Isn't she cute?

Here's Reagan (pronounced Ree-gan) at 4 weeks. Don't you want one???

...And a nice clean one

Still with funny hair though. :-)

More messy pics

Autumn is the world's messiest eater--seriously!

I have a picture of myself as a toddler after dumping a bowl of spaghetti over my head. It's pretty bad, but I don't think it's this bad.

AND...Autumn didn't have a bowl to dump over her head. Believe it or not, she was very carefully fed with a spoon from a jar, yet she still managed to do this. I wonder if tomatoes are good for your hair?

messy eater--blueberry pancakes and mac n' cheese

What's Up

Tired, sunburned, and sick. But satisfied. We had a very successful yard sale yesterday--successful, as in got-rid-of-a-ton-of-stuff-that-we-didn't-have-room-for. And managed to help Matt's parents and grandparents get rid of a lot too. And we all made a little money off of it (though ours is all in quarters and dimes). :-) We've got all the leftovers boxed up to haul off to Goodwill today, so that's good too.

Also, right after we finished cleaning up yesterday, it rained! We've been needing rain so badly. Maybe it will resusitate some of the garden and we can stretch it out a little longer.

Autumn's got a really nasty cold, which she has passed on to me. So we're both staying home from church today with sore throats, headaches, and runny noses.

Also, Grandma Kathryn came to visit, so I gave her the SB pages I've been working on for her and got paid for those. Which means I can go re-invest it in supplies for the next project she has for me to do. She also brought a few more beach pictures to work on from 1974 and 1981. Should be fun. :-)

Matt's heading to Atlanta today--hmmmm.... Happy about this, but unhappy at the same time. I hope it goes well. We really really need to get him some new clothes for the new job, but I don't know that we're going to have a chance to right away.

Also, having quite a bit of car trouble right now--and no one seems to know what the problems are.

Anyway...that's pretty much what's going on right now.

I'll try to get some Autumn pics up today.

-kt

Yay! (and stuff)

Matt got an offer letter today to join the management trainee program. Next comes the 3 month training process. :-) SOOOO good to finally have things looking up.

I've got bunches and bunches (as my little brother, Gabe, likes to say) of pictures of Autumn to post, but I've been too busy.

Reorganizing the craft/office/storage/guest room with some big bookshelves--I've made such a huge mess.

And I have a big bowl of peeled chopped tomatoes in the fridge that have got to be made into salsa or sauce or something either tonight or tomorrow morning. Lovely.

The primaries are tomorrow. I'll be glad it's over, but it means I won't be able to watch the (very entertaining) nasty nasty nasty negative campaigning of the democrat candidates against each other.

Also, whoever wins, it will be nice not to watch Casey Cagle in his commercials that state his reason for running "I am not Ralph Reed" over and over again. If he loses, he'll be gone. If he wins, he'll have to come up with some other reason to hold office.

We live in the home county of our governor. So there are "Sonny" signs everywhere. What's interesting is that someone has gone all over the town and vandalized nearly all of them, plastering "Boot Perdue" bumper stickers over his name. Lots of people are very mad at him because of going back on his promise to let people vote on the flag.

They just drove by spraying for mosquitos out of the back of a truck. I really need to actually keep track of when they do that.

Anyway, I've gotta run. Lots and lots of cleaning up to do and Autumn needs another bottle before bed.

The End?

Or at least very close. Tonight I'm planning on going out to the garden and pulling up all the squash plants, 4 rows of bean plants, and various other things.

The garden just hasn't been able to handle the drought and water restrictions. Everything is fried. The beans are shriveled and dried in their pods, hanging off of dried out yellow plants. The cucumbers are dehydrated mini-pickles hanging off the fence. The squash are just a mess. Most of the tomato plants are shriveled up straw-colored masses of vines with no leaves left.

It's sad.

I water whenever I'm allowed to and everything is very heavily mulched, but it's just too hot and too dry this year.

:-(

Family Activities in the Area

Take your family out for a fun night of exciting mud-bogging with "High Powered Lawn Mower Racing"!!!

Just advertised on the local radio station.

Yes, this is where I live.

And yes, the ad was completely serious.

Puppies for Sale!

My mom has been asking me to see if I can find some homes for the puppies, so here's a shot. Generally they have no problem selling them all--they're absolutely adorable when they're ready to go home and they have the sweetest personalities. But just in case anyone out there is interested... There are 7 or 8 males (my parents may keep one) and one female.

The mother is extremely sweet and loves being around kids. Both parents are a darker shade (not pale blonde). Also, they should be on the smaller end of the scale for Golden Retrievers, since both parents are smaller. They're purebred, AKC. $200 each.

Should be ready in mid-August. They're in Indiana, but my family will be traveling in August and may be able to deliver them if you're anywhere between there and South Carolina.

More Puppy Pictures

Their eyes are opening. :-)

Hives

Last year it was the same thing. Every time I went outside this time of the summer I immediately broke out in hives. They would start at my ankles and quickly run up my legs and arms. I could come inside and they would just keep popping out until I took some Benadryl.

I've never really had any allergies before, certainly never serious ones. But it's back again. The last couple of weeks everytime I go outside, even if it's just to pick a few tomatoes, I start getting these big, incredibly itchy spots all over my arms and legs. And every time now a whole bunch of little spots pop up on my left wrist and turn hard and red.

Still don't know what it is, but it's thankfully only this time of year.

Bath time

Peeking round the wall.

DinoWars

Dinosaur Wars (DinoWars) is a game for 1-2 players and can also be an entertaining spectator sport.

1) Select two Duplo Dinosaurs of your choice. (For a two person game, each player gets one dinosaur.)

2) Hold one in each hand.

3) Smash them together as loudly as possible.

4) Repeat.

Puppy pic

they're getting chubbier.

I wish I had something exciting to write about, but I don't.

I babysat again today.

I'm very slowly finishing The Sunday Philosophy Club by Alexander McCall Smith. I think I like it better than the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency books, but I'm not sure yet.

I need to pick tomatoes yet again. But I'm not going to have daylight a whole lot longer and Autumn isn't feeling very well and wants me to cuddle with her, so I think for once I'm going to just stay in with her and worry about the tomatoes tomorrow.

I'm going to try to make it into Macon tomorrow to do some shopping. I've gotta make some friends down here. Shopping by yourself is not much fun.

I have a ton of impatiens cuttings in water sitting in the dining room, hoping they will root. There are more than I can use probably, but I think I have enough people to give them to. I'm supposed to get some coleus cuttings tomorrow, too.

I'm watching Friends on DVD again.

I'm lonely.

We're over at Matt's parents watching Germany vs. Italy. The frustrating thing is that I'm going to have to leave at 4:00 to go home and water the garden. I slept in this morning and missed out on my chance to water in the morning. Now, I really have to get it done at 4:00 because otherwise I'm going to have to wait till Thursday to water and there's no way the garden's going to last that long. I HATE these water restrictions.

We're planning on going to Lake Tobesofkee for fireworks tonight in Macon. Hope they're good, since we'll have to pay admission, but they're the only fireworks in the area this evening. Everyone else did them Thursday and Friday nights. It's really kind of odd that Matt has the day off today, but somehow it worked out. :-)

Duck Hunting

Another picture of our puppy. Getting cuter now at 2 days old. Thanks for the pic Jessica!

Books to read...

Thinking ahead to August and the beach (YAY!), I'm going to need some good beach reading. In other words, stuff that doesn't take too much brain power. Any suggestions?

And while we're on the topic, I'm glad that Autumn has progressed to sitting through chapters of Winnie the Pooh (though she often falls asleep). Winnie the Pooh is so much more satisfying than 8-10 page board books (though Autumn still enjoys those very much). But beyond children's books...

Things I want to read this summer (or, more likely, over the next year and a half):

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
because it looks interesting and keeps getting recommended to me by Amazon

The Kite Runner
same as above

The Persian Puzzle
because i haven't kept up with this stuff nearly as well as i should and because i used his work a lot in research papers at school (lovely CRS reports :))

The Devil Wears Prada
because it was recommended to me by a friend who didn't think i would read such "frivolous" books--little does she know ;-)

Of Mice and Men
because i enjoyed east of eden so much

The Great Gatsby
because i've never read it

The Secret Adversary
because i've read it at least five times, but it's still my favorite agatha christie and it's about time to read it again--maybe out loud to matt

The Silver Chair and The Last Battle
matt and i have been (very very slowly) making our way through c.s. lewis out loud, some fiction, some not. these are the last of the chronicles that we have to read. and yeah, these may be officially categorized as children's books, but they're really for all ages. :-)

I know there are a bunch more that I have mentally listed that I want to read, but they've been temporarily erased. Does anyone have any other suggestions for good reads?

Salsa recipes?

I'm actually getting tired of tomatoes. Yesterday I worked on everything I had picked the night before. I froze another 5 quarts of Romas and diced up a big bowlful for more salsa that I'm hoping to make at some point today. (But since I'm babysitting lbl, no idea if that will actually happen.) Then, I looked outside yesterday evening and realized that the garden is full of ripe red tomatoes again and I have to get out and pick them before the creatures do.

(I also need to pick beans--desperately! Wesley, if you do come to visit, I think this should be one of your chores while you're here. ;-) And for anyone else reading, don't worry. If you come visit I won't give you chores--unless you're another one of my little brothers. ;-))

I have a recipe for salsa that I've been messing with (I just can't leave a recipe alone). It's been okay, but I was wondering if anyone out there has a favorite recipe I could try. I know that this won't be the last batch I make this summer. (Last year our garden did terribly, but we were still getting a few tomatoes in December.)

I know this is odd, but it's true. I love gardening--I like the planting, I like caring for the plants, I don't even really mind having to water for several hours a day (though I can no longer do that). But I really dislike picking and preserving the resulting produce. It's just so tedious and somehow anticlimactic. Not to mention the fact that it always leaves my kitchen a disaster.

Anyway, better run. Lbl should have been here 30 minutes ago, so he'll probaby get here pretty soon and I need to make sure everything's ready for him.

puppy pics

They're not actually terribly cute yet, since they were just born this morning, but here are some pictures. There are 10 of them. Eight boys and two girls. The darker of the two girls (the one in the shoe) is ours. :-)

puppy news

Our puppy was just born! I'll put up a picture when I get one from Jessica.

pictures from the reunion

i'm still not sure who most of the people there were, so i'm not going to post all those pictures, but i thought i would put up a few of my favorites--there were several cute babies there. :-)

Picture

I was cleaning all the Greer family reunion pics off my camera and found this one from afterwards when we took off from the party and cooled off in the pool. I LOVE this picture. =D (I'll be posting a few from the reunion too, though I don't know many of the people I took pictures of.)

i've typed out a to-do list several pages long
i have a couple baskets of tomatoes that need to be processed and frozen or canned
the kitchen is a wreck
i've promised to do a lot of scrapbooking for someone
the laundry is in a big pile needing to be folded and put away
i owe someone a thank you note for autumn
the garden is a disaster
and...
i'm bored to death

Freecycle = awesome. :-)

Just a quick post while Autumn's napping. I'm trying to get caught up on vacuuming etc. while she's out, since she's still scared to death of the vacuum.

I'm finding that I have to vacuum the dining room, kitchen, and most of the living room every single day now because Autumn makes such a huge mess all the time, dropping things from her high chair, shredding any papers she can reach, and generally being a baby.

I'm mostly behind on housework because of babysitting LBL yesterday. He is usually a fussy kid anyway, but yesterday he screamed from 12:00 till 5:00. He wouldn't even stop to catch his breath. At first I think he was hurting cause he was gassy, but then he just got ANGRY. He turned all red and the veins on his head were sticking out (he doesn't have any hair). The one time that he was quiet was when his bottle was in his mouth for his 3:00 feeding. Rocking, walking, the swing, singing--nothing helped. I am SOOOOO grateful that Autumn is generally a good kid. I would lose my mind if I had to have this kid full time instead of just two days a week.

The state just issued water restrictions, which for me mean that I'll have to start getting up earlier to get the garden done. ICK. At least I can still use water, just at restricted times. If we could just get some rain! We're down over 9 inches and the heat just keeps going higher. Everyone's yards are brown stubble with the exception of a few weeds that must be able to grow in the desert.

My mystery plant has turned out to be a pumpkin. It's getting very large. I think it's going to be ripe way too early.

Anyway, better get back to vacuuming.

She's got rhythm!

Autumn "dances" every time she hears music. She raises her hands in the air and bounces up and down until the music stops. Commercials, cell phones, the radio, and anything else that makes cool sounds.

She's getting a lot better about standing up without support, but it still makes her nervous, so she sits down pretty quickly.

I made a huge batch of zucchini bread last night. It wasn't finished baking it till about 12:30. Some is in the freezer and some I'm giving away. I cheated though--we haven't gotten as much zucchini as I was hoping, so it was partially zucchini and partially summer squash (which we've had lots of). It's good though and Autumn has been enjoying eating it (as well as crumbling it and throwing it on the floor).

She's been so busy busy busy lately. She just goes all the time. Crawling all over the house, chewing on everything, wrestling with her Daddy. Here she is in sleeping in the middle of her dinner after a hard day of playing.
















I need to go buy some jars and make some salsa. The tomatoes and peppers are really ripening quickly now. Certainly won't be able to make salsa, sauce, etc. on the scale we did back home, but for a little garden in town, I think we'll do pretty well.

Anybody have any good eggplant recipes? I've got several vegetarian ones from Moosewood, but I'd love to have some more ideas. We have lots and lots of eggplant and I don't want it to go to waste.

Anyway, Autumn is done with her bath, so I have to run. Here is a picture of some of the tomatoes I picked yesterday.











Sorry for another boring post. Maybe I'll come up with some time to think and actually come up with something better to post.

check this out

Matt ran across these online and I thought they were really cool...

sidewalk art

Can you hear it?

here

(i hate aol, but this was in a forwarded message from someone who doesn't)

From the Yard

a volunteer--this big bushy marigold plant came up in the collards. it wasn't interfering with anything so i just let it go, even though we hadn't planted it. it's been rewarding us with tons of gorgeous blooms.

i only planted one cherry tomato plant this year...and it's now over 7 feet tall! with hundreds of tomatoes all over. lots are on the verge of being ripe right now. the first few that have gotten ripe haven't even made it inside, because we keep snacking on them while we're working in the garden. fresh tomatoes are awesome!

this is another volunteer plant that decided to come up where the garden meets the lawn. i can't quite figure out what it is though. it has to be some sort of squash, but the actual squash on it are funny looking. big and round and green--they look more like watermelons than anything else. guess we'll find out what it's like when i start picking them.

our yard literally has hundreds of these pink glads in it. i'm planning on digging up a lot of them this fall, since they're extremely crowded. if anyone wants some bulbs, let me know. (especially if you have something else to trade.)

At the Park

big push.

swinging with grandma k. and daddy.

autumn was fascinated by her reflection in her daddy's sunglasses. this isn't the best picture, but you get the idea.

love those chubby little feet.

big smile.

more pics

I have some more from the park that I'll try to get up later today.

We've got the laptop back! Actually, it's been back for a few days, but Grandma K. has been visiting and I've been babysitting for LBL, so I haven't had time to get on and post pictures. But I've been getting lots and lots of people bugging me about not having any new ones up, so I'm going to take a few minutes and post some.

In other news...

-Autumn stood up on her own without support for the first time about three days ago. She's been enjoying practicing since, but only for a couple seconds at a time.

-We picked our first red tomatoes yesterday--4 cherry ones and 2 full-sized ones. Not much, but there are LOTS more close to being ripe. We each got to taste a cherry tomato and they were GOOD :-).

-We had a bit of a scare the other day when Autumn dove head-first into a fire ant nest (she was tired of being pushed around in her car and decided she wanted out). I tried to get all the ants off of her as fast as possible and managed to get them all over me. Thankfully she only got a couple of bites on her hands and they haven't been bothering her much.

-All four of Autumn's top teeth seem to be trying to come in at once. They aren't actually through yet, but her gums are very swollen and she's drooling like crazy and chewing on anything that stands still long enough.