August continues

Our neighbors, the Van Voorens, gave us a bunch of boskoop apples from some trees they have on the property at Ed's business. So, on Monday, I made a batch of applesauce.  I made an apple pie with more on Friday. I gave some away to my piano student's family. And I still have apples. Not quite enough for another batch of applesauce, though. I might try dehydrating them....Throughout the week, I watched Into The Woods, starting with my apple peeling project on Monday. 

The weather was deliciously and unseasonably cool at the first of the week and we even turned off our air conditioning but, sigh, the heat and humidity are back this weekend with no rain in sight. I spent my whole day moving the soaker hose and sprinkler around on Tuesday and Steve and I both mowed (Steve in front, me in back) that morning. Tuesday evening, for three hours, I was at the Home School open house. I only have six students so I was not expecting that my time would be occupied very much so I brought along some handwork to do in between my brief visits. I came home in time to finish Yankee Doodle Dandy that we started last week. 

Wednesday, Steve and I hung the deck lights on the poles that Steve installed on Monday. We LOVE our new deck look! And, I noticed that a yellow iris thinks it is time to bloom again!?!?

Steve and I enjoyed ribeye steak dinner on Thursday night, thanks to a sale at Dierbergs grocery. And, we started watching Lincoln (we own it so we have seen it before). Just before we headed to bed, Julina called to tell us Alex was having issues with cognition, uncontrollable shaking and keeping warm so she called 911 and he was ultimately admitted to the hospital to explore the reasons why. He has been in the hospital since then but happily, has been moved to a "step-down" floor from where he started out. 

Steve and I finished Lincoln on Friday evening - we attended the temple Friday afternoon and you already know I made a gluten-free apple pie in the morning. 

Saturday started off with me attending a Primary activity at the church. The kids hauled out all the chairs from the Primary room and washed them off and then took them back inside and came out for a water balloon fight. 

I left before the balloons began to fly because Steve and I needed to get on the road to Columbia to visit Elise and Steven and Tamara as well as Elizabeth Crippen who is in a rehab facility after she had surgery to remove her right pinkie toe due to a severe infection that has gone into her bone. She might loose more of her foot - she'll find out this week the verdict. It was a long drive for just a half-day visit but I am glad we went. It was nice to spend time with our kids and a friend. She and Steve and I do scripture study over FaceBook messenger but that has been halted while she has been in the hospital.

 

Today, Sunday, Steve and I signed up to help from 2:00 - 4:00 at the Kindness Begins With Me booth at the Festival of Nations held at Tower Grove Park. BUT, parking was a problem and we knew it would be going into it. Thus, we were thinking that Steve would drop me off at the entrance and I would work for an hour and then he would come back and we would switch. On the way there, though, I just offered to take the whole two-hour shift. It was hot, noisy (we were very close to the stage that featured all kinds of bands / groups from different nations and they had the amplifiers cranked waaay up), and there were SO many people. Not my favorite kind of event to attend, much less be a part of. But, I survived and came home for a lovely dinner of leftover rotisserie chicken and 3-bean salad (from our Columbia visit) and apple pie with ice cream. 

Here I am at the booth. We also did face painting and I think I will sign up for that activity next year. You can see that we had a lovely shaded spot but it was still kind of miserable...

My parting shot is of a kitty I spied (with my little eye) on my Tuesday morning walk...probably a stray, poor thing. He/she was in a storm drain.

 

Another week has passed already !?!

 Wow, time is really passing quickly...I really have very little to write about the week. It was my last Monday to drive Afghanistan families to summer activities. We are on a short break from all Kindness Begins With Me events until after Labor Day. So we will have Thursday nights and Monday mornings free for a couple of weeks.

 On Tuesday morning, I made a batch of grape jelly from some of the concord grapes growing on our backyard fence. There are still many clusters of green grapes that need to ripen so I have another batch coming up - probably next week. I am picking so many cucumbers and yellow squash and cherry tomatoes but I pulled up all my green bean plants on Monday and planted more on Tuesday for fall harvesting. I also planted some lettuce in the same raised bed. 

I finished - for real and completely - all the red deck painting on Tuesday when I put second coats on the poles that we will install to hold string lights. I know I am completely done because the paint cans are back down in the basement and my painting clothes have been laundered and hung back up in the downstairs closet. We bought string lights at Menards on Saturday and Steve hopes to have the poles up and the lights strung by this coming week. 

I spent much of my free time this past week working on music: Finding and ordering Christmas songs for the ward choir, arranging a piece for string ensemble to be played next month in Sacrament meeting, putting together all the paperwork for my home school orchestra class that will begin the second week of September, and practicing a cello number that I played in Sacrament meeting today. 

About the only thing we watched this week was the movie Yankee Doodle Dandy. It is an old film starring James Cagney and it is about the life of George M. Cohen. It was entertaining. 

On Saturday, Steve and I worked a double shift in the baptistry as the Pynes were finishing up a family reunion/vacation and they couldn't find anyone else to sub for them. Boy, it was exhausting! Happily, when we got home, the only thing on my "to-do" list was a cello lesson at 3:30 because I don't think I could have mustered the energy to do much else.  We DID drive to Ballwin that evening to go to Menards but, more especially to spend time with Emily, Joe and the kids (well, not Noah as he was at work) at the Ballwin Days carnival and fireworks show. We parked our cars at a nearby Lowe's parking lot and took a shuttle over to the event. I can't believe how little space there is between seats!!! Poor long-legged high school students who have to ride them every day to and from school. While Emily and family went on rides and bought treats, Steve and I were content to just sit on our lawn chairs and relax until the fireworks started. And, we had SUPER seats for that. It was a great display. 

I will finish with some photos of our time at Ballwin Days and some pictures of around our yard.

New things

We have a new laptop! Our old one would not support Windows 11, it was getting really slow, and working in WORD was getting wonky so we had to buy a new one. And this one is FAST!  I love it. 

And we have a new roof! When we had gutter guards installed on the east side of the house, our handyman mentioned that our roof was looking kind of old. When we bought the house four years ago (this month), there was no statement as to the age of our roof so it probably was getting old. We had recently developed a small leak when it rained very heavily that manifested in our basement, of all places, right above the dryer and we figured it was around one of the vent pipes up above. And we have had a few hailstorms this spring so I called our insurance, USAA, to see if they would look at the roof and possibly approve a new one and, by golly, they did! Roofers arrived early Monday morning and, by noon, they were done. It was a six-man crew and not one of them spoke a word of English. Hooray for Google translate when it was needed (not much).

Monday mornings are usually when I drive Afghanistan families to summer activities but my one family was a no-show so I had the morning off! I honestly didn't blame them - it was going to be the zoo and it was so hot and humid that day that I personally would not want to walk around a zoo. I came home and picked my garden, instead. The beans have been so prolific that, even after sharing with folks, I have had enough to freeze ...I prepped them for that while watching The Fugitive. What a great movie that never gets old. The concord grapes are getting ripe and I have enough now to make a batch of jam and there will be more coming for a second batch. And, cucumbers and yellow squash have been having a good year. Zucchini not so much but I still have hopes....

Tuesday morning, I had a teacher meeting and luncheon for the home school beginning strings class that I will be doing this year. It was lovely and informative but too long and I was not able to get finances worked on that afternoon. Steve and I attended our ward temple night that evening. A "cold" front blew in that day bringing relief from the high temperatures and humidity we have been having. The rest of the week has been SO refreshing...

Wednesday was Happy Hookers and afternoon dentist appointments so no finances were worked on that day. I always come home from Happy Hookers with yarn to make hats with. The crochet ladies only like to crochet with a certain kind of yarn but friends and family always give them all kinds, including the stuff they don't like to work with so they bring what they won't use to the monthly meetings and, because I can make a hat with almost any kind of yarn, I collect their discards. I now have SO MUCH YARN that I really need to stay away from a Happy Hookers meeting for the rest of the year!  

Steve and I grocery shopped Thursday morning and in the afternoon I had music lessons and food prep for the potluck picnic that marked the end of this trimester of Afghanistan English class. Temperatures were just perfect that evening and we had a great turnout. But, I had no time to work on finances, again!

Friday morning, Emily brought Larkin and Quinn to our house for piano lessons. Joe had a day off so he came, too. Lucy and Noah were at Table Rock Lake on a ward youth activity so they didn't come. After tickling the ivories, we all trooped over to the Carondelet mulch site to load up the Element with mulch for the back driveway. It is always a huge task and Steve and I greatly appreciated the Southerland's help. Someday, we will pave the turn-around and back driveway but, until then, it is always in need of more mulch.

Steve went to the temple Friday afternoon but I stayed home and finally got to do - you guessed it - finances! And, it took me ALL afternoon because it was all the first-of-the-month stuff that needed to be done.

Saturday morning, bright and early (7:00), Steve and I drove over to help Miriam and Miriam Paulson load up their little U-Haul trailer and their cars and their parent's van so they can return to Utah. They were only here for a year but they were such a huge asset to the ward and especially to the ward choir. I will sorely miss their lovely voices.

We were finished by 8:00 and the rest of the day was blessedly free of outside commitments so I filled it with fun things like oil painting and watercoloring. I also bathed Sally and cut Steve's hair. Even though the deck painting project is finished, we are expanding our deck lighting so I have been painting the four additional poles and other pieces to make that happen and I did some more of that kind of painting Saturday evening. With the cooler temperatures, painting is not so bad, actually. 

So, the week seemed really long in some ways and some family history projects were hardly touched, it was a good week overall. 

August already!?!?!?

I forgot to post this photo of our drive back to St. Louis...there was this white space amid the rain clouds that looked pretty cool - can you see it on the left hand side? 

Monday evening, we had Elise, Emily and Joe and kids, and Beckie over for turkey dinner. I had one in the freezer that I wanted to use and I borrowed a roaster so I could cook it down in the basement and not heat up the kitchen. Beckie made amazing mashed potatoes. Emily brought roaster broccoli and an apple crisp and I also made homemade raspberry ice cream. It was so great to get so many of our kids together. And, see how snugly we fit in the kitchen!?!?

Steve and Elise went to the temple together Tuesday morning while I stayed home and caught up on stuff.  It has been quite hot all week so we have hunkered down in the air conditioning much of the time. I still got up early each morning to pull weeds and pick green beans and squash and cucumbers and I am happy to report that I am FINALLY finished weeding the pumpkin patch and here it is...

You can see the bottle gourds climbing on the fence and here is a closeup... I only have three so far

It was still hot Friday evening but not QUITE as hot so Steve rolled the last coat of paint on the deck (HOORAY) while I mowed the back lawn. On Thursday, we bought some additional 2 x 2 eight-foot boards to increase the lights to all four sides of the deck, They still need to be cut, primed and painted and then installed and I think that can happen this coming week. By the time evenings cool off a bit, we should have a deck to sit out on and enjoy the pleasant temperatures.

We worked in the baptistry Saturday morning and, in the afternoon, I attended a music festival held at a Marriot Hotel by the airport where my cello student, Ethan, played two piano pieces for adjudication. He is going to be a senior this year and I have taught him cello since he was in 3rd grade!  That evening, we were supposed to have a marshmallow roast with a family in the ward but the temperatures were just still to yucky so we postponed and I was honestly so grateful. I was just wiped out! 

Throughout the week, I didn't do much movie watching and Steve and I have only caught snippets of the Olympics. I did watch a three-part documentary on PBS called Hope In The Water that talked about our oceans and how people are making them healthier all the while using them for a sustainable food source. It was very good.  Below is me, Ethan, and his piano teacher whose name I cannot remember.