Garden Goods

This is what happens when you ignore your garden in order to rear children:

Salads for everyone!



I pretty much own the place.

I just paid my library fines online. With a credit card.
If you'd like to tour the House of Des wing of the library, please give me a call to set something up.

Good advice to keep in mind.

Big changes are hard on everybody. And when you're a little person with minimal control over your life, major adjustments like the arrival of a new sibling, a move to a new house, or a change in childcare often trigger regression. Your child may lapse into baby talk or soil her pants for the first time in months. Rather than getting mad, see regression as what it is: a sign that your child needs some extra TLC as she adjusts.
-Babycenter

I'm not really the kind of girl who wears toe rings.

When we moved in to our house five years ago, I found this broken earring in the carpet. We had out-of-town company shortly after we moved in, so I have saved it all this time in case someone asked me if I found their sterling silver and sapphire earring.

Imagine my surprise when Shirley taught me the real purpose for this "earring."

Book Review

The Scent of Rain and Lightning by Nancy Pickard

Synopsis: Orphaned Jody is all grown up and suddenly has to face the reality of her parents' murders when key evidence that put their killer in jail comes into question.

Readability: No problemo. Well. Except for the fact that Pickard used her thesaurus a little too much. I felt, frequently, like she used too many words to say something relatively simple.

Predictability: Man! I thought I had it figured out, but boy was I wrong.

Couldn't Put it Down Factor: In-between. The first hundred pages were touch-and-go for me, but the rest of the book was pretty exciting. Mostly, I kept reading because I wanted to know if what I thought happened really happened.

Recommend it?: Sure. Not a bad read. This one didn't leave me hot or cold. It was a decent book, but not compelling enough for me to even really remember it enough to review it a week later.

Three out of five stars. Meh. I would like to read more of Pickard's books to determine if she chose to write in this rambling cowboy style to fit the theme of the book of if she always uses too many words. I really did enjoy the plot twists, though.

Ten on Ten

 Good morning, big boy!

 Breakfast?



Making beds.

Still love my pretty bed.

Playing in Sissy's hat.

Pete.

Quiet time with a gift from my girl.

Oiling my favorite cutting board.

Stamp a stack.

Shhhhh...

Ten on ten. Check it out. Lauren's, too.

Are you ready for some...

Apparently something exciting happened in football last week.
It has been FOOTBALL 24/7 in our house for the last two weeks.
Madden 2012 comes out on August 30th, but the demo comes out on August 9th.
A bunch of old guys have a lot of redundant things to say about football on the NFL network and ESPN. And ESPN2. And ESPNespanol.
Football officially begins the same weekend as the marriage retreat (just like it does every year. Just like it causes a paralyzing panic in my husband EVERY YEAR).
All this begs the question:
Isn't it still baseball season?