I love it, but I hate it!

SUMMER!

Yup, I’m talking about Summer. I love that it’s summer, school is out and we’re enjoying our lazy days. LOVE IT! What I don’t love is the HEAT!  I hate the heat. The official start to Summer is not til June 21st, still another week away, but here in TX it’s felt like Summer since April. Back then it was nice, temps were starting to get out of the 70’s and in to the 80’s, I was fine with that. Not so much any more. Today it’s currently 97 degrees and could be as high as 103. ALL this week is forecast to be over 100. Honestly, that is just too hot to be out for more than 10 minutes (unless you have a pool to jump in and cool off)!

The garden is going crazy, but it’ too hot to go out there unless it’s 7am or 8pm. We usually go out and check on everything around 8.30pm, it’s only just say cooling down and the sun is starting to set behind the houses out back. I’ll share some pictures in the next post.

Today I have day 14 of the Photo Fun to share with you, AND I’m going to get ahead a day and show you day 15 :-) Both pictures were taken today.

 Day 14 – someone you love

Of course it has to be my precious girl Kiki.  Hubs and Boo would have been in today's picture but they were in yesterday's ;-)

Day 15 – Action!

As I said earlier, you can’t be outside for more than 10 minutes unless you got a pool to jump in – that’s exactly what we were doing this morning. I took Kristen and Connor (Cheryl’s son, next door) round to the pool this morning.

Had to share this fun picture too . . . I’d asked Kristen to jump again (wasn’t sure if the first pic was blurry) but she didn’t want to – Connor was happy to oblige though ;-)

 

This is what I do while the kids are playing!

Unfortunately the sun loungers have been tied to a certain spot around the pool (you can see them in the picture above my feet,  way back ) so that teenagers can’t pick them up and throw them in the water (yes, they were doing that last year!) but there’s no shade there. I took a dip in the water a couple of times to cool down but was happy that after just 45 minutes the kids said they were board and wanted to go home – you didn’t need to ask me twice! The heat tires me out!!

Have to show you one more picture before I go. After the pool, then lunch, Kristen and I took a quick trip out to Justice for Girls and Old Navy. That girl is still not in to shopping (unless it’s for a toy or a game!) and didn’t want any of the cute stuff in Justice!!! I on the other hand found these cute summer tie-up shoes at Old Navy for just $11 – I couldn’t resist them. I’ve tried this style on before but they didn’t feel comfortable. Not so with these shoes, I love em, and they fit great :-)

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Hope your Summer is starting off cooler than mine ;-)

Photo Fun Catch Up!

 

It’s like I’m always playing catch up with this, but here goes . . .

Day 10 – Animal

Of course it had to be our ‘baby boy Boo’

   Day 11 – Silhouette

I couldn’t think of a photo for this, so I picked an ‘old one’!

Day 12 – Sun Flare

Just took this a few minutes ago – it’s the corn in the garden, with the sun setting.

Day 13 – Reminds you of childhood

another ‘old’ one, taken just a few weeks ago. Yes, radishes remind me of my childhood. Every time I pick these from the garden they remind me of my Dad and his back garden. We still have ‘old family silent movies’ of when we kids picked the radishes for Dad and held them up for the camera. I was probably Kristen’s age at the time – wish I had a picture of it!

That makes me all caught up . . . . until tomorrow!

Sunday Catch Up!

I thought I’d join in with a new party I just found over at Kim’s blog . . .

It’s hosted by Three P’s in a Pod, Carrie with Children and Mommy Head Adventures.  It’s a blog hop each Sunday, so hop on over and say Hi :-) but don’t forget to leave a comment here before you go, I’d love to know you stopped by.

There’s so many things I would love to blog about, it’s just trying to find the time to sit down and type that’s the hard part! I’m a few days behind on the 30 Days Photo Fun posts, and I think I’ll have to do a separate post just to catch up!

Day 9 was Fresh Fruit, and I wanted to take this picture but didn’t get around to doing it until this morning. . . .

 

When you think ‘fresh fruit’ you’re probably imagining a fruit bowl filled with apples and oranges, bright colors and everything looking ripe! This might not look very fresh but it soon will be – the above picture is a cantaloupe currently growing in our garden, and the picture below is our first watermelon this year. In fact I hadn’t even seen this one until today, I nearly died when I saw the size of it!

 

The garden is doing so well (another thing I wanted to blog about) we’ve had corn this week AND we finally pulled up some potatoes to see if there were any underground (Jason thought we might have planted them too late) and we were happilly surprised to see we had been successful. . . .   We had corn yesterday which was really good, the kernels were a bit small but still very fresh and tasty.

and here’s the potatoes we pulled up last night. I boiled them this morning and made potato salad

We still have quite a few plants in the garden so we’ll pull them this week and I’ll make some mashed potato for dinner.

I deliberately planted an eggplant this year (aubergine) to make my friend Cheryl Eggplant Parmesan (it’s one of her favorite dishes). See the eggplant above. I picked that yesterday and then went to pick two more from the same plant. This morning I made her eggplant parmesan using THIS recipe from allrecipes.com

I didn’t use as much sauce and didn’t layer the eggplant, which I think made it much better. It turned out delicious and Cheryl loved it.  I made a smaller dish for me and Jason and even he liked it.

Well, I don’t want this post to get too long, so I will try my best to make daily posts next week, share with you the cocktail we tried this weekend, and show more garden pics too.

Hope you’re all having a wonderful weekend.

Update on Boo . . .  I’m happy to say he was fine the next day and not limping on his paw at all! I really think it was a sting of some sort or Jason thought he could have stepped on a nettle?  It certainly isn’t broken and he’s back to looking 100% :-) Thanks for all your well wishes.

Poor Baby Boy :-(

I got up this morning at 8.15am and went downstairs, let Boo out to potty as usual and 5 minutes later he comes in limping like a crazy thing!!!  I immediately picked him up but couldn’t see blood on his paw, no burrs/stickers were stuck in his pads, nothing! But still he was limping really bad and his paw was shaking and twitching. I thought perhaps he’d been stung or bit. Whatever it was I couldn’t watch him in pain all morning, he was licking at his pad like crazy, then hobbling around to follow me and just sit next to me then lick his paw some more. This went on for about 5 minutes before I decided I had to call the vet, he could have been having an allergic reaction to a spider bite or anything. 

My nearest Banfield hospital (where Boo goes for all his shots) said I could take him in and leave him there as the Dr’s were in surgery. When I asked what time til, she said 2pm!!! Seriously! I could keep him at home til 2pm, but I didn’t want to do that, he was obviously in a lot of discomfort. I called the other vet (same Banfield, just a different location in Petsmart a few more miles away) and was told they could see him. Long story short, we can’t see anything wrong with his paw, the vet wanted to do xrays incase he’d broke his toes? but that would be about $250 and it’s highly likely that it wouldn’t be broken, maybe just sprained. So she said I could wait a few days and give him some pain meds and anti-inflamatories. So this is what we’re doing. He’s put a little weight on it since this morning but still won’t stand on it. The meds will make him sleepy which will help him rest it today. 

My poor little guy. I hate to see any animal in pain, most especially my own. Hopefully in a day or so it will be better, but if not we’ll be back at the vet for xrays!

Day 8 - Sunset
Well, guess what, I forgot to take a sunset picture last night – probably cos I was over at Cheryl’s sharing a glass of wine ;-) So, here’s a lovely sunset over The Oasis Restaurant in Austin

 We didn’t make it to piano lesson today because of the vet trip, so we have the rest of the day just to lounge around, do housework, knit and read :-) One more day til Daddy’s home!

Photo Fun ~ day 7

Day 7 – High Angle

I may have gotten mixed up with this picture? When I see others it looks like they took their photo while they were ‘high up’, but when I read ‘high angle’ I just assumed I would point the camera up high! Oh well, this is all I could think of for this pic. That’s Kiki looking over the top of the ‘landing’ (as I call it) upstairs.

Tomorrow’s photo is ‘sunset’, I will try to remember to take the picture tonight.

The days are passing quickly and I’m enjoying the relaxing feel of them, although it would be nicer if hubs was home with us too. Yesterday I took Kristen and her friend Emily to the pool. It’s rather boring going round there on your own when all you see is other mommies with their ‘mommy friends’, and I just sit there on my own watching the girls play! Still, it gets us out of the house for an hour or so!

Today, Kristen and I went to Barnes and Noble, Walmart and McDonalds :-) Kiki looked super cute in her little blue hat and carrying her purse (remember we bought them when we had a girly day shopping in Justice) . . . .

She didn’t buy the top and leggings but she looked cute today with some denim leggings and a Justin Bieber T-shirt :-)

We bought some Brain Quest cards in B&N. Kiki wanted some Math ones, but there wasn’t any for 5th grade, I looked on Amazon when we came home and I can’t see that they even do a set for 5th grade. We bought the 5th grade set that has lots of different questions in it instead. We also might try and start learning Spanish this summer! My friend Cheryl ordered some dvd’s called Spanish Immersion which is supposed to be just as good as Rosetta Stone for a fraction of the price. Kristen has said she’d like to start learning so I’ve ordered the pack too. I’d love to speak Spanish, but I didn’t even take it in school so hardly know the basics. I’m hoping I can learn something as Kristen starts to pick it up. I’ll let you know how we do throughout the summer :-)

Tomorrow is piano practice, so today we’re just gonna have a relaxing afternoon, I need to do a little housework then I’ll probably knit a little too. I’m wanting to get some summer baby knits in my Etsy store, it won’t happen unless I pick up those needles!

Have a great afternoon.

Photo Fun ~ Day 5

Day 5 – Breakfast today

Day 5 was yesterday! I had cornflakes but forgot to take a picture, so here’s Kiki this morning just after we got back from grocery shopping, when she got to pick a box of cereal she likes.

Day 6 - Books

 

As you know I love books, and these two are on my night table right now. The Aloha Quilt is this months ‘book club read’, and Who Is My Shelter is the latest from Neta Jackson (The Yada Yada series) that I’ve been wanting to read for a few months and finally got out of the library.

I’m hoping Kristen and I can make a summer book list and read a lot this year. She’s just decided she likes the Warrior books (her friend Emily was reading them last year, and Kristen told her that she didn’t want to read them because the cats “nearly killed a fox”!) now she’s busy reading the first book on my Ipad :-)  There’s even a website WARRIORCATS.COM that’s she’s all in to too!

The book we’re reading together this year is  The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate Di Camillo. She’s the author of Because of Winn Dixie and The Tale of Despereaux, both of which I would have liked to read with Kiki but she read them in school this year.

It’s hot out today, currently 91 degrees and it’s not even mid day :-( We’re staying home and doing housework so we can go to the pool tomorrow.

Hope your Monday is off to a great start.

Oops - but oh well!

My friend Sue has joined me in the ‘30 Day Photo Fun’ and when I was reading her post she mentioned you couldn’t use old photos! Oops! I didn’t know this, so I guess I was cheating! It’s hard taking a picture every day. I’ll try to from now on, but if there’s some days I just don’t manage it, well, I might just have to cheat again!.

Jason has gone to Denver for a week to work, so I’m going to try and get all caught up with housework, laundry etc this week and try to keep on top of things throughout the Summer. Most years I just get so lazy during the Summer months and do the bare minimum to keep the house tidy! I want to do better than that this year, because I hate a messy house.

I went to the mall with Cheryl yesterday, we had the BEST time. Honestly as best friends as we are I don’t think we’ve ever had a mall shopping day together! Oh we’ve been to Hobby Lobby and the likes, but not a real shopping trip together. She was helping me pick a new swim suit that actually ‘fit me well’! I thought I wasn’t going to find one, I was nervous about buying a bikini, I didn’t like the idea of showing too much skin. I was aiming more for a tankini, but eventually I plucked up the courage to try some on and I bought one! I hate to say though that over the past two weekends I’ve over-indulged in cocktails and food and already gained a few pound back. SO, you’ll have to wait a few weeks to see me in the bikini ;-) 

You can see me in the new dress I bought though . . . .

This is a first for me to0 . . .  a strapless dress! I’m always put off by this style because I feel like I’d just be lifting it up all the time, but it fits quite well so I felt more comfortable in it than I thought I would.

I had no intention of buying new shoes, but I tried these lovely gold strappy sandals on in Dillards and they were so comfortable they were my first purchase of the day :-) I just couldn’t resist. It’s not often I can find a pair of shoes that are comfortable, so I when I do, I don’t care about the price ( well, within reason) These were less than $100, so well worth the money. I’m not one to buy shoes just because they look good if they kill my feet and I can’t walk in them! I took the above picture, then got Cheryl to take another one (below).

 

 

DAY 4 ~ Clouds

Day 4 was yesterday and this picture was taken yesterday – so that’s not cheating is it? You can see the lovely white clouds we had yesterday with a gorgeous blue sky. What you can’t see is how HOT it actually was! We took these photos then went straight back in side and didn’t come back out til the sun had gone down. It has been high 90’s all week, yesterday was probably 100!  I think it’s gonna be a long hot summer.