Friday morning DS11 & I saw these mushrooms while on our daily walk. They just sprang up in this family's yard over night. I'm jealous. Any mushroom spores who are looking for a place to land, my yard is open.
Our village had their garage sale weekend, and this year we decided to be bargain hunters rather than sellers. I'd rather just drop off our castoffs at Goodwill than deal with all the work that goes into having your own sale.
Thursday morning I woke the boys up early at 8:00am and taught them the meaning to the saying, "the early bird gets the worm. " In this case, it was the early teenagers get the Nerf guns. We found two awesome Nerf guns with original packaging and Nerf darts marked $8 a piece. We found a mini version of Uno, a few game guides and talked the sellers down to $15 for the lot. Not bad for our first sale of the weekend. One of the Nerf guns is going for $60 on the resell market, but we're just going to enjoy playing with it. I think its crazy how many attachments these guns have, and how you can reconfigure them.
Friday G-Ma arrived to continue garage sale-ing with us. We didn't find any great deals but enjoyed stretching our legs and adding a few more miles to our daily walking total.
Friday evening we had our cousins over to hang out after pizza supper and enjoyed brownies and scones.
Saturday morning DH, G-Ma and I hit up the other side of town to do more sale-ing. First stop was the library's used book sale where I picked up another Series Of Unfortunate Events book for my collect, a Wisconsin almanac and a favorite picture book we enjoyed when the boys were little.
We found a few more treasures including a box full of Yu-Gi-Oh cards for DS11 and a sword for DS14. Yes, a real sword. The handle appears to be silver and the blade stainless steel. We are trying to figure out what the letters inscribed on the handle mean. I can't yet identify what language it is. It could be Russian or eastern European. Both these finds were unbelievable bargains. That always adds to the fun.
We took a break from sale-ing, picked up the boys and went to lunch at our favorite Mexican restaurant, Mi Cocina.
We ran some errands, picking up wall anchors for our window hardware. Yes, the drapes arrived on Friday and I love them. Hopefully once they are all hung, it will look great. They are light blocking and insulating, and we went with a dark brown suede. Once I get the Love Nest complete, I'll take pictures.
Saturday night the family got into a cut throat game of Monopoly with G-Ma. It had been quite awhile since we had played. I had forgotten how competitive my husband can get! DS14 won once we established a cut off time after playing for several hours.
Sunday woke us with thunderstorms, which would have been more enjoyable if it wasn't so hot and humid again. We had to close the house back up and put the air on. I feel a little less worried doing this after seeing our electric bill wasn't too high from last month's heat wave. I had DS11 open the bill and tell me what the damage was. I thought it would hurt less coming from him. :) I asked him, is the first number a 1, a 2 or a 3? Thankfully he said 1 and I breathed a sigh of relief.
I still hope August isn't as hot as July was, but it doesn't have that repetition, does it.
I went out to do a little weeding and discovered 4 sugar snap peas, ready to enjoy. We've had so much rain the vines are all yellow and don't appear to be thriving so I wasn't expecting to see these 4 sugar snap peas. Each member of our family gets to have one. LOL! Hopefully, more will appear soon.
I also caught cute little Benjamin bunny trying to pull down the rabbit fencing from around our carrots. He had just about gotten it low enough he could have hopped over if I hadn't spooked him, naughty bunny! I did not find his blue coat left behind.
I haven't had much time to work in the garden and that has me a little bummed. I should have planted more earlier. I am shocked my cilantro has grown so quickly, its now going to seed! The basil is ready but I'm not. I wanted to make pesto, but don't have enough olive oil. There are a few bites taken out of it, so I'm thinking of starting over with the herbs and see where we end up by summer's end.
DS11 and I are into watching the game show Lingo. You have to know your 5 letter words and think fast. Watching the show with him affirms to me how well he can read and spell. He's been quicker than me to guess some of those words.
Another word game we're playing lately is good old fashioned Scrabble. I'm in a Scrabble game on Facebook that is getting competitive and after playing over my shoulder the past few weeks, the boys expressed an interest to play me in real life. I realized there's no reason why we can't keep the board out, taking turns throughout the day, so that's what we've been doing today, using our real Scrabble board game rather than the computer. I surprised them and played the word "sex." DS11 protested saying he could have played that word but didn't think it was appropriate. :) I'm such a bad mom! LOL!
So much going on, so little time to blog.
I'm working more to help bring in more cash flow. I'm now driving to the pool 5 days a week. 3 mornings I leave the house at 5:00am to open and 2 days a week I'll still close. I don't want to think about how this is going to mess up my body clock. I should throw a sleeping bag and change of clothes in the car this winter just in case.
DH is meeting with an old client in the hopes he can freelance, but its not a permanent solution. It could pay better than unemployment though. I'm praying something comes along.
The boys lives haven't had to change and for that I'm grateful. I was worried having DH home more would change our unschooling, but its only enhanced it. Lately our favorite game has been Repeat Or You're Obsolete. We received it as a thank you gift for bird sitting. Its a memorization game everyone in the family can play. DH is really good at it, of course he's always had an amazing memory.
In some ways, I think because we are homeschooling, it's helping him get through this difficult time. I know it helps him when he can help us, even with small things. Everyone wants to have a purpose in life.
Yesterday we visited the zoo, and I took the photo of the Timber Rattler you see above. I think they are so beautiful. Its one of only 2 poisonous snake species in Wisconsin. The zoo was having a Halloween event so a little extra fun was to be had that day. The zoo keepers carved a pumpkin with several holes, they loaded the pumpkin with snakes, and then the snakes came slithering out of the holes in the pumpkin. It was very cool and creepy!
We we hoping to carve our pumpkins, but we ran out of time yesterday. Maybe tonight we'll get to it.
I have to get on the ball and finish the doughnut costume! My sewing machine is completely locked up so I hand stitched what I absolutely had to and now I'm painting the rest. DS14 still hasn't decided if he'll dress up. I know he wants the candy though!
I better get a move on. I just wanted to check in, jot a few notes and say a quick thank you to everyone praying and thinking positive thoughts for us. Take care of yourselves!
