• Blog

    T Tuesday: ice tea edition

    July 21, 2015 - By 

    Last week was very hot and humid around here. Friday night or very early Saturday morning would be more accurate, we had a batch of crazy weather blow through. Lucky for us we had no real damage…just lots of small dead branches blown from our trees. There was a tornado about 20 miles west of us that overturned cars. Again…very thankful that didn’t come through here!

    Since I was drinking so much water all week, I decided to change it up a bit and make some “iced tea”. 20150717_8252Honestly I think it’s more of a tea flavored water. I brewed three different teas in 2 cups of water added 1/2 tsp of raw honey then filled the pitcher with water. 20150717_8255It was actually quite tasty and a nice change from plain old water.

    During the extreme heat the deer decided that it would be much easier to forage close to the house…they ate my beans and flowers.pesky deer

    So we had to take drastic action with the gardens….deer fencing fencing

    Seriously tall fencing around both gardens. But just look how full that garden is!!! This is what it looked like June 1st…update2

    Yes I know it has been 50 days but wow! Those babies were started from tiny little seeds. Nature never fails to amaze me!

    We were outside chatting about the garden and talked about possibly expanding into another space.potential garden space

    The space is next to the garage…totally unused and a southern exposure. Perfect for a garden. We could double our current gardening space and still leave room for a wood pile for the fire pit!

    Did I mention I canned some spicy beans yesterday straight from the garden?spicy beans

    I love having a garden!!

    Now that the weather has cooled down…for the time being at least, we’ve been enjoying some of the wonderful parts of living in Minnesota.

    Relaxing on the patio….gracie lounging

    Windows and doors open with a fan blowing in the nice cool air…50s fan

    Like my cool vintage fan? emerson seabreeze

    It’s from the 50’s…it been around.

    Oh so punny…don’t blame me for both…Little J had a hand in one pun. 🙂

    This photo is for Denise…We visited one of the libraries on her list yesterday.  It also happens to be the library…ok technically this is the new location…but the library that issued my very first library card. reader beaverThis reader beaver was donated to the library somewhere around that same time.

    Are you tired of reading my ramblings yet??

    I have one last thing to share…the beginnings of a journal page.start of a journal page

    Not exactly sure where this one is going but I’ll be sure to share it when it’s done.

    Today is filled with appts for the kids. Gotta get those appts in while they are out of school. Only 42 days left..not that I’m counting. *wink*

    What are you doing today?

  • Art - Blog

    SOC 5: week 6

    July 17, 2015 - By 

    I’m sad…it’s over…The Summer of Color hosted by Kristin of Twinkle, Twinkle is really done with this last set of colors.

    SOC 5 week 6 orange+orange+blue

    1 orange+ 1 orange + 1 blue

    I know the Golden color says red oxide but it is totally orange.

    SOC 5 week 6 orange+orange+blue

    Just look how dark orange it is!!

    SOC 5 week 6 orange+orange+blue

    I decided on some very Dr. Suess like flowers in blue for this weeks journal page. I used a Prismacolor watercolor pencil to draw the basic shape then went in with a water brush to give them movement and dimension.

    My found text came last…although once auditioning the text on the page I realized it really needed a bit of white splatters so the text wouldn’t be so stark.

    Once again thank you to Kristen for her hard work and dedication to the yearly challenge!

  • Blog - Photography

    T Tuesday: exploring edition

    July 14, 2015 - By 

    Today for T stands for Tuesday I’m sharing a little snippet of a local outing the kids and went on last week.

    We went to the arboretum. It was a gorgeous day. Sunny but not hot.arb collageAfter walking around, snapping photos for a couple hours we headed off for lunch. We decided to try a place that we’d been very disappointed with in the past. Why would we do that? Well previously it was a dinner and it was at least 5 years ago. Why not try again? lunch dates

    Little J and I really liked our meals. Big J was indifferent. His food was kind of tasteless without the specialty sauces that came with it…which he didn’t care for.

    Overall it was a good experience that I’m glad we tried again…other than the price tag. Yikes! Oh well…we don’t go out that much and it’s summer. Gotta have a little fun.

    I’m off to drop one at volleyball and do driving lessons with the other. I’ll be back to check in with my T stands for Tuesday friends as soon as I am able.

    What are you doing today?