We’ve been adding new things to our shop in the past week. Nick has been working on new geeky stuff.This is the
We also have the matching earrings the Geeky / Science Jewelry section of our shop.
We have the matching pendant for the Shebang in our shop too
So the other night around 9pm I was just standing in the kitchen gazing at counter, thinking, hmmmm now what can I eat?
And then without any provocation the glass door to the microwave started crackling and over a period of about 5 minutes the entire door became a web of broken crackled glass. I wasn’t cooking anything- really ! But it was quite a dramatic event.
The next 12 hours were torturous as I had to make use of my pathetic culinary skills without the help of my dear friend the microwave. In the morning my poor son had to wait a whole 30 minutes for his Pizza Hot Pocket to heat up instead of the more desirable 2 minutes plus 2 to cool down. I had to even pull out the trusty saucepan, find the correct lid that fits it, stand next to the stove and cook the popcorn and MOVE my arms. And then it dawned on me that I would even have to heat up the butter in a separate pan. The suffering was immeasurable as I then realized I would have to put all these pans in the dishwasher too! Luckily Nick,my brave hunter husband and provider took on the responsibility of heading out into the cruel world and bringing home a new microwave.
So far the replacement seems to be working and we are back to our luxurious lifestyle to which we had become accustomed. May this never happen to any of you.
Every year we take the kids to the Great Oregon Steam Up in Brooks Oregon. Here is $23 spent on a “healthy” meal of kettle corn,curlyfries and bubble gum flavored shaved ice.
We have a tradition of taking a picture of Nick with the boys in front of this giant excavator.
And we always take a nice relaxing ride on the little train.
Then on Sunday we went to visit our friends who have a cute little “shabin” near Yachats on the Oregon coast. The boys just can’t let go of the idea that when you are at the beach you are supposed to wear bathing suits and swim.While lovely to look at,it is a cold,wild and dangerous ocean for this helicopter Mom.
Nick and Alec
Me. One nice thing about the Oregon coast is that you don’t have to worry about what you look like in a bathing suit.
Max
digging
Not much happening these days. Just doing summer hanging around stuff like this walk in a local park.
Max lost his first big front tooth. It really makes him look extra goofy.
AND I got picked as one of Etsy’s top 50 Mom’s by Babble.com. Here’s the link:
http://www.babble.com/mom/work-family/best-mom-etsy-shop-handmade-jewelry-nicholas-and-felice/
Yup, that’s our pin on page 8 of the new September 2011 Creative Knitting Magazine!
They contacted us a few months ago to send them our Celtic Double Swirls and Curls Aluminum Shawl Pin / Hair Pin to be included in their article on closures. I said, hell yeah!- well, in a more business like way. So far it has just been sent out to subscribers and I don’t think it is in the newstands and stores yet. But we are getting LOTS of orders.
It’s become a tradition to drag the kids down to the 4th of July parade in Corvallis every year.Unfortunately I got the time wrong. I thought it started at 10 which I swear is what the local paper’s website said but it actually started at 10:30. So when we arrived there were very few people and I was appalled at the lack of enthusiasm in this town. We had an extra half hour to bore the kids.
Here is some of the entertainment the kids came up with.
Finally the parade arrived.
Henry is pensive.
The main draw for Max is gathering the gutter candy that they throw to the kids.
They had inflatable bouncy entertainment for the kids. Max’s approach to the wrecking ball game is to hunker down.
Where’s Nick? Hiding in the shade.Can you find him?
Later in the evening we joined our friends Jeremy and Jillian and their kids Ethan and Olivia for some good ol’ lame Oregon fireworks.
This is the moving flaming tank before it shot under our car and got stuck shooting flames towards the gas tank. It was a terrifying moment as we wondered if the car would blow up with us stupidly standing next to it. It burned out and all was fine.
Good times!
School has been out for 2 weeks. T Ball Mom continues for a couple of more weeks..
We’ve started swimming lessons again. Max finally overcame his fear to jump off the diving platform without a foam noodle.
My honeysuckle is blooming on the trellis I built many years ago back before kids when I had time for stuff like that and no money to just buy one.It is right outside the window I work at in the dining room and the smell is heavenly. Pay no attention to the pile of kids toys as you look through the gate.
Honeysuckle
The daylillies have started blooming.
The cherries are getting closer to ripening.
Just opened a fresh new roll of brass wire.
Oh and how could I forget the most important happening so far of the summer. We just took the kids to the park with their bikes and Henry rode for the first time without training wheels. It is the sad life of the country kid that lives on the steep gravel rode that he is the last of his friends to learn how to ride a 2 wheeler. Max will need at least one more try but is close. Nick and I are the exhausted old parents in their mid forties trying to hold off the heart attack while running alongside the kids trying to ride. Mission partly accomplished.
I just added a new little sterling silver pin to our shop to add to the tiny lace pins available.
I love that they are so small and light weight that I don’t need to charge a lot for them even though they are made of silver.
I also had a little time to take new pictures of these old earrings.
My very old and quirky Sony Cybershot camera is starting to give me a hard time so experimented using our Nikon Coolpix. I think they came out just as good as the old camera. I had my favorite weather conditions to work with- overcast.
We are having a slow cool start to summer- and I like it!
The kids had their last day of school this week. Max’s class had the end of year Kindergarten picnic at the park.
He also started T Ball
Posing for the team pictures. It’s pretty hilarious watching a bunch of 5 and 6 year old swarm after the ball in the field, occasionally breaking down in tears fighting over it. Then standing around confused not knowing what to do once they get the ball and randomly throwing it to another kid who is usually not even paying attention while the runner runs in the wrong direction. My hats off to the awesome team coach Candy who has 5 kids of her own and took this process of herding cats on.
One of my favorite random flowers that pops up in my unmanaged front yard.The Foxglove.
This boring photo of our road in front of our driveway is of interest only because today they came and oiled it. It is a gravel unpaved road that despite our taxes the county has decided isn’t worthy of paving or managing much so we have to pay to get it oiled. If we don’t like we didn’t last year then we have to inhale dust all summer long.
On a personal note I have been weepy with joy today (which has nothing to do with my typical perimenopausal hormone fluctuations) because I got the amazing news this morning that a dear friend who was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer this past Christmas is in full remission with no detectable cancer in her. She is completing a new chemo treatment and has been doing dietary, exercise, qigong and meditation as well. Her doctor said he had never had a patient respond completely like this. The recent study of the drug had only 1 patient out of 171 have a complete response like this (.6%). She is the second.
I have to admit,in case you haven’t noticed, I am prone towards cynicism and was not optimistic about my friend’s future given the statistics on pancreatic cancer. But she has blown me away. I’m going to stop here before I put some sort of crazy jinx on things inadvertently according to the whims of the universe. I’m just saying something especially really good happened. Yay!
I got to be a chaperone on Max’s kindergarten trip to “Wings of Wonder “ on Independence Oregon.
The display greenhouse was aflutter with tons of beautiful butterflies. It kind of freaked one of the kids out to have these creatures flying around all over and landing on them sometimes but most of them loved it.
They did a great teaching the kids about butterflies although some of it went way over their little twitchy kindergarten heads.
The kids were great and adorable. One of the little boys in my group was very affectionate and clingy and insisted on holding my hand and petting me most of the time. He whispered to me “I want to marry you.” Max told him I was already married. He said he didn’t care. I was flattered until the teacher’s assistant told me he’s just like that.
