First one is a detail of a spiderweb after it rained.

 Second one is some fireworks from yesterday. Living in a small town means fewer fireworks, nothing fancy, but we do get twice the boom since it bounces off of the ore docks. :-)

A cold, wet day.

The last two days have been rainy/foggy/cold. 50 degrees cold. In June. Tsk. Although, this has given me an opportunity to take some different pictures than what I usually take. Here they are folks!

First one was some rain droplets on a lily-of-the-valley leaf. ((I love macro photography!))

Second one is a spider web on our deck.

Must go, Mom just got home from a visit and I'm done with waiting for things to load. We're on Dial-Up so everything takes forever. It's sometimes a good idea to have a book handy when waiting.....

Changes

I'm thinking that this blog is going to end up being more of a photography place. Things remain busy around here, and I haven't time to sit down and write a long post. :-(

So, here is one picture:

And #2:

In other news, Mom and I went to D---- yesterday, I drove all the way there! (It's about a half hour away) :-) Yay! I did fairly well, although apparently everyone speeds on one part and i was going about the speed limit so there were quite a lineup of cars behind me. When it turned to 2 lanes everyone scooted over and I had the whole left lane to myself! lol

Finished planting my garden, it was actually hot out today! The rest of the state/country is broiling, and since we're close to Lake Superior (about 2 blocks away) it doesn't get near as warm. But I'm currently wearing a t-shirt and capris and loving it!

A picture I took earlier

This morning I took my camera (which I bought last fall and am still in love/ in awe of it) outside to snap some shots in the garden. Enclosed is one of the inside of a tulip:

And the Time has Gone........ Where?

First as a disclaimer, my sister and nieces are over right now so things may be a little dis-jointed in this post.

We'll be starting with today and working our way back.

Today:
Day #5 (I think) of homeschooling. It went well, we made banana bread, and worked on letters and numbers for a while. She's doing really well with her learning, she's so eager! Mom came up with the clever idea of having her trace the letter/number instead of trying to do just by looking and trying to copy. And then Morgan and Kelli came over so the schooling kind of went kaput. Ah, well.
Otherwise, my day was spent doing dishes, walking the dog, general pickup, fabric cutting, and a little of going through my stuff. Do you ever have that urge to just get rid of a whole bunch of stuff, like you have WAY too much? I think most everyone does.....

Yesterday afternoon Mom and I went up to my Grandma's house to help her go through some of her things. Mom tackled a few boxes of books, deciding which one's were not worth keeping, and Grandma and I went through some fabric; She gave me a bunch of scraps with some bigger chunks thrown in for good measure.

Wednesday Isabelle came over. I think we planted some potatoes, what that the day I gave her a wheelbarrow ride? I believe so.

Tuesday I had my cardiologist appointment, the doctor was really nice, and quite thorough. He decided to be on the safe side and have me wear a cardio-net monitor for TWENTY DAYS. I've had a Holiter monitor for 48 hours, and it's not very much fun. Actually, the worst part of it is having to sleep on my back. I don't think they'll find anything, I've been feeling fine for a couple months now.

Monday is beyond memory. Things have been so busy, I don't know if they'll be slowing down anytime soon either. Not that that's a bad thing, but it might be nice to just have a day off without anything that has to be done. Welcome to life, eh?

Tonight we're having "Bumstead" sandwiches for dinner. :D Such a treat.

For closing, here is a picture of Isabelle, Kelli, and Poppy.

First Day of Preschool!

Today was my first day of summer-homeschooling Isabelle. It was only for 1 1/2 hr., normally it'll be about 2 hours until she gets older and then it'll be longer days. When she got here she was a little confused since I think she was expecting that we would practice more..... traditional public school things. I told her we'll work on her letters later on (she's so ready to learn them) but today we would be out in the garden. We planted Violas, she got to choose where some of them went, and then she picked a whole bunch of Dandelions. I made them into a little crown for her, as you will see. She was quite pleased with it. :-) Then I got out our large magnifying glass and we looked at flowers, trees, and ants with it. Quote from Isabelle: "I love bugs!". That part of the day didn't turn out quite as I had imagined it because Jamie dropped her off, and never really left. Then Kelli brought Morgan over so thus ended the schooling part. They left a half hour early. She comes back on Wednesday and we'll be going to the library.

It was a beautiful day out, we were expecting the usual 55 cloudy, and instead it got humid, sunny for a bit, and 75. :D
New schedule is working out well, love getting everything done so much sooner. I feel so productive!
Got all my plants for the year, it's horridly expensive. Also, my quilt came back from the quilter. She did a wonderful, lovely job and it looks great. I should be going over to my Grandma's tomorrow and she's going to help me put on the binding.
What busy days these are.

Some pictures taken today

All righty. I don't really have enough time to do a full, long post, but I wanted to put up some pictures I took of my nieces today. It was gorgeous out there. They behaved most of the time, except at the very end when I got too tired to push both of them in the double stroller and had Isabelle get out. Being 4 she likes to pout over random stuff, this time it was just AWFUL that I helped her out of the stroller insead of her doing it by herself. Perish the thought! (do you detect a little sarcasm there?) So she was lagging behind with her lip hanging out, then Morgan saw her and wanted out too. By this time Isabelle decided to stop being cranky and wanted to help me push the stroller. Morgan wanted to as well. When she wasn't able to do so, she sat down on the sidewalk in disapointment. (during this time there are some older folks sitting on their porch watching us) I said "Morgan, come on let's keep moving". The kid didn't even look up. So I went over, picked her up, which she didn't want and was therefore in the "football hold", and helped Isabelle with the stroller with my freehand. Needless to say after we crossed the street they went back in the stroller. Anyhoo, here are some pictures:

Picture #1 ~ Isabelle with dandelions.

Picture #2 ~ Isabelle down by A. Bay, with an ore boat coming in. Very Minnesotan!

Picture #3 ~ Morgan with a rock that is about to be thrown in the water.


One more thing, you know that robin picture? Well, a few days ago one hatched! I saw mid-morning and decided that I would take more pictures the next day since I didn't want to disturb them too much. By then it was too late, some critter (we're thinking cat) had gotten in there and ate the chicks and every bit of eggshell. Seriously, there isn't even the smallest bit leftover. GRRR....