanity. It looks sooo much better than the gold ones that were here when we bought the house. Now while they were totally functional, who wants gold faucets??? Can we say ugly?

Now we still have more projects to work on, maybe next weekend. we can work on Matt's bed again. I think that maybe tomorrow after church,we will go to the Home and see my MIL. Tomorrow, Jen and Eric are having Eleora dedicated.

more ramblings

The pumpkins that Matthew and Papa planted are gradually taking over.




Hopefully this will mean a big pumpkin for Matt and toasted pumpkin seeds for us.




Our garden is coming along, but it pales in comparison to my DIL, Jackie's.

There are now peppers on the pepper plants.........however, what I thought were red peppers turned out to be hot banana peppers.......yikes, who would have thought. They are the only peppers we have yet.....wouldn't you know! Tomatoes are on each of the 6 plants, I can't wait, I love tomatoes.

From Matt.com:

Matt rode his tricycle while Papa and Alice walked along. Can you guess what he got? Yep a donut with chocolate frosting and rainbow sprinkles. FYI, the bakery is at least 3 blocks away from our house and he rode there and back.



One last thing, I have been looking for new recipes I could make that were GF. I found 2 new ones we had the other day. They were great and you don't have to have celiacs to enjoy them. First, I took corn on the cob, melted butter (OK, buttery spread from LOL) and mixed in some brown sugar. Brush the butter mixture on the corn and wrap in aluminum foil and grill for 20 min. YUM! The other was apple pork kabobs This recipe came from gluten freeda.com. It has a combination of garlic and apple jelly and honey which you would not think of as a tasty choice.......but it was fabulous. So glad I tried it.....it is a keeper.

a few days of rest???

Well, let me begin at the beginning. I took Mon. and Tues off with Matthew and his other grandmother watched him so I could go to the dr. I knew the chances were slim of getting in on the same day you call thus the two days off. There was always the off chance that they would have an opening or cancelation and I could be seen on Mon. I have been bothered by what I thought was a sinus infection for the past 2 wk. I thought it might go away on it's own. OK, maybe I just hoped it would go away on it's own. Well, it didn't. I called the dr. office on Mon. morning and the first possible appt. with my dr. is Tues (of next week) Now I could have seen another dr. (which is probably what most people would have done) but I opted to wait. Hey, I waited this long, what is another week.

So I thought I could get some rest but that was not the case. Ali has been like a lost soul without Matt. This morning, I went back to bed after making Will's lunch. I got up an hour later to Ali having chewed Matt's new orange goggles to bits. (she is a chewer when she is bored) Guess that is the reason her last owners kept her caged most of the time.

Anyway, I cleaned clutter from the kitchen yesterday and then made cookies for Susan's family and Uncle Roy as well as a GF cake for Wm. Today I decluttered the office. YIKES what an ordeal that was. You can actually see the computer desk. Now I have always said that a clean desk was a sign of a sick mind. It was backbreaking work, but well worth it. The office looks good now.

Back to normal tomorrow!

musings

I am very thankful to have a "job" that allows me to stay at home, spend my day with a very special young man who keeps me on my toes. He has inherited the "mr clean gene" from his father and is constantly wanting to clean up something I am especially thankful for a wonderful husband who makes me feel very blessed to be his wife. He is a jack of all trades, a fantastic father to our 3 grown children and grandfather to the six most special grandchildren ever. He loves us and he loves the Lord. Tomorrow is our 34th anniversary. Yes, I am very blessed!

The rain is good for our little garden,



however, my sinuses and arthritis are flaring up because of it.


The hot muggy days this week have kept us out in the kiddie pool for a big majority of our day. We do come into the cool air conditioned temps inside for lunch and naps. It seems way too hot out there for Ali but she insists on being wherever Matt is.

Right now we have no big plans to celebrate our anniversary......we'll see what happens. We thought about going to Cooperstown for the day but all our projects from last week are still waiting to be completed.

Happy Anniversary, my sweet William and thank you for 34 wonderful years. I love you!

update

It certainly was a gorgeous weekend. Friday found Wm. and his brothers moving his mother back to the" Home" at her request. She was not happy spending so much time alone while at the same time wanting Linda and Jim to continue living their lives as they had before she moved in with them. Friday afternoon we drew up plans for the bulldozer bed we are making for Matt (for our house) Some of you will remember that we made a castle bed for Morrigan. Poor Wm. has to change my drawing of what I want it to look like to some plans so he can build it.

We (OK, Wm) got as far as cutting it out. In between this project, we did a few other projects that have bothered me since moving in. Wm. and Uncle Roy got the cornice done for over the window in the LR. This mimics the window seat, ie, white beadboard. (have I mentioned lately how much I love cottage design???) Just needs to be painted and put up.

I did a lot of touch up painting this weekend and we put up a chicken wire fence around our little garden as our backyard neighbor, John, (who shared with us from his garden last year) had rabbits eat all of his beans. We saw evidence of them starting on ours.

I dumped the kiddie pool, cleaned and refilled it. Good thing too as we have been in it a lot today and no, not me, Matthew. He hates to get water in his eyes. I got a pair of goggles at the $ store in orange which is his favorite color.

When he was not in the pool, he has been playing with his matchbox cars in the shade of the front porch. Matt put Ali inside(she didn't mind at all sleeping inside in the air while we sweltered in the heat outside) She likes to take his cars and that gets him very upset. He has quite a few matchbox cars but it was just in the last month he has been really playing with them for any length of time.

Now if I just had a couple of more 3 day weekends, maybe I could get the rest of my projects finished.

Welcome to Matt's Restaurant

Welcome to Matt's Restaurant. May I take your order?

Today's menu consists of Pepperidge Farm goldfish, 100% natural fruit snacks, gingerale "tea" and make believe coffee. Notice the beverage table with the coffee maker and teapot.

This entire "restaurant" was his idea, right down to the apron and the towel for his arm. He put Alice on the front porch because "dogs are not allowed in restaurants, Gramma".

I love his imagination!