The first unofficial weekend of the summer is here! This is a big weekend for us. The kids are marching in a local school parade and then later on Memorial Day we are hosting a baby shower for our daughter-in-law and son who are expecting a baby in June. I tell you…this month has been quite a killer month for me…maybe I should have looked into taking hgh pills or something just to get through it. It’s been brutal. But…I’m very excited for the party to help shower the parents-to-be with lots of happy wishes!
It’s been so cold here in the upper midwest, that we are a full two weeks behind in planting than we would ordinarily be. Just a week ago, I finally got all my tomatoes and peppers in. A few days ago, my five-year-old son and I finished planting the last row of beans, cucumbers and sunflowers. Now we pray for sun and rain in the right amounts and NO MORE FROSTS!
I can’t believe how sore I was from hoeing weeds already. You’d think I was out using goulds pumps and weight-lifting, or something! That’s what happens after a winter of nongardening activities, I guess. We’ll soon be backing in gardening shape, though!
I just got a new phone about a month ago, and tonight I finally got around to doing some app shopping. One thing I downloaded was a free bar code scanner that uses the camera on your phone to scan a bar code and you can then learn the price of the item. I’m not sure if I will ever use it, but it sounded interesting. This leads me to wonder about usb barcode scanners. These nifty little gadgets plug into the USB port of a computer. Not sure why I would need one on my laptop, but good to know I can have one if I want one!
As a homeschool educator who has taught my children from kindergarten through high school graduation, just completing our 16th year of teaching, I consider myself quite well-versed in homeschooling. No, I do not possess a teaching degree…and I sometimes wonder if working toward a teaching degree online would make things easier. Through a process of trial and error, we have found the curriculum materials that work for us and we use them over and over again. Maybe after we’re all done schooling kids I will go back and get that teaching degree online.
We had a fun family outing at the zoo today. Sometimes…it’s those simple little excursions that thrill the kids more than anything. Who needs rollercoasters and water parks when you can stroll around the FREE zoo and check out all the animals? Even my 10 month old was surprisingly interested in the animals. From her first glimpse of the prairie dogs to one final wave to the grizzly bear, little Rachel really enjoyed her first trip to the zoo.
PS…why did the buffalo look like the needed hair loss treatment for men? I couldn’t believe the bare spots on the hides of those bisen! Weird…
Is your bedroom your oasis? I’ve read that in order to facilitate the most restful bedroom, you should remove the television and all media from your bedroom and make it focus on relaxation and restfulness. I have been thinking about this lately as we have been working on our bedroom this winter.
It’s almost time to remove the winter bedding and get out the summer bedding. I haven’t decided yet whether I want to update my bedding or stick with what we have. Some new candice olson bedding or cindy crawford bedding would be a wonderful treat.
We have a brass headboard over our bed…I might like to think about switching though… iron headboards are beautifully rustic and would fit my decor.
I don’t typically use my computer in my bedroom, but if I did, it might be handy to have a laptop bed desk…although this does not follow the instructions for removing media from your bedroom.
What do you think? Do you have media in your bedroom? Do you find it disrupts your sleep pattern or are you okay with watching TV or playing games in the bedroom?
Celebrating a graduation with a party helps recognize the achievement and send a graduate off to other pursuits on a positive note. As you plan a graduation party, the invitations will be an important consideration. Save a little money and make your own graduation invitations with pictures of the graduate splashing the invitation. Using a basic photo-editing program and your own color printer, you can make and print your own graduation invitations.
Open your photo-editing program and open the digital photograph you wish to use for the invitation. Use a recent photograph of the graduate, perhaps a senior picture or a photo with the graduate wearing her mortarboard.
Resize the photograph to 5-inch by 7-inch size using the photo-editing program.
Select the “text” tool and choose a text color you wish to use that will show up over the photograph easily. A light color, such as white, will probably be the most visible over a photograph. Set the text size to about 20 or 22.
Determine the best place to overlay text over the picture to add the details about the party. If the picture orientation is landscape, place the text either at the right or left edge, depending on the picture. If the picture orientation is portrait, place the text at the bottom.
Position your cursor on the picture where you want to begin the text and click your mouse. A text box should appear. Enter an announcement for the party, such as “George is Graduating!” and click “OK” to insert the text.
Select the text tool again, same color text and reduce the size to 16 or 18. Position your cursor below the announcement and click your mouse on the picture to create a text box. Enter the details of the party such as “Date,” “Place” and “Time.” Click “OK” to place these details over the picture.
Proofread the invitation and make any adjustments necessary. Save the invitation as a JPEG on your hard drive.
Print the invitation using your own color printer or transfer the invitation to a flash drive and take it to a copy center.
Sometimes I wonder if we’d be better off in a newer home. Yes, there are times when those manufactured homes can seem appealing. Like, for instance, the other day when my 12-year-old son went to open the door out onto a porch and the doorknob came off in his hand. Or the other day when my husband went between three different plumbing problems within the span of about 20 minutes. No, he wasn’t the happiest hubby at that moment! But then…we would miss the character of our home. The woodwork, the design, the layout. Newer homes can’t replicate that.
Wow…Is there such a thing as using micrometers to carve out more time from a day? If so, where do I sign on for this service?
I need to get the garden in, fence up, big trash out to the curb for pick up next week, dance recital on Sunday, family picnic to celebrate two birthdays, a zoo trip and plan and host a baby shower. All on top of my normal, everyday chaos.
After this weekend, I’m hoping to be able to tick off recital, birthday picnic, and garden.
So, what are you putting into the garden this year? I don’t know about you, but as soon as I saw my garden plots turned over and the rich, black dirt there waiting…it got really hard to keep waiting to plant. Of course, with the spring that we’ve been having, I’d be crazy to put anything tender in yet because we are still regularly freezing overnight. So…I’m making my list of seeds and plants, but not buying yet. I will be putting in tomatoes, peppers (all kinds), beans, eggplants, sunflowers, zucchini, summer squash, cucumbers…no, not hgh…but that’s probably about it. I have a few different tomato and eggplant varieties I’m planting this year that I’m really excited about. Soon!
