Sunday, June 29, 2025

No work weekend



This was Colin’s bachelor party weekend. Cameron was the official party bus designated driver.  I know they have had a good time, and I am so glad they sent me some photos. 
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 I did get a kick out of Cameron texting Saturday  morning saying “driving around Colin and his friends until 3 am and then having to get up to be at my corporate challenge tug-of-war tournament sucks—- do you think it would help if I wear eye black?  
Pretty sure eye black doesn’t fix lack of sleep, but if it does, I sure hope someone informs me!  

To perk up Cameron, I sent him a photo of his finished end table. He was pretty excited (or was it me who was so wxcitwd that  I decided to purchase him a lamp for the table as a house warming gift for his new apartment—— who knew there were so many hilarious lamp choices?).  More on that front later. 
I do still have to poly it,  but that is a minor detail.  I made my own chalk paint for this project. I love how it turned out!  And yes, I did plop this project right in the living room and watched tv while I painted. And stayed cool!  I’ll have to poly it outside, but this way was nicer than sitting outside in the hot weather! On to the next project- a bedside table for Harper. 

 

This weekend, we had nothing going on.  I didn’t  have to work. The kids seemed to not have plans and my calendar was empty.  Unheard of.  
I explained to Jim that I had about 200 things I wanted to do, and that I was only going to work on the things I felt like doing.  And the rest of the time, I wanted to relax.  Jim seemed to think it was a good idea. But then, I saw that it is blackberry season at the U-pick place.  BlackBerry U-pick doesn’t last very long, and I had promised the girls we would go. So a plan was hatched.  Evelyn has a summer bucket list (which I find hilarious) and one of the things on it was going to a splash pad.  Baldwin has one of those!  Madison was watching her friend’s boys, so as silly as it sounds, we took a 6 year old, a 4 year old and 2 not quite 2 year olds to pick blackberries, to 2 playgrounds and a splash pad!  We had 4 adult(ish) people to help - nothing could go wrong! 
And I was correct.  Impressed even.  We explained to the kids that we only pick the dark purple berries.  No red. No pink and definitely no green!   They did outstanding.  Sure, Camden and Wrenley ate a lot, but they had several in their buckets.  And when I got home and dumped them out to freeze, I only had one berry that wasn’t ripe.  One!  

Madison got a couple buckets worth to take home - I told her I would buy the berries, but she had to take Wrenley’s bucket because she was taking a bite out of each berry!  




I do wonder if Camden had a belly ache later in the day, as the kid probably ate 3 pounds of blackberries.  He had them running down his chin, all over his neck and hands and I’m pretty sure his shirt will be needing a moderate amount of stain stick!  
Also, maybe a shameless plug, but I love south Baldwin farms.  They are easy to deal with, have a great little store with already picked stuff for the less adventurous, and are super friendly and helpful.  And everything is easily accessible, well mowed and they have done everything in their power to make the picking easy and plentiful.  Definitely a place I will continue to go to! 
The splash pad in Baldwin is not very big.  Evelyn did not really care for it, mostly I think because I told them just to run in their clothes and they would dry while we ate lunch.  She told me she was taking splash pads off of her bucket list forever. (She is a bit dramatic like her aunt Mallory!). 











It was a fun excursion, but I created myself more work!   Currently I have berries on trays freezing so I can bag them up for later.  I have berries juicing out and being strained so I can make blackberry syrup.  I have berries set aside to a few other things with.  And when I went inside the store to pay for the blackberries, I realized they had peaches - already picked.  So I bought a peck.  I’m planning to just freeze them for later but it will be another job for me.  A worthwhile job, that I will be happy I did when I am happily eating sliced peaches, peach smoothies and maybe even peach pie this winter. No idle hands here!   


Today, Jim got up at the butt crack of dawn to go fishing with Andrew and their friend Bob.  They went bass fishing. Jim was excited because he had the big catch of the day.  He went fishing with Bob last week, and came home telling me he has plans to go back out with Bob this week as well.  I’m glad he is enjoying his time off.  Equally glad he has people to go fishing with him while I do other things!   ;)
Before he goes out again, I think he needs a haircut - he might fly away if I don’t get that mess tamed down!   
I was happy to see some much needed rain.  Maybe the farmers who are cutting wheat, or who have hay currently down don’t agree with me, but my garden needed a good soaking.  Who knew all I had to do to get it to rain was to light the grill?   I grilled kabobs for Sunday lunch in the rain!  Evie and Wrenley swam for a while with aunt Mallory, despite the pool being a tad bit on the green side (going to get the chemicals to fix that tomorrow) and despite it being a little chilly.   Girls are crazy about the water!  Jim is now taking a nap, the girls are off in their lairs, and I am happily puttering around with my projects.  It is a perfect ending to a low key weekend.  







Thursday, June 26, 2025

Day off?

Back in probably February, or maybe March, the librarian at Carbondale contacted me to see if the 4-H kids could set up a petting zoo for one of their summer story time sessions.  I told her of course we could.  And then hung up the phone, and promptly set it on the back burner.  When I brought it up to the club, and told them that they were going to get community service time in, they all stared at me blankly.  Panicked, I called the county agent, who found me some people in other clubs to bring a few things over, and I decided this was on me, so I better figure how to get as many things there as I could.  I conned Mallory into helping.  Harper, Saige and I loaded up some baby chickens, a rabbit, a turtle, Chizzy the goat who never grows, and of course, Maude, the sweet Bassett hound.  A couple of other families from other clubs did show up with more rabbits, some baby goats, a bearded dragon and some hissing cockroaches!  It was quite a petting zoo!  

A little off topic, but the Carbondale Library has a wonderful summer reading/story time program.  Their librarian sets up cool activities and has a lot of great ideas and the energy to pull them off.  There were 175 kids who showed up for a petting zoo yesterday.  Some of the kids were from neighboring towns, as Scranton doesn't have a public library, and Overbrook's library is wonderful, but the librarian seems to really cater more toward the older people in town - with puzzle swaps, trivia nights, crossword puzzle clubs and book reading clubs.  I guess they each have a niche.  





Maude can be a little bit of a turd, likes to nip and jump.  Yesterday, she was an absolute angel!  I had to steal the photos off of the Carbondale Library page, as I was a bit busy controlling baby chickens and Randy the turtle.  Mallory held Maude, and said that she was very sweet with all the kids, and even though towards the end she was sort of petted out, she stayed sweet.  She did come home and crash on the living room floor for about 3 hours!  

Chizzy didn't care who petted her, as long as she could eat the library lawn.  She also might have helped herself to one of the tomato plants in their community garden (sorry Heather).  





Evie and Wrenley were there - they love the library!  I am so glad that their mom has taken the time to make sure the girls get to do fun stuff and that she encourages them to read!
Since the reading program meets in the morning I took the day off from work.  When I got home, I finished painting my patio chairs, helped Jim with a couple of projects, worked on the garden and cleaned the pool.  Then I put a bunch of strawberries I bought in the freezer, made dinner out of produce from our garden, and did laundry.  I was just sitting down, and joking with Jim that I needed to rethink how I spend days "off" when Mallory showed up at the house.  She said that Evelyn asked her to go to Sonic, but that seemed expensive, so she told her they would do night swim at Grammy's instead.  :)  

Since I had already spent quite a lot of time in the pool, I spent time starting on the next project - which is sanding down the tables I got from Grace (project 3).  When they were done swimming, Wrenley was fascinated with the sandpaper - so I gave her a piece and put her to work.  She sanded for quite a while! 












I love that the come to hang out.  I love that when they were done swimming, they help me with my projects, and come inside to eat snacks.  I love that they live close by and keep us busy!  I am very blessed!

Also, I had to share a picture of my little finished project - the free chairs I got from Grace and James and the bistro table that Jim bought for me that I painted to match!  I need to find some time now to sit down there and enjoy it!  I also repainted the lawn chair that my sister gave me, and an old school chair that I believe came from Jim's dad, to match!  Things in the oasis are coming together!  
I am a bit alarmed at how fast June is flying by!  I love me some summertime and I don't want it to go by too quickly!