Josh Turner Concert!

Last night we went to go see Josh Turner! My mom bought me two tickets for my birthday. He was playing in Stockton which is really close to us. My mom also got tickets for her and my step dad. They wanted to meet to go to dinner before hand but Scott of course couldn't get home in time to do that. I'm thankful he has a job but sometimes I get really tired of him not being able to do anything because apparently he is the one that holds the place together. Nevermind the fact that he has vacation time and can't even get a vacation.

So he got home in time for us to run and get something to eat real quick on the way (slacker me hasn't cooked all week). We got there after the doors opened but before anyone actually started playing. Eastin Corbin was the opening act. He was good but I swear it sounded like he was eating the microphone sometimes. I couldn't totally understand all the words. It would have probably helped if I knew all his songs, which I didn't. Just the ones they play on the radio.

After he was done it took about 1/2 an hour and then Josh came on. His whole concert was great! I was kind of wishing the venue was someplace where it was more appropriate to stand up and dance around though. This place is an old theater so all theater type seats. Makes it hard to dance around.

I wasn't able to take any pictures since I didn't want to chance taking my camera in and my cell phone takes shitastic pictures in the dark. All in all it was pretty fun. If he comes around again I'm going to try and get closer seats and take a girl friend so I can let loose a bit more. Scott makes me feel all self-conscious for some reason.

Happy Birthday!

Look who's 17 today!!

Bbbbzzzzzz

Yesterday for work we went for a training. Trainings are usually pretty boring and I try to avoid them unless they are somewhere awesome, which rarely happens for someone low on the totem pole like myself.  The one yesterday was a training on hedgerows, which doesn't sound too exciting but it's about plants and those are right up my alley.

We've been working on the hedgerow at work since last year. Everything was growing really well out there. In fact, too well. All the weeds were taller than the plants! So they mowed down almost everything, sprayed it with something that wasn't supposed to be TOO bad for the environment and replanted about 50 bushes that the rabbits and gophers ate. I was pretty sad to see them mow down all those flowers but I guess in the long run it's going to look better.

Anyhow, back to the training. I wanted to go to the training so I'd learn more about them but also so I can get more information to maybe plant one across the street from my house.

I mean, it would look so nice if I had something like this to look at (That is actually 2 hedgerows, one on each side)

instead of the field in the background of this picture

Of course mine would have to start off on a smaller scale. The idea is to plant native bushes in a row of sorts and then you plant native flowering seeds in a row next to the bushes. If the plants are native they don't have to be watered very much, if at all (although the ones they had there that were watered with a drip line looked 75% larger).

Also when you have native plants you get more native bees. Now a lot of people don't like bees, and before I started working at this job I didn't quite understand how important bees are. It's pretty basic. If you don't have bees, you don't have food. End of story.

I learned quite a bit about bees at the training. Mostly from the gal from the Xerces Society, who is also the gal that's been helping us with our hedgerow at work.

The bees we see in the boxes? Those are not native bees. The cute big fat fuzzy bees you see? THOSE are native bees. Here's one I caught on the hedgerow. I think I'm turning into a geek because now when I see a fuzzy bee I get all excited.

"LOOK LOOK A NATIVE!" When I can start spitting out the scientific names for them you'll know I've completely crossed over.

I'm sure Scott loves how now I'm all "DON'T KILL THE BEES!!" He's allergic to them so he's always afraid  of getting stung and freaks out when they fly around him.

Something Mom's Don't Want To Hear On The Phone!

Sunday night I was trying to relax after the big Easter party when the phone rang. Jessica was crying and said she had just got in a car accident.

She was ok but wanted us to "come quick".

So we jumped in the car and drove to town. She had stopped at a flashing red light and the truck in front of her had started going and then suddenly stopped and she ran into the back of him.

We were so relieved she was ok we didn't even freak out about the car. Even though it looked like this.

The truck she hit had a tiny bend to the bumper and that was it. It's too bad it was a rental truck because I'm sure the guy wouldn't have even turned it in to the insurance if it wasn't.

Scott was able to drive it over to his mom's house. I went over there the next day and it was looking more like this.

He is still going to have to replace the hood but now I can at least see it as "fixable". It's a good thing there are a lot of them at the junk yard for him to get parts off of.

Easter & Another Birthday

Lots of pictures so I'll leave them smaller, click to make bigger :)

Friday night I took Trevor and Melissa over to my brother's house to spend the night. Saturday Jess and I did all the shopping for Easter, went to lunch and saw Water for Elephants (which followed the book rather well!) Saturday night I went and picked up the kids after shopping, came home and instead of cleaning or cooking anything I laid around being exhausted. Jess took over and helped the kids dye eggs, made the cake I was wanting to make and cupcakes too. She even washed up all the stuff. Can we say AWESOME. So nice to have help around here. I don't know what my problem was but I just could.not.get.up. 

My kids plus my nephew who came to spend the night.

Look at this awesome egg Jess made.

The next morning I got up at 6 after laying there for a couple hours thinking of everything I had to get done. I got busy making the potato salad and the mac salad and the green salad. Scott went out and hid the eggs for the kids. Trevor knows we are the Easter bunny now. It's nice not to have pressure on being the bunny if you know what I mean. 

Looking for eggs

My strawberries (got sidetracked from the kids and the eggs lol) Too bad some have bugs IN them. My MIL said she used to put newspaper under them to keep the bugs out. Maybe that's one of the reasons why they put the black plastic stuff under the plants?

After cleaning my ass off the kids and I stuffed a shitload of plastic eggs with candy. After everyone got here we went out and  hid them so they could do another hunt with my niece who is now old enough to figure out to find the egg. This is the first time I've done a hunt after everyone was here. It was fun! I'm thinking next year we should do a scavenger hunt for the big kids or something. 

Isn't she cute?

Everyone thinks so, they are all trying to get a pic of her lol

Poor Rusty, sent to the slammer

Scott BBQ'd chicken & tri-tip, it was yummy

My mom brought over these outfits for the boys to get some pictures. Aren't they cute? 

Everyone thinks so lol

One with the cutie pie

All the grandkids

Melissa loves the vest and hat

I bought this fun ladder game at Target. I want to get a new game every year for us to play. Lucky for us it didn't rain this year so we could enjoy it!

My nephew has this game, bag-o's. The guys had a great time playing it.

I spent quite a bit of time sitting on the porch watching my niece and Jessica blow bubbles and play with chalk. 

She was pretty tired by this point, look at her eyes lol

And we were celebrating Jessica's 17th Birthday, which is on Friday. She made the Peeps cake I wanted to make.

It was a lot of fun but I was sooo tired by the time everyone left. Little did I know my night wasn't over.

Easter 2010

Easter 2009

More Digging In The Dirt

Yes, it's another yard post! Yesterday I spent all day "out in the field" at work. Walking around orchards looking at thrust blocks. I was pretty exhausted when I got home and was thinking seriously about taking a nap. I took the dog out to potty when I got home, and then?

Never went back in.

I ended up cleaning the back area up a bit more and planting some bell peppers back there. .I made it just a bit wider. This picture shows me just how much we need to paint. Such an ugly spot on the wall from the air conditioner dripping.

It was kind of warm back there so I I went and sat down in the front and had some water and noticed a bunch of grass coming up in the flower bed so I weeded that.

Then I went all the way down the side of the house and cleaned up the weeds growing along it. If my husband would just get the weed eater working I wouldn't have to do this. We bought a really nice one a few years ago. Then something happened where he needed to change something on it. I keep saying we should buy a new one and he'll say "I'll fix it". Which never happens. So I just end up digging along everything because I hate the grass growing up next to the house/garage/flower beds. I'm pretty sure I'm ready to make this side look a bit more like the other side of the house, with some low maintenance plants.




It looks a bit messy here but it's a nice and care free garden. Don't mind the hose I was watering.

I had to drag myself away from working outside because everyone was hungry.

Oh have I ever showed you guys these little bugs we get on our house every year? They turn into lady bugs. It's the weirdest thing. They attatch to our house and then eventually out climbs a lady bug.

After dinner I took a shower and waited for Scott to get off the computer. He's working on a resume. His friend is trying to help him get a job with UPS working on the converor belt things. He's changed it about 4 times now. He sends it to his friend and he says you should change xx and then he spends hours working on it again.  Eventually I fell asleep on the couch waiting for him to be done.

I'm so sore today. Especially my legs. It's raining a bit. Hopefully it stops so I can work out on the yard some more when I get home. Love this time of year!

PURPLE!

This morning when we were running to the car I notice just how pretty my yard was looking.

Minus the ball of course. That bush is looking pretty spectacular right now. It was an impulse buy when I bought it and I just plopped it there. I kind of wish it was in a different spot now but I'm not going to take the chance on moving it.

After work I went out and mowed the back yard and the big side yard

It doesn't look that great but the grass was REALLY long a couple weeks ago and Scott actually ran it over with the truck a few times just to get it down enough to run over.  We have a mulching blade on the mower and the cuttings are so thick over there in the back.

That red house back behind? It looks like a total dump and probably is on the inside but it has the cutest details and would be awesome if it was fixed up. The man that lives there is a widower. He comes out a few times a year to whack down the grass and roll some more cheap roofing stuff on the roof. Occasionally I'll see him driving or at the bar and he introduces himself to us almost every time. We've only lived here almost 18 years and he still can't remember who we are. Someone told me once that when his wife was alive they used to have great parties back in that garage (on the left). Kind of sad to think of how someone's life can change so much when their spouse dies.

Well I can just about feel my hands now. They finally stopped vibrating from the mower.

Do you know your neighbors?

The Lake of Dreams

The Lake of Dreams by Kim Edwards

I think it's such a strange coincidence that just the other day at work we were talking about "cultural resources". A gal at work had just went to a training and she was talking about how they had went to a site,  and she had found a few Indian bones. At this point the biologist that works in the same room said he had some photos of things he had found on a job site. He pulled up the pictures on his computer and we talked about the arrow head and piece of skull he had found. I asked what they did with them and he said they just rebury them because it takes so much to preserve them, and how the Indian's really don't like the artifacts moved anyways, since essentially you are digging up someone's Grandpa.


Then I read this book, which centers so much on where we come from, who walked the same land that we walked, and how we need to preserve what has been left behind.


Crazy coincidence.


Here's a bit about the book from Goodreads

With revelations that prove as captivating as the deceptions at the heart of her bestselling phenomenon The Memory Keeper's Daughter, Kim Edwards now gives us the story of a woman's homecoming, a family secret, and the old house that holds the key to the true legacy of a family. 

At a crossroads in her life, Lucy Jarrett returns home from Japan, only to find herself haunted by her father's unresolved death a decade ago. Old longings stirred up by Keegan Fall, a local glass artist who was once her passionate first love, lead her into the unexpected. Late one night, as she paces the hallways of her family's rambling lakeside house, she discovers, locked in a window seat, a collection of objects that first appear to be useless curiosities, but soon reveal a deeper and more complex family past. As Lucy discovers and explores the traces of her lineage from an heirloom tapestry and dusty political tracts to a web of allusions depicted in stained-glass windows throughout upstate New York-the family story she has always known is shattered, Lucy's quest for the truth reconfigures her family's history, links her to a unique slice of the suffragette movement, and yields dramatic insights that embolden her to live freely. 

With surprises at every turn, brimming with vibrant detail, The Lake of Dreams is an arresting saga in which every element emerges as a carefully place piece of the puzzle that's sure to enthrall the millions of readers who loved The Memory Keeper's Daughter. 


I totally loved this book. The beginning is a little slow but it's just the set up of information needed to fulfill the full story. I think the fact that I live along the river, I work in a conservation office (although we hardly have time to do more than sprinklers and dairy ponds lately) and that my husband and children are walking around carrying some Indian blood in their veins totally contributes to my feelings about it.


Have you read this book? How about her other book, "The Memory Keeper's Daughter"? 

Worker's Comp!!

So today I went on a "field visit" for one for one of the engineers at work.  I went out to take some pictures of thrust blocks. They aren't as exciting as they sound. Anything with the word thrust should look more exciting than this

This particular inspection was at an almond orchard that is right next to a canal. To get to the orchard you drive up on the canal. Which is fine, until you go to leave and have to make the decision on if you 

A.) Want to back out the whole length you drove in

or

B.) Take the chance of going forward and there possibly not being an OPEN gate and having to back up the WHOLE canal. (Been there done that)

Of course I didn't really think of this when I first drove on the canal. I was just looking for the pump and filter station. Which I found. I parked and got out.

And realized that those buildings over to the left were chickens. 

 Then I started walking to find all the areas where the thrust blocks were. Did I mention that I wore capri pants today? And white tennies? And it had just rained a little bit? And there was stinging nettle? Lucky for me I didn't fall or touch any of that nasty stuff. Thank God I knew to avoid it. After I was almost done I looked and up and went HOLY HELL. That's a long walk back.

I think I got in my exercise for the day, what do you think? Then when I FINALLY got back I got in the truck. Now to decide on that earlier plan. Looking ahead I could see huge tire ruts with a high spot and I was a bit concerned I would get stuck on that high spot. So I thought maybe I'd just back up. I put it in reverse and it kind of did a little sliding thing. UM NO. 

So I went with plan B and did a little prayer that I wouldn't die and made it over the hump and to the end where "angels singing" there was an open way to get off the canal.

Thank You God.

I'm definitely not made to do scary things in vehicles.

But it WAS nice to get out of the office!

Grow Dinner Grow!

I got my veggies in the ground!

Zucchini, Yellow Squash and Radishes. I thought some of those seedlings were bell peppers until I pulled out my little schematic I had made. So the bell peppers are the duds right now. I hope they do something. If not I'l l go buy a couple starter plants.

I also planted a few more tomato plants that my sister in law was just going to let die. I had her bring them over the night of the party.  Unfortunately something in my garden totally ate one of those already. I guess we'll have to do that thing, what was it that Laura Ingall's dad said? Oh found it

 “One for the blackbird, one for the crow, and that will leave just two to grow.”

Funny how things you read  years and years ago stick in your head. At least part of it anyways.

After I was done I still had quite a few plants left over. Last year we almost puked after eating all the squash off of ONE plant and I planted several this year. So all these? Need to go live somewhere else. I think I might just take them to work, I'm sure someone there will take them home and plant them.

Laura Ingall's quote found here

You Picked Me To Be A Judge?

Yesterday I got to go judge a science fair again. Me, who HATED doing the science fair. I could never ever come up with a good idea on what to do. I always ended up with just getting a  "you suck" aka participation ribbon.  Last year I had to be dragged to help judge, this year I volunteered. I maybe kind of jumped up and down and waved my arm in the air when they were asking for people to go help. I mean, how better to spend the day than to see what the kids came up with this year?

This, by far, was my favorite

It's a solar oven. You can tell that he spent a lot of time on it. It didn't look too perfect like a parent made it. His little essay type thing was hilarious, talking about how his parents never let him cook and OMG he's like 12 he's not going to burn himself. But now, with his solar oven he can cook all by himself. Look he even cooked himself a hot dog! 

The worst one this year? Some boxes spray painted black and a typed sheet of paper that goes on about how  we need to make our buildings earthquake proof or we are all going to die or some such business. Just the way it was worded it was disturbing. I'm pretty sure that's going to be a future psycho.

The disturbing trend this year? Things printed directly off the internet and stuck on the board. Um yea. At least copy and paste it into word so it looks original!

Did you do the science fair when you were a kid? What was your project and how did you do?

Earning The Burn

Yesterday I spent the whole day in the yard and I have a hell of a sunburn to prove it. It's all on my lower right leg and makes people gasp when I show it to them. Yeah. Sunscreen might be a good thing to add to my little garden cart.

I filled this wheelbarrow. Then later I realized the tire was flat and I can't move it now. Whoops!

Most of the weeds came out of the flower bed here. I turned it all over and put the rest of the border bricks in. It was only about half way down the long row there. I know it's crooked but I was too tired to fix it and I'm just putting veggies in there.

And then, I still had some energy so I decided to work on this area. We've never really done anything back here because eventually we're taking that sliding glass door out, making that all wall and putting a nice regular size door where the window is. Some day.

But I'm tired of looking at it like that so I cleaned it up. I turned over the dirt against the wall and put the big step stone bricks as a border. Origanlly when I bought those briciks in the 90's I was going to buy a few a week but never got around to buying more than I did on the first trip. They were going to be my walk way to the garage. Then they discontinued them and I've never seen them again. Figured I might as well use them for something.

I still need to clean up on the left there a bit. Most of the green is nasty weeds like goat heads, these other things that get like 8 feet tall and have roots to china and cockle burrs. Nasty stuff! I'm thinking of getting a flat of that ground cover I have in the front and putting some in for now. We always talk about putting a deck here but I don't really see it happening anytime soon.

I went to home depot to look for some flowers to put in there but the only ones I could find had such long roots growing out the bottom they'd probably die once I planted them. I'm seriously disappointed in that store this year, all their plants look like crap for the most part!

Baby Dinner

Trevor and I planted some vegetable seeds last Monday. Not even a whole 7 days later these things are growing like crazy! I just thinned out the ones in the middle, which are bell peppers. That's one thing I learned from gardening last year. To thin out is to make a better product. So one side is zucchini, one side is yellow squash and the middle is bell peppers. The slackers are radishes. Those were all seeds that my sister in law bought me for my birthday. I'm pretty excited at how well they are doing! When these are out and planted I'm going to start some flower seeds I saved from last year and see how they do.

Birthday Madness!!

So it's been all birthday all weekend. Well except for a couple hours of baseball. 

Those were a couple LONG hours. 

Anyhow, Friday night I took Melissa and 3 friends ice skating. Jess and Trevor went too so we had a nice little group. It's been about 12 years since the last time I went ice skating.  I was happy to find out I can STILL ice skate, and did not fall down and break a hip or something that would make me feel incredibly old. I did however have to take my skates off not long after I started because they were KILLING my feet. 

Trevor started off shaky but pretty much got the hang of it by the time we left. Melissa and Jess can skate no problem. 2 of the girls that came weren't too into it. One came in Capri pants? WTH? Those 2 girls hung out and then the other girl and Melissa spent a lot more time on the ice together.

I spent most of the time sitting in the lobby area where they had free WiFi and it wasn't nearly as cold as inside the rink. I played on my phone until the battery died. I tried not to scream NOooooooooooooooo too loud.

The place was crawling with Jr. Highers. I know I could not have ever have been as annoying as those Jr High kids. BUT the girls had fun for the most party and Trevor's begging to going back so I guess it was worth the $70 I shelled out for it.

(my friend at work made the cute cupcakes!)

When we got home we did cupcakes and I went to bed and fell asleep. I've been so exhausted the last few days!! The girls were all awake around 7:30 and I was like OMG aren't they supposed to be sleeping all day?

Tonight my family and Scott's parents came over for a family party. Scott's mom called before the party complaining about his dad. Saying how something is wrong with him, maybe he has Alzheimers or something. After they left everyone was talking and they said he did seem off :( I hope he didn't have a little stroke or something. I guess we'll have to go hang out over there and see how he's doing. I personally didn't spend much time with him but my brother was saying he said the same thing like 3 times in a row without realizing it. I'm really worried about him.

 Jess got Melissa some bubbles, my niece thought they were so much fun. She was running yelling OH NO!!

My mom took a power nap in the middle of the party. awesome. She'd kill me if she saw this picture lol

 My awesome son and nephew playing on the computer

 Playing spoons (mother in law in the background)

:sigh: She's so pretty....I can't believe she's 12, she looks 16 already.

 I'm going to need a rifle.

My niece was PISSED that she couldn't have more cupcake haha.

Other than that we had a pretty nice evening. Scott barbecued hamburgers and Italian sausage (a must at all family barbecues!) I had everyone bring a side dish and we finished off the cupcakes my friend made for dessert. My nephew is here spending the night. I think the birthday was a success! Thank God there is only one more this month and then we are done with birthdays until October!