I love where I live

Dad's boat died last weekend. Well, the outdrive died. I emailed him some options from CL but he was so busy with everything Haiti that he didn't have time to look at them 'til much later in the week. We were bummed because we were planning to go to the lake after church on Sunday and dad couldn't take his boat. Well, he and T went and looked at a "parts" boat Sat afternoon and hauled it home and had the outdrive off of it and on to dad's boat by 9 Sat eve! And it worked! We had a great time and pics will follow.

We were "gleaning" things off the parts boat and J piped up with, "Oh look! Dere's de fire exterminator!". Extinguisher/exterminator. So close. And then when we were heading back to the house he saw a toad and said, "I should take dat to school to digest it." Upon further questioning it was determined that the word he was searching for was "dissect". Digest/dissect. So close. This kid cracks us up!

A and P didn't go to the lake with us Sunday. It's probably the first time since we've had the boat that A didn't make it out there with us. They both work so much and P is in school and A will be starting soon, I guess they just wanted to be alone.

Both of our daughters are currently learning how to drive a vehicle with a standard transmission. I think that's hysterical. A friend has been teaching R and I've been teaching A. Both vehicles have been stalled repeatedly in the learning process. I think the girls are both getting the hang of it though.

And now the pics. I love this little face peeking at me through the door. Too cute!

This is how I do schoolwork if one of the cats is around. They think I learn best with one of them laying on my chest in the way of what I'm trying to read. I'm not so sure.

Yes, she still loves to get in the stroller and drink from her sippy cup. And no, we haven't sent the video to AFV yet.

She also loves the ironing board, not that she gets to see it very often.

I love that we live close to some beautiful lakes.

And that the "Old man of the sea" (or lake in this case) was able to get his boat going again.

J and his friend fishing off the bow of our boat.

Dad relaxing on his. It was a gorgeous day. Temps were just right.

The water is still down but not quite as low as it was. Look at the beautiful rock formation here. J was impressed with the echo it created.

The view from the other side of the rocks (and the top of J's head).

There were a few herons fishing over here. I love the contrasts of the blues and greens in the sky, land, water and reflections.

I love that I live where this morning sky...

...becomes this evening sky.

We get some pretty sunsets 'round here.

I love it here even when the oatmeal boils over in the microwave. And yes, I scraped it back into the bowl and ate it.

I love where I live because of the people here with me, even when they leave things like multi-function levers from their car on the computer desk. 'Cause everyone should have a multi-function lever on their desk.

And now I must go do some schoolwork. I wonder where those cats are?

Phone pics and catching up

Wow, busy as usual around here! J started back to school. He was so ready to spend every day with his friends. So far, he's had a good attitude towards the work and making this his best year ever. He's in 8th grade so he's a big fish in a small pond until he gets to high school next year. High school!?! How did that happen?

I finished one class so far and am getting ready to start the next one. I won't have as much lag between the 2nd and third ones because I already have the book for the 3rd. I have to figure out how to time that better.

A bought herself a used car. It's a standard. She doesn't know how to drive a standard. It's been....interesting. She goes back to school the last week of August. Sophomore year of college! How did that happen?!? She is also determined to do well and make this her best year yet. I hope they both succeed.

Did I mention that T couldn't stand not having a truck so he has a truck again? And we have a very nice Jeep Grand Cherokee for sale if you or anyone you know is interested. He's a happy camper. Or trucker. Or something.

I had a doc appointment yesterday. He confirmed that the tendonitis is back in my left wrist/base of my thumb. I'm trying some super duper new miracle cream and a compression brace. And praying that it works.

Dad's boat died Sunday. Well, the outdrive died. We are all very sad because it's so fun to go out in two boats. Sigh...

And now, the pics. Yes this is sideways. Yes it's "set up" and yes, I really do fill in with sharpie where I missed or where it's growing out. I missed a chunk by my temple this time. Not sure why.

The evening sky was awesome one day last week.

Love this pic over the pool. And the big crocodile head cloud. Too cool.

It got prettier and prettier. I love how the cloud is casting shadow.

This was the other side of my cobbler bowl the other night.

His allergies are back so he's passed out on allergy meds again. At least we found a dose that helps some without making him a total zombie.

"Look out for me oh muddy waters! Your mysteries are deep and wide." (Song from the play "Big River") We had a lot of rain the other day and the river behind the place where I work got large and muddy.

And our little river flowed briefly.

And the sky looked awesome!

And now, I must get some schoolwork done.

One down.....

.....thirty-nine to go. Classes that is. I'm thrilled to have completed one class. The 39 to go is a bit overwhelming to think about but I just have to do one at a time. The books are ordered for the next two classes so now I just have to wait for them to get here. I'm excited!

Happy birthday!!!.....

....to my wonderful hubby! I hope and pray you have another blessed year!

And happy birthday to his twin, D, too.

Bridget (R's horse) made it to CO. The horse moving company picked her up Sat night and she arrived at the stable near R's house Mon night. She was sweaty but fine. I'm just glad she's there safely. The other two horses here seem fine also. They probably wonder when Bridget's coming back from her ride. I hope Lady does ok when dad takes his horse riding. We shall see.

Pssst, want to save some money?

I read this blog this morning; http://babybangs.blogspot.com/2012/08/cracked-goggles.html  The timing was perfect as last night we discovered for sure what I've been suspecting for a while. The new dishwasher is leaking. I don't know if it's done any damage under the sink to the subfloor or not. Then A called saying she was having car trouble. She managed to get it home but now T has to try and fig out what's going on with it. Hoping and praying it's a simple, inexpensive fix.

I've been making our own laundry detergent for some time now. It's natural, easy to make and it's cheap! I started doing this because my cousin (over there under "Blogs I read") got me going on it. The soap doesn't suds much, if at all, and I had a hard time getting past that in my brain. But, the clothes are clean. Would you like to know how to make it, save yourself some money and do something all natural for your family? Here we go.

These are the 3 ingredients. Yes, just 3. They can be found in a small section of the laundry aisle, usually by the laundry boosters. Make sure you get "Super Washing Soda" NOT baking soda. Very important. The soap is about $1 and the boxes are $3-4. The recipe is; 1 cup washing soda, 1 cup borax and 1 bar Fels-Naptha soap, so the cost per recipe is very small. In the nearly a year I've been making it, I'm only on my third box of washing soda and my second box of borax.

Begin by opening the fels-naptha and cutting it into small pieces. I usually cut it in half the long way and then each piece in half again the long way. Then I start cutting smaller pieces from that.

Put it in a food processor or blender. I don't have a food processor so I use a blender and only put half the soap in at a time. Grind it up 'til it's coarse.

Then start adding the washing soda, processing as you go.

Do the same with the borax, dumping parts of it into containers so it's not all in the blender at one time. 

This is the finished product. Store it in an airtight container. Use 1-2 tablespoons per load, depending on size and amount of soil. I usually use a heaping tablespoon for a large load.

You can also use vinegar in place of fabric softener. It's much cheaper and all natural. The vinegar smell doesn't get on the clothes. I've been experimenting with lavendar essence in the vinegar. So far, it's made the vinegar not smell like vinegar but it hasn't gotten the lavendar essence on the clothes. I was wanting to have a faint lavendar smell on my clothes. I will keep experimenting.

Olympics, back to school and other things...

We are having a good time watching the summer olympics. Well, J and I are. T is not interested and A is never here. It's been fun to watch them through J's eyes. He's only been home  for just under 3 years so it's his first time really watching them. Everything he watches, he says, "I want to do dat! I want to be in de olympics!" He gives me a play by play if I'm not in the room. This morning he turned it on and said, "Dey are playing beach volleyball in de pool."

My friend K and I developed our own olympic event. Syncronized noodles.

J registers for school on Friday. I'm loving summer and feel like it's much too early to go back but he's ready. He has not liked staying home alone this summer and is looking forward to seeing his friends every day. A is all signed up and ready to be a sophomore in college. I started my schooling yesterday. T is gearing up for back to school too. Inservice starts tomorrow so they are getting all the tech stuff ready for that.

Please take a minute to go to http://www.realhopeforhaiti.org/ and take a look at what this ministry is doing. They update Jn Edward, who captured my heart a while back. And now Sequam and Saint Vique have captured my heart as well. The ministry that they are providing to the people in and around Cazale, Haiti is outstanding.

Speaking of Haiti, my dad is there now. My mom has gotten reports that all things are going well and it's a good team of people. He will fly back to the states on Thur and be home sometime on Friday, Lord willing.

Please keep JT in your prayers as he is in Afghanistan. He is doing ok but is very tired. All of them are tired.

R plans to move her horse, Bridget, from here to CO. She hired a company to move her and they should pick her up the end of this week. We will miss Bridget as she has a lot of personality. For a horse.

Well, I think that's all the updates for now.

Some phone pics

Well, I did it. I hit the pay button which officially enrolled me in school. It's online through West Coast Bible College. The course is a bachelors in Biblical counseling. I can start soon.

I'm still frustrated with my wrist. It's not working well and the doc who did the surgery last year says it's the veins and the vein doc says it's the tendons. Sigh...

We had a lot of heat here and not much rain but it finally rained a bit and cooled off. We were able to spend the day Sunday afternoon at the lake. The weather was great and we all enjoyed it. My dad had taken J and P out Saturday and they fished and slept in the boat. P and J had wet beds from the rain but dad had his bedding in trash bags so his was dry. They had fun anyway and caught some fish. T, A and I joined them Sunday afternoon and A water skied again. Then we anchored and swam and then we went to the place where they had been catching fish and did some more fishing. Good times.

Here are some phone pics, backing up to just before July 4th. Diesel is still very needy at times even though he LOVES outdoors and spends most of his time outside. He is content to be a little "Grizzly Adams" type cat and would live off the land if he could just catch some birds. I have taken to calling him "Grizzly Catams". Either way he's just too cute when he's cuddly.

Or when he's sleeping with his mouth open.

Snapped this pic on the way home from a Haitian adoption get together. We had a nice time and met some very nice people.

Here is Diesel checking out the cover on the boat.

He reports that everything is in good shape.

J with a silly face...

...and a handsome grin.

We had some fireworks here locally. I was surprised that they still had the show since it hadn't rained yet at this point. But they had the fire dept right there and all was well.

Last week we finally got some rain. It was much needed. J and I went out for a walk one evening after a beautiful rain. The sky was gorgeous!

It's a good thing it rained because all that was growing in the pasture was cactus plants.

We actually had to buy hay for the horses because there just wasn't anything for them to eat. They seemed happy for the rain too.

Misty is still fat and sassy as ever.

Can you see the rainbow?

After a month or more of no rain we had a week or so of rain. This is the pic I took Sat. We had a storm last night too.

Well, I guess that catches things up for now.

More random sentences

It's early morning and I've already been awake for much too long. Sigh...Misty woke me up and I really tried to go back to sleep but it just wouldn't happen.

J stayed out late last night with Bampa, working at a horse show. Or that's what Bampa was doing. I hope J was helping but he may have just been hanging out with friends for all I know.

A is house sitting this weekend. I haven't seen her since....Thursday?  I think.

I worked in the heat again yesterday. I'm tired of the heat and drought. Please Lord, send some rain and some cooler temps. Two weeks of 100+ is too much.

R says she fell off her horse yesterday and bruised her hip. Otherwise she's fine. The fires were 90% contained yesterday and they got a little rain this week.

I tried to fax my  high school transcripts yesterday. Boy, looking at those was a trip back in time. Couldn't get the fax to work so I will be mailing them. You know, snail mail.

I will be leading music at church again today. We have no ink in the printer so I had to hand write an order of service. Hope I wrote legibly.

We'd like to go camping again before school starts but don't know if we can pull it off. We'll see. School starts so early here, like they register the first week in Aug. But J is ready to go back. He misses the social aspect of it and he's not liking staying home by himself when I'm working.

Payday is coming this week and my pantry and fridge surely need it. We are doing the "eat down" thing, you know, where you eat whatever is still in the house and make very creative dinners or everyone does their own thing. We've come up with some interesting stuff in the last week.

Well, I guess that's all my random sentences for now. I have a post in my head about making laundry detergent. Sooner or later it will make it to the blog. That's all for now.

Some random sentences

JT has been going on a lot of missions. Please pray for him.

R is safe even though she is painfully close to the fires in CO. She has remained ready to evacuate but was always just outside the evac areas. The bears are bothersome as they have been evacuated from their homes too and are looking for something to eat. R and Skylar would resemble an appetizer and main course to a bear. Please pray for her too.

It hasn't rained much if any in a month now. Everything is dried up and the grass is brown and crunchy. Add the heat to that and it's been miserable. We had a week of temps over 100.

J is changing his room around and singing "Feliz Navidad". He's so silly. Now he's on to a made up song about baseball. Must've come across his baseball stuff.

I've applied to school and I've been accepted. I can't tell what the next step is for sure but will work on it again today.

I'm wearing the wrist brace again in an effort to figure out if it's the varicose veins or the tendonitis that's bothering me the most. I'm thinking it's the tendonitis. Wearing the brace feels really good for my wrist.

We've been watching "Deep Space Nine" on netflix. J is really into it right now. He was telling us he wanted to watch "dat franky show". When we questioned further because we didn't know what he meant he said, "You know. Dat show wif de guys wif de big ears." T and I looked at each other. Ferengi's! Of course!

We went to a Haitian Adoption get-together in a nearby town. Loved it! There is such a bond with others who have walked the same path.

Fireworks have been banned in our town. The city is still putting on a show but personal fireworks are not allowed. I wish they would ban them in the county too. It's just too dry to be safe.

J's hair needs to be twisted. Again.

We have had multitudes of daddy long-legs spiders, or grand-daddy long-legs, depending on where you're from. They are a nuisance. Gobs of them. 30-50 of them in a huge, hairy-looking, ugly ball. They hang around the door and fall on you when you walk out. Gives us the heeby-jeeby's.

I'm thankful for a pool in the front/side yard. And I'm thankful for AC and that God created whoever came up with AC.

My sunburn from our weekend at the lake peeled. I am no longer snake-like and still have a little color to show for it. I'm so buying a long-sleeved swim shirt to wear at the lake though.

I put flea treatment on the dogs this morning. They can barely walk for stopping to scratch. Poor things.

Diesel is still dealing with allergies and now it's the congested kind. He's "rattly" and snotty. For a cat. He's on allergy meds and antibiotics. Again.

Well, I must get back to the laundry. It just won't wash and dry itself. Sigh...