Post Vacation, or, What happened to all that time that was looming before me just a few weeks ago?

I think I take longer to recover from vacation/being gone than I do to get ready to go.  It's taken 10 days, but the laundry is caught up, the house has been completely cleaned once (not in the last half of the 10 days and really could use it again!), groceries are in the cupboards, and the check book is caught up.  2 sons have left for a week-long camp and returned, the husband has left for his camp out. I spoke in church, got Erica to and from work, and Spencer to and from band, enjoyed visits from several family members, had a birthday, planted carrots for a fall garden, found several geocaches with another son, enjoyed some AMAZING rain storms, attended a sealing and an endowment session with Greg, took the kids to the temple for baptisms, registered the last son for 5th grade, bought most school supplies, helped a friend move (a little), took same friend to the airport, saw HP with most of the family, and slept at least 7 hours most nights since getting home.

I still have a newsletter to write, 6 closets to sort through with their owners, 2 other birthdays to shop for and celebrate, soccer practices to start, school clothes to buy, one child to get moved into a dorm, the schedule of one high schooler to get changed, several days to spend helping my Grandma, and an anniversary to celebrate (if we're every at the same place at the same time again!) all before school starts on the 22nd.

Ahhhh, life!  Someday I'll think about recording things on a blog again.  (Thank heaven for plants!)

Thank You!

A road is the only thing that could trump the washing machine yesterday.  What a great week!  The rest of the summer is looking up- we'll be able to get out of the driveway without dropping off a small cliff to enjoy it!

Happy Sounds

 Know what the best sound of the day today is?  Ok, besides the sounds of pavement being laid on the street outside  (hopefully done in the next few days!)?  It specifically is a sound that has never been heard in this house and generally a sound that hasn't been heard for almost a week.  (That's not a good thing, but it could be much worse.) 

It's the sound of this:

washing this:

 because this:

 had given us everything it had and earned a rest. 

Soon the old one will have a final resting place at the dump.  Until then the camp and garden stuff is keeping it company.  The new one is on it's second of countless washes to come in it's lifetime and at least one more tonight.  Hope it's up to the task because the picture of laundry above is just the stuff that's made it to the laundry room- a mere fraction of the love we're waiting to share. 

It's a good day!

An Open Letter to Greg

Dear Greg-

Thank you so very much, I think, for bringing home that box of heavenly goodness.  Please feel free to do so at any time.  Loretta must be one amazing cook.  I do think it is a good thing that you do not travel to New Orleans very often and that we live on the other side of the country or your wife would seriously weigh 500 pounds.  I think that stuff should be on a DEA, FDA, or ATF hit list because I CANNOT stop eating it.  I hope you got some before you left because there's like a 99.99999998% chance that all you get when you get home is a box with a picture on it.  I don't even want to know how much butter is in it.  Good thing it's the 5th ingredient in a list of 6- right behind sugar, which is at least behind pralines and pecans.  One redeeming quality is that I can pronounce all 6 ingredients.  That means the calories are better for me, right?  I must admit that I'm not totally up on what a praline is, but I'll fix that as soon as I'm done here.  They are yummy, whatever they are.  Thank you so much for thinking of us.  We all appreciate it, but mostly me.  So glad you're home! 

Love,
Shan

pra·line/ˈprāˌlēn/Noun

1. A smooth, sweet substance made by boiling nuts in sugar and grinding the mixture.

2. A crisp or semicrisp candy made by a similar process.

PS-I've decided that I love online dictionaries!
PPS- Maybe it's not such a good thing that pralines are the second ingredient behind praline flavoring.  Looks like listing pralines at the top gives one a distorted view of how much sugar there really is in this box- and I notice there's no nutrition label.  Convenient..  This is definitely a time when ignorance is bliss!

Mission Accomplished

For the last several years I've thought it would be cool to make freezer jam from strawberries we grew in our backyard.  Yesterday it finally happened.  We went from this:

 to this:

in rather short order.

It's been declared "yummy" by Steven and now I'm off to try some myself.

pave·ment

pave·ment  (pvmnt)

n.

1.

a. A hard smooth surface, especially of a public area or thoroughfare, that will bear travel.

b. The material with which such a surface is made.

2. Chiefly British A sidewalk.

 

Use it in a sentence:

The best thing about pavement is that we have some (the thoroughfare kind, that is, not the sidewalk kind!).  =)

Curb Appeal

curb/kərb/

Verb: Restrain or keep in check.

Noun: A stone or concrete edging to a street or path.

Use it in a sentence:
I never thought I'd need to curb my excitement over the fact that a curb was poured, but I do. 

Isn't it beautiful? 

It might soon be followed by a road.  After 6 months, I don't think I could curb that much excitement.

Oh, happy day!