Daily Adventures

The girls have been very productive, indeed... and I've been kind of remiss about actually recording everything.

In July, on the 25th, I actually pulled four frames, or one and a quarter gallons of honey, from the bottom of the two supers I had on the hive, and I swapped the positions of the supers, so that they'd work on the "lower" and half-full super before they worked on the upper one. John and I scraped clean the four frames, and the next morning I put them all back in to let the bees clean them off.

( Cut for Pictures... )

...and the living is eeeeeasy...

Though completely stuffed full of things to do and people to see and things to make and paintings to sell and consultations to fulfill. And it's good. I've also started The New Rules of Lifting for Women by Lou Schuler that sophiap recommended for me, and it's made for some really amazing workouts.

We're swimming nearly every day in the neighborhood pool, and the heat's been averaging in the low-90's, but today it was in the 70's and raining so hard it nearly put out the fireworks stand fireworks we were using at our neighbor's party. We also had a friend from Callahan's days (Johanna) show up at our doorstep and they're staying for the night before going to a family reunion.

( Read more... )

The weather is cooling and the vegetable garden is really starting to produce as the plants figure out that the days are growing shorter.

( Garden produce, exercise update, food explorations. )

The pool is closed now, and today was damp and rainy and in the 50's.

Yesterday, the last day the pool was open was in the high-70's, sunny and clear and warm. So the three of us took advantage of the last opportunity, after a day full of the Sunday school opening, church, and then the after church picnic to celebrate the beginning of the church school season.

( The water was wonderful. )

It's summer. It's official now. We've made our first real ice cream.

Using a real vanilla bean, real cream from the local dairy (not ultrapasturized or ultra homogonized so it clumps just a bit, beautifully, and has that incredible mouth feel when frozen), two eggs, a touch of sugar, and a bit of time and attention over the stove and cooling off before being put into the freezer.

The freezer was well frozen, too, as the paddles did stop and reverse eventually. So it was frozen really nicely. We had the real ice cream with fresh raspberries. It's definitely summer.

( Read more... )

The weekend was chock full of sunshine and way too many things to do.

The garden is doing the explosive first phase growth, where everything starts at nothing, and then goes BOOM into foot tall plants within the first week and it startles me and amazes me as the start session always does. Later it'll be growing just as fast, but with all the existing growth it won't look like as much. All the tomato plants are flowering spectacularly, and the topsy turvy cherry tomato plants are now twice as big as the planter itself. I suspect the plant will touch the ground even from its 20 foot high perch by the end of summer. We'll see. The bees love the plenty.

There was a finished climbing playset complete with water slide and water cannon, the Boulder Creek Fair, putting in a drip irrigation system, a viewing of MI3 by John and I while Jet was the "Money man" for a Tang and cookies stall with Tanner and Macy, a Jacob's Ladder caused a brush by the Bolder Boulder 10k race, two self-watering planters filled with dirt, water, and plants, lots and lots of sunshine, planted the fourth and final First Lady tomato plant, planted all the Green Zebras, a visit to Flat Irons Mall where the boys got Crocs in addition to what we'd gone there for, donuts, lots of coffee, a trip to Shuttles, Skeins, and Spindles, a graduation party for a neighbor of ours that went until 1 am, a BBQ, a skip on church for the first time in a while, a breakfast at Village Inn that was surprisingly good, a homemade baked pancake bigger than my head, a Costco run with resultant artichokes, and waaaay too much Lego Star Wars video game. Jet kept saying, "One more level, Mom, one more level!" and we got through all three Episodes, no problem, and I'm now going back to Be Perfect.

Uhm... not in exactly that order. :-)

What amuses me is that with that much going on I still feel overwhelmed at work even after all that at home.

( A few things of note... )

Work is, as mildly expected, eating my hands again, so I am trying not to write on my days off, much. Even the dictation software takes some wrangling.

We did a ton of stuff over the very hot weekend, though, for me, it was mostly gardening and leg exercises just to keep circulation up. Digging and heavy work, as long as they don't inflame the tendons as much as they exercise the muscles, seemed to only help. But I spent a lot of time with ice packs on.

Jet went to Haley's birthday party at a very nice bowling alley and we all had a blast as he bowled with rails and a ball he could barely lift against his chest with both arms. Every roll was something of a victory. He even tied the high scores from the six-year-olds in his lane, though he was a good head shorter than all of them. That was pretty cool. It was great seeing Ray, Joan, Alex, and Haley again.

The one thing I really want to remember is that John finished building the big, wood playset this weekend and the kids were all over it. Then, late last night, in the last of the warm twilight the three of us were out in the backyard and John and I were talking while Jet was swinging. Jet was just pumping away happily, regular as clockwork, tick tick tick. Vicariously, I enjoyed his enjoyment of the motion, made for no reason other than itself. Ah, kids and summer.

I have to admit that with all the things at work and things happening to my friends, my personal ambitions have shrunk to nearly nothing more than surviving the summer, seeing a few movies, drinking a little coffee and tea, and ( perfecting roast corn. )