Project Life–Week 29

I’m liking my current entries, in this book, much more than the first few…  It’s evolving and I’m loosening up about the whole process.  I’ll be all set for next year’s Project Life Cherry Edition!

I think, also contributing to my liking the more recent pages, is the quality of the pictures.  Since learning how to adjust everything on my camera, manually, the pictures just look better.

And finally, I love mixing up the journaling.  I like putting words on tags, handwriting directly on the picture and I’ve just started typing journaling onto the photos in Photoshop.  I like to use all three.  Also matting some of the pictures to make it look a little less like a photo album.

I love the ease of this book.  I still look forward to putting it together every week.  I don’t do much other scrapbooking – a class here and there, but no layouts this year…  But that’s ok.  I like this right now.  And new kit designs coming out any day will keep me excited about it next year too.

The House is Done!

It’s finally done!  We have some finishing touches to do, ourselves, but all the BIG, expensive, contract work is done.  And we’re very pleased!

On our still-to-do list:

1.  Paint the front door and side door.

2.  Stain the front step, back patio and stucco foundation.

3.   Figure out the front flower bed (it’s dirt behind those few bushes.)  Been looking around, on the internet for ideas.  I’d love perennials that I could cut and make pretty flower arrangements for indoors…  Thinking maybe an ornamental grass at the right corner of the house…

4.  Need to repaint the fence (it’s badly marked, from the hail.)

5.  Next year – new windows!

Garden News +

Bee’s wildflowers are coming along nicely.  It’s always so much fun to get a wildflower mix – cause you never know what’s going to come up!  Every year we’ve done it, they’ve been really gorgeous!  I even love the leafy parts!

Scotty helped me harvest a bunch of basil yesterday.  It was past time.  I bought cinnamon basil this year too and haven’t found any good recipes to use it yet…  And it’s really hard to cut off those beautiful, purple flowers on the cinnamon one!

Both varieties needed to be trimmed back, so we did.  It made for a beautiful basket full of green, white and purple!

And then we proceeded to make a giant batch of PESTO!!!

This was all totally inspired by this blog:  http://www.knitionary.blogspot.com/  (my new favorite online read!)  Love reading about their garden and cooking and seeing all the beautiful pictures!!

And now, we have yummy homemade pesto in our freezer!  Thanks, Kristen!

Project Life–Week 28 + Other Stuff

 

It’s almost time to start week 29 and I’m just now putting the finishing touches on 28!  Seems I’ll have plenty of time to work on it – KC is having another bad night of coughing, so I got up with him at 3am.  Scott gets up with him 99.9% of the time and I’m so thankful that he does, because frankly, I’m a sleep wimp.  (and we all know it!)

So, looking on the bright side this morning, I’m going to start on week 29 too. Maybe even have time to work on another project before everyone gets up!

I am loving switching things up a little, in this book.  I’m using elements from Yearography from Simple Stories and love the look!  I’ve already decided to do this project again next year and they’ve come out with a new Cherry Edition that I simply must have!

This cute, little graphic was passed around my homeschool mom/friends on Facebook this week and I thought it was fun.

Got to include lots of pictures from our most recent trip to Big Elk!  The Rockies always make for a pretty page!

We have a lot on the schedule today – when today finally starts for real.  We’re going down to Sterling, Colorado to buy a new freezer for our side of beef that’s being delivered this week.  We’re going to Home Depot to yell at someone about our garage door, that should have been installed within 6 weeks and it’s now been 15!!!  I want to do lots of cooking with my Ricky and Lucy’s Country Greenhouse organic veggie box that we picked up yesterday:  dry currants, make pesto for the freezer and healthy carrot cake muffins for my beautiful parents!

I’m ridiculously excited about this tomato plant:

Planted in very early May, it’s had lots of flowers and not one tomato!  (while all my other plants are loaded with fruit.)  This week, I was rewarded for my patience.  There are 5 tomatoes on the vine and from the looks of them, I believe they are beefsteak tomatoes.  My first stab at the giant tomato and I’m hopeful they’ll be fun and yummy!  So cool to have one slice of tomato that will cover your whole sandwich! 

And it looks like Will is going to be a homegrown tomato eater already!  He’s requested them on his sandwiches a couple times – I love it!!!

We finished up swimming lessons yesterday.  We’re only doing one week this year, because Will isn’t enjoying it.  Scotty is a fish!  Both boys could use more instruction, but maybe it’s time for something different…

Ok, I’m off for another cup of coffee and more paper crafting.  Have a great weekend!

Homeschool Room

This was Scotty’s bedroom.  It was cute, when we set it up for him, but my baby is a pack rat and it had gotten out of control!  On top of that, there was just too much in there.  It’s a small room. 

When we first started talking about turning this into a boy study, there was resistance.  Scotty was attached to his messy little boy cave…  But he and his brother have been sharing a bedroom, by choice, since we started homeschooling, about 6 months ago.  And this room was totally unused.  (Scotty goes in there every morning to get his clothes – that’s it.)  We had even closed the ac vent and the blind and the door.

So, this is a live and learn project.  I’m sure there’ll be lots of tweaking and changing.  Scott is already talking about wanting a white board in there.  (I’m not convinced…)
I’m already imagining wintertime picnics in here and allowing them to have snacks in here, if they promise to read…

I don’t see this room as the place they will do a lot of school work.  They need a table to work at – and we all like hanging out in the kitchen for that.

There is a desk in there for times when the boys need to be separated. (when they’re getting on each other’s nerves.) NO – that hardly ever happens, right?

One boy can go in there and work on whatever…

I’m incorporating several documentaries into their studies this year and thought about putting a small t.v. in here, but I’m afraid it will be too much of a temptation.

A vast improvement over what we were doing! We now have a place to put school books! The bottom shelves will be for school books only. Then they have regular reading on another shelf.  And on an optimistic note, we can even clear off another shelf if they want to read more.  I’m totally willing to buy more books!  (or maybe even an e-reader.)

I have high hopes for the keyboard that Grandma gave us. I LOVE music and I SO want it to be a significant part of my boys’ lives. I want to teach them about music and I want them to learn to make music, if they are so inclined. I have a friend who teaches piano and one boy who says he’s interested in giving it a try. Still waiting on Daddy’s final vote…

If Daddy votes no, this clever little piano came with instruction books and is pre-programmed to help teach!  (Mommy just gotta learn how to do it…)

My mom says that storage is always fun! I tend to agree. Now I have a place to put art, art supplies, science experiment kits and used textbooks… (having just started homeschooling, we don’t have many used textbooks yet. I can already see there’ll need to be a better system very soon.)

The boys like their new room.  If you have any suggestions as to what I can do to help them WANT to hang out in there and take ownership of their new space, please drop me a line!

Likewise, if you have ideas for  homeschooling in this room, please let me know those too!

I already anticipate this being an ever-evolving space.

I’ve Grown to Love Summer

Especially this time of year – when everything is at it’s peak of green and beautiful and the garden is getting ready to shower us with veggies!  If I don’t have a shitload of tomatoes this year, I never will!  We’ve had PERFECT tomato weather so far this summer!  And this weekend, my honey built a cover for our garden box, so that we don’t have to worry about hail – even has clear awnings on the sides! 

I spent lots of time yesterday, playing in this garden box – weeding and trimming and examining.  I LOVE IT!  (I’ve already put in for an additional one next year!)

My boys helped me mow, after Daddy worked on the garden box.  Dood took a lot of pride in a hard day’s work.  Pleased me to no end!  At the end of the day, he and I talked about the reward and how beautiful our home is.  Damn, I love that kid! (You can see him in the shot below, over on the far left, pushing the mower.)

When we moved into this house there were NO trees.  Our then neighbor bought a dozen Aussie Trees and planted them.  At the time, Scott was anti-tree because of the trouble they present when mowing.  (He’s since come around.)  So this tree, hanging over my fence is one of those Aussie Trees that my friend, Heidi, planted.  It was just a little sprig five years ago.  Now it’s beautiful, hanging in my yard too!

Perfect spot to hang out with a glass of water in the summer or a cup of coffee in the fall!  I love it when Scott builds a fire and sits out there with me, when the weather first starts turning cold!  We’re going to be staining the patio, later this summer, a warm, rich brown.  I can’t wait!

Boo’s checking out the zucchini.  We’ve gotten several zucchini and yellow squash already.  I need to cook today!

The almost outgrown swing set…  SIGH…  (and our baby elm tree.)

I’m happy with how things are looking right now.  (and keeping my fingers crossed that we don’t get hail this year…)

I Miss Her So Much

She was my first baby.  Jo passed away this week, six years ago.  I think of her often and miss her so much.

Love you, Booshy.

Project Life–Week 26

I’m not sure how I ended up with such beautiful colors this week.  Over all, looks like a very happy week.  In reality it was full of catching up from being gone on vacation.  There wasn’t much picture taking, but sometimes it’s like that and you just go with it.  The book will end up being a very accurate representation of our real lives.

Had the space to record a movie seen and a book being read this week.  Got a beautiful shot of our little KC, who is hanging in there just fine, for now!

CAN NOT believe next week will be July already!  Need to slow down, now that most of our planned summer traveling is over and enjoy summer:  the garden, the pool, the sunshine.

Swimming lessons, for the boys, start up in a couple of weeks.  We’ve harvested a few tomatoes, but there are a hundred more on the vine, and we have lots more weekend trips to the mountains in store!  Summer has only just begun!