A bit of fun last night & tonight...Homecoming!

Last evening was the homecoming game, I was able to get some nice photos of my daughter in the colorguard, along with some great sunset shots, and the full moon.  Tonight was the dance & I think she looked great, but I am definitely biased.

The football game...time for some FUN!

 Time to practice & work...

The ticket to the dance, a souvenir key chain. 80's was the theme, we skipped the 80's hair and clothes, just went for the bling instead.

Getting ready for the Dance...

This is one of my favorite poses (below).

Dress $40 + Shoes $60 + Smile = PRICELESS!!

So glad that she had a good time at the dance.  She's been planning her outfit since lat year's dance.

The moon the past two nights...

Some relaxation for me...

Among all of my chaos, I decided I needed an outlet to be able to decompress from all of the events and their stresses that they brought.  I found Ornament Girls (check out the link to the left).  I have had a wonderful time making these ornaments and feeling good about getting back to my crafty side.  I also feel better about keeping up my promise to myself and tradition of having hand made ornaments for the tree.

Here are a few of the kits I've completed:

 

This was my very first ornament.  I had a lot of fun making this and Staci's video was a great instructional for making this ornament.

I'm glad I ordered several kits as this is quick and easy, but I can only make about one a week so my finger tips don't hurt from pushing pins.  I need to be able to type for work.  Sore finger pads is not a good idea.  Each ornament takes me about an hour to make.

This is version one, I made some changes to the second one of these that I made.

This is version two, I like it much better, I still did the band the same as in version one by adding the star sequins to it.  I love the sparkle it adds and looks very patriotic.  I also reversed the order of the ribbons for the bows on top.  My OCD kicks in with having the heavier ribbon on top of the thinner ribbon, I may still go back & redo the 1st version.

This is the Christmas in July ornament, kind of looks like a pinecone.

A different folding technique for this one, also not my most favorite color scheme, but I do like the looks of this ornament, also has an adorable charm like the very 1st one.

I have many more that I've made, will add them later in a separate post.  I hope that this has piqued your interest.  Be sure to check it out through my link on the left side of this blog page.

Edited on 10/15/2016 to add photos:

A variation of the Christmas In July ornament, my husband suggested alternating the colors, rather than having the rows of colors.

plus one of my own creations...with ribbon.

Getting our Geo Thermal heat pump

More of the chaos this summer...we had geothermal heat and A/C installed.  What an undertaking!  It started on August 10th and finished on September 14th.  First we had to drill 2 wells over 250 feet deep.  That was the easy part...

Getting the drilling unit set up...

ready to begin drilling the 2nd well...

this took a day to complete both wells...

Next came the ditch to put in the piping between the two wells and into the house...

took a few hours to dig the ditch, then the majority of the day was putting in the piping.  Almost finished this is the 2nd well, which is furthest from the house.

George is driving  the tractor and helping to fill the ditch back in...this took a few hours.  At least it wasn't a HHH day for the guys.

Eric working on leveling out the MUD...

The finished work (for now).  Need to allow the dirt to settle over the ditch.  We'll have several weeks of it looking like this...I doubt we'll get seed down before it gets too cold for it to grow.

Out came the 15-year old furnace.  This was just the inside unit.  The outside unit will also go away completely.

The room in the basement where new furnace will be installed.  A few adjustments to the duct-work to get the new furnace in...

Phil hooking up all the duct-work, wires and pipes.  Then add the glycol (anti-freeze) to the pipes.  This is what is used to heat/cool the house.  There were some delays because of shipping issues with parts, and an injury or two.  Poor Phil cut his hand on the duct-work during installation and needed several stitches.  The new unit is SOOooo quiet!  That is one plus I really like, as well as no outside unit; now to see how it does on the electric bill savings.  I am anticipating good results.  We are liking it so far.

Summer 2016...where did it go??

These past few months have been very trying for me...Since Memorial Day my family has been assisting my parents and brother's family with a major move.  (175 miles away).  My Dad had to quickly find a place to store the contents of his garage.  We were able to assist with that; however stuffing the contents of a 30' x 40' garage into a 12' x 24' building is no easy task, nor is moving their household items and my brother's all into the same house.  It has been quite the adventure.  Plus 4 cats and 2 dogs (and a partridge in a pear tree!)

On a different note, we were able to help haul items out twice for Mom & Dad, along with their truck & trailer loaded also, and both of our trucks and trailers.  A lot of stuff...

cousins

This was the first trip, arriving there...of course it was one of the hottest days of the summer.  I nearly passed out from the heat & humidity and I wasn't even helping with the "heavy" lifting.

On the 1st trip out our daughter went along to help and to also see her cousin.  They were of help with carrying the smaller items up the stairs.  On the 2nd trip some things wouldn't fit up the narrow stairs, so it went up via straps and over the railing and through the door to the Juliet balcony.  Check it out...

We were able to get all three trailers, and trucks unloaded and most of he furniture found a home inside the house.  We started home about 5:00 pm, still had a long drive ahead of us.  Including 4 tunnels along the turnpike and we were driving into rain storms.  Not what I enjoy on unfamiliar roads over steep mountains.

Tunnel #1

Tunnel #2

Tunnel #3

Tunnel #4

At least the rain held off until we were entering the 4th tunnel and I was back on the part of the turnpike I am most familiar with from driving regularly to our cabin.  It was a long day.  These photos are a mixture from both of our trips out.  Too hard to do all of this in a single day's trip.  I enjoy driving, but 350 miles is the max for me in a day, especially in the heat.

Some fun sights from along the way...

One of the down hill views on the way.  Also some of the windmill farms on the way out.  They are so neat to see off in the distance...reminds me of children doing cartwheels.

At one of the rest stops I accused my husband of parking terribly in the spaces, only to come to see that he was parked straight, it was the line that was not straight.  LOL

This is where about 4 weeks of our summer went...

Chaos

I had no idea what else to call it.  My family has been on a merry-go-round of events since my last posting 2 months ago!  We have definitely been living life, but has now gotten to the point where we need to stop and take a breath.

On May 18th my husband and I have become landlords.  We purchased the house that was my grandparents and aunt's home from my parents.  We are now renting that home out.  We are so glad that we were able to keep the home in the family.  This home has been in the family since November 1966.

This kept us busy for the entire month of May & part of June getting the paperwork all in order and everything changed from my parent's names to ours.  We also did a bit of shrubbery trimming, and flowerbed work along with the tenant.  This was also done around the planning of my parents' auction of their home & packing to move along with my brother & nephew.  Plus my niece will be moving in the next month.  Everyone decided to move at once!  Not really, it just worked out that way with the house hunting.

We've also been diligently working on getting our barn organized and the workshop set up the way my husband wants it to be, along with finishing other projects around our cabin & the house.  I've been too busy helping out the hubby as his "goffer" to be able to take photos and post here.

I am glad to report though that the end is in sight.

I promise to post about it all as soon as all projects are complete.

The Barn

It's hard to believe that we started building in August.  Today the plan was to actually move items from the old shed to the new one.  Things did not go as quickly as we had hoped.  Got a lot of trash cleared though, and decisions made concerning layout and placement of critical tools.  Last week Eric came home with 2 sets of free shelving units that he combined into one, with a few parts left over.  The extra shelves gave him the perfect idea for tool storage for those long handled items.  Check out his creation.  All it cost us was time because all of the supplies were FREE or remnants from the build.

The 3'-0" x 6'-0"" shelf was cut down to 3'-0" x 2'-0" pieces, only two of the cut pieces were used.  Each of the squares in the shelf are 2"x2".  Just the right size for handles.

Next Eric used the Dado blade to make a 3/4" indentation for the shelf to lay down against in the frame.  This took a bit more time because of the set up required to change the blades on the saw and adjust height etc.

Also had a few adjustments to make after dry-fitting the shelf into the frame.  We decided that we wanted the shelf countersunk deeper than it was.  Next step is to fasten the frame together, since we were going for speed and not looks, we book-ended the corners.

One frame ready to go.  Now on to the next one...

Next was to assemble the legs, we agreed upon a 30" height for the length of the legs, and to keep the bottom frame up from the floor the width of a 2x4, about 3.5".

The completed frame.  We also fastened it to the purlins just to prevent tipping, although it most likely was heavy enough not to tip.  Eric always errs on the side of caution for these types of things.

Filling it up with some of the tools.  So great to have all of them organized and not rooting through them all stacked in the corner.  Eric really blew me away with this brainstorm of his...LOVE IT !!

The entire time to assemble from start to finish was approximately four hours. I hope you enjoy our brainstorm of a project.

Voting - our right

Today was the primary's for our state.  It was also the first time voting for my son.  Of course I had to have photos of the moment.  My son was voter #14 at our precinct.  He was a bit annoyed with me, but everyone there also knew him and made just as BIG of a deal about it as I did.  Once he found out another Mom was going to do the same thing with her son later, he settled down realizing that I'm not the only one who feels this is a milestone; he cooperated with a bit of reluctance.  Love him to pieces for putting up with me.  We've taught him to be informed about the candidates & the issues.  I can only hope that information follows him the rest of his voting.  Also taught him to NOT take it for granted.