ahhh!

Heading out to clean the trailer before I leave for work. We, hopefully, will be leaving next week to head to Eastern Washington. On the other hand, work and life might just delay that trip. If so, I'll head the opposite direction, to the coast, for a day or two of r & r, all by my lonesome!

If I go by myself, I'll be bringing my sewing machine and a few projects I've been wanting to work on, along with my journal and paints.

Either way, it's gonna be a fun, relaxing week!

Scooba

Oh. my. goodness. Will you check this out....



a robot that mops your floors? too good to be true! I did read some reviews that said some people are having problems with theirs. Maybe I'll wait a year until they work the bugs out of it and ask for one for Christmas, or my birthday.

Which means I still want that Dooney and Burke purse for my birthday this year, hon!

Tomatoes

I planted my tomatoes yesterday. Only about 6 weeks behind schedule. They looked so great in their little 6" pots; so big and sprawling all over the ground with tomatoes growing on them. Then I planted them in the ground and now they look so puny and spindly. Kinda like a Charlie Brown Christmas tree.


Not at all like this tomato plant:

Or even this one:
I kinda suck at this gardening thing and all I'm growing this year is two tomato plants and some rhubarb. At least my rhubarb is looking good. Oh well, there's always next year.

(p.s. One of these days I will figure out how to download pictures onto my computer from my camera again.)

meltdown

So you know those days when you have a melt down?
anyone?
yea, that was me last Saturday.

It started innocently enough. I'd been a little crabby. Everything was annoying me. We tried to take the SeaDoo to Olympia to get it fixed because it's not running. Hasn't been running for two years...that's last summer and this summer. A person would think that it would be better to take the darn thing to get it repaired when you DON'T want to use it, like January? but no, we *ahem* wait until July; when there's a three week waiting list and they don't make appointments. Anyways...we take it to Olympia to the repair shop and we get there at 12:30, but they're closed. On a Saturday!?! Yep, closed at noon. Kinda explains the three week wait, huh? So we waste more gas and drive to a repair shop in Tacoma. Where they inform us that the SeaDoo is too old and they won't work on it. Too old???? We have to stop on the way home and put more gas in the car because the $15 we put in before we left wasn't enough to get us to Tacoma and back. Four hours later and we're finally home.

By this time, I'm more than annoyed and frustrated. Sunshine and nice weather are a rare commodity in these parts, and I've just wasted the better part of a Saturday sitting in the car accomplishing nothing. I go outside to work in the yard and promptly trip over a drip line from the sprinklers stretched across a couple feet of the driveway to a dead oak tree in a half whiskey barrel that's been needing to be dug up and burned for about 3 years now.

That's when I lost it.

and it wasn't pretty.

the neighbors must have thought I'd lost my mind. a side of me that seldom rears it's ugly head came out and words spewed forth from my mouth that are usually only heard in these parts of the country coming out of the mouth of a logger or a high schooler, take your pick.

after which I collapsed in a puddle on the living room floor and cried my eyes out for a good half an hour.

i feel better now.

A question...

for all you electronics buffs out there. Is it really, absolutely, critically necessary to keep every box that electronics components come in, as some unnamed person in our household insists it is, JUST IN CASE said component should happen to break and need to be returned to the store or manufacturer?

bonus room

Today was my day to clean the bonus/media room. It's basically a small home theater. I very seldom go in there because, frankly, the controls to watch a movie are much too complicated. I end up getting frustrated and annoyed and give up. As a result, the room is mostly ignored by me, and seldom cleaned. But, today was the day.

I turned the lights up and was confronted by a host of dirty dishes, blankets, pillows and STUFF. The dirty dishes went into the dishwasher, the blankets were folded and put away, the pillows placed in just the right position on the correct couch. Now for the hard part...the STUFF.

There is a freestanding wall sitting about 3' from the outside wall of the house, which has a cabinet base built onto it, and above it, mounted onto the wall, the ginormous theater screen. On top of that cabinet rest 12, count 'em, 12! remote controls, a stack of dvds 6" high, a Wii game console, with about a dozen games, a laptop computer and mouse, and a 2-year-old paper listing of all of our movies, which is completely and totally outdated.

Behind the wall are the following items:
black suitcase
extra desk chair
4 Wii Dance Revolution floor mats
my cedar chest, (which has been handed down thru 3 or 4 generations and is technically my daughter's, or granddaughter's, but which I am afraid to give to her because I don't want it to get ruined.)
two cardboard boxes full of pictures and slides, etc.
a speaker

I don't know what to do with the DVD's and I don't know which remote controls are good and which are garbage, if any.
I put the suitcase in a storage closet, folded up the floor mats and put them on top of the desk chair, back behind the wall.
The cedar chest is there to stay for awhile, but I think I'll scrounge up a better blanket than the pink plaid horse blanket from Honduras that is presently covering it.
The boxes of pictures are sitting in the middle of the room waiting for the hubby to sort through them and put them in labeled plastic storage boxes, somewhere other than on top of my cedar chest.

I can't dust and I can't vacuum until this stuff is done. On the other hand, I sorted through the games and other junk that are in the cabinet and was able to weed out a few things to get rid of. Yea!

Guess what the hubby gets to work on tonight?

Good to know...

OnePlusYou Quizzes and Widgets

Good to know.

ht: http://becomingminimalist.wordpress.com/

Soccer

This evening I went to the soccer field to watch my grandkids' soccer games. On my way into the fields I carried with me: a sweatshirt, blanket, lawn chair, can of soda, car keys, cell phone. Is it really necessary to carry 6 things to watch a soccer game? I took the soda so as not to have to purchase anything from the snack stand. Obviously I needed my car keys, but the cell phone? Well, in case my mother-in-law called and wanted to know which field we were on. The chair, sweat shirt and blanket? I have to have a chair, there are no bleachers. The sweatshirt is necessary as the field gets cold when the sun starts to go down, and the blanket? For my daughter, mostly, who ALWAYS forgets to bring a sweatshirt. I'm such an enabler.

Still, is it really necessary to carry all those things? I need to rethink this before the next game. Trying to make life more simple can be so complicated.

By the way, both kids won their games! yahoo!

perfect

Ahhhh!

a beautiful summer day + a ride on the motorcycle along Hood Canal = a perfect Sunday afternoon

exhausted

I am exhausted.
I have sleep problems. Some nights I toss and turn and can't fall asleep; my mind swirling with events of my day and life. Some nights I drop right off to sleep and wake up at 2 or 3 a.m. and can't fall back to sleep.
Now it's nightmares. Every night for the last week. I sleep, alright. and dream. bad dreams. and when I wake up my jaw is so tight and my teeth hurt so much from grinding them. This morning I chipped a tooth when I woke up because my teeth were clenched so hard together.


Edited to add: I am currently eating a big bowl of ice cream with strawberries on top. Emotional eating can make up for so many things! Don't ever let anyone tell you it's a bad thing!

a/c ?

You know that feeling when it's so hot that sweat starts to bead up on your top lip? and behind your knees? Yea, that's where I'm at. The thermostat says it's 79 degrees in the house. I refuse to turn on the a/c unless it reaches 80. I think it's time for a swim.

Eating local

I've been trying to purchase and eat more local foods lately. Well, depending on what you mean by "local", I guess. My definition is anywhere I can drive within a day.

So my bi-weekly trip to Costco on Sunday? Well...

Cherries, grown in Washington
Eggs...Washington
Cheese...Tillamook, Oregon...wait, I put back that cheese. where is the cheese I bought from? Buffalo, NY!! What was I thinking?
Bananas...well, i know they're not from Washington, but the hubby's not going to give up his bananas, no matter where they're from.
Canned mandarin oranges...uh oh. I think I forgot the whole local thing...China! China! Who knew they grew and canned oranges in China!
Parmesan cheese...Illinois.

I'm not very good at this, I guess. I did buy strawberries from Spooners today, though!

Happy Birthday!

Today is my grandson's eighth birthday! Happy birthday Josiah! Hard to believe he's eight already...in only 8 MORE years, he'll be driving! Oh my!

Olympic trials

Check it out, this picture was taken at the U. S. Olympic Trials for track and field, held this past week in Eugene, Oregon.

See that guy in the front? That's Alan Webb. He's the American Record holder in the mile. He's also a world champion athlete, and one of the best middle distance runners in the world.

See the guy in second? That's Bernard Lagat; one of the best 1500m runners in the entire world. He holds both silver and bronze Olympic medals and is a world champion athlete.

Now see that guy in the red shorts and white shirt with the shaved head behind them? In about fifth place? That kid is named Andrew McClary. He is a junior at the University of Arkansas. His mom is one of my best friends and my dear, sweet hubby was his high school track coach, just a few, short years ago.

Andrew finished eighth today, in the finals, running with some of the absolute premiere runners in the entire world. Unbelievable.

Watch for both Andrew and his twin brother, Alex, in the 2012 Olympics!

vacation

As I posted previously, we are back from our trip. We were gone for a total of eight days, traveling with our grandson, from Washington, down the Oregon coast to northern California, back over to I-5 and back home again.

When we were in the Redwood National Forest we went to see the Trees of Mystery. That's $12.50 I could have lived without spending! I don't know what possessed me to think that going up in one of those little tiny gondolas suspended about a million miles above the earth would be fun! I'm terrified of heights and every time I was able to pry one of my eyes open and unbury my face from my husband's shoulder, all I could see was thin air beneath me. By the time we reached the top I was in tears, despite my best efforts. I hate being afraid of heights. I guess it's one of the reasons I went on the ride; I am forcing myself out of my comfort zone and making myself do things that I don't want to do, even if it scares me.

After leaving the Redwoods, we headed back up north and then east to Grants Pass. We then went down I-5 to Phoenix, Oregon and visited with my parents for a couple days before going back up to Grants Pass and what was, without a doubt, the funnest thing we did on our trip. We caught the 4:15 jet boat down the Rogue River. If you've never done this before and you ever get the opportunity, go for it! It was SO MUCH FUN! I'd been about 15 years ago and kept telling my hubby that he just had to go. I think he was looking forward to it, but I would say it probably surpassed his expectations. It was just an absolute blast! I'm hoping we can go back later this summer or fall and do their white water trip. It was sold out for weeks when we checked.

I've got the trailer about halfway cleaned out. We have a couple changes to make in it and I have to put a few extras in for our next trip, but I think we'll be heading over to the Omak area in eastern Washington soon.

Walking, stumbling

We're home. Just in time for our grandson's soccer game last night, which they won 7-0. He scored 5 of the goals. Such a stud. It was so fun watching him running and playing with pure joy and abandonment.

Found this song today, thanks to Molly. I am in love with it.



"Shadowfeet"

Walking,stumbling on these shadowfeet
toward home,a land that i've never seen
I am changing: less and less asleep
made of different stuff than when i began
and i have sensed it all along
fast approaching is the day

[CHORUS]
when the world has fallen out from under me
I'll be found in you, still standing
when the sky rolls up and mountains fall on their knees
when time and space are through
I'll be found in you

Theres distraction buzzing in my head
saying in the shadows it's easier to stay
but I've heard rumours of true reality
whispers of a well-lit way

[CHORUS]

You make all things new

[CHORUS]

[CHORUS 2]
When the world has fallen out from under me
I'll be found in you, still standing
Every fear and accusation under my feet
when time and space are through
I'll be found in you