An Addiction to Confess

I confess, I've become addicted to Facebook. Neglecting my blog is just one of the symptoms. I might have to go into treatment of some kind if the symptoms don't start to subside. It all started innocently enough, but now I'm on there way too many times in a day. It has its pluses, chatting with my kids at college is one, but the downside is getting sucked into playing these stupid and addictive games for hours on end. I need to find a balance for sure.

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Things have basically been okay lately, but it's been kind of a roller coaster. Some of the lows: DH getting his hand cut at the shop he works at very part time thereby losing a week of income, TB straining his foot, worries about money, kids, parents, etc. Some of the highs: Kids off to a great start at school, winning the grand prize for my Block of the Month group (free quilting on my quilt), a winning football season, fun times with friends, good health, etc. Pretty much like everyone else I guess, life has it's highs and lows. I'm thankful my roller coaster is an easy one right now with no extreme highs, powerful drops to a valley, or twisty upside down turns!

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Before said injury, DH completed our new kitchen table. He had worked on it on and off for about 8 or 9 years I think. The wood was from a big pine tree that was in the back yard of the house I grew up in on the family farm. The tree we always had our picture taken in front of. It had to be taken down when the old house was moved so that my brother could build a new one on the same site. The wood was rough cut into 2 inch planks and DH did the rest all by himself. It think it turned out great and it will be a nice memory for me- both of the tree and DH's work on the table.

Asters, etc.

It's been kind of a weird day today. I woke up in the middle of the night not feeling well and attributed it to all of the stuff I had eaten over the course of the evening. I'm too embarrassed to even say what I ate, let's just say it was quite a combination. Anyway, I'm not surprised it woke me up. Then when I got up for real in the morning, I had a bad eye- red and goopy. So I took care of that and it seemed to get a little better. When it was time to go to work, I realized I had locked my keys in the van. About the time I was going to walk to work, DH said "Why don't you take the little car?" Duh, I hadn't even thought of it. So I make it to work, do lunch and recess duty and then realize "I really don't feel well, kinda feverish". So I took my temperature in the nurse's office, and sure enough, I've running a fever. Great. So they sent me home so that I don't infect the whole school with H1N1 or something. Now I'm really aware of just how crappy I feel, so I was happy to go home. Thinking about it now, I really didn't feel well yesterday either. Sooo, what else would I do once I got home but practice taking close up shots of flowers- with bees on them. Umm yeah, that's smart. I think I'll go take a nap now. Happy Friday though!!

Fall Flowers

It's been a good year for my flowers out in front by the street too. I wish I had more mums, but the phlox, black-eyed susans, and autumn sedum are having a good year. I have some asters for the first time this year. They are nearly ready to open, so I'm anxious to see what they look like. After an early morning at church, it was nice to watch a little football and take a nap this afternoon. Then we went back to church for a book group about "The Shack", a book many in the congregation read this summer. It is always interesting to hear the different perspectives people have on something they've read. Tonight we took a nice walk around the lake. It sure gets dark a lot earlier these days. I wish I had brought my camera along, it was quite picturesque as the sun went down over the lake.

Friday Night

It turned out to be a really nice day yesterday. I met some friends for some sewing in the morning. I made it through the first week of school and it went well overall. After school, I went out with a few friends from work, came home to some homemade fettuccine alfredo that DH had ready for me, and we headed off to the football game. We always sit with a large group of friends from church, share some candy, and cheer on the band and the football team. All of us have kids in the marching band. I mentioned the budget cuts another time and the fact that the band wouldn't be marching on the field this year. It was part of the reason TB decided to give football a try for the first time. At 6'6'' and 165, he's not exactly built like a football player, but he has grown some muscles and probably improved his speed some. His real goal is to make the varsity baseball team in the spring, so he'll have to keep in shapefor that. I went to a tiny school in Iowa, so the city atmosphere of a cross-town rivalry, fancy band, and danceline are all new to me. It's a lot of fun to watch though and we won the game 32-6. TB watched the action from the sidelines; he would have played in the JV game this morning, but it was canceled, so we'll have to wait to see him play. After the game, we went to one of the friends home for munchies and drinks and ended up visiting until 12:15.

Flowers

Here's a couple of pictures of the flowers on my patio. We have a concrete patio out the back of our house with this brick wall all the way around. It makes for a nice place for flower boxes and pots. They have really done well this summer. Usually by now they are looking pretty dead. I guess starting out with some better fertilized soil and the right amount of rain and sunshine has made the difference. I've just never had geraniums that looked like these-kinda cool. I planted more impatiens this year since they do better in the shade than the petunias, but both are doing well, so it was a surprise.

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It will be kind of a busy day today. I'm getting together with my friends to do some sewing this morning. Haven't decided if I'll actually sew or just bring along some cutting and handwork projects. I have to be to work at noon and everyone else has the whole day, so by the time I get there I won't have a ton of time. My new machine is great, but it's heavy and not very portable, so I don't know if I want to drag it along. TB has his first home football game tonight, so I hope the weather will hold. It's been really nice so far this week and seems nice this morning. After the game we'll get together at a friends house, mostly the same group from this morning plus husbands. It's great to have friends. It will also be nice to have the first week of school done. It's had it's ups and downs, but overall been okay.

Harvest Time

Well, it's almost harvest time around here. The crops haven't done so well this year though and the produce will be enough to garnish approximately one side salad. Oh for a sunny spot in which to have a real garden. It hasn't been a good year for the food plants on the patio. I've only had enough basil to make pesto once and my regular tomatoes (all two of them) are still green and show no promise of supplying enough for even a BLT. On of these years maybe I'll go back to having a garden plot in the country. I did that many years ago when the kids were little and it was a disaster. The deer ate all of my beets at the moment they were ready to be harvested. The kids ran wild resulting in one really bloody accident involving one hitting the other over the head with a glass bottle. The weeds had a heyday and very little produce of any kind was harvested. One funny memory was that there was a port-a-potty at the garden. Little TB thought it was the coolest thing ever and needed to visit it every time we were there. I'll have to remind him of that. Ah, those were the days. File under "what was I thinking?!!".

Block of the Month and Etc.

Here's the block of the month for August. You don't have to look at it very hard to see that I didn't do a great job on this one. I got busy trying to finish some other projects for birthday presents for my friends and lost track of time. I put this block together super fast so I could get to the class and get next month's block for free. The deal is that if you show up at class with the previous months block done, you get the next one for free and only pay for the first block. So for both years I've done this I've gotten the entire quilt top for free. I'm cheap that way. Of course many months I've also bought additional fabric, paid for the completer kit, etc., so it's really not all that free. By the way, I didn't get the birthday projects finished either and what I did get done doesn't look the way I wanted. I'm going to sew some button tabs for hanging on the top of these little things and call them good I guess. I loved this "Fruits of the Spirit" fabric and cut the inside block with the sayings from the panel I got. I don't remember the exact name of the fabric line. I tried quilting these with the "hand look" stitch on my machine. I also tried using fusible batting, but it didn't stick for some reason, so I think that's why I have all the puckering. Rats. Hopefully I'll be able to press them out.

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I'm back at work at school tomorrow, so I've been really trying to get caught up on my housework and cleaning before that. I've even cleaned some areas that never get done like under the washer and dryer and under the cushions on the couch. DH just shakes his head and says he should look for an alien pod because it certainly isn't my usual mode. My desk top is even pretty good. I still didn't get that painting project done and haven't done any yard work either. I can't believe how well my flower boxes have done this year. They still look great which is so rare for September. I think it helped that I took out about half of the old dirt when I planted and also planted more of a variety in each box, including impatiens, which have done well. I'll try to get a picture posted of them before it frosts.

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CG and CS seem to be settled in well at college and they start class tomorrow too. TB is doing okay with being the only one left at home, but it is kinda strange to just be the three of us at meals. He's been gone quite a bit for football, so it's been pretty quiet around here. I'm looking forward to the first home game this Friday night and I think we will host the first after the game get together that night. We have a tradition with 4 other couples of getting together after all of the home games.

Still in a slump

I'm obviously still in a bit of a blogging slump. It's not that there hasn't been anything going on, just that I haven't been able to put into words or pictures anything that seems remotely interesting even to me, my most faithful reader. In the past week we've moved our kids around, gotten the older two settled at college. SD (senior daughter) is now officially CG (college girl). I like that better than college daughter, it has a bit of a super hero ring to it. I'm sure she'll be fine and do great, but there's still that part of me that's sad. I've gotten used to it with CS, but it's hard to have one leave the nest. I'll miss our chats in her room, having a shopping buddy, and hearing about all the everyday things of her life. I told DH that I'd try not to dwell on the sadness, feeling like I've been a terrible parent, and if it weren't for the fact that they're turning out so great, that would be hard to do. Thank goodness for Facebook chat, something I'd recommend for any parent of a college student. Even when they don't have time for a regular phone conversation, we can chat a few sentences, and get by until we can talk.

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We've had our back to school meetings at work and I helped at meet the teacher at school last night. It was great to see the kids and their parents. There are always some older siblings there too and it's fun to see how they've changed. I did find last night though, that it's getting harder to remember names after a 3 month break. It was so irritating to see kids that I know so well and not to be able to think of their names immediately. Yet another sign that I'm getting older and the brain isn't working as well I guess.

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After the busyness with getting things ready for college kids, I haven't accomplished much around the house. Painting projects left unfinished, quilting projects untouched, yard work not done, etc. How depressing! I'm looking at the start of the school year as a time for a new start in a lot of ways. Better sleep habits, more accomplished at home, eating better and exercising, Bible study and devotions, etc. Hopefully I'll do better than I did on the New Year's resolutions.

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I promise better posts to come, I have quilt work that I have to do for my class, TB's football games to attend, flowers ready to bloom, etc. so check back for some pictures and more cheery postings. TTFN!