A Garden Adventure… The Cute, The Hot & The Ugly

I went to Curves this morning and came home hoping to crash…. well, I barely had time for a “break” when I walked back down the hall and there was my sweet puppy looking at me… with those puppy eyes….

(Please ignore the ugly couches… the dark denim slipcovers are downstairs in the pile we call Mt Grotegut. Don’t worry… they will come back up on Sunday evening when we fold laundry while watching a movie and the living room will be happy again.)

Here’s the “conversation” we had in the hall:

“Please mom, Please mom, let’s go outside and play!!! Can we, can we, PLEEEEEZE?”

“But Sadie, Mom’s pooped and wants to blog.”

“PLEEEEEEEEEEZE Mom?”

“Ok… let’s go…”

Look at those eyes! Tell me you could resist! :P

So out we went.

And as all “small children” go… we got outside and she didn’t really want to “play”… she just wanted to be outside… forget rope tug, catch, whatever.

So I decided to water the flower garden.

That got her attention… zoom zoom right over to the hose. Sadie has this thing for trying to eat the water as it sprays out the nozzle. Needless to say I ended up soaked. Little turd.

After a few minutes of getting too much water and deciding she’d rather breathe than choke on the spray she retreated to her spot on the hill under the cherry tree….

And this is what I ended up doing outside…. I was out there, in my grubbies and it needed to be done so I did it.

We have this flowerbed that wraps around the back side of the house. We planted it about 7 or so years ago and it’s just gone to crap. No other way to say it. It’s just gotten overgrown and weedy and we just didn’t like how it was looking.

The weigelia bush (behind the front daylily) has never grown… I don’t know what’s up with it… it gets leaves but doesn’t “grow”. I pulled out a ton of the perennials that I am sure are going to go to the dump. The remaining perennials are ones I’d like to keep and transplant but need to wait to pull them until we get some buckets to put them in or something.

Along the way I had to fight for my ground. These nasty little stinkers were EVERYWHERE… and they aren’t your normal LITTLE garden grasshoppers… These are UTAH BEASTS. Nasty. Nasty.Nasty.Ugly.Gross. They kept flying at me and jumping all over the place. Where’s a seagull when you need one???

I am sure you really didn’t want to be face to face with that little guy, did ya? Ok, they are ugly and icky, but at the same time they are kind of beautiful in their own right. Now if they’d just stop eating my plants!!!! This little stinker was on my back door window when I went back in the house. Shooo!

Anyway…. we plan on removing all the bark mulch and ripping up the landscaping fabric, then removing half the soil and blending in some good mulch and other organic goodies to loosen the nasty clay soil and install a good drip irrigation system. It’s all gonna happen sometime this fall (we hope)… but it sure looks a lot better now with the ratty old plants out of it!

I think it’s time to hit the showers. I've edited a boatload of photos for some more crafty goodness…. Here’s a sneak peek…

Inky Smiles!

I Need YOU!

Erin needs YOU!!!

I would like to find a new digital "point and shoot" small camera. I have a wonderful dSLR Canon Rebel, but sometimes it is just too bulky and cumbersome to lug around (like amusement parks, restaurants, work parties, and other places where you want something that you can slip in a pocket.)  We went to Lagoon this past Saturday and it was a pain in the bum hauling around the big camera… plus you can’t take it on any rides, so someone always had to wait for the other person.. we finally decided to haul it back to the car and lock it in the trunk.

I prefer Canon, Nikon, and Olympus, and Sony.  Kodak is OUT.  (I had one that died a terrible death, as did my mom’s Kodak… same problem on different models, so I won’t even consider Kodak again.)

Here's where I need YOU... tell me what you have, why you love it, and if you've had problems with it.

Hearing from the horse is always best, not that I am insinuating that any of you look like, smell like, or otherwise resemble a horse.

I look forward to hearing your responses!

Bracelets and Friends

Do you ever have days/weeks/months where you feel like this?

Seriously… July has been INSANE.

Anyway.

Brent is at city council tonight and I don’t have ANYTHING (no meetings, chores – but not because they aren’t there, no ailments, etc) else going on for a change so I thought I’d blog a little.

Today I got to hang out for a few hours with one of my best friends. Janeen & Andy lived across the street into the house that blocked our view of the lovely Mt Timpanogos from 2001-2005. (We decided we were “ok” with their house blocking our view of Timp cuz we liked them… haha!) Janeen was 9 months pregnant while they were building their house. A few weeks later they moved in. We immediately became friends. In 2005 they moved east to Virginia for a job. Every year Janeen comes home to Utah to visit family and we get together and get to catch up a little. This year she came and hung out with her dd, Looly. (Name changed, of course…. Looly picked her own “secret agent blog name.”)

Aren’t they beautiful? I heart this shot.

So we visited and hung out while Looly and I built a bracelet. Of course, you have to start out with beads, lots of beads…. these glass beads are fun!

Looly picked out her own beads and decided how the center beads would be strung in the center.

Mom chillin out on my naked stairs with Sadie… We are going shopping this month for new carpet to help finish up last year’s remodel/construction.

See that bump on Neen’s tummy? That’s Baby #3 getting ready to hopefully show up in six or so weeks. I think Neen is hoping for closer to the six weeks instead of the “or so” weeks…. hehe!

After we finished making the bracelet Looly decided we wanted to take goofy pictures…

Brace yourself.

Neen didn’t really want to take goofy pics…. and she will probably kill me, but I shrunk the photo way down… hehe :) …. Look at Looly! You can’t help but chuckle at that grin… helping Mommy make a goofy face… ROFL. LOVE.IT.

Now Looly loved my crossed eyes so we set out to teach her….

Look at my finger…

Nope, up here…..

Marvelous.

Hope you’re having a great evening! :)
Inky Smiles!

Or something. LOL!

Pool Fun… Digi Pages

So while my sister and her family were here earlier this month (and I was COMPLETELY M.I.A from the computer) we did a LOT of fun stuff! This was the kids’ first visit to Utah (Auntie Erin’s dog lady house with Sadie) and Ryan and Liz’s first visit back in at least 4 years.

One day we spent the afternoon at our city pool. The pool was completed and opened last summer and it is an AWESOME pool. (I do have to jump in and brag up my sweet dh who helped get the pool constructed while on the city council… heck, he even has his name on a plaque at the entrance! :) ) It’s a COOL pool! There is a HUGE area for kids, zero entry (no steps, like a beach), with a splash pad, giant bucket that dumps water on you, kiddie slides, rope pulls to dump water, squirt “guns”, etc. There’s also a “lazy” river that goes around the two BIG slides, a whirlpool “Vortex” area, and a Bubble Couch… and then there’s the reg size lap pool behind the lockers and concession stand. It’s a FUN pool!

Anyway…. here are some digi pages I whipped together the other night in an effort to get started on scrapping the visit. When I say “whipped together” I mean it… I did not create these pages, I just dropped my photos in to some “Quickie” pages by Kay Miller Designs. These are the first ever quick pages I’ve used… (Great for fast scrapping!) I heart Kay Miller designs, but sometimes they are too cutesy and juvenile for me w/out kids… These pages were PERFECT for these photos. They are from her Ocean kit. I did add a couple of embellishments over the QP’s to cover up Ocean words that I didn’t want. There’s not a lot of room for journaling on the QP’s, so I think I will have to create some companion pages to add more photos and journaling. The QP’s were quick n easy way for me to get a jump start on getting it done.

Names are changed to protect the kids…. the “real” pages will have journaling with their real names before the pages are printed. (Oh the joys of Photoshop!)

(Edited: Rather than take my nice 'spensive Digital Rebel to the pool I purchased a cheapie disposable, waterproof camera to snap pics with... For some quick snapshots for posterity's sake it worked out fine... but the clarity and focus in the snapshots just weren't there. )

Flying By…

Can something both feel like it’s flying by and dragging bootay at the same time? If so, that’s how JULY has felt. I got online tonight and looked at my blog. 2 posts. 2 lousy posts. July has been PACKED. We’ve had company here and lots n lots going on, some fun news, our 10th anniversary, yard work, gardening, and health issues, etc, etc…. I have even done a bit of crafting but haven’t felt up to sitting down to edit the pics and post. (But I do have LOADS of pics of all the stuff we’ve been up to lately to share.) Last night, my friend Tammy came over to make cards and boy have I got some CUTE cards to show you!

And, I have a really cool blog candy contest coming up. (I’m not promising a date, but it will be soon, and I know you’ll like it…) Oh, and I might just have one more blog candy contest in mind, too. :) And... I haven't forgotten about the next round of Scrap My Scraps. I've just been too busy or sick to get it organized. I told ya, lots has been going on…

Stay tuned… *grin*

I’m Not Quite Dead Yet…

Can you name that movie?

Really, I promise I have not died or dropped off the face of the planet. It’s just been an insanely busy couple of weeks.

Here, I will show you.

This has been what’s kept me away from the computer for the past little while.

My sis and her family (dh, b/g 3 yr old twins and 4 mo old baby) came out to visit us for a week. (I spent several days prior to the visit trying to get a “singles” house small child “safe”. (It’s still wonky from last year’s construction and the guest room was still packed full of boxes and what not.)

That’s me and my sis, Liz… B snapped that pic the morning they headed home.

Aren’t they the most darling itty bitties you’ve ever seen? Maybe I’m biased. I love them. Look at those cheeks. You simply can not resist smooching them! That’s Dude, Baby (working on a cute nickname still), and Squid.

We had so much fun. I miss them dearly already and am already saving plane ticket pennies and figuring out my next visit to Iowa.

I will be back with more fun photos and some projects (oooh, jewelry!) that I have been working on soon. (I just got back from Curves and am procrastinating going to work… lots of catch up to do today) In the meantime, take a listen and have a laugh.

Playing LeftBrainGroceryList-32.mp3
(a new window will open and a media player will play it… it’s audio only. The lady you're listening to is Jeanne Robertson. She is hilarious!!!)

Inky Smiles!

Erin

Life Is Just A Bowl of Cherries

So it’s FINALLY beginning to look like SUMMER here in Utah. We’ve had a constant stream of rainy days (no pun intended) and it’s finally warming up. Please don’t read any complaints in there about the rain. Where I live in Utah is a mountain desert… we are a dry desert up in the mountains and all moisture is appreciated, but this June seemed particularly abundant in moisture.

We lived in our house for 8 years now. (Erin trivia: 3.5 years ago marked the longest I had lived in ANY one home EVER in my entire life…. we’ve way surpassed that point now…) Anyway… when we broke ground on this lot and started to build we were lucky enough to find that there was a solitary treebush growing on our property on the back hill…. we had no clue what it was so we left it and let it grow. And we let it grow. And grow. and grow….. always wondering “just what is that tree anyway?” We knew it was some sort of fruit tree and we suspected cherry or peach but were never sure.

In 8 years we never had fruit from the tree…. but the birdies did. They always enjoyed a nice fruity treat each spring. Lucky birds.

This year we were surprised to find a MOTHERLODE of little green fruits all over the tree. There were GOBS of little baby fruits hidden amongst the big green serrated edged leaves.

A few weeks later this is what we found:

DO YOU KNOW WHAT THAT SOLITARY LITTLE BEAUTY IS??

YES. You are CORRECT!

It is a CHERRY! Sweeeet, delicious, juicy cherry… one of them there ‘spensive varieties from the supermarket. They’re pink n white/yellow. YUM YUM YUM. Specifically they are Ranier cherries. (I did some research on the good old dubya.dubya.dubya)

And we looked up in the tree.

Look up… seee…. loookie, loookie…..

Click the picture… enjoy the cherry delight…. those little darlings are hiding everywhere....

So into the monster tree we went…. ok, so I stood on the edges and picked the lower hanging, easy to reach, sissy girl cherries….. I sent my brave, strong, man into the depths of the monster tree.

Ok, he’s not that far into the tree in this pic… but he did have to go into the middle and climb up as far as the tree would support him…

Look at these beauties! Several handfuls of brave cherry souls sacrificed themselves to our hungry tummies that evening….



This is what we ended up with (one for my tummy, one for the bowl…. one for my tummy… one more for my tummy…..)

And of course I had to eat some while taking the photos…. They were staring right at me… c’mon… I HAD to do it… they were practically begging to be gobbled up.

But nothing tops a happy cherry picker… with a cherry filled tummy…..


Isn’t he a cutie patootie? How can you resist that sweet grin… lol!

So, Thank you, Mr Farmer (who's sweet wifey must have put some cherries in his lunch that day), for spitting out a seed or two that grew into a sprout, which grew into a bush, that grew up to be a tree that provided some nice snacking for the cutie patootie couple who built a home on their old farm land.