21 Day Summer Challenge, Day 13

Wow, it is finally summer here, is it ever hot today!  I can't complain though, this is my seventh summer here and in every other summer here it has already been over 100 for a while by now.   Today the high is supposed to be 95, so it's hot, but not too bad relatively.  I had to run out and do some field work this morning and enjoyed watching all the lizards out and about scurrying across the hot desert sand. 

Today's Topic: Summer Craft

 This is one of the topics I don't have much to talk about.  I don't have any summer craft traditions, or anything I look forward to in that category every summer.  I am usually so busy keeping up with my garden and yard work that I don't have time to craft, for me it's more in the winter.  I am of course working on my son's quilt and if you want to see more about that you can click on the label "quilt" on my sidebar and it will take you to all the posts where I talk about quilting.

21 Day Summer Challenge Day 10, 11, and 12

Well here is my BIG 200th post!!!

And oops, the weekend got away from me and I missed a couple more days of the challenge, but the good news is the last three topics work well together in one post:

June 19-Day 10: Summer MUST Haves

June 20-Day 11: Refreshing Beverage

June 21-Day 12: How do you BEAT the HEAT?

The first wonderful thing that qualifies in all 3 categories:

I <3 Fat Tire!!!  I went to college in Fort Collins, CO and it was so fabulous that all the restaurants and bars had fresh Fat Tire on tap that was brewed within days.  I can't get it so fresh here, but I love a good ice cold bottle on a hot summer day!  One summer there was a crew of CSU students working on a project for the forest my husband works for and they brought a fresh keg from Fort Collins as they came out for a summer gathering and it was oh-so-delicious!

From the summer "must haves" fresh tomatoes in the garden.  Can you believe I already have a tomato this big (insert shouts of joy)!!!  I started two tomato plants in April in Burpee Aqua Shields, and soon I will be feasting on this baby!

Another "must have" is pretty flowers.  When we bought our house there was a nasty old rose bush in front and the first year it had about 4 ugly sick little pink flowers, and then never bloomed after that.  Finally after many years of trying everything to get it to bloom I had Dustin dig it out and replaced it with this climbing rose called "4th of July." 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Half way there!

I finished piece 6 of 12.  I have one more piece already ironed that I am embroidering, and then I need to cut the pieces for the other 5.  I am still debating on what to include, so far I have a barn, cow, pig, apple trees, sun, combine, and tractor.  I am thinking about an ear of corn, a pumpkin, a horse, a chicken, and maybe a farmer.  Do you have any other good ideas for a farm theme?

21 Day Summer Challenge Day 9

Today's topic:  Childhood Swimming Memory

I meant to take the camera today when we went to the pool and I forgot, darn it!!!

I know we usually had some type of kiddie pool in my yard every summer.  I think one summer when I was a bit older my Dad put a stock tank in the yard and filled it for me so it would be deeper than a kiddie pool.  In my home town there was an indoor pool, so you could swim there year round.  I did take swim lessons during the summer though when school was out.  I was really a pretty good swimmer since I started lessons so young.  I remember once as a kid we went to my Dad's side family reunion and I was about 7.  My Aunt made me wear those goofy water wing arm blow up things and it made me SO MAD because I was already a proficient swimmer, but my cousins could not swim so she made me wear them like everyone else.

21 Day Summer Challenge Day 7

Here it, the much anticipated Day 7 post...drumroll please, LOL!

I had a really hard time coming up with what my #1 favorite memory of summer is.  I guess most of the major life events for me have happened in the other seasons.  And thinking back to my childhood I have a lot of great memories of going to the mountains and camping and fishing, visiting family, helping in the garden, riding my bike, and all those typical type memories, but one particular time did not stand out. 

I also thought about how every summer when I was in high school I was able to go live in another state for about a month.  The summer before freshman year I went to Florida with my brother to see all the Orlando attractions and ended up staying with my Aunt and Uncle until my cousins came for a visit to Cocoa Beach.  The next summer I went to New Jersey where I stayed with my brother.  Each weekend we did something adventurous, the first weekend we went to New York City and did a bunch of site-seeing and saw Cats on Broadway, the next weekend we drove to Washington DC and saw the sights with some of his friends, the third weekend we drove to Maine and camped out, then the final weekend we went back to the City and saw Grease on Broadway.  The last summer I went somewhere I stayed with my cousin's in Iowa, which was full of Iowa summer experiences, fishing, demo-derbies and a corn festival.  All three of those summers were memorable, but how do I pick the "favorite" one?

But, then I realized that one major fun event did happen in summer, in August of 2005 my sister, who was my Maid-of-honor, hosted my bachelorette party in Las Vegas.  I live about three hours from Vegas, and I knew it would be relatively inexpensive for people to travel there, so I requested it.  Only I asked that we not do the typical bachelorette stuff like male reviews or strip clubs because it is just not my scene.  So my sister invited all the ladies in my family and 7 of my cousin's also attended, three from Iowa, one from Georgia, one from Florida and two locally.

So they all flew in on a Thursday night and I was able to pick everyone up and take them to their hotels.  My sister got us a suite at The New Frontier Hotel/Casino.  We all gathered at the Frontier and went to the bar there and had some drinks.  It was the first time to Vegas for three of the cousins, and we were all a bit shocked by the bikini bull-riding Vegas style, WOW! 

Friday we went and toured Hoover Dam, then that night we went to a big dinner then to the Comedy Club at Riviera.  It was such a fun night, my sister got us all pink boas to wear so we would stand out as a group.  The maitre de at the Riviera put us in a group spot right next to the stage, I mean I could literally put my elbow on stage.  All three of the comedians had been on Seinfeld before and I don't remember the names of the openers, but the main guy was Dom Irrera.  All three comedians saw the pink boas and incorporated us into their stand up, it was way fun!!!  For the show my two cousin's who live in Vegas also brought their husbands, and the middle comedian came over and said to one of them "so what are you doing in the middle of a bachelorette party?"  then he walked over closer to us and looked an saw that Nick (pictured below) had a boa in his lap and the commedian goes "and even more importantly what are you doing with a pink boa?"  And I won't mention exactly what Dom said I could come backstage after the show and do to him since I was the bride-to-be. (oh and BTW, Nick actually kept and wrapped the boa around this rear-view mirror in his truck)

Saturday they had the gift shower for me in our suite.  Afterwards we went to the Fashion Mall and had facials and make-up consultations at Macy's so I could buy my makeup for the wedding.  That night we decided to do more night sight-seeing on the strip for those cousins who had never been there before.  That is when we had the glow in the dark necklaces in the picture above.  We made the big-fat-mistake of trying to walk and were SO TIRED!!!

It was not your typical Vegas bachelorette party, but I wouldn't have had it any other way!

Butterfly quilt

I pulled out my old cd's that I backed up folders on to try and find the photos I want to include in my 21 Days of Summer Challenge for day 7.  In the mean time I am finding a bunch of fun old photos.  Here is one of the other quilts I did for my niece.

21 Days of Summer Challenge Day 8

Ok, ok, ok I know I missed the challenge yesterday, which the topic was "Favorite Summer Memory".  I kept trying to think of what my #1 best favorite memory of summer was, but honestly most of the major memories I am fond of happened in the other seasons.  Not that I never had fond summer happenings, just not one capstone time when I would give it that all time favorite designation.  BUT, I did think of something today that I can write about, but I want to add a photo or two when I get home, so I will go back and do day 7 later today.

Now on to today's topic: Summer TV

So my favorite TV shows are:
Survivor- currently not airing at all
3 of the 4 Monday night sitcoms (How I met your Mother, 2.5 Men, and Mike and Molly)- In re-runs
Big Bang Theory- Re-runs
The Amazing Race- currently not running
American Idol (occasionally)- currently not running

That is mostly what I take the time to watch, so right now I am just out of luck on my favorite TV shows.  But it's summer right?  So no temptation to sit in front of the tube and waste away- time to get up, get out of the house and have fun!

Much better!

I just wanted to write a quick note to say that the rest of yesterday and today are going much better for me!  After all the stress about the t-shirts I told the guy that he either need to print some of the shirts in the right colors, or give us a deep discount and he came back and said he would just re-do the whole order since he wanted me to be 100% satisfied.  I still don't get why he changed the color scheme, he said it was to save me on the set-up, but I never asked for that so I'm not sure why it was ever implied. 

Getting used to this new schedule is going mostly good.  Austin did fantastic yesterday with his first full day at the Learning Center.  They claim he is doing well with potty training there, even though he refuses the potty at home.  As far as I'm concerned, if they do the work and he gets it there, then all the better for me!  I realized yesterday in all the craziness of the morning that I forget to set out some meat to thaw in the fridge for dinner, so we had to do a quick frozen pizza for dinner.  I will have to adjust to having meals ready to go when I get home at 5:30pm, either ready to cook, or already cooked in the crock pot.  I guess one big benefit for my blog is that I now have a mandatory 1 hour lunch break which is giving me plenty of time to blog since I live too far away to drive home.  I had thought about going and visiting Austin during my lunch, but I'm afraid that when he sees me it will make him want to leave, so it's easier on him for me to stay away.

21 Days of Summer Challenge Day 6

Today's Topic: LEMONADE Stand

I grew up kind of out in the country, it was a ranchette style acreage subdivision, so it wasn't really the right kind of place to set up a lemonade stand.  I now live in a little town where everybody knows everybody and it's pretty safe, and the neighborhood kids always have stands.  I try to stop and buy a cup when  I see one.  I have a confession though, I'm a bit of a germ-a-phobe and I often won't drink the lemonade from a stand because I think kids often lick the spoon when they mix the lemonade and it grosses me out.  

As for recipes, I used to make one where you boil the water and dissolve the sugar before adding fresh squeezed lemon juice and zest, but often I am too lazy to go to all that effort.  So my quick and easy version is I make a batch of Kool-aid Lemonade and then take one or two fresh lemons, scrub them, and then cut them in half.  I squeeze half the lemon into the Kool-aid, then slice up the other half very thinly and add the slices straight to the lemonade.  The rind of the slice kind of help build the flavor, and the tiny bit of pulp from the squeezed lemon makes if feel like real fresh lemonade.

Are the planets out of alignment today?

Oh man, it is one of those days!!!

It probably didn't help that I had a four day weekend, last Friday was a tribal holiday and I started a new work schedule this week where I will take off Monday's to have a day with Austin, then work four full days.  So it was a little hard to get back to the grind today.


So Dustin had to get up way too early so he could go catch his horses at work and get them ready for the horsemanship class he is teaching today.  I know he intended to get up early, but he was up at 4:30am.  I think it's one of those times that he was thinking so much about the class that he didn't get into a heavy sleep and woke up and decided to get going since he was awake anyway.  After he was up for a bit getting his clothes out of the chest of drawers I heard Austin start to whine.  He often has trouble sleeping soundly when there is a full moon, and I think that is part of why he woke up when he heard Dustin.  I left him to see if he would fall back asleep, but by then I was pretty awake.  Eventually I dosed back off, but was awakened to Austin crying again at 5:50am.  My alarm is set for 6:15am, and usually I am able to get up, have a cup of coffee, check my Facebook and shower before I wake him up at 7:00am. When I got in there his binky was wrapped up in the blankets and he was missing it.  I think had he found the binky he would have nodded back off for the usual wake up time.  Since he already saw me though, his day was on.

So I get him up and go to get him milk and Cheerios.  As I go to pour the milk it hits the side of the cup and knocks it over spilling milk all over the top of the island.  I get that mopped up and get Austin situated watching cartoons.  I sneak into the bathroom for a quick shower and get all the other stuff done (take out trash, load the recycling, laundry, dishes, etc.)  that I needed to do minus watering my garden, which I can do tomorrow. 

At work I start checking my emails, and there are a bunch since I haven't been to work since last Thursday.  I get one from the t-shirt printing company that I work with who was doing an order for my sorority alumni chapter.  He sent me a proof last Friday and said to let him know if it was ok and they would print the shirts this week.  The color scheme was off so I sent back an email to inquire about why the colors were different.  In the mean time I check my junk folder and there is an email from the printer from yesterday saying the shirts are done, was I going to pick them up or should they mail them.  Oh crap, the proof was not right, and they printed them anyway, ugh!  So now I'm stuck with either accepting them as-is or being the mean one and demanding that they print new ones.

And the day is only half over, sigh, I hope the afternoon and evening go better!

21 Day Summer Challenge Day 5

Today's Topic: Summer Vacation

We don't really do a summer vacation because that is when my husband is super busy at work in his field season.  If we do summer trips it's more out of necessity than pleasure.  This summer we are taking a mini trip back to Colorado to see Soundgarden at Red Rock's Amphitheater because that is when they are touring and it is Dustin's Father's Day gift request.  The last two summers we took mini trips back to Iowa for Dustin's nephews high school graduation parties.  Let me tell you, it is MISERABLE to visit Iowa in May and/or June, my southwestern lizard skin cannot handle the humidity and heat back there!


We have been taking a real vacation to commemorate our anniversary every year since we got married, which is in October.

• 1st: Estes Park, Colorado where we stayed at the historic Stanley Hotel and visited Rocky Mountain National Park.
• 2nd: Moab, Utah where we visited Arches and Canyonlands National Parks.
• 3rd: Durango, Colorado and visited Mesa Verde and took a trip on the Durango-Silverton Railroad.
• 4th: Colorado to purchase a truck and visit family. (Ok so maybe this one didn't count as a real vacation!)
• 5th: San Francisco, California and road trip up to Vina to see some friends from college and back along the coast and by way of Armstrong Redwood Forest.

For our sixth we are planning to go to San Diego, California to go to the Zoo and Sea World.  That is unless we move and then we might consider Yellowstone National Park.

21 Day Summer Challenge Day 4

  

Today's topic: Summer Goals

Wow, this challenge is keeping me on my toes when it comes to blogging, I will be over 200 posts before I know it!

Hmmm, summer goals.  I haven't really set any out in writing or anything, but I guess in the back of my mind I would like to go camping more this summer.  I would also like to finish Austin's quilt, but that will be a goal until it is finished.  It may be by the end of summer, but it may not.  I'm sure he will have it before he goes off to college, LOL!

I am a little bit not committing to too many things since at any time we might get a new job and be moving, but then again we may not, but since it's up in the air I hate to set anything in stone.  I am not doing too many things to the house, other than those that are necessary since we hope to be selling it in the next year or so.

I don't know if it fits as a goal, but we are going to Colorado in July to see Soundgarden at Red Rocks.  That should be a fun trip.  It would be even funner if it ends up also being a house hunting trip if we get one of the jobs we are currently applying for!