Setting Sail

 

The SS Something in all it's ten feet of inflated glory.  It has a trolling motor, the oars are just for fun.

The husband and oldest set sail.

Since only three of us fit on there at a time, someone has to get left behind on the maiden voyage.  Alas, the teenagers stayed on land (they're that little pinkish blob in the middle of the photo.)   and we went back for them later.  It was so peaceful!

It took about three months to actually get all the parts to actually use the boat, and three hours to pack all the boat crap to actually go to the lake. I might have been a little cranky when we finally got there... 

And of course when we got home, the kids immediately complained we never do anything fun.  Typical.

I think I'm going to name the boat the Crab-a-nater :)  

What a Week...

Yesterday's adventures.  I like the composition of this one.  When someone leaves their toy at the playground, take photos of it.

 This park is probably my favorite one in our area.  If you go to the farthest parking lot you basically have the river to yourself.  In August, it's shallow and no one is going to fall in and drown.  And it's pretty. I also have a county park parking pass, so it was free :)  

On the way home, we stopped at Wilco (farm supply store) because it was on the way, and we don't have a store like that any closer (didn't find what I needed though) and there's a used bookstore in the same parking lot.  Score!

I'd never been in there, but the prices were not too bad.  I, of course, not expecting to go the bookstore, did not bring a list and got book author amnesia the second I stepped in the door, but still managed to find something.  I added quite a few books to my collection this month, I might have to make a separate blog post on those... 

In my defense, on Thursday I also went to all the free little libraries near me and dropped off 3-4 books in each  I was disappointed to see my favorite one is not there anymore though :(  

On to the real post:

OMG do I hate the last two weeks before school starts.  

One kid whining we didn't do anything fun all summer  and then refusing to leave the house to do said fun things, 13-year-olds...

Cross country practice is in full swing, including a special 'midnight run' tonight.  It's not a fundraiser this year (that's next week) so we might skip it.  

The CC fundraiser wants the phone numbers of 25 of our closest friends and family (per kid) to spam and ask for money.  I don't think I know that many people and no I'm not giving away their phone numbers.  Kudos to those that can do that, I'd rather donate the money myself...

There's a mandatory in-person 'sports parent' meeting next week... you know they could send the info in an email and not make everyone go in person...  

Schedule issues for the high school senior.  Still sorting out that mess... the good news, if she decides to take intermediate orchestra (again, for the fourth time, will probably be bored though) and not advanced, and her community college class is online and not in person that is so much less driving for me.  Trust me, I already practically live in the car during the school year, any less driving I have to do is +++  

Ironically, my younger high schooler is still in advanced orchestra, and would prefer not to be...

The college class my senior switched into so its not meeting in person during her high school math class, is 17th and 18th century British literature.  Yeah, that's going to be a fun one.  It was online only, and not full yet, 🤷‍♂️ 

My nine-year old's soccer team does not have a coach, games start soon.  No, I can't coach for various reasons mainly I'm already doing about 10,000 things this fall.  Also see below...

I had a doctor appointment this week and had an x-ray on my back.  I already had a back problem diagnosis a few years ago, now I have a second issue.  Yay.  And of course neither of those was why I made the appointment in the first place.  Back issue tic-tac-toe anyone?  

The nine-year-old had Back-to-School night this week, his teacher is one we had previously with a different kid, but its been so long, I don't remember anything about that year (2014.)  Room 9 here comes M...  

I put a bunch of stuff on my local Buy-Nothing and 8 of 11 didn't flake out on me or were snapped up right away.  Yay to less crap* in the house.  *Not really crap, I gave away some great stuff.  

Anything else?  Probably.  It was a long week, and school hasn't even started yet.

I Can Read

 My first book of August.  Yay me.  Boo reading slump.

I read this one in a few hours.b  It's a middle grade book, the main character is nine.  

There were two timelines in here, I fully admit I was only here for the 9/11 one, although they eventually tied together, one almost felt like filler.  

I have been putting off watching any documentaries, or reading books about that day, but maybe it's time...There's so much I did not know (and I was 23 when it happened.)  

I gave this book four stars, and have another Alan Gratz book in the house somewhere, maybe I'll read it and read two whole books this month...

Stay tuned...

Friday

This kid is going to be a high school senior in 11 days.  I am now feeling exactly the same way she looks on the subject.  I just got used to her being in high school... (Covid, and a sophomore year of virtual school didn't help) and how she's almost done.  Ugh.  

In other news...

This was a really busy week... lots of taking kids to their schools and sitting in the car (which was hotter than a furnace thanks to the weather) while they did whatever they needed to do (photos for two, schedule pick up for the other).  All the fees (OMG the fees $$$) are paid.  

I have now joined the dark side and am writing on a laptop.  The good: it's portable, so I can go where the noise isn't.  The bad: I have (and I knew this, we've had a laptop before) Ouija fingers and without touching the mouse, I'll suddenly be on the National Security page for Moldonavia,  or worse, accidentally delete a paragraph and not realize it until later :(  I guess I didn't need those words anyway...

I think I'm going to have to get a regular mouse and sit at a table, as much as I am enjoying writing on my bed in a room with air conditioning...  I'm also writing music-less (unless I use my phone, which is distracting in and of itself) so I need to fix that. 

The H had three days off this week, which he wasted  spent playing some rocket launching game on the Playstation for hours at a time (probably shouldn't complain he needs to take days off) but between launches we did:  some yardwork, went to the dump, went to a movie, fixed the garbage disposal, and he went to the sporting goods store (without me, thank you mandatory meeting I had to attend) to find the thingie for the thingie so the new 'fishing' raft motor can do some thing, so we can use it. 

I did not read a single page this week.  Thanks, reading rut... but I did write a lot, although my word count went down, so maybe I accidentally deleted more than I realize, stupid touch mouse.    

Weekend plans: 

Taking the SS Fishy McFishing Raft out for it's maiden voyage on some unsuspecting lake this weekend.

Prep the dining room to be repainted.  I think I'm just going to paint it the same color as the rest of the downstairs.  Not feeling creative in the painting department, plus I already own a can of paint in that color (yellow.)

Laundry, it never ends...

Freaking out about the upcoming school year?  The cross country schedule next week has 6-7 am practices on it.  I might take Lappy the Laptop and write in the car, no point in driving home for 45 minutes.  I could also...read a book.

Trying to get my reading mojo back... 

Carpe Weekend, or something.

 

What's the Buzz

 

As posted on Instagram, where it wasn't a book photo, so no one cares.

I bought a cheap macro lens attachment (because I couldn't make myself pay $250+ for a real one) and have been messing around with it this summer.

The catch with it is, you have to be close up to take a close-up.  Like almost touching whatever it is you are photographing or the camera won't focus.  

This branch of my sunflower happens to be at eye level so I spent a lot of time yesterday standing in my backyard waiting for a bee to land... But I really like the results.  

I'm still not really feeling the reading thing, and the most busiest time of the year is descending upon the household dun dun dun... three of four kids have back-to-school events this week among other things.

The schedule this fall is insane. I couldn't even begin to describe it.  It makes last fall, when I had jury duty and the husband had to be me for four days, look easy.  

I'd rather stand in the backyard taking pictures of bees all day... Anyway, my point is, if I inadvertently disappear from blogs, Instagram and all things not school related, that would be why.

I need a cloning machine.  And lots and lots of coffee. And a bigger calendar...

What's a word for more than overwhelmed? Overoverwhelmed?  I'm that word.

Life in Numbers

 

Getting all my ducks in a row?

25 ducks

57th day of summer vacation

17 days until both my anniversary and the first day of school.  If I'd known they'd move the start of school to before Labor Day permanently (about five or six years ago) I'd have picked a different wedding date...

23 years  

14 days since I finished a book.  The motivation to pick up a book and read it has vanished... I've read pages here and there, but haven't finished anything.

10 chapters written 

1,000,002 things I should be doing to prep for the start of the school year

$230.05 the amount of my curbside pick up grocery order I will be picking up this morning.  The only meat on there (because everything else is already in our freezer) is a package of bacon... Groceries these days :(

5:24 the time I woke up this morning.  Why brain, why?

68 days until my birthday 

134 days until Christmas

4 pounds lost since we got back from vacation (lots of walking and less snacking) 

2.2 miles walked yesterday

1 cups of coffee administered this morning

Happy Saturday. 

Gelli Printing

 How I spent my Thursday...  At my aunt's house. She's an artist...  She was married to my dad's brother (he died) but is friends with my mom because they know a lot of the same artsy people.  My family is complicated...

Anyway, my mom has been insisting I learn to gelli print, and my aunt is awesome, so they talked me and one of my sisters into an art day.  

Gelli printing is putting paint on this plate, and using stencils and stuff, to make prints.  It was messy but fun. I'm not sure what I am going to do with the finished product, maybe I'll cut them up and make them into bookmarks. 

I'd like to get artsy more often, but I don't know how to make the time... I already barely watch TV as it is.  Less internet usage is probably the answer.  Bye bye blog?  There aren't enough hours in the day...

Anyway, it was fun even though I spent about three and a half hours of the day stuck in traffic (it was bad both directions), didn't get in any exercise, didn't do any writing, didn't clean my house, didn't go grocery shopping (we're out of everything), but I got some cool art prints out of it...  

In my best JD (from Scrubs) voice: 'worth it.'

Today's plan: catching up on all the stuff I didn't do yesterday...  

Garden Life

The pumpkin plant is trying to take over the world yard.  This is one of two large pumpkins on there, and the vine is halfway across the yard.  We should all be so ambitious...

The bees are loving the sunflowers.  Look at those pollen sacks.

From an upstairs window... it's too tall to get a good photo from the ground.

 And it's almost tomato time.  I lost whatever it was I wrote down what I planted where so I don't know what kind this is...  The pear tomatoes won the ripe-first contest, but this one's getting there.

And the zucchini don't get a photo because they still haven't produced a single thing.  Slackers. 

Sorry for the lack of book posts future me.  You are sort of in a reading slump.  Writing thumbs up, reading not so thumbs up...

My fifteen-year-old discovered the blog after I left it open on the computer (hi A!) so now I have to actually write something great.  Maybe tomorrow... What are words again?  

Vacation Photo Overload

Too many photos in random order.  

The big bad Columbia.  In real life you could see Mt. St. Helens above those two boats.  

Mt. St. Helen's actually visible in this one.

Trying to get a good sunset picture but some car parked in the middle of my photo...

The house we stayed in (circa 1915) had really interesting ceilings.

Bridge to Astoria.  We didn't go on it this time, but it's four miles long and kind of freaks me out driving on it... Hi, Oregon!

Guinea pigs on vacation.  Like regular guinea pigs except in a smaller cage...

Kid having fun.

My offspring.  I'm still taller than one of them...

We were indeed here.

Ocean Park!

Chasing birds...

The entire family.

This crab was very much alive.  I named him Sebastian.  We threw him back in the ocean and he didn't say thank you... I think this is my favorite photo from the entire trip (even the ones with faces in them.)

Razor clam's under this sand!

Footprints.

The kite.

The kite again.

Front yard.  There's a blue speck, on the center leftish side, that is a grocery/hardware store parking lot.  There were also two bars, 3-4 restaurants, a gas station, another grocery store, a library and a yarn/ice cream/coffee shop (all my favorite stuff in one building) and of course the beach within a 5-10 minute walk. I think I'm in love... My kids were not impressed when I told them the high school only has 250 students and is 12 miles away, but otherwise, it's my dream town.   When can we move?

Cranberry bog.  The "self-guided tour," was this picture.  There were a few signs, and a brochure.  It was free so I guess I can't complain too much. The lady in the museum/store was very nice though.

Cranberry Museum.  They supposedly have delicious cranberry ice cream, but not the day we were there.  We did buy some cranberry honey and some taffy.

Sunset attempt #1, stupid clouds.

Chasing birds the other direction.

I liked the different colors of sand...

 Looking south.

I still haven't downloaded my phone... I guess I will add those later...

Phone photos:

Three little guinea pigs went on vacation...

Not only does this store have all my favorite things, it's steps from the beach.  

Mini-golf.  The course wasn't the greatest, and not just because I suck at mini-golf, or that clown.  I hate clowns...

Cranberry Museum.

Book I attempted to read while on vacation.  I've heard such great things, but the first 28 pages had about 15 characters and some of it was written in 2nd person... I will try again later.  

Birthday cake on vacation.  Yes, please.  The kid requested gummy bears be put on there...

If you ever read anything about Long Beach Marsh's Free Museum is on the must-see list.  I think the store part has taken over the weird exhibits (most of which seemed to be out of order on this trip) but we always go in anyway...  

Weird story about Long Beach, in 2006 we tried to go here, in May.  Nothing, and I mean nothing was open on a weekday except this museum. We couldn't even find any food.   Which was annoying as we had a toddler and were staying in a hotel.  We actually went home early because there was nothing to do and it was foggy and rainy and we like to eat...

  We avoided going back until 2016, and now we love it... The place has redeemed itself except when we tried to go out for lunch, and had problems finding anything that was open...  Weekdays are apparently hit or miss in the Long Beach food department even in August...

Inside one of the many stores in Long Beach.  Just like the movie, except it didn't really grant my wish...

The arcade... where many of my vacation budget was squandered... 

Skeeball and Pac-man are my arcade things, and Funland has both... 

I love signs...

The candy store had a gigantic saltwater taffy display.  I don't like saltwater taffy but made sure we got at least one pickle flavored one just for fun.  Yes, it really did taste like pickles.