First Album.....

I was thinking the other day about the very first album I ever bought. It was Cher Half-Breed. It was a big buy for me. I used the money I had gotten from my 4-H ribbons at the Rice County Fair. My Mom had taken us to the Holiday gas station and we went in to do a little shopping. I bought the album and a Magic 8-ball. I know two great buys :) It was 1974 and I was 12 years old. It is funny the things you remember. And yes I am still a Cher fan and still have that album and no I no longer have my Magic 8-Ball.

I have had a busy couple of days at work. Yesterday was Rotblatt so that always means a busy day and a lot of less then sober students around. It started around 4:30 in the morning and ended at 9:00 last night. I had to write 4 reports yesterday and 2 already this morning. That is more reports then I have written all spring term. Good thing the term is almost done and a really good thing that next weekend is my last weekend to work and then I will have them off for a month!

Today is so hot, I think I am going to spend as much time as I can inside in the air conditioning. We are not going to put the air on at home yet because it is only going to be hot for one day. I think we can tuff it out.

Later Sharon

Growing up so fast!

Today was Liam's preschool graduation. He is growing up so fast! He was super cute singing at the program. During the program between songs Liam announced to everyone that he guesses his Grandpa Rick got to come. It was so cute. We did not tell Liam he was coming because he was not sure he could make it until today. Rick said it was worth coming just to hear Liam say that :) Liam loves his Grandpa Rick!

It has been so windy the last few days and there has been so much dirt in the air and I think it all ended up in my house. I was so happy that it finally rained last night, it was so dry out. Today I spent all morning cleaning. There was so much dust and dirt in the house. It looked like I had not cleaned in months and months. Everything felt so gross. I am very happy to say that the house looks much better now.

I am happy for the rain but also dreading the mosquitos that I know are going to be coming any day now. It has been so nice to be able to spend so much time outside and not get ate alive. I guess that is the price we pay for living next to a swamp. Dexter does not like the rain, well mostly he does not like the thunder. He cries and barks the whole time it thunders. His little heart is beating so fast it feels like it is going to burst.

I went for a 25 mile bike ride on Monday and then lifted on Wed. I wanted to run today but it has been raining pretty much the whole day. I should be able to run tomorrow since it is suppose to be nice out.

Hope everyone has a nice three day weekend. I will be at work slaving away :)

Later Sharon

“If you look deeply into the palm of your hand, you will see your parents and all generations of your ancestors. All of them are alive in this moment. Each is present in your body. You are the continuation of each of these people.” Thich Nhat Hanh

I am lucky to have five generations of women still living in my family.
I look at these pictures of our hands and see old and new and  think about what these hands have done and what they still have to do.......

Grandma Trenda has done a lot with her hands in her 91 years. She has farmed, gardened, cooked, cleaned,  sewing, worked in a drapery department and raised five children. She has held countless babies, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren.
I look at my Moms 73 year old hands and also see all the hard work she has done, farming as a child, cooking, cleaning, sewing, working as a bookkeeper and raising three children.
When I look at my hands at 50 years old I think, gosh they look as old as Grandma Trenda's :)  I also see that my hands have done there share of cooking, cleaning, gardening, sewing and of course raising three beautiful children.
I look at Amy's hands and I see not only my beautiful daughter but I see all the things she has already done with those hand in her 28 years of life. She has gone to college, has become and nurse and uses those hands everyday to care for people and she is now raising three children of her own.
And lastly I look at Josie's hands at age 3 and think about all the things she is going to learn from the five generations of women that she has in her life and how lucky she is.

These hands are my family..........

                   Grandpa Trenda, Grandma Trenda, Amy and Josie, Mom and me.

                      Grandpa Trenda, Grandma Trenda, Christa and Oliver, Mom and me

Thanks to Christa for taking such great pictures.


Later
Sharon

Flowers, Flowers, Flowers

I love Pinterest! I don't know what we did before Pinterest. I got the idea for the above flower pots on Pinterest. It was so easy to do. I took some clay pots and spray panted them. Then I got a medal rod and stuck it in the ground and then just put the pots on it. I filled them full of dirt and then planted a couple flowers in each. I will take another picture later in the summer  when the flowers have grown. I think it looks really cute and adds a little color to the garden.

Later Sharon

"God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease, avalanches, and a thousand tempests and floods. But he cannot save them from fools." -John Muir

                         Eli and Oliver playing in the sand at Jese's Graduation party

                                               Oliver playing in the sandbox

                                     Eli playing in the sandbox

                            Oliver, Liam and Eli playing in the sandbox

                     This is me telling Cassie that NO she cannot have Oliver :)

                   I thought since it was Jese's party I better put a picture up of him

                                     Nick showing us how to build a fire

                                 The wren moving into its house

     Not 5 minutes after putting out an orange I had orioles at them. I hope they stick around this year

 This is a picture of the one of the wood chip plies from the trees in our ditch that the county is taking out. This was from just a couple of hours of work

 This is a some of the bigger trees that they have cut down. It really makes me sad that they took them, several of them are walnut trees. We now have no walnut trees left :(

 Here is a picture of the ditch after they took the trees out. They are going to spray it all with some type of weed/tree killer and then they are going to put seed down. The ditches that they have done in other areas in town are a huge mess with no grass growing and eroding big time. They claim that by taking all the trees out it will keep the ditches from eroding

                    Another view with all the trees gone

This is a view of part of the ditch that they have not yet gotten to. It is really sad to see all those trees be cut down.

On Saturday Christa had a party for Jese. He has finished with gradated school! They really had a nice day for the party and everyone had a good time.
 I had to work all weekend so that was no fun but at least it was nice a quiet.
Yesterday was my day off but it was not quiet because I had to listen to all the saws etc as they cut all of our trees down in the ditch. And just like I knew they would do they broke our dog fence. Now we have to try and figure out where they cut the line. I am not happy about any of it. I cannot believe the big trees they are taking out. We had a ton of walnut trees and now they are all gone. It is sad......
I went for a 4 .5 mile run yesterday. My knee/leg is holding up so far.....
Yesterday I was suppose to go to the dentist  for a cleaning and I completely forgot it. I have never done that before and was very embarrassed. I was able to get in today so that was good. And thankfully my teeth are all good.
Today I am going to watch Josie and Eli for Amy so she can go help at Liam's school this afternoon. They will both take a nap when they get here so it should be easy to watch them.
This afternoon Rick and I were going to go for a bike ride but it is windy. So I am thinking that is not going to happen.

Enjoy the nice weather
Later Sharon

“Petting, scratching, and cuddling a dog could be as soothing to the mind and heart as deep meditation and almost as good for the soul as prayer.” ― Dean Koontz, False Memory

     I got a new Clean Eating Magazine in the mail the other day so that means I have to cook. I made Chicken Gumbo and it was delish.                                

                                                                   New dresser

Last week I saw this dresser in the Buy & Sell adds on Facebook. As soon as I saw it I knew I had to have it. I instantly fell in love with it. So I bought it! It needed just a little TLC so Rick did the work on in and here it is all cleaned up and ready to use. I am very happy with it and so is Rick since he now has more room for his clothes :)
 
I did some spring cleaning on my days off getting my house spotless. Of course as soon as I was done it rained out and the dogs thought it would be a good idea to bring some mud in the house. Maybe Dexter was just getting back at me for shutting him in the garage. I really have no idea how he got in the garage or how long he was in there. After supper on Sunday Rick went in the basement to work on a string and I went into the office to pay bills. I was in there for about a half hour when I heard Dexter scratching at the door. I thought it was odd since we have a doggie door and I thought it was open. So I looked and sure enough it was open and so then I checked the sliding glass door in the back of the house and again no Dexter. So I called for him and that is when I discovered he was in the garage. He must have followed one of us into the garage and never came back in when we did. Poor puppy.

I made almond butter for the first time. It was so easy and so good. All you do to make it is roast 2 cups of almonds in a 350 oven for 10 minutes. After they cool you put them in the food processor for 10 to 15 minutes and you get almond butter. You can add things to it if you want like honey, flax seed etc. You can do this when just about any kind of nut even peanuts if you have to have peanut butter. It way cheaper to make your own and so much better for you.

I went for a run yesterday and I am very sad to say that today my knee is killing me :( I really hope it is just a passing thing and not a real injury......

Later Sharon

Grandmothers are just antique little girls. ~Author Unknown

                                            maple sweet potato pecan burger

                                                 Liam and Josie on project day

                                        Eli is trouble now.....

Saturday Rick was gone most of the day setting up the outdoor range for the WAC 3D and 600 round so I had a busy day at home. I decided that I would try a new recipe so I had to go to the store to get all the ingredients. I made maple sweet potato pecan burgers. They were so good. I know some people turn there noses up at anything that is outside the box when it comes to food but you should really give them a try. They are way better for you then a regular beef burger and they taste delish!
Other then cooking on Saturday I did a lot of laundry and also got some things cut out and ready to sew for the grandkids. That little craft project will be a subject of another blog....
Sunday was a big day for me. I along with Rick and Amy ran the River Bend Nature Center's 5k. It is the first race I have ran since Nov. of 2010. I am not sure why I picked this race to come back to running on since it is such a hilly course! We all had a great time and did good. Rick got his personal best time! I am not sure what my time was for sure because the people writing down the times missed me. But it was right around 29:27. They were not very organized on there timekeeping. I was okay with the time because I kept it under 30 minutes. Of course it is a long ways away from my personal best of 23:29 that I got in June of 2006. I was in the best shape of my life that year. Oh how times have changed....
After the race Rick went out to the WAC shoot and I met him there a short time later. I was not set up to shoot outdoors yet so I just visited with everyone and then helped with the take down when it was over. While we were sitting around one of the people who was there asked me if I was Paul's daughter. Paul is a friend who is 54 years old, that's right only 4 years older them me. It was so funny. I told the guy that it made me feel good but I am pretty sure it did not make Paul feel  good. We all got a good laugh out of it.
Yesterday I had Josie and Eli at noon and then picked Liam up from school at 2:45. Since I had them for so long we decided it would be a good day for project day. Liam is always after me to bring out the craft box and do projects. We made rockets out of oatmeal containers and houses out of shoe boxes. The kids had lots of fun. Eli has started to get into everything! He is trouble! I had to put the baby gate up and was running after him all day to keep him out of trouble. It was a lot harder to do project day with  him around! Good thing was such a happy baby yesterday.
I have to pick the kid's up for daycare today and Friday and then next Friday and then I am done. Amy found a daycare that has much better hours so they can stay there until Adam gets off of work on day's Amy works the afternoon shift. It will be nice to not have to pick them up but it will also be weird. I have picked up Liam from daycare since he was born. Of course now that I will not be picking them up I am sure I will miss them :) Liam is always after me to have an overnight stay so I told him when it get nice out I will put the camper up and we can have a camping in the yard day. He was excited and I am sure will never let me forget that I said it until I do it!
Now that it is going to get warm out again I am back to work. Stupid weather.
Later Sharon