Barry 7 months

This is a month of some big changes, but they don't happen fast enough to the folks that want him to be crawling, but for the ones that know what a mobile baby gets into.... It's just fine that he's taking  his own sweet time.

When he turned 7 months he was sitting well.  But, it wasn't very long until he was pushing up to hands and knees and pushing backwards to a sitting position.  It's fun to watch the little guy rolling around, sitting up, trying out the crawling position.  He pushes himself backwards on hands and knees, and hitches himself around in a circle while sitting.  He wants so badly to go forward, but he hasn't got it down yet.  

Today he was able to get one knee forward, but couldn't get the idea to try the other knee next.  So, it won't be very long and he will be on his way, and train tracks all over the living room floor may not be an option. 

Matching outfits in a new wagon. 

Talking to Auntie 

Big Brother 

Today we also had a little 5 month old girl for an hour.   Barry was fascinated.

I can't really describe how Zane acted.  He was enchanted with the fact that there were two babies. He seemed to think another little one was pretty neat.  He was a lot better with her that I expected.  He was content to look not touch.  

Except for the time he gave them both a hug.

Barry loves to stand, but can't pull himself up yet.  Pretty soon, he won't be able to sleep in this little crib anymore.  They boys spent a night with us this month.  The first time for Barry here without Mom and Dad.

Most of the time he's a really happy kid for me and plays on the floor and talks.

50 Years

Jim turned 50 yesterday.  It sure doesn't take long to live 50 years.  I know, I'm right behind him.  It won't take long to live the two years until it is my turn.  

Jim's remaining auntie called yesterday morning to wish him happy 50th. She wondered if she sent a card, (which she had), and remind him his present is waiting for him.  She then recited a cute little ditty about being happy the stork delivered a nice baby boy to her brother's house, which I can't remember because it was hard to hear and I wasn't ready. 

Fifty years doesn't take very long to live from her end of it, she's 90.  And when the second 50 years of her life is over, so are a lot of other things.  The way of life that she remembers and tells us every time she visits.  The one room schools and the way they learned in them, the stern discipline at home and school, the poetry she learned by heart and remembers to this day, how she dressed up kittens, walked to school, gathered eggs, helped at home; growing up to live and work as a maid or nanny in big houses. 

 She lived and worked in the 'modern era', but those childhood memories will soon be gone forever.  

I need to do a better job of listening 

Self Portrait

A Boy and a Bucket

I like to color eggs.  I like to color eggs so much, that when whatever kids are around that are coloring eggs, I save all the dye and color every other egg in the house, even the raw ones.  

It is a lot of fun to crack brightly hued eggs into the frying pan of a morning.  

It doesn't color the inside.

These eggs that my oh-so-eggx-cellent grandson (hee, hee, hee) is collecting are not colored eggs, but the plastic kind that can be filled with candy and small toys.  It's the first time he really got the idea to look for the eggs and put them in the bucket.  From the amount of eggs to find, I think the mama was having the most fun, providing the goodies and looking for the eggs, too.

The yard and flower garden aren't usually so beautifully green when Easter comes early. Spring and Easter were both early this year.

A Good Day's Work

I've lost my enthusiasm for exercising, again, already.  But that doesn't mean I'm not doing anything.  Since I'm not knitting I'm doing a lot of other things, which involve both office and home work.  Saturday, was ONE BIG DAY.  I have days like that where I have a huge list of things to do and push hard to get them all done, and I hope I am bringing them closer together.  I gives me a huge lift to get that many things done in one day, because that means I was doing something and not sitting on my fanny knitting,  which is what I love to do the most.  I also like to have these other projects finished, but it seems the more I do the more there is TO do.

So, what happened on Saturday?  I was working, HARD, from 8 am to 9 pm.  And, this is what happened.

The first things.

Breakfast dishes, (Jim made the omelet)

Egg rolls, start to finish

Bread dough in the machine to mix and rise

Green Bean casserole in the fridge

All the dishes washed again.

It is now 10:30.

I put all the recyclables into the car and went to town to dump them, go the the yarn store for the Easter sale, and to Walmart for frozen chicken breasts, and they had strawberries on sale, $.98 a pint. So I got some.

I got home at 11:50, and my daughter and friend were eating breakfast/lunch and left to shop so no lunch until Jim gets home.

So, I made buns from the dough and let them rise..  

Went out to find Jim (he came home with an un-assembled chicken run.)

Lunch in 10 minutes

Sandwiches.

Lunch

Baked the buns.

While they were baking planted 4 ft. of turnips and 1 ft. of Swiss chard.

Swept and picked up laundry room,

Put away a project in the basement, (just bunch of books.)

Swept deck.

Swept patio, (if corn shucks are left on it, earth worms live there, yuck)

Decided to clean the tarps that made our slip and slide last summer (big mistake, was yucky and took too long)

Planted pansies.

Spread wood chips, two wheelbarrows full. 

(By now daughter and two grandsons are here, making things go a little slower)

Hemmed dress for daughter to wear next day.

Cooked supper, hamburgers, and Brussels sprouts on the grill, salad and cucumbers.

Supper

Dishes.

Laundry folded

Laundry in dryer.

Tidied up living and dining rooms.

By this time it was 8:30 and I was starting to feel like it was over whether I wanted it to be or not.  

I put the chicken in to marinate,

Put away dishes, 

Washed more dishes, 

and went to have a shower.

I didn't do the vacuuming, I had someone else do that. 

I also didn't peel potatoes, make jello, cinnamon rolls, or sweep and mop the floor.  I did that the next morning, before we had company.

I was amazed at how much I got done without getting tired out in the middle of the day.  My stamina is improving even though I'm not exercising. 

I do things like this every day, (not so many at a time), but a good majority of it, plus I'm working at the office, grocery shopping and who knows what else.  

I can keep myself pretty busy staying at home all day.

I Made it Work

I hate to throw things out.  I really do.  It hurts.  If there is any usable life in something I just can hardly do it.  Sometimes even when there isn't anything useful about it, I have a hard time throwing things away.  

Then I have Jim do it. When I'm not looking. 

So, I've been in a fix it mode lately.  I've discovered the nuts and bolts in the bulk bins at Ace.

Take this little folding kid-size chair, for example.

When on of the big rivets broke on one of the corners of this chair, I couldn't bear to get rid of it.  It was perfectly good in every way except  one corner wasn't attached.  I figured there just HAD to be a way to fix it, but Jim said "no".  So I took it upon myself  to find something.  

I found a "stove" bolt with a big head and got a nut to put on it.  I didn't think about needing something wider than a regular nut until I tried it when I got home.  It was smaller than the hole, so I got a wing nut from Jim's stash.  

Note different colored rivet.

 I also replaced one of the little rivets that hold the legs together with a nut and bolt combo.

This doll car seat, now, had another problem.  The plastic screws that hold the handle on have broken and disappeared long ago.  It's been hanging around for far too long and I just couldn't bear to throw away something with so much good on it.  

So, for this I got short bolts to hold it on. 

I also replaced some bolts on our toy wooden kitchen set and went all over it with a screwdriver to tighten everything up.  Zane has been playing with it and it needed to be in better shape. I also flattened the curved masonite board shelves by spraying them with water and putting heavy books on them. It's in better shape now that when the kids were using it. 

Here is another idea. I put iron-on tape the pockets of Jim's jeans BEFORE he wears them through.  This is a new tip I haven't tried before.  So we'll see how well this works.  I was getting tired of repairing torn pockets.

There isn't much else that gives me as much pleasure as being able to fix something and make it usable again.  

Miniature Garden

Every year I keep thinking that I am going to live my life so that when the first three months go by, I'm not saying , "AAUUUUGH, it's April already, where has the time gone!"  Maybe the thing to do it to keep so busy you don't recognize the passing of time, ever.  I just don't like to wake up about half way through the year and wonder what I've done all those months.  

I want to enjoy what I'm doing, even when I'm busy doing it.  

So, I've been trying to do some fun things.  Like this mini garden, for example.  

  

Like cutting out two skirt patterns, and hoping I can sew them up very nicely, and cleaning out the basement so it looks like a play room and sewing room instead of a storage room.  

If I didn't have to work and keep house and run errands and watch grandbabies, I'd have the skirts started and the basement done. 

BUT...today I hugged and carried and played with and built train tracks with and for my boys.  I picked up my income taxes, I bought the lining for my skirt; I bought a bird house for my mantel. I cleaned; I washed dishes; I made lemon bars and supper.  I paid bills and juggled money at the office, I went to the bank (the third time in two days!!!) 

Now it is the end of the day and I am the cheering section for homework and piano practice.  I think I'll find a   book to read.

I did things today and I enjoyed doing them, 

especially the lemon bars.