My Favorite Things

But I'm not Oprah, so you won't find a basket of these under your chair.


The first year I've had tomatoes that look like they (I hope!) will ripen!  I also love my portable fence section that I'm using for a trellis right now.  Those 5x3 sections have a lot of uses!

  

My rain barrel -- doubles as a redneck splash park for the kids.



I love, love, love my flower garden!  It's full of masses of brown-eyed Susans, lupine, and a bunch of other anonymous flowers.  I also love finding surprise visitors out there, like this bee and grasshopper.  Right after I took this picture, the bee tried to land on the flower the grasshopper was on, but he kicked at her, and she startled away.




I have a sparrows' nest right outside my window in the carport.  They've nested there for years, but this winter a windstorm cleared out all three nests.  One pair rebuilt and have raised a noisy family this summer.  I love the sound of the "pio pio pio" in the morning.




Who doesn't love frogs?  These fellows have been living on our kitchen counter all summer.



Cardamom is the spice of the gods, I'm sure.  Just the scent of it in my spice cabinet makes me feel wealthy.  It's delicious in chai, coffee, bread, rice, and anything else.

Many years ago I got rid of my beautiful matching dishes and collected mismatched, brightly colored ones instead.  I like variety.

This is my newly redone bedroom.  I painted over the old manufactured-home wallboard (the paint is the color of peach smoothie), replaced the thin plastic wood molding, ripped out the mauve shag carpet and painted the floor brown, then put in new curtain rods, curtains, and comforter.  I didn't put my niece there; she rolled herself into the photo.

Random Thoughts

I got a new phone, which the kids think is top-of-the-line (it's actually pretty basic) because it takes pictures and records their voices.  So now my ringtones consist of, "I love you, Mom!", "Okay, Mom, you got a new message," "It's a picture!", and "Grampa's calling..."  I also have half of "I love you more..." sung in a wavering seven-year-old voice.  We played with it so much that we ran the battery down in an hour or two.

The kids started swimming lessons.  Derrick's class has two kids and two teachers.  He's on his fourth attempt to pass level 3, coordinating arms, legs, shoulders, and side breathing.  He is slowly learning not to flip vertical in the water to take a breath!

Brooklynn, meanwhile, has started Preschool level 1, beginning bubble blowing.  She has a boy teacher, which means she will try anything he asks of her -- even to releasing her death-grip on his arms.


I feel like a quitter this summer -- I'm finally giving in and seriously considering buying an air conditioner.  Until then, we've been spending most evenings at Cline Falls, with our wonderful water dog.  Buddy likes to chase sticks and things in the water, but he's at least half blind, so he usually misses the stick, and he almost never brings it all the way back.  Can a dog have ADHD?

I had a great workout the other day, hauling four children across the river so they could stand on the "big rock" and say they'd crossed the river.  (Barby wouldn't let me take the baby across, fearing, perhaps, a repeat of the Moses story.)  Then the girls made mud pies and the boys hunted tigers.