Housewife, 54

We have had a very good spring for gardening. A nice blend of cool and warm, rain and dry.... everything is doing quite well just now....  But that can all change in an instant.  Today's forecast is stormy - rain, wind and hail with the possibility of tornadoes.  Guess I won't go shopping, I'll stay home and dink around on the computer and maybe do some sewing.....? Here is an update on the gardens: Our vegetable plot up at Mt. Hope church is doing well.  Everything that I had planned to have in by this time is planted and growing.  I did not get good germination with my bean seeds, so I have already planted more.  Just this week we got compost and filled in the last section with the "no-dig' method: laying down cardboard and piling the compost on top and planting directly in that compost.  This is supposed to suppress all weeds and give you clean soil that you can keep nicely.  Here is a picture: Our veggies at Mt. Hope.  Our ...

Good Heavens! I cannot believe how long it has been since I posted last.  Needless to say, I have been quite busy.  In a nutshell, we have worked on emptying my mother-in-law's house as it has sold... I have run Elvis in his first 4 Agility Trials (two weekends in October) with NO success... I also developed an abscess that eventually dictated the removal of first one, then two weeks later a second tooth - OUCH! All at the same time, my father had some health issues and I have had to travel down to visit or stay with him twice during that same time period, and then we were at Thanksgiving!  It was all I could do to keep body and soul together - and keep the home fires burning! At a tangent to Elvis' poor showing in Agility, I had entered him and Buckaroo in Rally trials in November.  Much better!  Both of the boys earned a title over just 3 trials in 2 weekends.  I was quite pleased.  Elvis is now, officially, Utchati Jailhouse Rock, RA, JC and Buc...

Okay, as per my last post, I have been busy. I have painted my kitchen and family room, and have all the furniture replaced and most of the decorating done.  Not quite ready for it's pictures yet, but here is a sneak peek: Breakfast area This area of the kitchen, the breakfast area, was all wallpapered.  Now the wallpaper is gone, the walls were scrubbed clean of wallpaper paste, and the walls and ceiling painted.  I have just finished installing the new Roman shade which replaces the hand-me-down red checked curtains.  Since these shades are fully adjustable, Aaron can now sit at the kitchen table for dinner and NOT have the sun in his eyes!  I had originally thought to paint the walls a creamy yellow, but since the family room has to be the same color, I decided on a white-to-suggest-grey instead of cream.  It really took on a blue tinge with all of the blue-grey cabinets, but I think the multi-colored shades will tone down the blue.  The res...

HOT- HOT- HOT - the weather, that is. Last week we had several days over 100F and the rest were in the upper 90's.  BLAH.  All week there were "chances for thunderstorms" but even though we could see the storm clouds coming close, they always faded away or passed us without leaving a drop.  I have been watering my gardens at least once a day - flowers, berry canes, and vegetables.  Now I am beginning to water the trees!  The lawn was gone weeks ago.  There is not a single green lawn to be found in our neighborhood, and that is odd for Illinois! Another storm, passing us by, but what a show! Not only is the weather outside miserable, being inside is more comfortable but still oppressive.  I have so many things that I had planned to do this summer, and I am not making much progress..... However, I have done a few things.  In my last edition, I shared an excellent experience with showing Elvis.  We have continued to show and had som...

Now those of you that have no reference point to the Dog Show World will have no idea what that heading means...  But for those that do, you will jump for joy when I share that Elvis went Winners Dog, and not at any ol' dog show either,  but at a Specialty!  This is a BIG DEAL! In one of my previous posts I was lamenting the challenges of showing a dog in "the Breed ring" - that it is terribly political and so frustrating to participate when one is not an avid competitor.  It takes a lot of entries ($$) and a lot of traveling around to lots of dog shows ($$) to get the judges to realize that you want to be taken seriously.  Never mind the dog - so often it doesn't seem to matter what the poor dog looks like at all!  What seems to matter more and more is who is at the other end of the leash - are you SERIOUS about this and have you shown your dog to me enough times that you have 'earned' the privilege of being granted a point?  Well that h...