Catching Up

Time to play catch up!  I have been busy canning and putting things away still, and pretty much neglecting the chores that need to be done around here both in the garden and the house.  I'm hoping that when the weather breaks I will have a burst of energy and get those things done!  The weather here is the other extreme now, it's been soggy wet for almost two weeks and with that brings lots and lots of mosquitoes, so there is just no way to get the summer mess cleared out of the garden until things dry up and cool down.  I can only hope that the heat breaks for all of us soon, there is fall planting that needs to be done!

I finally relented and took the kids out to see a movie (I can't stand movie theaters!).  We even splurged for a little junk food beforehand:

Against my better judgement we went on opening night of a kid movie, but I was surprised to find that there were only 10 people in the theater LOL, probably wasn't a good sign...!

"Diary of a Wimpy Kid - empty!

The next day we followed that up with a trip to some farm stands and out to a local country store we love for their ice cream - I blogged awhile back about how hard it's been for this couple to get their store going and all the red tape the city has been throwing at them - they are still having a rough go (it's in the middle of nowhere), but on this particular Saturday the store was packed and I was happy to see that.

Quite a few people browsing the local handcrafts for sale:

Finn enjoying his ice cream.  The table behind him has about a dozen open jars of locally crafted jams to sample with crackers, great way to make some sales on good stuff!

One day was for the dogs...

Here's a couple of pics of the waiting room at the Army base veterinarian.  LOL this room always makes me laugh because it's so typical of old bases.  Super clean, but old linoleum, window a/c units, cinder block walls, a big room but just a couple chairs lined up close together.  It's the same for the dogs as for their human military owners -

"Open door, step in smartly to the left, sit quietly and wait for your turn.  No talking, no barking. No funny business."  

The dogs even have service records that state "dependent" hahaha.  In all seriousness, this is a great benefit we have.  The Army vets exist purely for the care of all the military working dogs headed to and returning from tours overseas and security dogs here in the states.  They allow a few days a month to see "civilian pets" for their regular vaccines and medications.  It costs us about half the amount of seeing a vet "out in town" so I'll take it, 1950's decor and all!

The next day was my day.

Here I am dropping off all the boys at the pool on base... can you hear the tires screeching as I pulled away?

So what did I do?

The birds left me almost nil in the way of grapes (my fault, I forgot to harvest them!), so I braved mockers dive bombing my head to gather what was left and made some grape jam from the juice I had extracted the night before...

...and then proceeded to do just about nothing for the next two hours!  Haha, I spent two hours playing with my craft supplies and making these dumb little tags for all my jam jars teehee!  Playing with scissors, stamps, yarn, arranging my little jam photo shoot... yes it was divine doing nothing but this all alone in the house!  I definitely needed this little time out to play arts and crafts :)

now the problem is that I want to make them for all my jars but don't have the time!

then it was time to head back to the base and pick up the boys...

"aw, mom - do I have to go?"