NOW what shall I do??

The subtitle here should be - what should I do first???

I am sort of stumped.  I have arrived home from sister Rose's house, the place where I usually disappear to immediately after school.  I had a WONDERFUL trip, a blog post about that may follow, and it is SUNNY here today. WAAAAA HOOOOOO!!!

I have a deck full of plants, a package of some breath-takingly beautiful black iridescent glass that is needing to be applied to a cute lil concrete raven, a deck that needs arranging, a body that needs working out and I SERIOUSLY don't know what to do first.  I also have to finish cleaning up my Highschool art room, put in my orders at school (a rainy day event for sure), work on my upstairs rooms, work on my garden shed, blog more, photo edit, you get the picture.

It gives me a fair amount of anxiety. PLUS, I should stop by the grocery store and get myself some food, and I should go get horse feed and fly spray.......


HELP!



But in among this all, I will find my joy, and I will take a picture of myself having coffee on the deck!

Short, fast and fabulous to do list

I have to make this a short SHORT post, as I have to get ready for one of the following things on my list~

1.  TODAY IS THE LAST DAY OF SCHOOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
      (I just downloaded the School's Out song- is that too cliche?) (TOO BAD)

(OMG)

(YAY)

(PARTY BABY)

(LET THE TWITTER FEST BEGIN)


2. Final prep for my "Cleaning Goddess" (write a note and a check!)

3. TRY not to speed as I go to school this morning

4.  Become loud and obnoxious in the  hallways

5.  CLEAN the rest of my room and then finish grades

6.  Potluck at 1!!!

7. Try and get one school's orders done

8. Try to NOT squeal out of the parking lot.........

9. Go to gym for another lesson in deadlifting

10. Collapse on couch and them make a Margarita

How was that??  Did you say that wasn't short at all?  Well, once I got rolling I couldn't stop myself.  What I really wanted to say also is-

tomorrow:  SUMMER PEDICURE!!!  PACK my bags  Get some cash

Sunday: Go to Sistah Rose's house

Mon - Wed:  Shop like a maniac, relax, enjoy

I have a general summer to do list but between my shower and packing my breakfast and getting the rhubarb cake ready for #6 and doing the second item on my list, I have to get going!!!

TODAY will be a joy!!

And it is June...

I was slightly surprised it was June yesterday, that sounds crazy, but sometimes I get so focused on something I forget what the next thing is.  In other words, I am so focused on getting to the end of the school year, that I didn't "realize" it was June yesterday until I looked at my calendar and saw that I had to switch months.

What does June mean??  Well, obviously it is a change of the seasons, an end to the school year, the beginning of a new mindset.  YAY for summer.

I have a few travel plans for the summer, that I will address as they come up.  I mean I don't want to go on and brag about a trip to Timbuktu that doesn't happen!!  I am starting though, with a trip to see my Sistah-Rose for a day or two right away next Sunday!  I just need to have my sister time in the Cities.

So, it is raining this morning, which gives me a little slow down and goof around time.  It is kind of irritating, as the weather man assured us yesterday that it was not supposed to rain today....  sigh.  Oh well, there is lots I can work on.

I am starting to workout the plans for Jon and Sarah's concrete bench, and I may break out the adhesive and start the process.  I also found some black glass and I can workout my raven, too.  I want to find some iridescent black glass as well, so I can't finish the raven, even if it is small.  AND I have a planter or two that can be done as well.  Good rainy day thing to do.  I am excited at the prospect of getting my garden shed in working order!  I have so much stuff and it needs to be organized.  I will begin the process of buying clear bins to store my glass and tile in and figure out where exactly to put shelves, the work bench and all the details that need attending. There will be electricity out there and I am going to have a few lights and a ceiling fan installed!  The ceiling fan will be awesome to keep the place cooler and work-able.  And I want to make it cute and not another place for a certain pack rat to dump his junk!

So one more week of school- I am going to have some help cleaning my HS room, that will leave me my elem. room to deal with.  I got quite a bit of reorganizing done last week on Thursday, so I have mostly my teaching materials to put away and organize!  My goal is to only have to spend a little time after school is done in my rooms, like less than a day.  Cleaning out art rooms is a daunting task!  Oy.

I have most of my flower gardens cleared out, thanks to the MA who helped me with a big one yesterday.  Now I can work on the last one and then go back over the other ones a little at a time.  Get the roots that were missed, get in between plants that are blooming and shouldn't be disturbed, marking drifts of daffodils that need to be divided, etc.

Anyway, enough of my musings for the morning.  I am looking forward to getting a lot of stuff done both today and this week at school.  And then let the summer begin!

Have a joyful day...

AND ONE MORE MONTH TO JULY!!!  AND we know what that means in the land of the Mad-Artteacher!!!  BIRTHDAY MONTH!!!

WOOOT!!

Great weekend!

Memorial Day Weekend, 2013

Usually I have some sort of story in my head when I begin a blog post, but today I have none.  Yet, I am going to press on and at least post a quick weekend wrap up.....  After all, it was Ella's first trip to Grandma's house!

It was a wonderful weekend with the kids- I think we had a great few days overall.  The weather was decent- not too warm, not too cold and no rain!  SHOCKER.  Too bad that no rain trend is not going to continue during this week.  We all enjoyed our visit with little Ella and we had a few guests who came over to meet the little one, so it was an active few days.  Grandma Debi and Grandpa Fred held Ella a LOT, which was wonderful for everyone involved.  Grandma Debi had her enough that she was treated to several of Ella's first smiles!  Never was able to catch those still fleeting moments on "film", but that is just a matter of time.

We got a few little chores done around the house, got part of the garden planted, the clock got fixed and  a couple other things tidied up.  I was fortunate to get 2 delightful Mother's Day gifts- one was a really cool photo mug of Ella and the other the long awaited garden gate- Greg did some blacksmithing and created a beautiful garden gate that he installed on the garden fence this weekend.  So cool!

Installed Garden Gate with Ruger photo-bomb

Mother's Day cup!  :)

We managed to get in a fire in the fire ring on Sunday night (complete with S'mores), a little trap shooting one afternoon and while Jon, Sarah and Ella visited some friends for a few hours, the rest of us went for a hiking/fishing excursion to Patterson Lake near here.  So, it was a nice, mostly relaxing, long weekend of family time.  AND one of the best things is the family pic we got- thanks to Bob the Barber, who was willing to run the camera for me.

Not sure where the tennis ball is, but that is what she is looking at!

Sarah Jane fishing

The MA with our dear lil Manny

And so Greg just went on in....  

Patterson Lake

Mr. Mannington chilling out

Carrots brought them all running in!

It was really very sad when they all left- but fortunately it will only be a few weeks before I see them all again.  But, I was really tired!  I did some weeding as long as there was no mosquitos buzzing in my ear, so that felt great.  If it is not raining, weeding will be on the agenda for the evening tonight as well.

Manny was determined not to be left behind

See you soon, baby girl!

So, I hope you had a lovely Holiday weekend, as these are the best days of the summer!  And summer is so short and we have to pickup all the joy that we can!

This 'n That

FIRST of all-  Hang on to your hats everyone--- that's right, ELLA IS COMING TO SEE GRANDMA AND GRANDPA - and Uncle Mike!  I wanted to get that said immediately, as it is such GREAT news!!  YES!!!  Of course, what this really means is that I need to do some additional cleaning upstairs.  I had gone through and cleaned up the one room, when I thought it was just Greg and Sarah, but now we need the other room as well. I am in the middle of trying to get rid of certain people's old junk *coughgreg*, so there is chaos up there.  That will be my after school task!  I have to insert here that I am thrilled that Greg and Sarah and Toby and Ruger are coming, too!!  YAY!!  I love having the dogs here. And, of course, someone can get my outdoor speakers hooked up again!  :)  and I need someone to look at Grandpa's clock and figure out why the pendulum stopped working....  I bought brats from the Fifield grocery- just sayin!!

Ok, now that we have all that taken care of-
my hands are killing me today.  I weeded much of the weekend and I feel like my right hand is swelled up, and in fact it sort of looks like it is!  I got a lot done, and I feel like I should have done a lot more, but I needed to clean in the house (see above) and I had to wash clothes and for some reason the MA thinks he needs to eat on the weekend! Such an imposition!  Lol.  We were both unstoppable - he is working on the new garage doors, getting in the garden and hogged the "new" Cub Cadet and mowed the lawn for the first time.  I got a zillion tomato plants transplanted into bigger pots, rearranged the garden shed a bit (I used it for the first time!!!) (hey, I also get wifi out there.  THAT is awesome!), weeded, walked, groomed the horse- partially (that boy needs a stylist), laundry, dishes, etc. etc.

We put onions, spinach, chard, peas and beets in the garden so far.  I have a gazillion tomatoes in the garden shed, and we probably could put in the first planting of beans. It seems like it is going to stay warm, so we may not have frost.

Speaking of garden- I have been a vegetarian now for a year!  I am very pleased with this fact.  I was never a big meat eater and it was the next logical step.  To make that commitment to not eat meat was not hard.  The only drawback is the convenience factor, it is easy to rip open a package of tuna or heat up a hot dog in 20 seconds..... but I feel like the health benefits for me far outweigh the inconvenience. I am used to it now- I have things that I can quickly make/eat if I am starving.  And let me tell you they are a whole lot healthier than the things I used to have!! I can see this as a lifetime lifestyle- along with my no soda rule.  And no Doritos.  Lol.

This is the last week of school for the seniors.  I love my kiddos, but we are all ready for summer vaca. The seniors have been phoning it in for the past couple weeks and the rest of them are getting restless.  And the teachers are daydreaming about sleeping in, going to the gym, spending the majority of the day outside and traveling around the state and midwest...... oh wait, that might be me.

Usually I would be outside going for a walk at this time of the day- as I have found it is a great way to start the day. And get some extra calorie burn in.  But the rains and the fact that I have a mountain of laundry are keeping me home for this morning..... oh and I guess i am updating my blog!  :D  Lord have mercy, my hands hurt from typing too.

I have pix to post, but I just don't have the ambition this morning.  I need to start on that mountain of clothes folding and think about my shower, and run out to the garden shed and water my baby tomatoes!  3 weeks of school left for the majority of our kids, so I have to make sure I am ready to go.  The end is in sight, and we have a few things left to learn in art class!

And did I say that Jon and Sarah and Manny and ELLA and Greg and Sarah and Toby and Ruger and of course ELLA are coming to visit!!??!!

This weekend will be a joy!

Today is your birthday......

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MIKEY!!!!!


Have a wonderful day- there **might** be a surprise for you at the house!  :)


I did not have time to put up a new birthday post this morning, but HERE is a link to last year's account.  Add in a year and a new title of UNCLE MIKE to little Ella!  YAY!


I hope his day is full of joys!!!  And I certainly hope he drops by for dinner one of these next few days! MUAH!

Daffodils- 2013 at last.....

Well that took a long time!

Finally, I have some opened daffodils!  The daffs- mini ones, named Tete a Tete- were the first but the white and gold ones are right there with them.  I encouraged the last 2 petals to open on the white one.  :D

bare feeties in the sort of green grass

It was even nice enough out to be in bare feeties, very comfortably!!  YAY!  The only thing is that we do need rain to encourage the green and make the brown decompose, as there is a big fire up north a ways and we could smell the smoke last night.  That is always somewhat unsettling.

So here is my dose of pretty for the day, I hope you enjoy it as well!

Narcissus "Tete-a-Tete"