gardening

Whew! Three posts at once! A record!

I spent about 2 hours weeding the garden yesterday and found a bunch of fresh produce in there! Obviously, I only got about halfway through and it needs a little more attention:

This side not weeded.....................................weeded.

There's beans under there somewhere.

But look at these gourds!



And this one! I may enter THAT baby in the WV State Fair...the gourd, I mean. Its huge.

Sunflowers should be blooming sometime in the next several days....

Here's part of my "cottage garden" or wildflower garden - that is raucously overgrown, but the birds love it.

Blurry potatoes....but my first potato harvest - ever! We've gotten corn, beans (believe it or not), tomatoes and loads of bell peppers, too. Now I need to find time to preserve it all!

Patterns

What could be better than homeschooling with sugar cereal? I made a pattern out of Froot Loops, piled them on a skewer and stuck it in a wad'o'play-doh. Hannah copied the pattern, then got to eat her creation after it was correct.

Sugar Baby, of course, just ate the loops. And some of the play-doh.

bug bite

Something bit Hannah on her eyelid next to her nose: It could be a spider bite, but I only see one tiny hole, smaller than a pinprick. I gave her Benadryl and she's laying around. She says it feels better now. Its awful looking, but look at those beautiful eyes of hers!

what I did today

I did something today I haven't done in - oh, 11 years?
I went for a job interview.
Now, I was just fine until three different people asked me if I was nervous. I wasn't until I added up their "askances!"
As I went into the storefront building in downtown Covington, I just had to keep putting worry out of my mind. After all, the recruiter had spilled the beans that I was the only qualified applicant, so I figured I'd have a pretty good shot. Once we got chatting about the position, I relaxed and quit being so nervous (thanks, Ma!) and only lost my train of thought once. I think I covered it.
Anyways, they'll give me a call back at the end of August to let me know when I can start, have me fill out paperwork, give me some referrals and so on. The plan is that the job will be less than 15 hours a week and I can set my own hours. Andy will work with me about the girls; HEY - its a free counseling intervention!! We'll have to communicate better about many things, including his many, many evening meetings! Weh-eh-eh-ellll.....
I'll be working in the afternoons, evenings and weekends. Humph. That sounds like a lot. But it will be fine - I'm actually pretty excited! I'll let you know how it goes as it works out.

Nothing else new really. Our house is still on the market and no hits that have amounted to anything. We're just sittin' around, waiting for something to happen.... :)

frugal friday fun and vbs pictures

THIS is what they do when its looking to be a long day inside due to rain - and the girls need an activity....

(those are lentils and dry split peas)

Here's Hannah's VBS crafts - minus the Pharoah's Fly Flicker, which is currently unaccounted for.....
And here are some random VBS pictures:

In the craft cabin the first day making "burning bush" sand art jars....

Some of the kids in the sanctuary during the end-of-day session....I think the highest number we had was 140 a day and about 100 average a day.

Making fly flickers....

And Abigail was never without a friend...here she is with Perry Wiseman, who looked for her every day! For the first couple days she was cooped up with me in the craft cabin, but after that she went with the preschoolers and was fine.

Where did the last week go? V-B-S. Those kids wore me out (to quote Hannah). I'll have to post pictures of our crafts. For the most part they turned out alright, although I was sure the mamas were going to be muttering bad words about me under their breath when the "Pharaoh's Fly Flicker" went home. That was a fly swatter with a frog or a fly tied to it for the kids to whack on. I gave the instructions that they weren't to hit anyone...brothers, sister,s moms, dad, crew leaders....but they probably found a loophole (hmmmm, I see now that I didn't remember to say no hitting grandparents. Oh well, grannies are on their own!).

Saturday, Andy and I took the girls back to the blueberry patch over in Renick and got 3 more big Wal-Mart bags full of berries. I don't know how many we got, but I've put up 3 batches of jam and there's lots more frozen for later.

Sunday, we went to Colin's birthday party at the city pool. We were there for about an hour and a half before we got rained out. It was still a good time...Andy even got in the water! Poor ole' Abigail was shivering in the water but she didn't want to get out. Finally, when I pulled her out to get ready to leave, we looked down and her feet were - oh what a bad Mama I am - a deep shade of lavender up to her ankles. Oh, my. So we bundled her up tighter and cranked the heat up on the way home. None the worse for wear, although we did sleep with the windows shut that night.

Then, yesterday, I needed a day of rest from the weekend! We girls went to Food Lion and CVS and made a great score with the last of our grocery budget....oh, heck, here is what we got:
2 pencil cases
2 index card cases
2 pks binder clips
2 jugs A&H laundry detergent
fem hygiene product
2 composition books
2 pkgs sticky notes
bag chips
bag popcorn (unpopped for the air popper)
2 jars Ragu
2 boxes cereal
pkg pork chops
pkg beef ribs
2 pks pens
jug grape juice
snack bags
2lb peaches
3 hostess-style apple pies

ALL FOR $25.02 at 3 stores!!

We celebrated by going to Humpback Bridge for a swim after nap time. Hannah floated down the creek in the deep part, then raced up the shallow area for another float - over and over again. Abigail preferred to pretend she was a crayfish in the shallow area. I tried to keep my eye on two fun little girls who love to play in the water.....

family update

Well, Hannah's better. After a scare with a fever of 103.5, she woke up perky the next morning saying only her stomach and her throat hurt. She was a little warm, but no real fever. Today, she's off with her Daddy-o to cut firewood, then to lunch and probably by Covington Farm & Fuel for chainsaw blades. MEANwhile, back home, Abba is burning up and poor ole' girl, her fingers and feet are freezing cold. She keeps telling me she's not sick, but she looks peaked and is back down for a nap after sleeping late this morning. I had a dream I couldn't get anyone to cover for me in the craft section of VBS next week. Hopefully by Monday she'll be on her way to better health.

Speaking of VBS, I'm blogging instead of finishing preparation. I have to spray paint lids for our sand art jars. I've had everyone and their brother and sister collecting jars for me and I think I have enough....I have 130 of various sizes, and I understand there's more waiting for us at church. We plan for 150 kids at VBS, and I think last year our busiest day was 140, so I'm about on track. I'll have to post pictures of the projects we do. I think the kids will get a kick out of each of them.

Some friends of ours from Chesapeake are coming to visit tomorrow. Scott & Kit will meet us at church....they are camping about an hour and a half south of Roanoke and will park their camper in our yard overnight and head out for West Virginia on Monday morning. I forgot to tell them I've got to leave early Monday morning to get set up for VBS, but I'm sure they'll understand. The good thing about having company right now is that since our house is on the market, we've been keeping it as spotless as possible. In fact, the laundry is even staying caught up. And thanks to my AMAZING Andy, the basement is organized and tidy....no thanks to me and my "dis"organization skills. But it is nice to not have to panic that we'll be having visitors :)

OK, down to that clean basement to fill it with spray paint fumes. If I post anything a little bizarre later, you'll understand its because I am high off of paint. All for the sake of VBS, you know X)