Around Here Week 30: 07/21-27

A glimpse into what it is like to live in our home just this minute.

Intentional Outdoor Hours:  419+ hours (of 1000)

Up 25 hours this week as we continue through this beautiful summer weather. There were some days that were downright perfect this week with an incredible breeze and blue, sunny skies. It's been dipping down into the low 60s though in the evening and at one of Grey's baseball games it was actually fall-chilly! We all wanted long pants and hoodies! The wild blackberries are starting to come out and I got a handful for a snack while walking the dogs on Friday morning. 

Reading and finishing Miles Morales: Spiderman by Jason Reynolds. I started (a little late) our next Book Love Foundation summer club pick: Still Life with Tornado by A.S. King. I'm listening to The Lost Man by Jane Harper on Audible during my half marathon training. It is so good - enough to keep me distracted from the miles! 

Half marathon training miles this week: 9 miles

I ran at the North Star track, CT track, and at the Que with Loni for our Saturday morning long run (4miles). I tried lengthening my stride on the straightaways at the CT track on Thursday night and whew, that gave me soreness in all kinds of new places (hah!) The half is in the end of October, so I still have a long way to go, but it's one mile at a time - no matter how slow! 

Classroom visiting for the first time this summer. The kids and I stopped into school and spent some time in my classroom organizing and digging into planning for the upcoming school year. Gah, so nerd-excited for school to start. I got my schedule, mapped out the year long curriculum for most of levels, and did some prom committee research. 

Training our chickens to stay off the patios. If you want a good laugh, just come watch me work on this - with a water gun in hand, I run outside shouting like a mad woman, "Get off my porch!" Eventually, the chickens will start to realize if they don't want a lunatic running and yelling at them, they'll stay off. We also moved our old patio chairs farther away from the porch to encourage their perching away from our space. Speaking of chickens, we found their hidden egg stash too; under one of the front bushes - 10 eggs!

Planning our upcoming mini road trip/family vacation. Brandon has a conference for work and the whole family is encouraged to come as the conference is located in the Kalahari Poconos resort! So we stretched the mini vacay out to include a little something special on the way to (Knoebels amusement park!) and on the way home (Lake Tobias Wildlife Park). I get such a geeked out thrill searching and mapping it out on google to find family fun along the way.

Choosing two slips from our summer fun jar including a visit to Laurel Hill State Park and Ebensburg Pool. The choices were a little staged (hah), but the kids were happy to get a chance to explore. Unfortuntely, Laurel Hill State Park swimming area was closed (too murky from all the rain) but we made the best of it by wading in the water, climbing on their cool playground structure, building a huge sandcastle, and finding seashells. We had Maldet with us on Thursday when we went to Ebensburg pool and the kids were so great. I was amazed how easy the trip was; everyone helped carry things to and from the car, no whining, no issues; and everyone happily swam from the moment we got there until the whistles blew for adult swim at 3p!

Writing a short story! The idea hit me like a lightening bolt and in the middle of a conversation with Brandon, I stopped and said, "sorry, I have to go write a story right now!" hahhaa. My very encouraging family and friends are holding me to trying to get it published, (eee!) so we shall see.

Visiting our extended family at the Plunkett reunion. We squeezed in a trip to Altoona before the baseball game to have lunch and play games with our cousins on my Dad's Mom's side. The kids are always so happy at family reunions and the girls even stayed behind with my parents while the boys headed to the baseball game.

Feeling so proud of Grey the last week or so. Since his birthday in April, I feel like we have been fighting constantly and I was just giving him lectures all day, everyday and was feeling so frustrated with his attitude and choices. He was really growing through something and my response to it all probably was terrible, but mommas gotta mom, right? Thankfully, it appears he has come out of the fog and I keep hugging him & letting him know that I am so proud of his help, and patience with his siblings, and his reactions to disappointment. Lawd, send me all the patience forever, please and thank you.

No bummer summering with our besties with an afternoon at the Quemahoming. While the kids kayaked, swam, and playground'ed, Kate and I got to catch up and laugh. Always so good for my soul. Every time we have our kid kayaks with us, we get asked about them - so if you're in the market for some kid-size kayaks; we have two of these. Our kids love them and they're light enough that they are responsible for carrying/dragging them in and out. Violet (4.5y) is completely independent on it in the water and Rusty (3y) is getting there; still figuring out turning. (tip: we bought ours at the end of the season last year and they were marked down to like $50 each, check out Walmart online too!)

Summer sporting for the final week! We had our co-ed volleyball playoff game and lost in the first round. So bittersweet to end the season, so we had a big team 'family' dinner at the Crow's Nest afterward. I love those cats! Grey finished out his all-star baseball season with the last two tourneys at ETJ and CV. He learned a lot about the game, made some new friends, and loved having a baseball summer. We got to have one of his teammates over for a sleepover on Friday night much to Grey's delight (and Violet's! haha, she followed the two of them around like a little pup).

Frugal living by using three zucchinis that were gifted to us from my Aunt Thelma to make two loaves of zucchini bread (they didn't make it 12 hrs before being gobbled up!). Brandon and the kids washed and cleaned the inside of both vehicles at home. I downloaded the Ibotta app on my phone and scanned my first receipt ($0.50 earned!). I packed lunch for the pool and the Que instead of buying something special on the way to/from. I used my Audible credits from our prime membership to download a book on tape for my half marathon training for free.

Making zucchini bread, three ingredient chocolate chip muffins, french toast, frozen pizza, turkey tacos, bbq pork chops and rice, frozen popcorn chicken, and chopping up lots of watermelon for the kids.

Keto'ing with some really incredible meals. Heather & Albert brought us dinner on Monday night with her incredible Keto pizza crusts and toppings that we devoured. Brandon made grilled porkchops and roasted garlic and cheesy brussel sprouts. We had turkey taco wraps thanks to the Keto friendly Tumaro brand (thank you Heather!) I had chicken jalapeno popper casserole and air fried chicken with coconut flour. My handsome zoodler husband also made us shrimp and broccoli over zoodles with alfredo which was to die for. For the family reunion, we made buffalo chicken dip with cucumber and green pepper dippers - and we've been chowing down on cocktail peanuts because they are best quick snack everrrr.

Around Here Week 29: 07/14-20

A glimpse into what it is like to live in our home just this minute. 

photo cred: Jenn Valentine 

Intentional Outdoor Hours:  394+ hours (of 1000)
Up 25 hours this week. We visited the Quemahoming on Sunday night for a little afternoon kayak and swim with Mallory. We worked on the chicken coop this week and I did a little weeding in the garden - we have a zucchini starting to grow! We had a fire on Friday night and then did lots of swimming at Pappy & Gigi's this week too and Rust has almost got swimming with no floaties down! He and Violet both learned to swim at 3 years old! He can now jump off the diving board and swim to the ladder (with a grown up in the pool). We have four little fish, I tell ya!

Reading Miles Morales Spiderman by Jason Reynolds (almost done!) and some Spanish teacher blogs to start digging into ideas for the upcoming year (only a little more than a month away!) I found a great powerpoint about procedures that has my mind spinning with ideas and I am really excited to get caught up on my Book Love Foundation Summer club reading.

Summer Camping for the girls. Our local community arts center holds various week long summer camps, and the girls each attended one this past week. Violet spent 4 mornings participating in a farm-themed art camp. Gemma auditioned (last week) and participated in their theater camp all week. She spent the full day (9:30-4) learning the choreography, songs, and her line (1!) as she played Ms. Greer and danced in the ensemble as an orphan.

Tending to Grey who was the next victim on the Norovirus train. He was down and out for two full days and is still trying to get back into normal eating again. I think it was one part stomach bug and another part of summer worn-down from swimming and baseball. He needed the rest!

Snagging some goodies during Amazon Prime Days. My favorite of all was our Legit Camping double hammock; I'm honestly in love and cannot believe we have not had a hammock before in our life - like what were we doing!? I also purchased this essential oil diffuser, this set of dry-lock kayak supplies, and wool dryer balls.

Supporting our family as they said goodbye to grandfathers. Two sets of cousins laid grandpas to rest this week and we attended their viewings to give our love and support. We always take the kids with us and remind them how we behave and why we come. We remind them that our friends/family are sad because someone they love went to heaven, so what we can do is to be there and give a hug and pray with them.

Staining and painting the chicken coop. B did most of the work (although Gem and I tag-teamed one side) and it looks great!

Registering for some fall races. I signed Grey and I up for the 5K Que Classic for late September and then I succumbed to peer pressure from Loni to register for a half marathon at the end of October! I looked up a half marathon training plan and I'm scheduled to start with 1mile on Monday!

Smiling at Rusty's new favorite phrase, "this is taking a long time!" which he comments about anything and everything that takes more than 30 seconds.

Upgrading to a new phone after three years with my original Google Pixel. My battery was totally shot (dying at 40%!) and it was necessary. Brandon and I upgrade at the same time, so we both got the Google Pixel 3A and are so happy with it - I love it for the unlimited photo storage and camera quality; which is 90% of why I use my phone. We also picked up a "house phone" which is really just a bargain cell phone that we are keeping at the house to use like a landline. But no games or apps or even wifi on that thing - it's strictly for calls and texts.

Feeling proud of Gem for her performance in Annie Jr. on Friday night. After her week of theater camp and practices, she danced and sung her way through the show. Afterwards, she reluctantly came over to hug me and then burst into tears. I asked her why she was crying and she said, "I'm just so happy and proud!" She can hardly wait to go back to theater camp again next summer! She came home each night singing all the songs and even taught a dance to Violet. Violet's eyes were all gleaming with adoration as Gem spun her around and patiently showed her how to do the steps. Gah, sisters.

Getting outside water! We have been without a hose for all of summer after our pipes burst this winter during one of the deep freezes. I didn't even realize what a burden that was until Brandon and my Dad re-piped all the water lines. It is a miracle to have hose water again and make such a difference for watering all our planters and filling up the chicken water. The kids first request was to use the sprinkler (hah). The hugest thank you to our handymen!

Pulling into the drive-ins on Saturday night with our cousins to watch The Lion King/Toy Story 4 double feature. We had no child awake by about 15 minutes into the second movie, so we packed up and headed out before it ended - truthfully, I was starting to doze off half way through the first movie (lol).

Summer sporting with two baseball tourney this week. Grey's all star team came in second place in the West Surburban tournament and then had two games in the ETJ tournament later in the week. Brandon and I had two volleyball matches on Tuesday night and our record has us in the playoffs next week. After our games, we all went to Tollgate for wings as a team and I'm feeling a little sad that our co-ed league season is almost over. Love these cats!

Frugal living by freezing our own picked blueberries for the long winter months to come, choosing to buy the 3A pixel phone ($400 less dollars than the 3 pixel!) and refraining from other in-store purchases (phone cases, head phones, car phone holders) and holding out to see if I can find them cheaper on Amazon. We continued to keep the A/C off and just open and close curtains to keep it cool in the house until the heat wave during the weekend (first time turned on all summer!) I signed up for the lifetime warranty on our new hammock and put our new wool dryer balls to use right away (no more dryer sheets to purchase!) I was inspired to start this note thanks to Ashley after she introduced me to The Prudent Homemaker. 

Making blueberry muffin bread; one to keep and one to gift to a friend. Mallory helped make egg sausage casserole for breakfast on Monday, and Grey is still practicing his grilling skills making hot dogs and hamburgers two different days while swimming at Pappy& Gigi's house. We had kielbasa, turkey burgers, and hot dogs on the grill various times this week, and Rust made some frozen corn treats for the chickens!

Keto'ing with church picnic chicken on the grill, buffalo cauliflower (OMG, yum!), cheese 'bun' sundowner turkey burgers, cheesy chicken fritters, and lots of delicious salads piled high with avocado and sunflower seeds.  Non-scale victory this week was having to use a hair tie to hold my capri leggings up during our volleyball games; they are getting so loose that it is distracting! And a big bonus this week was I was able to donate blood without any issues with low iron. I was denied donating twice this year for low iron and I was totally in the clear this to donate this week- thanks Keto!