We had a wonderful, fun, family-filled and laughter-filled weekend.

Sunday, Joe and Amy got here and we enjoyed a great 24 hours of cuddling and laughing and just plain enjoying all four of them.  I'm not sure which of them is the biggest character, but this little guy has to be right up there:

 

Jason got this photo when the menfolk (minus Jared, who's just a bit small for such things) meandered to the big garden down the hill to pick corn for the picnic.  Derek loved it, then they went to the other end of the garden and showed him the pumpkin patch. 

Jason knocked on a pumpkin, and so did Derek.  Then he sat on this one, and looked at Joe and said, "Daddy sit?"

If you look closely, you can see Joe is, indeed, "sitting" on a pumpkin.  Grandpa hopes they'll be just right for picking come mid-October when Derek's coming back to get his pumpkin! 

Then on Sunday, there was the usual family gathering at Hazel's and that was great fun.  Only the younger set - from Rachel (at almost 14) down got into the pool - it was a chilly, damp 70 degrees - but the rest of us played a game Hazel got for her birthday, until the Brats (those who calls us "Mom," "Gram," or "Aunt,") decided they didn't like that game, and insisted we switch to Apples to Apples.  It's a game that can be so funny, and with about 15 or so playing, it was indeed fun! 

I've uploaded several videos and many more photos on my facebook photo & video albums.  The photos are clearly labeled as "Labor Day Weekend" and the video are the first (most recent) three. I know that photos often load slowly here, so I am going to try this way for a bit. 

We're doing pretty well for a couple of old grandparents.    Faron's knee still troubles him but it doesn't stop him.  And my feet are healing well after I finally started doing what my nephew John had been advised to do for his psoriasis, which is to soak them for 20 minutes, twice a day, in vinegar water.  Hurts like crazy but it does indeed work! 

The latest household projects have included moving more dirt and stones to prefect the driveway some more, and putting up a couple of picture rails in the hallway.  Now we just have to get the hooks.  The only place in town where we've found them charges $7 EACH for the puppies!  We've found them online for $.50 each - I'm sure not as decorative as those others, but who cares? I want people looking at my photos, not expensive hardware.    We'd hesitated to order them from online because shipping costs more than the actual hooks, but even with that they're a bargain compared to the local ones. 

Also, Faron's making more cabinets for the kitchen, for around the smaller window we installed last year.  Those cabinets will have etched glass doors, as will the other upper cabinets he made a couple of years ago.  (Yes, they haven't had doors in all this time - we actually considered leaving off the doors permanently, but we're over that idea!)  And he finished and installed the doors on the lower cabinets built two years ago, too.  AND he installed a door on an existing lower cabinet that Jason'd broken when he was in HIGH SCHOOL!  How things like that go undone for so long mystifies me.  But it's done and it's great and now, a bit at a time because it's hard on his knee, he's painting the entire kitchen, bright white, which really shows off that feature wall he painted a few weeks ago.  Photos when all is finished, finally, and it looks as though that might not be too far away.  Wow!  I know home remodeling jobs can be stretched out for a long while when done by homeowners, but he replaced the counter top and installed the new sink at least 10 years ago!  Fortunately they still look great and we still like them.

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My friend Eleanor has the most interesting dreams.  First, she remembers them vividly, and secondly, she seems to have them with great regularity.  Probably because my sleep is often Ambien-induced, I don't recall what, if any, colorful dreams I have - at least not often.  But I had a dilly the other day during an afternoon nap, and after I told Lois, she said it'd make a great blog entry.  And I do have a photo!

A couple of prefaces, for those who may not know me as well as Lois does.  I did not vote for Obama.  I would vote him OUT today.  ObamaCare terrifies me, personally, as one whose individual health needs may be decided by a committee of people who've never heard of Dercum's disease and what it can do to someone with the condition. 

Also, we live in a rural village.  In Nowhere PA. 

And my friend Jane R., who used to live 4 doors up the road, now lives in Bethlehem, and I haven't heard from her in some time.  But I think of her often, as this dream attests!

Finally, my casual shopping days are over.  When I was younger, to go off for a full day or a weekend of shopping was great, and we did it a few times a year - sisters, or friends or a combination.  But it's been years, and I sincerely doubt that it will ever happen again.  And certainly not in Washington, DC. 

Aha!  Got your attention now, haven't I?  Well, keep up.

In my dream, Jane and I had gone to DC for the day.  To shop or sightsee, I wasn't quite clear.  Jane and I most often shopped together, so that's why I lean toward shopping...

Since we were in town, and as we discussed the terrors of ObamaCare, both of us with rare, chronic and progressive illnesses, we got more and more determined to talk to the President.  So we walked up Pennsylvania Avenue, knocked on the door of the White House, and asked to see Mr Obama.  Of course, we were given immediate admission! 

We had a very cordial visit, although nothing of any substance was discussed, and since I was bubbling in my soul with outrage and nasty thoughts toward the President, I got a nudge from the Holy Spirit to make an overture of some kind, so that we might come to understand one another.  So I invited him to Thanksgiving Dinner. 

He immediately accepted. 

So we strolled out of the White House and immediately we're Dream-Beamed to my house - not the house we live in, of course, but this new house in my dream, in a sub-division, obviously very close to the Capitol.  Except it was still here...but not.

I was married to Faron in this dream.  And some things, like the eternal clutter that accumulates in our house, were the same.  When I told him that the President was coming for Thanksgiving, he just said,  "You'd better get that dining room cleaned up - you have all kinds of stuff in there that needs a home!"  Oh, here - in our real, house, we do have a dining room, but it's our only indoor eating area - ours is a galley kitchen with no place to sit.  In my dream house (but not my Dream House, if you get the distinction) we had an eat-in kitchen where we always ate, and this huge dining room with a table that could seat, oh, 20 or so, and which tended to collect odds and ends no one knew what to do with.  Barbells in one corner, sewing machine in another - that sort of thing. 

So Jane and I Dream-Cleaned (ZAP!) the dining room, and it was set, immediately, and somehow weeks ahead of time, like this:

 

Or very close to it.  (That's even very similar to our every day dishes - although why I'd use my every day stuff for the President...) And of course, that's only showing half of my dream table.

So now we move on - Dream-Beaming to a neighborhood barbecue.  (I know, it's at least early November, and we're having a barbecue - go figure!)  People who live on the blocks nearest us are at this barbecue.  We know one another quite well.  There's a somewhat stocky, fair-haired man we've (obviously) known for years, who is delighted when we announce that we're going to have a time for drinks at our house on Thanksgiving Day, so everyone can meet and greet the President.  When I make some snide comment like, "That's if he really shows up - I mean, why would he come here?" this fair-haired man says, "Oh, he has cleared his schedule for you for the entire day."  And someone whispers to me that this guy is Secretary of State.  Suddenly there are whispers all over the room, "Did you know he was Secretary of State??"  "I didn't know he was Secretary of State!" 

He's very cordial about the fact that none of us knew what he did for a living.  Seems very normal that no one knows.  When he and his wife (faceless, formless - obviously not important in my dream) are leaving, he is pleasantness itself, very much looking forward to MEETING the President. 

It's a dream folks.  It doesn't have to make sense or be consistent.  So the Secretary of State knows the President's schedule but has never met the President.  Go figure!

Underlying all of this craziness was a sense of urgency about the state of Obama's soul.  I wanted to know that he really knows Jesus, and that he understands the eternal implications of the decisions he's made since he came to office.  I am inviting all the people I possibly can, from RC Sproul (Jr & Sr)  (dream, folks) to Dr. Sinclair Ferguson and quite a few others who might be able to direct conversation (casually, with some of the best theological minds we have today) to an easy discussion of faith and the role it must play in the lives of the faithful. 

Dream-Beam to the Day and he's there and I wake up. 

Hey, did you expect a happy ending??

me<><

She has a wonderful update about what each of the boys is doing right now and some absolutely adorable photos of my sweet grandbabies! 

And then she added another entry, which is the one I'll link (you can keep reading to get to the one I just mention above) where she compares photos of Derek and Jared at 6 months old.  Fun stuff! 

Two boys, one pod.

As for the rest of us, I'm doing ... OK, but my right foot is persistently cracked and painful.  It's kept me much more housebound than I'd prefer, but it has been fun playing with food from our garden when I feel up to it.  I want to make salsa tomorrow.  I'd do it today but we need a few things for it. 

Faron's knee is really in a bad way but do you think he'll call the surgeon and say it's time?  Stubborn ol' coot!   He really is in a great deal of pain, and the thing swells somethin' nasty every night. 

Jason and Tiana are busy doing their happy newlywed thing, along with work and hangin' with friends.  For J, that usually means watching a movie or going out to eat.  T loves the going out to eat part, and she's a movie freak too (you should see their combined collection!  They actually have a Movie Room.  It's not where they view them, but where they keep them!)  but she goes to the gym frequently when she can work it in around her work schedule, and she's got girlfriends she likes to hang with, too. All in all they're very busy or very lazy.   Sounds like my kids, huh?  They usually get up here to cook something on the grill about every other weekend, sometimes more often.  Jason is the Grillmaster!  We had barbecued ribs last weekend and they were great! 

In our extended family, babies are the hot thing - my nephew Tim and his girlfriend Gretchen had a baby girl a few weeks ago, Emery Marie, and my great-niece April, and her husband Harry just announced their first pregnancy - baby Frank will arrive sometime in March.  Both of those add to Hazel's ever-expanding tribe.  My great-niece Courtney is also expecting, sometime in October.  This would have been Clara's 3rd great-grandchild and is Penny & Jeff's first grandchild.  They are all very excited, too.  As my friend Valerie says, "Yeah!  Babies!! Yeah!!" 

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Yeah, me.  Not my husband or son, or nieces or sisters or any other of the dozens of people who populate my world.  Just me.

This is what I did. 

 

I cut my hair - SHORT!  I was feeling restless the other day, and I've been enjoying it short, so I figured, "If a bit short is good, a lot short is better," and off it came. 

Tiana trimmed up the very back - it was lots of different lengths.

She and Jason and Faron all say they like it.  I do too.

My sister Kim was here yesterday.  We traded carrot cake for green peppers.  The carrot cake was yummy!  She says, and there are a few of you who read this thing who've known me long enough to truly recall this...she says it looks like when I used to go to Johnson's Barber Shop for my haircuts.  I was 7 the last time I did that, I know.  I declared my independence from the barber shop and expressed a desire for long hair.  And, with a few slight detours along the way, my hair was long for the next 43 years.  And it had been for a couple of years before I was 7.  The story goes that I had golden ringlets that were so long I could sit on them.  But I hated for mom to brush my hair, so I'd always hide when she was ready to do so.  I hid one too many times and she yanked me out and I was taken to State Beauty School's Salon for my first haircut.  I was 3.  Hazel would have been 15.  She cried the entire time, and lovingly scooped up the locks of my hair, and saved them.

She gave them to me sometime after I was married, but only because they'd had a flood at her house, and her precious box of memories had gotten very, very wet, and my not-so-precious curls were moldy! 

I didn't save one bit of my hair from this haircut, btw. 

me<><

It was a blistering hot day, but things went well and, despite the heat and mosquitos, the setting beside the creek was lovely. 

 

The wedding party was nearly upstaged by small fry - there were more young children - 2 and under! - at this wedding than at any wedding I remember, and they were all remarkably good and beautiful.  Maggie doesn't qualify age-wise, but she was our own princess-flower girl and she plays the role to perfection!

And Kael, as nephew of the bride, and honorary ring bearer, stole his own share of the limelight! 

I've only posted a few photos here, as I know that 37 of them would crash many computers!  Here's a URL to my facebook photo album, to see the rest: wedding photos

There were also a few incidents that made the day more exciting than needed to be, such as one of the bridesmaids collapsing and passing out from dehydration and heat, and my poor nephew, Justin having a car accident as he left the ceremony.  But fortunately neither event was serious, the festivities went on and Paige & Curtis are off on their honeymoon in the Poconos. 

I actually made it through not only the ceremony and the reception but on to another party at our Pastor Bill's house, to say goodbye as he and his family are leaving the area soon.    Happy for new opportunities for them but sad to have another link broken with them.  It was hard enough when the church dissolved - at least they were nearby.  Now they'll be still further away. But thankfully, with 21st century innovations like the Internet and Facebook, I'll manage to keep in touch. 

Feet are ok, although they didn't like the full day out in the heat.  Couple of days in bed should have things soon back "together," and we're on to the next festivities - Labor Day weekend and a visit from my sweet baby boys!  And of course, whatever the Weekend Warriors come up with in between.  Faron managed to get the porch power-washed and half of it weather-treated in that miserable heat, and plans to do the other half tonight after work, bless him. 

me<><

Almost forgot about these.  Sorry about that. 

Ok, so the stump grinder and two men showed up around 10:00 am on Thursday. 

Just before they got there, I scootered around the porch and took photos of all three stumps:

 

This one was out front, at the corner of the  yard, just at the driveway.

And this one at the side of the house toward Lycoming Creek Road:

And this was a pair of stumps at the back:

Sort of merges with the utility pole, and it's behind the big spruce in the back.  So that was the mission.  Obviously the one in the front was the most difficult.

Look how far from the actual stump he had to start grinding - and he didn't begin to get all the root system.

This is about halfway up to the actual stump.  Really!  Before he actually started on the stump, he stopped and Jason re-arranged the dirt/wood chip mixture so they had better access.  While this was going on, the other guy took a chain saw and hacked off the above-ground portions of the twin stumps in the back.  

This is a truly, serious man-toy.  And gets the job done!

It's also very, very messy!  I was sitting on my wicker settee at least 20 feet from the action and I was covered in wood chips, as was the porch. 

The end of the big stump.  He kept going until he was out almost to the asphalt of the road, to make a smooth transition from the yard to the driveway.

By 1:30, including a lunch break, they were finished.  That left the rest for Faron and Jason to clean up on Saturday.

It was fun to talk with the machine operator a bit.  He'd looked at a house up our road last summer, when the house looked like a tornado had passed by.  He was very impressed with how things are looking, and how much work has been done.  And he was equally impressed with Jason's truck, especially when he learned it's 10 years old.  He didn't believe me when I told him, and after J got off the tractor, he mentioned it to him.    "That's a sharp lookin' truck!"

On to Saturday:

Jason was there at 8:00 am to start moving the massive - probably at least two or three truck loads - pile of dirty mulch.  Because there was so much dirt mixed in, Faron didn't want to use it to mulch around the house.  Instead, they decided to use it to fill in some low spots in the yard.  As you can see, that was a bit early for me to be up and dressed and out on the porch.  Got this one through the window. 

They did a great job, though. 

This was at about 10:00 am when I finally went out.  Jason'd made many, many trips around the yard with that stuff! 

 

BTW, those pieces of logs out there are just that - big pieces of logs.  Not stumps. Not sure why they're still there.  Never thought to ask.

They spread lime to help neutralize the acids from the dirt-mulch.  And notice the corn standing upright just one day before Sunday's storm.  Also notice, despite his best efforts, the icky state of the grass back there.  The corn had been growing at different rates throughout the garden down there, so Peter gathered up soil samples and had them tested to see what the problem is.  Seems our field (and we're assuming the whole property) is almost devoid of all minerals and other good stuff needed for stuff to grow well.  We're going to address that this fall with some specially concocted fertilizers Peter's ordered.  We might get pretty flowers and grass yet!

This is the pile of dirt/mulch that they couldn't find a place for, piled behind the pole barn. 

Where the big stump used to be. Amazing difference, eh?

While all this was going on, Jennie came up to do a project with me.  We were doing paper mache in the front yard. 

Those used to be large grape-vine balls that were on top of our china cabinet, "tumbling" out of a big basket up there.  But it was all BROWN!  So I decided to cover them and paint them a deep red, to get some color up there.  This is the covering stage.  And in this photo, Jennie and I were ripping up bits of paper (we tore up two old phone books for this job.) into tiny bits to make (we thought) paper clay to make some "rope" decorations and such on the balls.  The mess of paper pulp and water is still waiting to become clay, Thursday at 1:00 am.  I think it's gonna get tossed.    I'm gonna get me some real rope for that job!  Some Internet advice isn't worth taking.  FYI.

Here are a couple of shots of Jennie "resting".

The shot is me being "artsy" with the photo angles...

This one is more "serious":

We had fun, as we usually do. 

Tiana came up after she got off work and we enjoyed a lovely dinner of chicken cooked on the grill and pasta salad, with Jason's choice of Fudgesicles and Dreamsicles for dessert. 

Jason was making a customized case for his laptop's various accessories, with a nifty little zippered case he'd gotten, and those colorful velcro cable ties.  He was glueing the ties inside the case, in a precise way, so each piece would stay where it was velcro-ed in.  Except for a couple of pieces he wanted to have "options" about.  Tiana made quite a fuss over his "options," until he finally figured out a way to fit everything in, neatly, and permanently.  He used some kind of model glue, I guess, and he says it worked well.  He sure concentrated hard enough!

We love that little chair, btw.  It came from the church we girls all grew up attending.  Hazel and her husband Denny were custodians there when their kids were small, to help make ends meet.  Those chairs were in the Kindergarten room.  Kim and I, at least, used them as children, and when they were being thrown out as the church purchased new ones, Denny nabbed a couple for Jason and, I think, Terri and Ronnie.  Jason's has been in service in nearly every room in our house, back from when we lived in the trailer.  We bought the house when he was 6, so that's been a while.  For years it was our "library table" in the bathroom, holding magazines and other reading material, and often dirty laundry.  Now Faron uses it for a little table next to his rocking chair on the porch. 

So, the stumps are cleaned up.  The ground needs to be smoothed out, but we borrow our neighbors roller and they were away for the weekend.  I guess this weekend they'll work on finishing up the long-awaited task of crown moldings in the living room and dining room.  We have half a dozen projects we're getting done "before Sam and Lois come," the week after Labor Day.  Sam and Lois are such strict and judgmental friends, you know.  Spit spot!  All must be in tip top shape!

me<><

They're not tornadoes, which are actually fairly rare in this part of the world, but short, hard wind bursts confined to a localized area, kind of like this:

 

Our lower garden, shared with our friend, Peter, took a pretty hard hit in Sunday's version of a downburst, which caused a lot of damage throughout the area, worst hit being the area around where Jason & Tiana live.  They had no clue, though.  They thought it was just a thunderstorm.  When their power went out, they just grabbed some chips and salsa and a deck of cards and went out on to their teeny 2nd story porch (or is that a balcony?) and played Rummy.  They eventually went for a walk and realized that something a bit more than a thunderstorm had happened.  Trees were uprooted all over their neighborhood, on cars, buildings, houses, even the portico of the Rehab wing of the hospital. 

Our power was out for about 6 hours, give or take a bit.  We didn't take note of the time it went off.  We were too busy rubber-necking our way around the porch looking at the stuff that'd gotten blown about, and Faron was in shock over the corn crop.  After the first hard bursts of wind and rain had settled, Faron went out and picked up the hanging basket of flowers that was blown off its hook and into the front walk, and a huge potted plant of Tiana's that she'd done her best to kill and Faron had nursed back to good health.  Both survived their cruel treatment.   

The porch was went for its entire depth on all three sides.  That's some kind of circular wind, wouldn't you say?  Faron snapped this photo of branches and pinecones blown off our trees, just after he picked up the basket:

It made quite a pile when he went out later to rake them up.  Just as he was trying to figure where he'd dump them, our neighbors' two teenaged daughters came by in the electric golf cart that gives them so much fun.  They had a little wagon hitched up to the back and they were on a mission to clean up debris that Henry (stepfather to one of the girls) will burn some day when it all dries out.  Henry has always loved a good bonfire.  He's famous around the neighborhood for it.  Anyway, they were scampering around the church's property picking up branches and such and offered to take the pinecones.  There were a lot of branches down at the Mormon church, and this kept them quite busy for a time. 

 

They also reported the cause of our power outage, which was that a tree behind Jack's house (the one kitty-cornered from ours) came down on the electrical lines, which lay sputtering in the field as we spoke.  Wow!  And earlier, when I called Peter to tell him about the corn, I spoke to his wife, Sue, who said he'd been called to a mutual friend's house because their power lines were ripped right out of the house by a falling tree.  Bonnie panicked when it happened because her husband wasn't home.

Peter eventually came down to look at the corn damage with Faron, and they have hopes that it will be OK, even if it doesn't stand upright again before harvesting.

But back to the neighbor girls. When Courtney (in coral) dragged over this large branch, they seemed a bit discombobulated.  It was obviously too big for their cart.  But they soon had it figured out. 

Elizabeth is standing up, holding on to the branch as it rides on top of the cart.  Here's a bit better view of the branch's wild ride as they went zooming up past our house:

The girls' clean-up efforts kept us quite amused while we were without power.  Soon after this, Henry and his wife, Shelly, walked by with their dogs to take some mail over to the post office, and wanted to know if we were all going to have a big camp out.  "Only if you have stuff for Smores!" I yelled back.  They didn't. 

Fortunately, not long after they walked on, we finally saw the sight we were all waiting for:

For all the drama about how the power came to be off, the PPL truck and crew weren't up there long enough for Henry and Shelly to make it back up the road.  Maybe 10 minutes!  Then they backed all the way down our road, and turned around at the bottom of the hill, before going up the other side and out onto and down the road!  "WAIT!  We still don't have power!" 

Another neighbor went by and asked if we had power yet, and then stopped above us to talk to the neighbors' whose tree came down on the wires.  Faron decided to walk up and get in on that conversation and he no sooner got out of earshot than our porch radio sputtered on and I realized the lamp in the living room was on. 

Henry and Shelly came back about then and said the neighbors in the next street over, who were all out on their porches and front lawns, all cheered when the power came back on.  (There are about 2 times as many houses on that street as on ours, at least.)

Amazing how even a small natural "disaster" brings people out of their cocoons and into the neighborhood!  We spend a lot of time on our porch since we rebuilt it, but we haven't had so many cheerfull, even silly, shouted conversations with our neighbors in years.  Probably since the last time the power was out...

Our regularly scheduled blog entry about the stump grinding will appear tomorrow.  I hope...

me<><

It took me a bit to get around to these photos - sorry about that.  Also, I wanted nicer ones of my end of the deal.  Finally got those.

And besides, I'll have new photos to add today or tomorrow - more about that later.

So, last weekend the guys decided it was time to level out the area between the huge stump left from the large maple at the end of the driveway and the new area of the driveway that comes up to the porch for my access.  Faron wants to make it all connect through there so that he (and others giving me a ride) could swing into that part of the driveway facing forward, so the passenger side of the vehicle is almost under roof as we fiddle with my walker or wheelchair or whatever, and then the driver can just keep on going forward to get out of the driveway.  There were a couple of obstacles before - the first being part of the old landscaping that left a dip about 18" deep between the driveway and the lawn around the house, and the second being an even higher area around that stump, where its roots have established themselves over the past 80 years or so. 

 

Faron had gotten a good start on moving the raised area back to the "dip" but Jason's much better at finessing the tractor.  He becomes "one" with the thing - all those years of handling joysticks for video games, we joke.  If it can be done with a Kubota, Jason can do it. 

No more "dip".  It's got a long way to go to be "driveway" material, but the hole is gone. 

The stump, however, remains.  The men had a dreadful time with a few large knots of roots getting them out of their way. Here they are with various tools trying to get a nasty one out:

They worked on that thing for at least an hour, using the tree planting hole thingy, a pick-axe, the reciprocating saw, and a combination of the post hole digger tool and the Kubota, during which Jason bent the handle to the former.  But he later straightened it by driving over it with the Kubota.  The knot, when they got it out, was about a 10 inch round thing!  The roots from that old tree are quite large.  Today or tomorrow, we have a tree stump grinder coming to chew up the whole area, leaving a huge pile of sawdust and rich, loamy dirt.  We have two other stumps they'll grind up, too.  An old chestnut out back that's been there for ages, and another maple we had cut down last year - both impediments to fast, easy lawn-mowing! 

While they were re-arranging the landscape, I was indoors creating a few things. 

This 5x7 inch canvas board is for Jennie.  Her favorite colors, and like me, she loves paisley:

And I wanted a bit of red on one of the shelves in the living room, so I painted this larger canvas (8"x10") with a bold, red letter "M".  Faron dislikes it, but I don't.  At least until something else comes along or I think of something I want to paint over it. 

 

And finally, I painted these two whimsical flower-scapes, adapted from a much larger piece I'd caught a glimpse of on "HouseHunters," on HGTV.  I had two 12"x16" canvas boards so I decided to make mine smaller but more horizontal than the one I'd seen, and I confined my colors to the ones I want to use as accents in the living room.  This shelf is on the adjacent wall to the one with the "M".

The one I saw on TV didn't have any leaves - it was just rows and rows of very simple flowers in primary colors.  I had to make it a bit more my own, you see.  You can't quite tell in this photo, but there are colorations in both the flowers and the stems and leaves.  It was fun to do, and Faron likes these.    We both agree that ideally, there should be a small vase between the two paintings, with red and gold flowers in it.  I mentioned it and Faron said, "I thought the same thing, but I didn't want to have to go and find the flowers so didn't want to mention it."  Silly man. 

My feet are slowly getting better.  When I got up to go to the bathroom and get dressed this morning, they only hurt a bit.  So we'll see.  It's been a slow process.  I suppose it is time for another shot in the tush, but I like to keep them as far apart as possible, and I had one in April.  I'd like to wait until just before the weather changes in the Fall.  Of course, the weather hasn't stopped changing all summer.  Maybe that's part of the problem with my "dogs." 

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Derek's new hobby is to get up close to his brother and say "Cheese!"  He's pretty good at choosing poses, wouldn't you say?  And it seems Jared likes it, too. 

me<><

A few photos from my bedroom window...

This was taken a couple of weeks ago, early morning, as Faron was leaving for work.  I enjoyed the play of light and shadow on the neighbors' lawn.

 

Oh, and that IS our driveway.  All through the spring we were desperate to have grass growing on our lawn, with little success in time for the party.  Faron seeded the lawn about 5 times.  I think most of it ended up in the driveway.  Despite the fact that it's only been a year since we added stones to the driveway, just looked at that fine crop of grass!  We don't think we can afford enough "Roundup" to kill it all. 

This series of photos was snapped out my window a last week one morning when I didn't sleep all night. I started taking them around 4:15 am, and continued through sun up. 

A couple in which the moon shows very clearly as a crescent were with telephoto.

Sorry - couldn't do anything about the screen. 

These two are in the correct order - the darker blue illusion is just because I used the telephoto and the shot didn't take in the ridge and the brighter sky there.

 

They're not nearly as beautiful as the actual events. 

My feet are giving me fits again, bleeding whenever I walk on them, although they are better today than yesterday, after a liberal slathering of Vaseline with Aloe.  I've been in bed since Thursday.

The weekend warriors are busy again, trimming trees today and tomorrow they'll burn the trimmings and a bunch of stuff Jason and Tiana have eliminated from their worldly goods.  Faron bought a set of forks for his tractor's bucket this past week with money he got from selling his old rider mower.  They are a wonderful thing, coming in real handy as they cut tree branches and dropped them right ono the forks, driving them right out onto the burn pile behind the pole barn.  Saved a LOT of steps for those poor men!  (Only semi-sarcastic. I know it's a good thing, especially with Faron's bum right knee and bummer left ankle.  I just can't muster up nearly the enthusiam that he can get going over the tractor and its assorted "accessories."

And this is a cute story as much against Amy and me as amused by Derek.  I bought a book for them last year which teaches early reading skills for small children, on the recommendation of a couple of friends. Actually, I hooked Stacy up with it a few years ago for Magaly and Magaly is reading extremely well as she heads to kindergarten next month.  So Amy and I were looking forward to Derek being the right age - 2 - to start.  He had his 2nd birthday last week, as regular readers know, so Amy sat him down one day this week, and tried to do the first simple lesson.  Derek very politely took the book from her and put it back on the shelf. 

I guess he's not ready yet?

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