this little life of mine

Jessica's Wedding

The Mitchell Family: Jessica, Garett and Jeremy

February 20, 2010, my cousin Jessica got married to a wonderful young man who has an adorable son. Congratulations to the new Mitchell family and may God bless you all!

More wedding photos can be found here. Enjoy!

Backyard Update #2

So, I finally wrote last week's backyard update, and figured I'd better do this week's while I had the chance! After all the digging mom and I did last weekend, the rain still won out and while it didn't flood, it didn't drain, either. So today we went out and widened the trench and straightened out the curve in the hopes that the water will drain easier (yes, it's supposed to rain AGAIN this coming week!).

Here it is BEFORE:

Aaaannnnddd AFTER:

It didn't take too long to get the trench widened, and since I got my ELPHie back from the Camera Hospital last week, I went around and took a few piccies:

Some berries or seeds or something on some bush I can't remember the name of now:

And I'm not sure if this is a disease or freeze damage on these leaves or what:

Doesn't matter since it's going to get ripped out along with pretty much everything else in the backyard when it gets redone.

Luckily it looks like out daffy are doing really well:

 

 

And the bees are enjoying the rosemary blossoms. Yes, we have bees in January. Weird I know.

Cheers!

Backyard Update Part 1

I never did get around to writing about our adventures last weekend, and there's really no point in going on about it now, so here's a quick summary:

After six straight days of rain, mom and I ventured out to dig up the backyard to find the end of the drain which was installed shortly after I moved in, what? 11, 12 years ago? Something like that. Anyway, we hadn't had any significant rain fall since then so we were totally unprepared for it and the backyard flooded something fierce! le sigh!

After doing some digging, we discovered the drain didn't end in the middle of the yard as we originally expected, but makes a sharp curve and just ... ends. The rest of the "drain" is comprised of gravel that runs along the side of the planing area by the house. Which is exactly where the flooding problem is. Brilliant. Just brilliant.

Our best guess is they simply ran out of pipe, and rather than going out to buy more, just stopped and filled in with the gravel. We suspected this after seeing two sections of pipe put together with duct tape.

Anyway, we went ahead and dug a trench all along the planter area in the hopes that the water will run down to the mouth of the drain and LEAVE OUR BACKYARD!!

Lastly, we filled in the space by our patio with some pea gravel to soak up some of the water we discovered standing there after the downpour. We sloped it so it would also run down to the drain.

It's a good thing we're planning to redo the backyard anyway, since it's pretty much destroyed now. Also, luckily (I guess) the new cars that were on my short list for purchase this summer (Toyota Corolla and Honda Fit) are now having troubles, being recalled, etc., so we're not too disappointed that we can't buy a new car this year and instead have to spend our "car money" on the backyard. Okay, maybe we're a little disappointed.

Oh, and speaking of cars, after all the work we did in the back yard, we were SO ready to head inside, clean up and have a nice, relaxing lunch and rest of the day only to discover one of the tires on my car was TOTALLY AND COMPLETELY FLAT!

ARGH!

So, we drove around looking for a tire store that was open on Saturday (and I'm totally cutting this whole horrible experience in halfbecause it was long and horrible and took HOURS) and luckily found Tire Pros. They were SO nice and set me up with a brand new set of four tires for under $500.00! SCORE!

So, yeah, last weekend was pretty horrible, but both mom and I survived, I got new tires, we figured we were ready for the next storm coming and I got a fun new pair of boots:

Gotta look on the bright side, right?

Merry Christmas! #Holidailies

 

Merry Christmas to all my family and friends! Mom and I are getting ready to have Christmas dinner with my grandparents (her parents). It's just a small gathering this year as everyone else is spread out all over the state, country, even the world! I didn't do any decorating this year, so aside from Christmas cards we've received, all we have is our festive Christmas tablecloth. Mom has had this tablecloth for a very long time - I remember many childhood Christmas dinners being served atop this tablecloth! It's nice to have the opportunity to use it again!

Escape to Cambria

We needed to escape, my mom and I. My mom more so than me, since I just had a vacation, but still, it's always nice to get away from the hustle and bustle of it all. Cambria, California is one of our favourite places to visit, though we usually just do day trips since it's so close. We'll park along Moonstone Drive and walk along the boardwalk, watch the different kinds of birds flying or swimming or looking for food, greet the cute, fuzzy ground squirrels that don't seem to fear humans, and cheer on the surfers riding the waves. Occasionally we'll sit on a bench and just watch the ocean, or venture down to the beach to see what the waves brought in, or walk out on the rocks for a closer view of the seals/sea lions that rest there. For years we've been talking about spending a weekend in Cambria, but never got around to actually doing it. Well, last month I just did it: I picked the weekend, booked the hotel, and told my mom, "We're going!"

We stayed at the Pelican Cove Inn along Moonstone Beach Drive. We had a nice room with a patio that had an ocean view. The weather was perfect, so we spent most of the time sitting on the deck, sipping beverages, watching the sea. It was so relaxing, so lovely, and so wonderful!

I got the "Escape Plan" which included a dinner at the Cambria Pines Hotel, which we enjoyed Saturday night. Mom had baked halibut and I had seared sea scallops - both meals were delicious! Our hotel had a breakfast buffet in the morning, a wine and cheese reception in the afternoon, and a dessert bar in the evening, so we ate and drank VERY well the whole weekend! (The diet starts again on Tuesday!)

When we weren't sitting on the deck enjoying the view, we were walking along the boardwalk, which was just across Moonstone Drive from the hotel, and we sat on the benches just to watch the ocean. We saw birds, seals/sea lions, ground squirrels and surfers. We could've stayed there forever.  

 
 
   

Five Words

So, recently I asked my blogging friend Mary for 5 Words to help inspire me to write an entry. She'd gotten some of her own from a fellow blogger, and I thought it was a great idea. Now that I have them, however, I find myself lacking other words to go with the five she gave me. This should be a piece of cake since they are relatively easy words. I mean, she gives me tomato, and lo and behold, here I am blogging about our massive tomato plant and all the delicious fruit bursting forth from it.

She also gave me family, has always been a very important part of my life, and has been particularly foremost in my mind the past couple of weeks. First off, about a week ago I recieved a letter in the mail from my father's brother informing me of an upcoming family get-together for my Aunt Alice's 95th birthday (which was actually in January, but they're just throwing the party now, probably because the weather's better in South Dakota now than it was in January). I used to hear from her at least once a year - usually at Christmas - but hadn't for a couple years. I knew she'd had a couple strokes and was living in a home, and I figured she was just too incapacitated to write, or had passed away. I honestly don't expect this side of my family to inform me of such things, so I was surprised to get this letter. And very happy to learn my favourite Aunt is still alive and well!

Next, last Friday would have been my daddy's 74th birthday, which is really hard for me to imagine since he died when he was 45 (technically 46, but we don't really count those last couple of weeks between his birthday and his death-day since he was heavily medicated and really out of it). I find it hard to imagine him as an old man! I also find myself still missing him a great deal even after all this time.

Finally, this past Sunday was my grandmother's 94th birthday. (Yes, you are reading that right: my father's eldest sister IS older than my mother's mother! She's older than my mother's father, too, who is still 93.) To celebrate, mom and I bought Subway sandwiches, a pasta salad, watermelon and angelfood cake with whipped topping, and had a nice quiet lunch up my grandparent's house. Later I stepped outside to see how their tomato plants were doing:

They're doing great, btw. They have three ginormous plants all of which are loaded with tomatoes! Soon my grandparents will have more tomatoes than they know what to do with!

Another word Mary gave me was fantasy, which is the genre of novel I prefer. In fact, I've been reading a lot of really good fantasy novels lately: 

1. Darkangel  by Meredeth Ann Pierce

2. The Wild Wood by Charles de Lint

3. Powers by Ursula K. Le Guin

4. The Looking Glass Wars by Frank Beddor

5. Ink Exchange by Melissa Marr

Mary also gave me the word ocean, possibly knowing how very much I love the ocean, how I could stare for hours (and have, actually) at the waves coming in and going out, how I enjoy getting my feet wet despite how cold the water is, and how I love to photograph it:

The last word Mary gave me was composition, which I thought would be difficult to incorporate into this post, but actually I’ve managed to compose a pretty good entry. Ha! j/k.  Anyway, the kind of composition I normally do is in my photography. My mom says I have a gift when it comes to taking  pictures. I guess I do … but, sometimes I just get a lucky shot …

… other times I agonize over the arrangement and spend several minutes rearranging stuff and several shots from different angles to get it just right.

Whichever it is, I’m usually quite pleased with the final result. And, I'm actually quite pleased with the end result of this entry, too. It may not be as creative as a stort story or a poem, but at least it's more interesting than a meme or quiz!

Thanks for the five words, Mary! See you in Wisconsin in October???

Cheers!

Happy Mother's Day!!

Well, I tried to make a pretty Mother's Day card for my grandma, but it really didn't turn out too well:

For one thing, the picture of the rose itself (one of our Midas Touch blossoms) would be too difficult for someone with poor vision to see, and for another, I printed it incorrectly on the tabbed photo paper and you can clearly see the perforated line up the left hand side. *sigh* I have ended up using an old handstamped Mother's Day card that I think my grandmother will enjoy more:

We're planning a picnik-style midday meal up at my grandparents house, but they've got some kid working on the top of their pergola, so I'm not sure that will be too good. (Why he didn't work yesterday and get it done so we could have brunch outside I'll never know.) Maybe I'll just go get them and bring them down here. *sigh* Why is this so dang difficult??

Crafty Chick: Card for Baby Adelaide

Quick Lunchtime Update

So the release party for Brisingr never happened, but we didn't realize that until 10:50 Friday evening when they announced over the loudspeaker that Barnes and Nobel was closing. Before then Miss K., Miss S. and I were sitting in the cafe drinking Pumpkin Spice Lattes, eating Pumpkin cheese cake and sharing all the gossip. It was really fun! Still, if we'd known they weren't going to sell Brisingr at midnight, we would've spent more time browsing for books before they closed. As it was Miss S. found the 10th anniversary edition of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, so she and Miss K. bought that; I found what looks to be a good book called Graceling by a new author Kristin Cashore.  I'm nearly finished with Eragon, and have Eldest waiting for me at the library, so it will be a while before I get to Graceling, but I decided to buy it anyway, because, dang it! I wanted to buy a book!!!.

In other news, my uncle from New York is visiting this week, and we had a mini-family reunion yesterday at my grandparent's house with my local aunt and uncle and their son and his girlfriend. We had a casual lunch of sandwiches, chips and dip, veggies and dessert. It was fun to just hang out and talk and watch football and enjoy each other's company, but exhausting, too.

There's more, but frankly I'm too tired to write much more. I still have to get through the next four hours of work, an hour at the gym with my trainer and try to watch Heroes  and ... oh, who am I kidding? I'll tape Heroes and just go to bed! I just hope I don't collapse into a snoring heap before then!

Weekend Update

So, you might've noticed I picked up a copy of Breaking Dawn Friday night, or rather, Saturday morning. Miss K. and I went to California Pizza Kitchen after work for some dinner and drinks, and were met by her friend L. I made a complete pig out of myself and not only shared an appetizer with K., but had The Works pizza, a Spa Martini and two glasses of Chardonnay.

After dinner the three of us headed to Barnes and Nobel to await the release of Breaking Dawn. We settled at a table in the Cafe, grabbed some books and magazines and hung out. Eventually Miss S. joined us as well as a gentleman from work who brought his daughter and her friend to the event. It was exciting and fun, and I was surprised I managed to actually stay awake for the whole thing! I did have one of the specialty drinks the Cafe was having as part of the Breaking Dawn festivities (the Jacob's Hairy Eyeball, in case you're interested), but I really thought I would need more caffeine to get to midnight. I must admit I was pretty good, and only bought one other book besides Breaking Dawn - Fire Bringer by David Clement-Davies - despite having three others I was thinking of getting. One of them -The Eyes of a King by Catherine Banner - Miss K. said she had and would loan me, the second one - Ink Exchange by Melissa Marr - I'm going to get from the library, and the third one (the title of which I can't recall right now, but it was about a garden that had special properties and the women who tended it had a special relationship with it, or something like that ... anyway), I decided to just wait on that one and see if I can get it from the library or a used book store instead.

Around 11:30 p.m. everyone in the book store lined up to await the release of the book. To keep everyone entertained, one of the employees read the last chapter from Eclipse which would've been really cool, except everyone started talking so we couldn't hear it. I suppose that's a good thing, though, since neither Miss K. or Miss S. have even finished the second book let alone the throed!

Finally, one minute after midnight, it was time! The line moved quickly and everyone was very well behaved, so all three of us had our book by ten past twelve! We took some pictures of ourselves with the book (don't look at me funny, a lot of people were doing that!!), and decided to call it a night. Miss K. went back to hunt for her friend after saying goodbye to us, and Miss S. and I hit the road and I was back home in bed reading the first chapter by about 1:30 a.m.!

I didn't expect to be up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at 8 a.m., but I was. After breakfast, Mom and I decided to go shopping at the Target center in Paso (which, in retrospect was as bad idea, but we thought it was only going to be in the 90s, not hit a high of 105!), and we picked up a fireproof safe and a new air filter for our furnace/AC, and a new water meter for my grandmother. We looked for a hand-crank emergency radio, too, but didn't see one we liked, and decided we really should do more research before be buy one. Oh, and I got some new workout clothes. Not terribly exciting stuff, I know, but it was just nice to get out of the house and do something fun, even though it was hot enough to melt flesh!

We had lunch at the new Chili's where I had a couple Patron margaritas and the chicken tacos:

It was really delicious! We'd never been to a Chili's before, so it was a nice treat! We wandered through Michael's, OSH, and Famous Footwear while I sobered up enough to drive, then we stopped at Trader Joe's on the way home to pick up some ice cream and frozen stuff for dinners this week, and went straight home before the ice cream became a milk shake!

Last night had Trader Joe's basil and chicken sausages, four cheese risotto and some frozen asparagus, and watched the Doctor Who finale, which was AWESOME!!! However, somehow we missed the very last two minutes or so of the show. It wasn't too bad; after all we saw how everything with the Davros and the Daleks was resolved and really just missed the parting shot on Bad Wolf Bay. We can live with that!

Today has been a lazy, relaxing day. I went up to visit my grandparents, gave my grandmother her new water meter - which she was thrilled to get as she'd misplaced her other one - and checked out my grandfather's brand new computer and 19" flat screen monitor. Wow, it's nice! And so fast! Most importantly, thought, it works, unlike his old one which would shut itself down and announce a "thermal event" or something of that nature. He kept track of how many times he turned it on and it shut down, and the last count was 42 times before it finally turned on and stayed on long enough for my uncle to download all grandpa's stuff to a media card to upload onto his new machine.  It's an eMachine brand, which I'd never heard of before. My aunt really loves hers, though, and grandpa got a good deal on the whole set up (including a new printer which he didn't need, so he gave it to my aunt), so he bought it. I'm very happy for him because he loves his computers! Ever since getting that first Atari back in 1970-something-or-other, he's been hooked! He mostly plays card games and does e-mail and watches my cousin play basketball, but it keeps his brain going, which is so important when you're 92!

Tonight I'm going to try a zucchini recipe I found on The Pioneer Woman Cooks! It looks pretty easy and delicious, and I'll update to let you know how it goes! But, now, it's nap time! Cheers!