Blogging joys and woes

 Oh, OH!  My sweet friend Wrena at  https://www.facebook.com/pages/Diesel-Daisy-Design/406431534907?ref=ts  has been at it again.  I am totally in love with my new background and cute signature line! 

As for me and my poor neglected blog posts....Um, I am sorely lacking and have several I'm wishing were done!  Regardless of the heat (some days more than others) I am just totally loving summer & feel so very blessed in my life!
Now I'm off to clean up my poor neglected house.  AGAIN.


 

Summer days

 I have a love/hate relationship with summer.

I love a more relaxed schedule, long days, sunshine and GREEN.  The freedom to pack up and go somewhere without dealing with kids and school schedules.
Not that that happens very much, but just knowing it's an option is lovely.

I love being able to have my grandkids come spend some time with us.  I love being able to go visit our kids.

I have realized tho that I'm really not so fond of hot, hot and HUMID weather that comes along with summer.  I would really prefer about 75* and a nice cooling off in the evening with a breeze that keeps the mosquitoes away.
Eh? You think that's too much to  ask for in this fine state of ours?
Yes, unfortunately I suppose it is.
I've been lamenting that I can't have relaxing lazy long days of summer and get anything accomplished at the same time.
The heat and humidity zaps my energy and keeps me from accomplishing most of what was on my "summer" WANT to do list.

Bother.

I hate it that the days and weeks of "summer" go so quickly, and that my calendar of events is a little too full of things that I have to do, leaving less time for some of the things I WANT to do.

In Jan-March I dream about Spring, planting gardens & what I could preserve.  We often have cool, rainy, stormy springs and it seems to delay getting my garden in.  Until the end of May.  By the time the middle of June hits & things are starting to come up, then is when I want the stuff, but it isn't matured.
By the middle of July it's HOT and the weeds have taken over, and I have no appreciation for gardens or desire to work outside.  I'm wondering what on earth was I thinking!

(Oh yeah, never mind the 4 children that live here & the fairly steady stream of other company and extended family meals I make that I need to have the food for)

One of my friends wrote a couple recent blog posts on "Valuing the process, and loving the moment"  Oops--Very guilty of not doing that. It's human to want instant gratification on our projects. It's easy to wish things different or complain instead of just appreciating each day for what it brings.  Time goes fast enough & the weather is not going to change to suit our wishes or plans.  I just need to change my ideas and plans around to suit whatever the days & weeks bring.

The chickens are growing.  They've been in movable pens outside, and we need to get the chicken house finished (yesterday!) so they will have a inside place to roost.
Last night a bit after Kara did the chores she looked outside & said "Oh no, the chickens are out".  So she and I (being the only ones home) got our exercise shooing them back in the pen.

 Back to the first part of July, & grand-kid time

 The porch made a good playroom.  Shade from the sun, and kept the toys out of the (SMALL) living room.


Derek came over on Saturday with 3 more kids, and the cousins all had a day together.  Navaeh wanted to stay over that night, and after a long hot day of play we stuck them in the tub.  Serenity wasn't about to be left out, so we had....

 

  THERE WERE FIVE IN THE TUB.......

 AND THE LITTLE ONE SAID.......

 MOVE OVER, I'M COMING IN TOO!



 

Snips & snails & birthday tales

 I am a very happy Grammie.
 Our 3 oldest grandkids are here to visit.  This is the 2nd summer now they all 3 have got to come stay.
It's a little different this year than last because our 3 older "at home" kids are gone else-where visiting and we only have our youngest here.  Youngest, but she is nearly 10 in just a couple more weeks!
Having a 10 yr old around is a good combination with these other 3.  She's not too old to play with them, but old enough to read to them & help keep an eye on them. 

I wish I had a picture of them sitting in their chairs the other night before Bible study.  My sister walked in and said it looked like a scene from some years back.  Just a little Jeanne, Lynisha, Dalayna and Ryan sitting there!  I may have to re-stage it for a photo.

It's been busy days around here.  Hopefully fun ones for the kids too.  I have such wonderful memories of spending summers at my grandparents home, I hope my grandkids can look back on these years with as much enjoyment as I do my memories!  I wasn't fortunate enough to have cousins to spend my summers at my grandparents with, but I did have best friends that lived just down the street and that was a huge part of our enjoyment of spending time at Grandpa & Grandma's.

 Kyrie & Trey spent a  day  very impatiently by themselves before Kaela and Jessi got back here.

 They like to take their shoes off, but leave them on the trampoline & watch them bounce around while they jump.

 The front porch makes some nice shaded outside play for inside toys.

Thursday (June 30) was our first really really hot day and since I had a cleaning job, it worked out well for Leon to take the kids to the water park for some play time.  I met up with them later.

 They thought the swans were very interesting until one decided to get too close with what looked like the intention of taking a bite out of Trey!

 Then they ran pell mell back to the play ground.

 Doesn't this look like fun?  It's new since I'd been there last.  It's a pirate ship play ground with dolphins to ride. The kids thought it was pretty neat.  It spurred their imaginations but we didn't spend much time on it t, as it was so hot & the kids had been outside for long enough.

After getting ice cream cones, we headed home and the kids went to work baking me a birthday cake!
They didn't want me to watch or help, told me I should go take a bubble bath and a nap!  I wasn't quite brave enough to leave them totally on their own but I did stay out of the kitchen and gave the phone to Kaela with instructions to call her sister if she had questions!

 I couldn't resist taking some pictures tho....
We did have a funny moment when I overheard the phone call of "what do I do now" and I peeked in the kitchen and noticed that she was pouring the batter into the cake pans however she'd NOT added the cake mix in with the oil, water & eggs!!  Opps!!

 While the cake was cooling I went and took a nap while they decorated.  They wouldn't let me come down-stairs until they had it all done.

It was supper time, but we had cake and ice cream anyway--
after all, it's Grammies house, they're on vacation & we're making memories!

It's Monday morning

 And my cup is full.

After our recent special privileges, one of the special people people in my life recently quoted this line--
"I'm drinking from my saucer because my cup has overflowed."  I loved the thought, and can certainly relate!

Sorry--I know I've posted on this before!  I love Mondays!
I'm sure that I love Mondays partly because Sunday is such a special day.  That seems to make starting a new week much easier.
I love Mondays because it's like a clean slate ahead of you, and yes, the days and hours may be full and the unexpected may happen.
I was sitting here this morning thinking about my week ahead, and I was feeling like it was a very full glass in front of me.

Incidentally the unexpected happened this morning (while I was still in my p.j.'s and drinking my coffee, and writing this.)  It led me to discovering a new blog when I googled a particular "How-to"  I won't post more on that subject this time--Lets just say that I'm sure that some people would put it in the catagory of it being "MONDAY".  Personally I don't think it really has anything to do with it.  Personally my feeling is that it's all in the attitude!


Last week was a really busy and kind of disjointed week.  When arriving home late on Sunday night from being gone for 4 1/2 days, I'm kind of bad about just getting stuff in the house and leaving it to deal with on Monday.
Last Monday was full of getting Meshayla un-packed, clothes washed, sorted, last minute errands & shopping in town, then home to get things in the suitcase and off to Lincoln to spend the night.  It was a full day with all that, and I didn't get anything else done.  In the mean-time you can imagine what happened.  At my house at least, mess breeds mess, and my house was the pitts.
We didn't get to our motel until fairly late Monday night, and Tuesday morning the alarm failed (or maybe it was us?) and we woke up an hour later than when we planned to LEAVE for the airport in Omaha.
Umm, yeah.  Probably not such a good way to start the day on top of possible traffic delays, road construction and needing to be at the airport early!

Thankfully we had no traffic or road delays, and when we walked into the airport exactly one hour before flight time, we had no lines & no waiting at the ticket counter! (yes, we'd checked in ahead of time, but they told us we had to get our tickets there)

The kids were probably happy that we didn't have time to give them a whole bunch of last minute "Mom" advice, warnings & instructions.  They got to their gate in time just fine, arrived in Newark just fine, called us to tell us they arrived, then later to tell us that they found their departure terminal & gate They had a layover in Newark, so had plenty of time and that's the last we heard of them until Laura called to tell us that they arrived in Stockholm some 12 hours later.  Some nice friends met them there, and helped them occupy their 5 hours before their flight to Vassa, Finland where Laura met them.

Luanne and I went back to Lincoln and enjoyed a day of shopping.  Scrapbook store, Bed bath and beyond & FINALLY got to make a visit to Trader Joe's.  By the time we arrived back home that evening, I was SO tired I didn't do a thing.
Wednesday we had Bible study at our house, so thankfully it HAD to be cleaned up.  We had company coming on Wed. night for a couple days, and we enjoyed having them here so much!
I had a cleaning job in town on Thursday and spent the rest of the day with Gina & her girls.
Friday morning they left and I have to admit that I really didn't get much done on Friday except recover from my "out of the ordinary" (not in a BAD way) week!

On Saturday my middle sister and I took off up to visit a special friend 3 hours away so I could do a Norwex presentation at her house.  We really did enjoy our day together.   Juli made us a lovely lunch and we enjoyed eating outside.  Thanks again Juli!

Sunday was another day of special Fellowship--both in the morning and afternoon.  At noon we had a lovely meal in honor of Father's day at my MIL & SIL's house along with our two oldest sons (and family)

 The little girls were having a hard day--Nan had a bug bite by her eye & it was all swollen up & she felt miserable.  Senny had 3-D glasses that she insisted on wearing!  Dawn & Zander are behind Derek, so they don't show in the picture.

 This cracks me up--Zander often has his tongue stuck out, or just the end of it between his teeth just like Derek did when he was his age!

 There is something about seeing your son with his son that really tugs on the heart-strings!

 Ryan's first "Fathers day-to be"--  Leon's 33rd Fathers day, and Derek's second.

Have a wonderful week!!  I plan to!

And the clock keeps ticking.

Where did the month (AND YEAR) go?  It's already June!

Ahhh!  June.  I'm telling myself just take a deep breath & relax.  Enjoy the days!

 

I love school being out the middle of May. (Our last day was the 18th) I was so happy to see the end of the daily rush & two trips to town every day!  I also like to have a bit of free time between when school is out, and our annual 4 day trip out west the first part of June.

Kaela's last day of school with her teacher.  I missed getting a picture of Kara :(

Meshayla had a recital (guitar) and the little girls had a piano recital the end of May and then everyone has a break from lessons this summer because of being gone.  Meshayla left to go spend several weeks at her sister's in Sidney, doing some babysitting and odd jobs to earn some money for her trip to Finland.

 The girls with their piano teacher.  Thanks Jane!!

It finally stopped raining enough to get our garden in, and my flower gardens worked in and more flowers planted.   Our chickens are all in their outside movable pens now--a bit crudely put together, but at least it works!

We got to have little Z boy here for a long weekend while the rest of his family went off without him.  It was quite fun, and he got along just great.  Fun to work on that bonding with Grammie thing! :)

We've returned from 4 wonderful days of Spiritual feasting and along with that I was happy to meet a few individuals that I've heard some of my blogging friends mention!  Special to see lots of my facebook friends & others that I have known for years.
And I flunk. Majorly.  I did not take a single picture.  I'm really annoyed with myself because I let it slide.

It's pretty quiet here for the time being--Kara and Morgen both went with one of their older sisters for a visit, & Kara is visiting some new friends.  We're looking forward to a trip up to see Jana sometime later and bring her back home.  Meshayla and her cousin Nathan left today for their trip to visit Laura in Finland.  They'll be gone until the 9th of Aug.  I'm looking forward to hearing of their adventures!  It wasn't as nerve-wracking to send the girl off this time as it was two years ago--and obviously not for her either.  The kids totally forgot to call us when they boarded their flight in Newark NJ.  And they'd already turned their phone off!  I'm pretty sure that Laura will remember to call me when they arrive there tho.    It sure brings back memories of my trip last fall! This time I'm able to relate to just where she's at.

 Yes, the girl looks a bit blurry eyed.  She stayed up on the phone too late the night before, and we had to get up early to catch their 7:45 a.m. flight along with being at the airport ahead of time for.  The mom's flunked--the alarm clock failed & we left an hour later than we planned on.  Thankfully there was no problem with traffic/roads or waiting at the airport!  Yay for "small" airports!

 They wouldn't let us mom's go down to the gate with the kids.  I suppose they figured if they were old enough to be flying overseas by themselves that they didn't need to be accompanied to the gate/plane either.

Now Kaela is going to be an "only child" for a few weeks.  I'm not sure how that's going to go with her or me either one!  I'm thinking I may have to call in the grandkids!!  On the other hand, just think how much I should be able to accomplish!

A couple more pictures before I quit.  A couple times a year the old steam engine goes thru NE.  I saw it one morning this spring when I was running some errands.  There were people stopped at the crossings waiting for it, so as soon as I got home we jumped in the van to go see it. (we live about 1/2 mi. from the tracks)  Wouldn't you know after sitting on the tracks for some time, it was ready to move, and we missed it at our crossing.  We took off zig-zagging cross country, trying to make it to another crossing to be able to sit & watch it.  We made it about 25 mi. away and the kids enjoyed standing out on the country road watching and waving to the conductor and passengers as it went by.
Silly--yes, but one of those fun spontaneous things we should all do sometimes!
I love to hear the trains.  Many of the houses we've lived in have been close to the tracks & my ear is always listening for the whistle.

I'm looking forward to a summer of many different things. Gardening, preserving.  I hope some scrapbooking & sewing.  Additionally I became a Norwex consultant and am looking forward to some fun presentations.
If you haven't heard of Norwex, you can check it out on my website:  www.maxinejelinek.norwex.biz
I'm loving their products for my own use, both at my house and cleaning for other people.  I'm also loving being able to share it with others!

I hope you all are having a great summer!  I plan on enjoying every minute of mine, busy or relaxing-whatever the day brings.