Coming Up: Another Garage Sale

The girls and I have been working very hard all week to set up another garage sale, starting tomorrow. This time we really do have a crazy amount of stuff to sell.

My goal is to be able to keep both cars in the garage. That means that one entire wall of shelving - and all the stuff stored on it - had to go. The girls have been purging every room of their apartments, and a friend who moved donated most of the furniture shown here to our sale.

In addition to all that, a friend and I spent most of yesterday cleaning out the toddler nursery at church. We eliminated almost half the toys in there, and still plenty remain. I added those extra toys to our sale too.

  My van was stuffed with toys from the toddler room.

 Our biggest problem now is finding space to set up tables. All the floor space is taken but not everything is out yet. I'm thinking we might have to have a pre-sale tonight just to make a little room.

We can't rely on clear weather and using the driveway for the weekend since we have had thunderstorms for two nights now.

Mom and Max Visit

Mom and Max flew in for a quick visit last week. Some of the family had never met Max, and Mom hadn't seen the great-grands for almost two years. After getting acquainted and touring all the kids' apartments, we all enjoyed fun outside...

an exclusive tour through space via The Professor's telescope, for the Venus Transit...

a cook-out on the patio, with s'mores afterwards...

 and catching fireflies at dusk. 

Hit by Bad Storms

Tornadoes swirled around us last night, but we are fine - no damage to our house.

The Professor bought an I-phone app at the height of the storm, to track storms and get weather warnings, day or night. So now we will be safe!

Happy 60th Karen!

Last week, while The Professor was off work, we went to SC for a surprise birthday party for sister Karen's 60th birthday. Her daughters-in-law planned the whole event and did a wonderful job. They kept saying, "She knows. She won't be surprised. No one can ever surprise her, she already knows something's up."

But they were wrong - she really was surprised. Bill was clued in just a few days before, and he helped with the logistics of getting her to their church that evening. He told her some story about needing to sign a check or something. When she saw cars in the parking lot, she was very worried that they had forgotten about some church event. As they walked up to the building she could see in the windows and commented that it was a reception that they had missed. Then she saw someone "who didn't belong there" and she realized what was going on. So she was surprised until the very last moment.

Meantime, I made sure I wasn't visible through the windows, and The Professor was hidden too. She sheepishly walked in the door and looked around, acknowledging the guests. I watched as her eyes passed by me, and then she did a double-take as she realized it was me. That was lots of fun.

The family had put together a memory/tribute album for her with contributions from family and friends far and wide. I got a chance to look through it briefly, but not as much as I would have liked. I'm sure she will treasure it.

We enjoyed helping with the surprise, but even more, having the chance to visit with extended family that we hadn't seen in quite some time. Although we were given an invite to stay the night, we needed to head back home that same evening since The Professor hadn't brought along his very important RX meds.

A Patio Party Tonight

We ended up having a spontaneous cookout and patio party tonight because Greta and Daniel arrived suddenly. It happened like this:

1. David gave me a new fire bowl for Christmas.

2. Heather and Jared borrowed my van to move some furniture today, and the boys stayed here with us while they did it.

3. Luke and Patrick helped me put the fire bowl together after lunch today.4. Then we just had to try it out.
5. I couldn't get a fire started, so David and Jared stepped in.

6. We needed more logs, so Jared tried to chop up our huge tree sections with a teeny, tiny hatchet. It didn't work, so he went to Home Depot to buy a real axe.
7. Then of course he had to try it out and he ended up splitting about a dozen of those logs into perfectly split firewood.

8. Finally Jared and David got our rather damp logs and kindling dried out enough so they would burn.

9. The fire got going very nicely.

10. Heather posted a picture of our campfire on Facebook and Greta was curious what we were doing.

11. She said they would come over too.

12. We decided to roast hot dogs and make s'mores over the fire.

13. Chuck went to the grocery store to buy the food we needed.

14. We roasted and ate and roasted and ate some more.15. It was very fun.

A Taste of Fall

Last Saturday Heather put together an outing to the northern mountains, to apple-picking country. It was a beautiful fall day, perfect for our romp through the orchards.

We picked our quota of Rome Beauty, Golden Delicious, and Gala apples, and the little ones thought it was really neat to pick apples right off the trees! And then to eat them right in the orchard too. Patrick chomped down at least three whole apples by himself. (He eats them straight through, core and all.)

Papa helps Patrick reach the fruit.


Later, the guys enjoyed watching the apple cannon.

And then there were the sticks to throw and drag and shoot. And yelling to be done from the big rock.

We all contributed to a lavish picnic lunch under the pavilion...
...and Heather and the boys finished the day with a free hay ride around the orchard.

Memorial Day Fun

Trike Tricks

Heather and Jared suggested a day at the lake in celebration of Memorial Day. We concurred, and Greta and Daniel joined us at our favorite beach in the morning. Not wanting to get sunburned, we left by noon and headed home for a feast of Chuck's (becoming) famous ribs with sides. We finished off with homemade ice cream.

The Ice Snatcher

A Blessed Easter

Happy Easter! He is Risen! (He is risen indeed!)

Wonderful music and worship at church

A delicious ham 'n lamb dinner on the patio...

...the boys prefaced it with an appetizer of an entire can of olives (just the two of them).

Fun family times at home

Ready for the little kids' egg hunt.

Luke on a collecting spree...

...while Patrick discovers that eggs grow on trees!

The big kids' egg hunt.

Busy Spring

We're in activity overload right now.

Today is moving day #1 for the foursome. They have an apartment awaiting them about 12 miles away, not too far from Jared's new office. Today Heather and I will move as many boxes as we are able, using my van. Then tomorrow the rental truck will be packed with all the heavy things. And helpers are scheduled to be here bright and early.

Palm Sunday evening is our church's Seder banquet. I'm on the committee; my main responsibilities are recruiting helpers for all areas, and getting the tables decorated and set. I have identified tasks for 25 helpers so far. I'm pricing paper tableware, and I'm hoping we can finally buy real metal flatware instead of plastic.

Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday are special events for childrens' Sunday School. I have a number of extra jobs to get done for both of those Sundays.

Our annual garage sale is tentatively scheduled for late April. Half the garage is full already, awaiting pricing and setting up on tables. It will be a big job as usual, but I expect all sellers to help with pricing and set up. My rule is: anything I have to price becomes mine.

House renovations begin the day after H and J are fully moved out. I promised myself that I will take this opportunity to scrape all the remaining popcorn texture from our ceilings. I will start in the master bedroom and bath/closet, and then proceed to the hall, the living room, the dining room, and then finally the little back hall. After scraping, I will need to patch and sand (maybe several times; it depends on my scraping skill). Then I will prime and paint the bare drywall in all of the listed rooms. Then I will move on to paint the walls in all of the same rooms, plus the kitchen and family room (that's most of the house). After the walls comes the trim. Next, there's a little electrical work that needs to be done professionally. And then, finally, I will get to start fresh on decorating the master bedroom. I hope that will include some new furniture, as well as new window coverings and bed linens.

Maybe I will finish by Christmas.

Brothers

This week our weather has been so lovely; we have eaten meals outside several times now.

The boys have been having a grand time in the backyard. But they are a little too brave in their explorations ~ they love to climb the stairs and venture out on the steep hill and across the top of the high retaining wall. Nanas don't like to see them up there alone.

They each have their own tricycle now and they love to ride all over the patio, one chasing the other. Patrick can't reach the pedals so he runs his little feet faster than a blur across the patio. It is really funny.

A Sweet Day

We had a very pink family celebration on Valentine's Day evening, our favorite way of celebrating the holiday. The girls put together a heart-filled menu and decorated the table with pink and red and hearts:

heart shaped meatloaf
pink mashed potatoes
red berry heart jello
green salad with heart shaped tomato slices

chocolate chip Bundt cake with pink glaze
and raspberry sauce
chocolate marshmallow truffles
a chocolate treat on every plate

That is Patrick's little candy box at the top of the photo; he isn't much of a sweet lover.

Celebrating

Happy Birthday, guys!

We celebrated the three February birthdays tonight with quite the menu for dinner:

steamed mussels
prime rib with horseradish sauce
marinaded yellowfin tuna
grilled shark
asparagus with Hollandaise sauce
Brussels sprouts
fresh fruit tray with raspberry sauce
twice-baked potatoes

chocolate mousse tort
chocolate mini cupcakes
pumpkin pie with whipped cream

Sisters

Lisa came to visit for a day when she joined John on a business trip. While John attended a conference by the airport, Lisa drove up to our house. We hung out for a while, then I took her to Mittie's, a lovely southern tea room and an Atlanta institution. Our waiter was very informative, very talkative. But maybe he had nothing better to do since we were almost the only ones in the restaurant at that late hour.

Next we visited the Roswell Mill ruins and the Chattahoochee River, where we saw a little of the remaining snow. We also tried to tour an antebellum mansion but we got there just a few minutes too late.

We went up the road to Out of the Box, where Greta works. It turns out she was on her way to work for the evening, so we waited until she arrived. She gave us a quick tour.

Thanks for coming to visit, Lisa!

Snow Days

Even with a stomach bug raging through the house, some of us still had to go out to enjoy the unusually deep snow. We have been housebound for three days now.

Sunday night, as the snow began to fall