Sunday, August 27, 2006

Pictures--post 5

Sunset

Krista and Dottie

Autumn discovering that sand isn't scary after all


Norman and Marilyn

Pictures--post 4

Justin, Gwen, Kara

Miriam and William

Autumn

Autumn again

Miriam

Pictures--post 3

Autumn and Jessica

Gabe and Jennifer

Lem

Autumn and Jessica

Autumn--after having been told that she should not chew on the shoe

Saturday, August 26, 2006

Pictures--post 2

Autumn

Wesley

Playing volleyball

Gabe

Miriam

Pictures--post 1

The beach was BUSY (for Holden). Guess that's what we get for going a week earlier. :-)


Tristan on the porch with camera.

Daddy playing volleyball with the kids.

Thaddeus
Ok, I know I promised pictures, but I've been SOOOOO busy. And today is no exception. I've been babysitting the last three days and now my to-do list is a mile long.

I took Autumn to the doctor. She still hasn't totally recovered from her beach bug and has lost weight, but she got shots anyway. She's currently 20 lbs, 10 oz, and 29.5 in. As I write this she is sitting in her highchair eating bread and fresh peaches (Matt's grandma got them at a pick-your-own place--they're AWESOME!). Her highchair pad is now officially falling apart from washing too many times. Messy messy eater.

I planted impatiens this morning...and talked about some new flower beds I want to put in. But I'm going to have to do them all with donations, since I don't have the money to buy the plants. Anyone have something they would like to contribute? I can trade you pink glads or daffodils. :-)

Anyhow...I've got to get back to work, and I don't have time to upload pics, but I'll leave you with one of my favorites--and try to get some more up soon.

Tuesday, August 22, 2006

Home

We just got back home yesterday evening. The beach was nice, but Autumn and I only got about 2 days to enjoy it. Somehow we managed to take a virus with us and EVERYONE got sick. Icky. I've recovered, but poor Autumn is taking longer to get better.

I'll try to get some pictures posted after I unpack and locate the CD I saved them too. In other words, it will probably be a couple days. :-)

Autumn now has four top teeth and three bottom ones, and a swollen gum where the fourth one on the bottom wants to come in. She's tired and cranky. Misses all the people to play with at the beach.

Beginning to think I'm crazy for having a teething baby and a teething puppy at the same time. Autumn is scared to death of Reagan (who tries to chew on her every chance she gets), but more on that later. I set up a "playpen" for Reagan in the back yard and I think she's going to be spending quite a bit of time out there. She loves the monkey grass--that makes one of us.

Anyway, Autumn's down for an early nap, so I need to grab a quick shower and start unpacking all this stuff.

Thank goodness Matt cleaned the house while I was gone. We didn't have time before we left and when I came back it was all done. Even the laundry was folded and the kitchen was gleaming. :-) YAY!

Thursday, August 10, 2006

Autumn is screaming her head off in bed. After several (difficult) days in Atlanta, I'm trying to get her back into her routine. Fat chance.

She stayed with Matt's parents today and I got quite a bit of housework done. Not enough, but a lot. Still need to finish laundry and start packing for the beach. And the kitchen is still a mess, as is my desk area. But other than that, it looks pretty good. I even managed to go out and clip some crape myrtle stems and zinnias to brighted up the house a bit.

However, I never managed to make it to the grocery store, so there isn't any food in the house. Okay, some yogurt and eggs and lots and lots of hot peppers from the garden, but not much more than that.

My family (some of them) are coming tonight along with our puppy. It's going to be weird to have a dog around again, and I know a lot of the puppy stages are going to drive me up the wall, but I'm still looking forward to it. :-)

Several projects to get finished over the next day and a half--I don't know if it's going to happen, but I'm going to try...

And for those keeping score...Autumn now has three of her top teeth in. The fourth one is really taking its time.

Gotta run...

Wednesday, August 09, 2006

hanging out...

in atlanta. we came up with matt, since i was off from baby sitting this week. we need to head home before long, because family is coming tomorrow. and the puppy. :-)

autumn has been extremely difficult with being away from home and not having her regular routine. today, so far, has been going better. she got to bed earlier last night and actually slept through most of the night. that helps. i'm not really looking forward to dealing with her on the drive home by myself though.

i need to find a large format scanner today (SOON) so i can get a layout in for a contest. there are a couple other contests i'd like to get stuff into, too. but prolly won't have enough time before the beach. i did get a couple more pages done for grandma's beach book(s). she should have everything done by the beach though. so that's cool.

that's all for now.

Saturday, August 05, 2006

Moments

The house is a mess.

Matt's been at work for more than 14 hours now.

I'm exhausted.

But I'm very happy.

Autumn just took a break from her demolition work to spend some cuddle time with me. We sat in the big brown rocker and pulled a throw blanket over our heads. Autumn balled her hand into a fist with her chubby little index finger pointed out to show me how the light shined through between the threads of the woven blanket. And then we sat there in the darkness of our little tent, both of us tracing out the patterns in the light with our fingers. Autumn giggling around her thumb and me thinking just how perfect such moments can be.

Scrapping...


I never post work on here, but I'm thinking about starting another blog for that purpose. Mostly so I can just keep track of what I've done and use it as a reference. Hmmmm... Anyway, I just started experimenting with doodles and kinda liked the way this page turned out, so I think I'm going to try to get my nerve up to post it...

ok, the lighting is really bad in this photo, cause I took it at night in the office. Not enough light in there at all. It's a damaged picture on the page, but I thought it looked kinda cool anyway.

Autumn...

So cute...so DESTRUCTIVE. I feel like there's a demolition team following me around and tearing apart everything I do. AHHHHHHHH!!!!!

Wednesday, August 02, 2006

yet more puppy pics

She's coming on the 12th!


Autumn


Moving so fast, it's hard to catch her in a non-blurry photo...

Blog-able

Okay, so I keep forgetting to post this. The other day I was working in the office early in the morning before Autumn woke up. I got up and was walking into the living room when I heard the oddest noise outside.

Now, we live on a corner lot and there's a stop sign on the corner, so I get to hear lots of hip-hop blaring, mufflers dragging, and loud brakes as cars come up to the corner, stop, and then turn onto the street in front of our house. But this was different.

The noise stopped at the corner and I walked to the window to try to find out what was making the racket. As I expected, there was a car at the stop sign. It paused for a moment, turned the corner and sped off down the street...

...dragging a vacuum cleaner along behind it.

Yeah, that's right, a vacuum cleaner. An upright vacuum cleaner (no longer upright) being dragged along a significant way behind the car by its cord.

I figure either they had been vacuuming out the car and the cord got stuck in the door and they dragged it off to work with them that morning (though it was making so much noise I don't know how they missed it), or they just got really mad at their vacuum. I've wanted to destroy mine on more than one occasion, but I've never gotten that creative.

Tuesday, August 01, 2006

Life and jellyfish

Off to Atlanta today to get Grandma K. Then back to Atlanta again on Sunday night. Then back home to pack and clean up. Then Jessica and a puppy come to visit (the puppy to stay). Then the beach for a week. (YAY!)

Looking forward to some aspects of the beach...but not others...

Stinging Sea Creatures Plague N.C. Beaches
By Associated Press
Sat Jul 29, 9:38 PM

WILMINGTON, N.C. - A swarm of slimy invaders is menacing beachgoers on North Carolina's southern coast. Jellyfish have stung so many people in the area of Wrightsville Beach and Carolina Beach that the New Hanover County Health Department issued an alert on Friday.

Charles Smith, the director of Carolina Beach Ocean Rescue, says reports of stings have been gradually increasing over the past couple of weeks, and at least 75 people were stung by sea nettles and other jellyfish from Monday through Thursday.

One swimmer had to be taken to New Hanover Regional Medical Center with a suspected Portuguese man-of-war sting.

"I can't recall any particular year that it's been that bad," Smith said.

Sea nettles, a type of jellyfish, began arriving at Wrightsville Beach in mid-July, a few weeks ahead of schedule. Now they're bombarding Carolina Beach, where so many were in the water on Thursday that lifeguards posted red flags to alert visitors of dangerous conditions.

At Wrightsville Beach, Ocean Rescue director Dave Baker said lifeguards treated about a dozen stings a day when the jellyfish were at their peak. They're now down to about one a day.

Experts offer a variety of reasons for the increase in jellyfish, ranging from tropical weather pushing them inland to a combination of temperatures, salinity and rich feeding grounds.

"Last year we had very few, this year we have a lot," Baker said. "It's just Mother Nature."

Saturday, July 29, 2006

I've been so busy lately, it's been hard to actually sit down and write.

Matt has been gone for the last week, training at the Atlanta corporate office. He's been enjoying the experience, but I haven't. ;-) It's lonely down here. It's been especially difficult because Autumn has spent the last two weeks suffering with a virus and sore gums. I love her like crazy and while we still have had some brief moments of fun, over all she's been very difficult to deal with and occupying just about all of my time. It's been hard to keep the house up since she wants to be held all the time.

When I'm not holding Autumn, I've been trying to get some more scrapbooking done for Grandma K. On Thursday I did the beach pictures from 1974 (3 pages) and another unidentified year (sometime in the 70s, hoping someone will be able to help us narrow down the year at the beach- 1 page). Friday morning I finished the pictures of my mom and myself at the beach in 1981 (2 pages) and decided that while Autumn looks most like Matt, she's very much shaped like I was. Today I did three more pages from 2004. I think in total that makes around 28 or 29 pages I've finished for her beach album in the last month.

For some reason I work in spurts. I'll get a bunch of pages done over a few days and then won't work on it again for a week. I guess it's probably that I realize just how bad the house has gotten while I've been in the office and it takes me a week to get it caught back up again.

I've realized that I really need to stop babysitting lbl sometime soon. He's still colicky and screams so much of the time that it's really stressful and I'm not able to pay much attention to Autumn. Also, it makes it very difficult to get away from home. If I hadn't been babysitting this last week while Matt was in Atlanta, I would have taken off to Indiana, or Ohio, or NoVA and visited friends and family. But instead I had to be here to watch him on Wednesday (both he and Autumn screamed most of the day) and Friday (he behaved in the morning, but the afternoon wasn't so great).

I feel like such a wimp to not be able to handle it, but I honestly don't know how anyone would be able to handle his screaming fits for very long. So often there is absolutely nothing I can do about it, but listen to him yell, and just that is pretty hard to do. I guess if it were just him, I would probably be okay. But when he's here, he monopolizes my attention and I have a hard time trying to keep track of Autumn and make sure she eats, gets her bath, sleeps, and gets some cuddle time too.

But how do I stop? I don't think his parents can afford to hire anyone else to do it and I feel so bad even thinking about telling them I can't do it anymore... Okay, I'm definitely a wimp when it comes to this. But by the end of the day on the really screamy days, I'm about to lose my mind. Matt thinks I should quit. My mom thinks I should quit. My friends think I should quit. I think I should quit. But I still don't know if I'll be able to. I guess in a lot of ways it's easier to just be totally stressed out than to tell his parents they'll have to find someone else.

Anyway...

I'm really looking forward to the beach and getting away from it all for a while. I am sad that Matt isn't going to be able to make it there this year, but still awfully happy that he's getting a much better job. I think Autumn will enjoy the beach too--lots and lots of people to play with and water to play in and sand to eat. Yay!

I've been very homesick this week, too, because it's fair week back home. All the kids are showing animals and getting awards and riding the rides (kiddy night only--too expensive the rest of the week) and eating fair food. :-) I don't miss the actual fair so much as watching my little brothers enjoying it all. I'm hoping that next year Autumn and I will be able to go visit in Indiana for fair week--I think she would like all the animals and stuff.

Oh, and speaking of fair week, I have to mention that Seth's rooster won the rooster crowing contest by crowing 69 times in 30 minutes. He set a record.

We've been getting rain this last week. Yay! But I think it really is too late for my poor tomatoes. I keep hoping that maybe they will perk back up, but every time I go out, they still look just as sad. I need to get out there and pick the tomatoes that are left, though I expect that most--if not all of them--are split because of getting so much rain the last few days.

The eggplant, peppers, and herbs are looking lots better though. As are the few flowers I have planted. The bed under the magnolia tree (the one I had to fight the squirrels over for so long) is doing GREAT. It's really getting established and taking off. None of the bulbs ever bloomed because the squirrels got them, but the annuals and the myrtle from NC have finally won out over the furry little pests. I would never have believed it of myself before, but I was so happy the other day when I noticed one of them had gotten hit in the road. (gasp)

It's getting really late now, and this is getting way way way too long, and I'm getting really tired, and probably completely incoherent, and I'm hoping to make it to church tomorrow morning, so I'd better go.

-kt

Friday, July 28, 2006

Matt's home after a week in Atlanta -> I'm happy.

Thursday, July 27, 2006

Isn't she cute?






















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

Wednesday, July 26, 2006

...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?



Sunday, July 23, 2006

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

Monday, July 17, 2006

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.

Saturday, July 15, 2006

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.

Friday, July 14, 2006

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.

Thursday, July 13, 2006

More Puppy Pictures



Their eyes are opening. :-)

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

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.

Monday, July 10, 2006

Bath time





Peeking round the wall.

Friday, July 07, 2006

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.

Wednesday, July 05, 2006

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.

Tuesday, July 04, 2006

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. :-)

Saturday, July 01, 2006

Duck Hunting


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