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1) That you can completely ruin chicken on the BBQ in less than 1 minute.
2) That burning green beans smell EXACTLY like someone's smoking pot in the house.
3) That putting on food to cook and then playing outside with your chidren (bubbles, soccer, baseball, and tag) leads to an unplanned trip to McDonald's for dinner.

4) That butter instead of shortening makes my already fabulous banana bread EVEN BETTER! I didn't think it was possible, but YUM! NOM NOM NOM.

5) That adding fruit to pancakes is not popular with the under 30 crowd in this house...but for the over 30 crowd? More NOM NOM NOM. :D

Also this weekend:
I planted bush and pole beans, cucumbers, cantelopes, and more carrots and radishes.
We weeded the iris and most of the other beds.
NJ learned how to cast a fishing line in the backyard. SA learned to count to four. We all got lots of sun and fresh air, so

HOORAY FOR SPRING! :)

I cannot believe how much we got done this weekend.

- Planted the pole beans, and at least 15 dahlias in various places about the yard
- mowed and weedwacked (bought a new weed whacker today, hubby loves it)
- received a quote for the fence that we might be able to afford. Yay!
- helped NJ practice on her bike
- took girls to the park, twice
- cleaned out almost all the flower beds of thistles and dandelions
- cleaned about 8 loads of laundry - most hung to dry on the line outside
- grocery shopping, hardware store hopping (had to visit 3 to find all the little bits of stuff we needed), lunch out with my girls in the midst of all that
- slept in
- grilled out
- got lots of sun, fresh air, and quality family time...

--- all in all, a great weekend. :D

I don't know why, but I FEEL hungover this morning. I'm not...I had one drink with alcohol in it yesterday, at about 5pm. No way am I hungover from THAT. But, my head aches, my body aches, and I feel like crap.

Anyway, if the weather cooperates, I'll be outside a while today, prepping our veggie garden. I need to turn the soil, rake it flat, and then measure out 1-foot squares. Last weekend I planned out all the veggies we want to grow, when they would need to be planted, how much room they would need - all according to "The Square Foot Garden" technique. If this guy knows what he's talking about, we'll have a lot of fresh-grown veggies this summer, in our tiny little plot (6x7)! If it works well, we might expand it a bit next year to have enough for canning...but that's really getting ambitious.
I sat down and wrote out all the things we need to do each weekend on the family calendar. A lot of items clash with SCA events, birthday parties and other travel plans. I suspect our garden won't do as well as we'd like, unless we (and I mean mostly DH) do a lot of work during the week (weeding, tranplanting, harvesting). Luckily, too, my MIL does a lot of her own gardening, and tends to start more seeds than she needs, so we'll be getting a lot of transplants from her...which saves me a lot of time and work!

I've also been slowly working away at my pile of sewing projects. I found out that many dresses I had made for NJ will fit SA with only slight modifications needed (mostly hems). So YAY! for not needing to do as much. However, the flip side of that means, of course, that NJ needs bascially an entirely new wardrobe to get through Pennsic...that means at least 7 distinct outfits to last 10 days. We found 2 that fit her now. I also wrote down a list of what I wanted to have next Pennsic right after we got home from last Pennsic - smart of me, eh? - and so I've started working on the 5 new chemises and 3 surcoats. My cloak is lined, finally (after 8+ years of wearing it without lining or clasps). I fixed up my rust-brown dress, which is the first dress I ever made. While it has many "not right for medieval re-creation" things about it, I think it is still my favorite item to wear. I get many compliments from it, and its warm, and I can "change it up" with surcoats over top of it. I just need to figure out what kind of headgear would be most appropriate to wear with it.

Anyway, today I want to get a few minor details on these projects taken care of, so they can move upstairs to the attic in the "ready to wear" garb pile. I also need to do laundry, clean up the house in prepapration for the party we're throwing next weekend, and keep my tabs on what's going on at work today (major application upgrade that I've been working towards for 6+ months now).

Guess I should start with another cup of coffee and a shower...

Yes, I know, its late...almost by a week, but its time for the event recap ala Gyzy!

First of all, I love my job. I love that I can work 10 hour days for 2 weeks, some of those from my own house, and get a free day off to attend SCA events without rushing or feeling guilty.

So we packed up during the week last week, and aside from garb and some toiletries, we were packed and ready to go on Thursday night *while it was still daylight*!!!! I can't believe it, but it seems that after 8+ years of doing this together, Maeryk and I are finally getting a system that doesn't leave us carrying heavy boxes out to the car in the pitch dark and ending up with bruises that last the entire event or longer.

Anyway, we arrived noon-ish Friday, set up camp with Fritzi, did the grocery run, and settled in for the weekend. Friday night I heard that Lady Astrid needed some relief at the checkin Gate, so I left the sleeping baby and tired daughter in the capable hands of the Fritzs, and spent a couple of hours "trolling in" folks who were arriving late. The next morning I wrangled the urchins in our camp to keep making site tokens for her, but couldn't get out of family duties to actually go sit at the table and help again.

Spent Saturday in the heat trying to make sure the kids didn't melt. NJ showed signs of getting close a few times...red cheeks and not much sweat and infrequent potty breaks. Had to keep feeding her grapes and watery foods and bribe her to drink water. It worked, she ended up fine. *I* was the one who went down right before dinner. Just felt "off", until Mrs. Fritzi brilliantly threw a wet towel over me and fed me Gatorade. I felt better after that plus some chicken. (which was freakin YUMMY, btw Fritzi.) :D

The fighting was really neat to watch, and seeing Fritzi's oldest boy get to reward a Knight with a token from the Queen, and then proceed to beat the snot outta him on the field was a memory I won't soon forget! :) Too bad his parents missed it :(

Anyway, the girls did wonderfully which makes me comfortable about our plans to go to Pennsic this year, and as usual I had a fantastic time with my friends that I don't get to see often enough. Politics and the like were sufficient to keep things spicy but not enough to make me wanna kill anyone (well, at least, not for very long anyway). So maybe things are getting better? At least they are status quo. :)

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Since then, we've still been dealing with the lack of landline telephone. Last week's huge storm hit the power pole right outside our house, and literally fried every electronic device we have that plugs into the wall. We've replaced or fixed nearly everything, except the Vonage phone adapter. Apparently nobody locally carries these any more, so it looks like I have to get on the phone (cell), wrack up my minutes while waiting on hold, and order one from Vonage directly. Trust me, we've learned our lesson and will also be buying a surge protector that has coax cable, telephone, and power outlets in it.
I've also been working hard at work this week, and really feeling like a robot lately. Apparently this has been felt by family members, so I'm trying to step back and make sure my priorities are in the right order.

I'm leaving tomorrow at the crack of dawn to go help my Mum with her latest chemo treatment. She had it yesterday, so she's probably feeling like crap pretty much right now. I'll go relieve my sister for a couple of days, and be coming home at the end of next week. DD1 will be staying home with Daddy, and we're all going to miss each other immensely. DD2 will be coming with me, since she pretty much still sleeps most of the day so she won't be too much work to take care of. Daddy and NJ will get to do fun things like go see movies and work out in the garage and do school lessons and such. Hopefully the time will pass quickly for them and we'll get back home ASAP.

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Last night we signed the contract to have The Greener Side landscaping company come and take away our rotten railroad ties patio wall, and put up a new stone wall. We gave him the down payment in cash, and we're less than $500 away from having the balance saved up too. Finally!! He's tentatively scheduled to start July 22nd, and should be finished within 2-3 days. All this depends on how much rain we get and whether or not it will push his other scheduled stuff back. So, sometime in the next few weeks, we need to pull up all the slate stones on the patio and get them out of harms way. Yay! DH plans to work on it a little bit every day while at home, so hopefully our earlier plea for help won't be needed...we were expecting to take the railroad ties out ourselves but now we won't be doing that.

Ok, must go get my car over to the shop for its oil change. This has been long and boring enough. :) Later, taters!

32 to be precise. I'm not really afraid of that number. :) I'm at a good place.

( Longer reflections behind the cut... )

On to other topics... I'm looking forward to the rest of the summer. Dorney Park opens tomorrow, YAY I can ride roller coasters this year!! Gotta get together with the Fritz family for Knoebels day(s), too. :) My painting projects are almost finished, and then I can move on to gardening stuff. My regular playdate buddy goes back to work soon, so I'll need to find things to do to entertain a 3 yr old, while having a baby attached at the hip. I go back to work mid-July myself, and I'm already dreading it. *sigh* I need a longer vacation.

This weekend, the first job is to finish painting the bedroom...the second is to try to prevent the local fauna (namely rabbits and deer) from eating my strawberries before I get to! :)