Prom

I'm having home computer issues. More photos when the network is back up!! I'm glad I took ONE with my phone to make sure to have one to send to Sally and Butch.

Ok, internet back up after pulling the plug on the poor thing... plugging it back in ... repeat... repeat... repeat... it's finally got itself together again :)

 Putting on her mask

 All dressed up!

 The mask was slipping...

 Alec brought a gift of earrings to match her outfit.

 

 yes, they are friends just hanging out and going to prom together :)

 Two peas in a pod!

How does your garden grow?

Girls in a park...oh wait, that's my yard...I love my yard!!!


They're being artists ;)


How does your garden grow..
Love my verbena!! I need more RED... Now to find it!!


I have no clue what this flower is... It came back from last year - when I thought it was dead ;)


Amaryllis is almost is in bloom!! Little carnations in the corner.


Succulents. ;)

Weekend warrior

Although I LOVE living in a non-desert environment living with the pollen is gross. You clean and clean and clean and it just keeps coming!! So this weekend was the patios turn. Did you know pollen when wiped on "plicker" (plastic wicker) makes some mean static? Yep it sure does. I sent part of the morning being shocked. :( I think I'm going to have to wash them this year. Same with the cushions. They won't "beat" clean sigh as I was having yard work done I opted to NOT spread cushions everywhere and went for the blower/rag method for today. It's mostly clean. I had to blow it twice - achoo!


So after all the cleaning I have deemed the pool open!


Looking good HOWEVER I do have a large 10x10 aluminum frame shade for the corner that has the umbrella! Need to put that up, but only after we figure out how to "mount" it to the concrete. Or maybe we'll use water anchors? Who knows.


(Yes, need to stain the deck to be one non clay staines color)


The front is looking wonderful!!


The back makes me think it is time to relax!!


AND I even have a pool boy ;)

Elizabeth's mighty LAME 18th Birthday!

Waiting for Korean dinner!

And Butch's card had this pino. It :)


Liz raked in SERIOUS cash

National Honors Society

36 out of 1875 students (sophomore - senior) were inducted.
First sign the "oath"


Shake the first hand, get your paper


Then book for the exit completely skipping the officers of The local chapter as well as the principle. I was too busy chucking to take pictures ;)

All done!


The reality


Hahaha - she wants THAT excited, just that goofy!

Dad working in the yard

Whoohooo I figured out how to email pictures to the blog now!
A few folks who follow the blog have been asking about Dad and how he's doing. Well this is how he's doing - great! A little slower and still needs the stability of the walker or in this case the tiller :) other than that he's out and abut and mowing the lawn and working in the garden as well as he is able. He's starting physical therapy to stretch his left legs ham string as its tightening up on him...
So doing good!

What happened to the LAST day off?

Well, I guess I really took it off :)
I honestly think I just puttered around the house... I would get up an do something, I would take a break and watch the world go by and repeat.
I know I went through my "crafty projects" in the garage to get them all gathered and tidied up and put the cardboard in the car to take on base to recycle... then found out Mom and Dad could have used it in their garden for weed control under the pavers she wants to put down.  Rats!

Monday Angela was able to check the stats on her try out for High School Color Guard - and (drum roll please) she made it!  Gracie did as well, so they are excited young ladies!

The hot tub was cleaned out by the crew and sand put in the filter - and they made a heck of a mess with the backwash efforts - if you don't put the tube on the overflow it will dig a whole in the yard... guess what they didn't do - even with it sitting right next to the pipe?  Yep - dug a whole, put mud all over the walkway and generally made a mess of the place... I mean come on boys... clean it up!!

Sigh.

The hot tub was then filled and grocery store was visited... cooking even occurred for the 2nd time in the week.  This is an accomplishment anymore!  Spaghetti on Sunday and meatball sandwiches on Monday if you must know - so not really cooking on Monday, but I'll count it anyway!

Today is Tuesday and let's just say that the crap that I left a week ago at work is STILL there, still as deep... and I don't really have a better attitude to deal with it.  Ah, well, it was worth a shot, eh?  The sad thing is I think I made it worse and didn't want to go back at all - come on lotto!!!  I promptly checked all my tickets at the store and found none to be winners.  I had manually checked them and didn't think I had won, but I like to double check. I took another shot at it because Fantasy 5 was up to $309 million... sweet chunk of change.  A girl can hope, can't she??

OK, back to the salt mine - time to figure out something for dinner, then off to watch Liz be inducted into the national Honor Society (95 GPA cumulative for her HS career... scary smart that one.  She loves math... I still don't think she's mine!  I had to help Angela with math and had to keep calling Liz in to show ME how to do it... good grief.  I have NO memory of Factorials - they didn't really have those in my day, did they?

The weekend. Saturday - 2nd to last day off :(

Makes me sad to think I have to return to work Monday. Booooo. I should be a stay at home mom, but lets face it, not gonna happen. AND I'm still not good at this. I didn't cook all week! Yes, horrible mom and home maker. Ah, well you can't win them all, right?
Today started as most have all week. Up at 8:30... However motivation was lacking today. I did get out and dry off the soon to be "little yellow table" as I mistakenly left it outside overnight. I had gotten one coat of paint on it yesterday. The sun was up so I dragged the wooden ironing board out and put some of the wipe on polyurethane on it.
If looks GREAT if I do say so myself ;). It's in its new home upstairs now. Holding a karaoke machine at present.
A few more coats on the yellow table and some more scrubbing on the grout in the kitchen.
Some sorting and box breakdown and I think I'll shove then in the car to take to works cardboard bin Monday.
So it's looking better.
The pool in the other hand is looking yellow with the brown bottom. Weird effect. Not all horrible, just takes some getting used to.

Daylight

In shadow.
Butch feels it will warn up faster.
The jury is still out. I do, however, love the boarder. The only issue is only 2/3 shows. Weird. Oh well, the bottom is smooth, there are no more patches, just new liner and new overflow that I'm dying to run today but cant as they have not finished cutting in all the holes - the skimmer and the pool supplies are still not hooked in yet. Also still need the hot tub
cleaned out and the sand replaced in the filter. Then we'll be at 100%

Isn't stopping me from enjoying MY favorite spot regardless!!
Temperature is back in the 70's after a few days in the 40's and 50's - all is right with the world!!

Little yellow table is yellow now! Now to put tile on the top. Question is - will it happen today?
Pool guy just hooked everything back up. Skimmer and such is working. Now for them to put the hot tub to rights and clean it - yuck!!

And all before 3pm. Not too shabby for no motivation.

Day five (Friday)

Stickers applied.


While the water level was still low I froze my toes off and applied the non-skids to the steps. :)

I then had a nice, albeit short visit from mom and dad, then we were off to the bank. Cashed in a few more CDs for Liz's education funds.

Then off to get Angela's ears pierced! Yep, she was allowed at 12 but couldn't get the courage up until now ;)














All done!! Yay Angela!

Then I tried something I read in Pinterest for grout cleaning. OMG!!
I couldn't tell it was this great until I let it dry!!



The center square us surrounded by clean grout ;)
What did it?
This!



Yep!! Off to clean the rest now!!

Day four (Thursday)

Nothing but laundry on a rainy day!!

Day Three (Wednesday)

Cherry Blooms!

 Angela announced she would like to go to the zoo, that she has no memory of going to the zoo... which, regretfully is very true as we left Utah when she was 2.5 and when we got here we didn't go to the zoo at all - it's an hour plus away, so who can justify that?  Not me!!
So - today we had our first outting to the zoo... and discovered it's just not for Angela. Sigh. *I* still enjoyed the heck out of it.
The first thing we saw was the elephant - she's a big one!!

 I bought foot to feed the parakeets :)

 We checked out the meercats.

 A BIG Rino... and you know what *I* discovered about zoos in Georgia?  All the animals have a red hue... wonder why...all that RED clay!!

 Doesn't this gorilla look forlorn?  I saw her sitting up there all alone behind the wires and thought "oh, how sad..... she's not with the group - turns out there are two groups with two differnt silver backs in their confines.  I guess the two can't mix?  Who knows.

 This guy cracked me up... he was laying on his belly when he rolled over and then crossed his legs and just "chilled" for a bit.  Ha!

 One of the three "babies" in the cages... this is a younger one.. but NOT the youngest!

 THIs is the youngest... can you see her in her mom's arms?  She was sound asleep!  She's only three weeks old - the youngest in the group.

 Here's a better picture of mom and baby...

 Yet another baby in the zoo - hanging out with mom in the hammock

 Not a baby, but a red panda hanging out in her tree house preening and primping.

 I wish this would have focused on this old guy... he was sitting on the edge of the moat just checking everyone out and rolling something around in his mouth... I swear he looked like was thinking "get a load of this bunch of idiots"  ha!

 Another baby in the zoo... soooo cute just clinging to his moms back.  There was one other mom in the cages, but I didn't get a good shot of that baby...

 And with that we had toured the whole zoo - it's not much bigger than Hoggle really and without having little kids to play in the playgrounds and me not wanting to check out the petting zoo full of goats and sheep, we headed on out... once you've seen them all, you've seen them all... sadly

THIS is a dream house for me... on the corner near the zoo - very pretty victorian.

After the zoo we went to Ikea to get some stuff for me... and to eat some lunch.  Their meatball special is very good and very inexpensive for what you get.  We then walked all of Ikea just shopping and enjoying... until the last two sections and Angela was loosing it... feet hurt and she was DONE walking.  No choice in this one as carts are few and far between and she's 13 and too big for one anyway.  ha!  So we headed out to the car and home.  On the way home, we had to pass by The Varsity and I told her we needed to get an orange shake - she couldn't fathom why until she had one.  YUM!
A quick stop off at the outlet mall to return some shoes and we were on our way home.  And only 4pm - I didn't think we would be home until 10pm with all we had planned.  Oh, well, my feet hurt too, but I wasn't going to admit it!!

HERE is what greeted me when I got home... an NEW liner!!

 

They still have to cut in all the "details" like the light, the steps and the overflow - however the rest is looking great!!!!