Happiness

What is happiness?  Well, I must be a true nerd, because to me, a few bags of worms are true happiness!  We have had a worm farm in our basement for a while now.  They were just either worms that Jim had left over from fishing trips, or worms that I picked up on a clearance sale at the pet store.  They have had a few babies, and they are amazing at composting some of the kitchen waste, and I occasionally throw a few to the bearded dragon.  This week, my Jim pointed out that Uncle Jim's worm farm was having a sale.  He seemed to be encouraging me to spend money, and I hate to turn down a man wanting to spend money!  Especially when the money spent will give me more chores to do!  :)

They had red wigglers on sale - they were basically giving them away.  I bought 500.  They also had meal worms on sale buy 1000 get 500 free.  They were FREE!  I had a meal worm set up for a few years, but somehow lost my cycle and ended up having to give up on it.  And so, I started over on my meal worm farming, and we added a few to our earth worm farm.  We add in some rabbit manure, some kitchen scraps, and we end up with the best compost, not to mention food for the dragon, chickens, fish, and Jim's fishing trips!  It really is a win win!  

True happiness!

Lauren is spending this weekend in NOLA on a girl's trip.  Cameron, left unsupervised is always entertaining.  This time, he decided to take a cake decorating class.  He said it was fun!  I told him I am expecting big things on my birthday this year!  

 

Saige and Harper had the all bands concert last night.  They start with the 5th grade band, and work their way through all the grades until they get to the high school bands.  They serve dinner, and you can stay as long as you like.  The bands sounded good.  I had an unfortunate tripping session this week, and pulled my hamstring again, so sitting in the chairs, and working with the band boosters was not going well, so we just watched our 2 girls and then skipped out early.  Saige's band was impressive, especially when you consider they have only been playing 2 years.  Harper's band was absolutely amazing!  They played fun stuff, and we really enjoyed listening to them.  It was a fun night.  

Evelyn spotted a food truck in town.  She insisted that was dinner, so they got her some corn dogs on the way to her first ball practice!  Wrenley apparently loves all food, and wasn't too excited that her sister wasn't sharing!  Wrenley turned 10 months old yesterday.....isn't life weird?  I swear that time skips forward when I am not looking or something!  We love these girls!  

Need some Thursday randomness?

If you are looking for a bunch of thrown together random stuff, this is a great place for you!  I got some photos from Cameron - of him taking Lauren to some art display or something.  She didn't want me to post the pictures of her because she said she looked like Ferb from Nickelodeon.  I tried to tell her that dinosaurs make all things look good.  She consented to my posting this one.  :)  I think they are trying to enjoy their last couple of weeks in Baton Rouge, but also finish projects, finals, work and look for a job for Cameron.  They don't seem too stressed out, but maybe I am reading it wrong.  I can't wait to see them in a few days!  I also cannot believe we are sitting in May now!  Seriously, what is happening?  There are 7 1/2 days of school left.  Quincy has 8 days until her graduation (and 7 for Harper).  There are 14 days until we leave for Cameron and Lauren's graduation.  I filled out my calendar and started my to-do lists this morning. When I got done with my list making, I felt dizzy and a little bit crazy.  

Last night, I got this photo from Lauren.   Cameron was named GA of the year!  I am so proud of him!  Good job Cameron!  

Also last night, we had visitors who materialized out of nowhere!  Preston and Sunny stopped by.  Preston helped me hook up my pool filter, and then they went off to dinner with an old friend of Preston's who is home for a few days from the military.  It was a short visit, and they were still sleeping when I left on the bus this morning, but I was happy to see them!  Of course, pool filter being back together means I need to get the pool up and running.  AKA more work for me.  But this is good work, enjoyable stuff that I love, so I am happy about it.

And with this week's weather, I won't even have to fill the pool with my rural water!  Tuesday, Jim and Saige both stayed home with some sort of sinus issues.  I finished the bus route and came in to them both being out of medicines, and I needed to run in to grab my paycheck.  I had heard on the bus radio that there were tornadoes around, and that the weather service had issued a tornado watch for most of this end of the state.  I ran to town as fast as I could.  As I was leaving town, I saw these weird looking clouds.  I texted a photo to Mallory, who told me what kind they are, and that there were tornadoes and that I should be in my basement, not looking at the sky.  haha!  I got home, started cooking dinner, and my door busts open, and in flies Mallory and her dogs.  She decided she didn't want to sit in her basement alone, so she came to our house.  I am fine with this, but we are literally living on the dividing line between counties, and there was a tornado warning for Shawnee county.  I jokingly told her she just took herself and put it int the path of the storm!  She hung out with us for a few hours.  We watched as the storms moved and were not far from our area, but we only got funny looking clouds, a huge amount of very heavy rain, and a little bit of weird colored sky!  They were saying 80 mile per hour winds at Richland, but we never had that.  I am glad we dodged that bullet!  I still have not been able to get my dirt delivery though, because mud.  More mud, and even more mud! 

A long time ago, Cameron and Lauren dressed up as Scooby Doo with some of their friends for Halloween.  I love these costumes!  Which is why when they sent their graduation photos last week, the one of them looking around this column made me laugh.  Looks like another Scooby doo theme emerging?  

This weekend is the official weekend to panic clean, I have to work, we have all sorts of places to run to, and I am guessing that the next time I get an actual weekend to relax it will be June! 

 

Zippy weekend

 

This was one of those crazy weekends where you wonder if something couldn't have been saved for another day.  :)   I knew it wouldn't be relaxing, and I knew it would zip by too fast too!  

This was city-wide garage sale weekend.  The Overbrook Park and Rec decided to also host their annual fishing derby.  Evelyn was so excited about fishing.  Unfortunately, her daddy's truck broke down in western Kansas, and he wasn't going to make it home in time.  She was crying and sad, but Poppy said he would be happy to help her.  She was good with this plan, and they both had a good time fishing!  I took a break from my shift at the 4-H garage sale to run over and see how it was going.  Evelyn was a little bit miffed that she had not caught any fish yet, but they were still trying hard!

This little nugget looked right at me, smiled, and started reaching for me.  I am sure it was because she was tired of being manhandled by her mom while she was trying to help Poppy and Evie with all their gear and jackets and whatnot, but I am taking it as a win!  She loves her Grammy!  

Poppy told me that the people on one side of Evie got a trophy for catching the most fish, and the kid on the other side won a trophy for catching the biggest fish.  Evie caught zero fish.  I was asking her about it at Sunday dinner, and she said "its ok, I still got some prizes and a hat!"  She had fun trying.  Poppy had fun too.  I think it makes him super happy that his granddaughter loves to fish!

The 4-H garage sale was pretty successful.  I believe that they raised a little over $1200.  I have a love/hate with this fundraiser.  It is easy.  Nothing to try to sell to anyone who doesn't voluntarily come through the door, but it is a lot of work.  Lots of work to set up, lots of work to clean up, lots of leftover stuff to donate or give away.  I tried hard to not volunteer this year, but guilt is a very strong factor in my life.  I couldn't leave one family to do all the work.  We did help with set up, and we did work our shift, and even worked a while after our shift ended, but I had to work at the liquor store, so we did not help with cleaning up and tearing down.  The girls served food, and were all but running out the door, as they really hate talking to people.   If you look close, you will see the back of Saige's head, as she was in charge of the money!  

We made it home and got chores done, and I got to work at the liquor store just in time for the big storms to hit.  Mallory came out and stayed with Jim and the girls.  I kept the radio on at work just in case I had to flee for shelter.  We got a lot of rain, but luckily were spared from more tornadoes!  The liquor store was slammed!  Apparently garage sales and tornado weather make people very thirsty!

Cameron texted me from a track meet he was at with his Norwegian friend.  I think they have become very good friends this year, and I am sure that when Kristopher goes back to Norway, it will be a very sad/hard day for all of them.  I hope they get to visit him in his home country someday.  

Yesterday, I woke up at the time we usually leave for church.  It is unusual for me to oversleep, and incredibly unusual that I forgot to set the alarm.  I think I was exhausted and the extra sleep was much needed.  Jim and I ran to get groceries, and on a whim, stopped off to have a nice lunch together.  My husband lives in our house, but we just don't seem to see much of each other!  Just kidding - sort of.  I had not had a chance to sit and talk to him with no interruptions for what seemed like a long time.  He amuses me, and I enjoyed our impromptu lunch date.  I did not really enjoy grocery shopping, it was a trip where we were out of everything!  I had the cart mounded up and it hurt a lot at the check out counter.  I guess it has been a while since we went to the store!  I am glad that task got accomplished while Jim was able to go with me and help, as it just makes it easier!  

We came home to make Sunday dinner, and the girls came out.  Evelyn was excited because they got their chicken coop ready, and Andrew said they could bring their chickens home!   After a few days of stormy weather, it was an absolutely beautiful afternoon!  

Before we could get the chickens picked out, we had to visit High Heel Violet.  She is shedding and this group of 4-H goats needs to be worked with - they are pretty wild and unfriendly!  Still cute though!  

The "rainbow assortment of brown egg layers" has grown into a bunch of really colorful, beautiful birds.  I am pretty excited about how many different colors we have, and they have been the healthiest little chickens.  I am such a nerd, and I just love standing out there watching them.  Once Evie got her 6 birds picked out, Harper helped me get ours moved into a bigger pen.  They seemed so happy to be free and have outside space!  This also meant that the baby goats have a space that they can stay in the barn at night, so no more coming in the house for them.  They were not happy about it at all!  As a matter of fact, I could hear Betty screaming and protesting when I was planting flowers at the end of the driveway!  So not everyone was happy with the new pen arrangements!

These are Evie's chickens in their new pen.  She gave them all sorts of crazy names, including naming one after Pappa Larry!  The Larry chicken better not be a rooster either, because I paid extra to insure they only sent me pullets!  

On Friday, the town's Pride had a plant sale.  I made a small error in judgement and took Evie!  Who knew that girl loved plants so much!  I actually loved taking her and it makes me incredibly happy that she loves plants.  She picked out a geranium to take home, and we got some flowers for the pots at the end of the driveway.  We were also excited to see that they had strawberry plants.  Poppy built me some raised beds, and I intend to put in a strawberry patch.  Unfortunately, the person who is supposed to  bring me a load of dirt failed to do it when it was dry, and we got about 3 inches of rain this weekend.  I hope he does it soon or I might have to invent some other place to put them!  Some of my best memories are of picking strawberries with my grandma and helping her put them in the freezer, making jelly, and eating the "foam" on toast!  I hope I can make similar memories with my grandkids!  

Last year, I planted wave petunias in these pots.  They were pretty all summer, and then in August, they started disappearing one by one.  I couldn't figure out what was happening.  One evening, as I was coming in the driveway, I saw a squirrel grab one and run up a tree.  He was eating my flower!  So this year, I planted stinky old marigolds.  I hope he won't find them appetizing at all!  Take that dang squirrel!  :)