Daily Ooo's: July 4-5: Independence Day Weekend Edition

[faerywings]

:americanflag

Happy 4th of July to My Fellow Americans, as well as to all of you!

I read an intense article online this morning that really made me think so deeply about the concept of freedom. If you are friends with me on FB you might have seen it. It was an article written by a survivor of the Rwandan genocide. She was 6 yo when she escaped and her description of her journey was chilling. It renewed my appreciation for the freedoms I have here, while at the same time leaving me baffled by the pettiness of some of our arguments that our freedoms being taken away. It is like-- read this and then come back and complain. (Not saying this to anyone here, just a very blanket statement that I usually try to stay well away from. I apologize in advance if I have offended anyone, because that totally is not my intent-- the article was chilling, and I guess that is staying with me).

So on to lighter topics!!!

What are my USA people doing to celebrate? BBQ? Fireworks? It is rainy here today so hopefully it will clear up for anyone who is doing that. It is too bad that the weather from yesterday didn't hold out. It was perfect for outdoor parties here. I worked out in the yard for 2+ hours (yup, I overdid it and I huuuuuuurt!!!) but I am happy with how it is turning out. All I did was weed the front part of the yard near the road-- and I think that the Bing Street View Car caught me!!! I saw it drive down my street and then a bit later, back up. I will be so embarrassed if you can see me, cuz I was a mess LOL

Thurs and Fri I drove with Cait-
I forgot how terrifying that is! :scared:
I thought at one point we were going to hit a telephone pole. I remember saying when I first started out with Scott how the side of the road looks so much closer in the passenger seat. I guess I need to get used to that all over again.

Nothing much going on here today. With the weather being kind of yucky, I am going to keep working on getting the house decluttered. And some scrap time too.

Hope that you all have a fan-tab-ulous day!!!
::grouphug

 

[faerywings]

I was hoping to get to Wed's personals but I wasn't able to. By the time I got inside from the yard work, took a shower, then went back outside to burn off some of Jaida's energy. I was too hurty to do anything. Jaida is going through another growth spurt and she is a brat- moving out of toddlerhood and into puppy adolescence for sure.
We have to really work with her on walk-nice because she is getting so strong, pure muscle on that one. I am still having/always will have muscle weakness and my PICC is in my right arm which is stronger than my left, and if she pulls me, it hurts. When she is wound up, she can lift herself off the ground almost up to my neck. When she is calmer, she walks fine.

Nancy- safe trip to your son! Fingers crossed that all goes well with meeting the family. That is nerve wracking under the best of circumstances-- but a Marine Father- sheesh!!!
I hope that your other son does ok over the weekend with the fireworks/firecrackers. I know Ravyn has a really tough time with them and Harley was even worse. But I cannot imagine how difficult it must be with vets. Has your son been helped with PTSD? I hope so.
That also gives me pause to think about the cost of freedom throughout the years/decades/centuries. That makes me sad. Guess I am in a mood.
Hugs to you all.
Yes-- the yoga stroll was amazing and that put me into a good frame of mind. I am going to keep on focusing on that, get my head of of its' contemplative funk.

Sharon- hahaha!! That is great about the biscuits! I am still trying to find a good buttermilk biscuit recipe.
OH!!!!!!!!!! I have a mix for blueberry scones in my cabinet!!!!!!!!! How awesome will that honey be on them??????

I'd better do that soon, the jar is already half gone!

It is always easier for someone else to give encouragement when it is not their kid/g-kid. I would hate it when my MIL would say that Cait would talk when she was ready. It was ture, but it didn't make me worry any less.
The mug for DD sounds like the perfect gift! Good luck keeping the secret :tape:

Trudy!!!! I am happy dancing with you on the4 East Coast!! :dance: How happy you must be right now!!!
ADOPT ME PLEASE so I can play in the mud kitchen!! It came out phenomenal! I am sure that they will play with it, kids are never as bothered by heat and cold as we old folks are. Give them a bucket of water/water guns and they will be happy as clams!

Yup- see? Sharon and I -- GMTA! The kids will love it! Lots of sunscreen and water play, and they will be out there a lot! I know I would be!

Hi Jean!!!! Inside Out looks great, I can't wait to see it on Netflix. I hear it is emotional too.
Thank you so much for your compliment on the July pages. The one of Cait's Senior Portrait was the one I was :rant: about that I trashed three times!LOL
I am still sending good thoughts to your sister.

hugs and love and warm, not hot, sunshine if that is possible for you all!

 

[nancyr]

good morning - it is a lazy cloudy cool day in my town. Yet Happy 4th of all! They say it should be dry for fireworks so that is good. Yesterday was really fun. My DH and I took a good bike ride just over 10 miles and it took a little over an hour and now this am I am watching Stage 1 of the Tour de France with is a time trial of a little over 8 miles. The fastest so far is a tad under 15 min. I laugh now at just how slow I ride but then I think I am not racing and I am in my 60s. Perhaps I am not doing so bad. I did get the lawn mowed so that made me happy and since my son is gone my DH got out the carpet steam cleaner and is down the dining room and living room. And this made me happy too. Neither of us wanted to cook so trying to think of good fast food we opted for KFC. After all the talk here of honey and biscuits I just had to have them. I told my DH all I need were the biscuits LOL.

Chris I will have to look up the article. And yes I am totally grateful. So glad that you got your yard work done. It is always fun when we end the day hurting but have accomplishments. I am so glad that I am not back teaching driving. The boys were pretty quick to catch on but one thing I could never teach them was that speeding is not smart. Luckily as they matured they realize that speeding really gets you there seconds faster and it is not worth the risks. Proud of them.

Sharon too funny about the biscuits! What a fun thing to do for your daughter to create a mug of her town. I used to collect mugs but now I have so many that I gave that up as I don't drink coffee anyway. They are just dust collectors now. Maybe my sons will want them some day.

Trudy you and your MG are super talented. Love the photos and like Chris said the kids will love them and have great fun! You will have to let us know if all the buzz around Inside/out is correct.

Hi to all!
Have a great day!

 

[taxed4ever]

Morning ladies... quickly popping in to say the kids are so happy with the mud kitchen and started playing with it as soon as they arrived! Can't stay for more than a min and not sure how much I will be here for the next few weeks. I just wanted to say Happy 4th of July to my USA friends and tell you all that I will miss being with you for a while! I hope you all have great days coming up and that you get to do lots of scrapping!! :wave:

 

[SharLamb]

Trudy! Let the games begin! So glad the kids love the mud kitchen. That makes the work so worthwhile.

Nancy, my DH is buried in the Tour. I expect to see him again in about 3 weeks! LOL I actually watch bits of it, but mostly for the scenery. I don't recognize any of the racers any more...sort of lost interest with the Lance scandal. You ride your bike about the same pace DH and I do. Well, DH COULD go a lot faster, but he holds back for my sake. We ride "comfort" bikes these days. I think he still misses his road bike. But he does not miss riding in traffic.

I have a big box full of lamb/sheep mugs in the attic. My MIL started collecting lamb things for me as soon as I was married (last name is Lamb). Instead of fighting it, I went along with it, even though both DH and I prefer contemporary to country. The week after she died, we packed up all the hundreds of lamb things and put them in the attic. Well, I kept out a few of the really good ones, but most of the herd is at rest! Someday my children can be the ones to just donate them to the Goodwill! I can't bring myself to do it...sort of like giving relatives away!

Besides the biscuits, I have also bought fries from 5 Guys to serve guests (fish and chips). They are WAY better than anything I have ever been able to make. Maybe if I had a deep fryer? nah...5 Guys it is.

Chris, glad you kept on with the LO of Cait. It truly is a stunner. As to the driving...hope that goes well. DD's oldest has been out a few times now, so I feel your anxiety and pain!

We had a nice evening with Paul. The steaks were embarrassingly huge. The package weighed over four pounds, and there were only 3 steaks! There are a LOT of left-overs. We sent Paul home with his. Steak sandwiches for lunch today?

Our BFFs are coming for dinner tonight...BBQ pork tenderloin medallions (also Costco). They live in a seniors community with very close neighbors--most of whom they like. But one nearby couple is quite loud and profane...lots of drinking and smoking. They just feel uncomfortable around them, and yet did not want to make enemies of them by refusing their party invitation point blank. They were able to honestly say they had other plans.

Ordinary day for us. We are not into holiday-making, as we both loathe crowds, and would just as soon go to sleep at 10:30 rather than listen to bombs going off until 2 in the morning. (Yes, I probably would have been rooting for the Grinch! LOL) I have my earplugs ready.

 

[scrap-genie]

Lovely day here, but no plans other than chili for dinner and probably watch fireworks on TV. Saw a nice Nature program on PBS online about Sage Grouse, birds we had not seen and pretty amazing in display. I think DH is watching it now.

We'll miss Trudy while she has a grand time, probably we'll all wish WE could play in the mud kitchen!

Wishing a wonderful 4th to all in US.

 

[SharLamb]

Oh! Jean. We saw that sage grouse program too. Loved it. As we were driving though that kind of landscape a couple weeks ago, we kept our eyes open for them, but, of course, never saw any. Don't think they'd be near a highway.

 

[faerywings]

Happy 5th of July! How did all of you enjoy yesterday? I hope that you all had a nice day whatever you did.

I did a lot of housework, but it never seems to make a dent! I don't know what I am doing wrong. It never end, yannow? Some day I will figure it out. Hopefully before I die. :rip:

For anyone interested in that article, here is the link https://medium.com/matter/everythin...9c6f9?source=fb-lo_552de7e82aab-1436009973598

I am not sure WTH I am doing today, I think I need to do my long-IV drip and I really don't want to. The weather looks pretty and I would much rather be outside. *grumbling again as always* I am so cranky in the mornings. I have had 2 cups of coffee already but they seem to take a long time to get my system functioning better.

Since I have nothing much to say, I will shut up now. :tape:

xoxoxo!!!!

 

[faerywings]

Nancy- that is funny how you compared your biking speed to the Tour de France
You do a lot more than most people I am sure, with your biking and walking. Good for you!
:rofl: going to KFC for biscuits!!!!

Trudy- we will miss you too, but I know how happy we all are that you are surrounded by the grands! Same as we felt when Sharon was gone but we will happily wait for you to come back and share stories and pictures.

Sharon- Ack about the sheep! LOL I can 100% relate with my last name being Campbell. Lots and lots and lots of soup related items through the years. I feel like Andy Warhol! At least lambs are cute.
Thank you again for the compliment of my page of Cait. Did I tell you all that I sent links to the comments to her, so she could see people unrelated to her saying how beautiful she is? She is a real dork about that.
Hope you had a nice time with your BFF's too.

Jean- your day sounds nice and relaxing! I have this mental image of all of us (at least our avatars heh!!) sitting together in the Mud Kitchen! That would be so much fun.

Time for me to get my act together. Well. Time to do that has been long past but better late than never!

::grouphug

 

[nancyr]

Good morning - yesterday was just a laid back day! Love watching the Tour and as much as I love the racing it just like you say Sharon the scenery is so different than here in the US. I love the old castles and now they are in the Netherlands so I am seeing all these windmills. Watched some of the Wimbledon tennis matches. One match had to be moved to Center Court because they could finish the match as it was dusk and they closed the roof and turned on the lights. It was pretty cool. Watched England defeat Germany in extra time. Was a good soccer match. Then my DH and I went to our local fireworks show. It started right on time and lasted a good 40 mins. Awesome finale. Tried taking photos but it never works. Saw some of my former co-workers. It was fun catching up. Today is a trip to Long Island as we have been invited to a picnic with some of my husbands students and their families. I am hoping that the traffic is not going to be too bad but it is a great beach day though we are going to a lake. I will taping shows just in case we are stopped in traffic.

Jean and Sharon I too saw that Nature show on the sage grouse. My fellow bird watcher who I went to Texas with had never seen the sage grouse and this past spring he went to Colorado and found them and he said it was just amazing! There are farmers who have saved the sites of them showing off to help preserve the grouse. I think that is so cool.

Chris enjoy this day. Should be really nice! glad you got some cleaning done but it is never done especially when you have others who don't have your standards.

Sharon this year there are only 3 Americans in the race so that is pretty easy to follow. And I hate traffic riding too but my town has these awesome bike paths that have no cars you just have to share with walkers and women with baby buggies. Also the roads I do share with cars ar residential so and most don't drive during the late morning as most have gone to work. I love 5 guys fries too. I am a total believer in getting food elsewhere from my own cooking when they do it better.

Trudy so happy for you that they love the mudroom. I can't imagine any child who would not. Have a great time and pop in when you can.

Jean good to see you here. Chili sounds good!

Have a great day all!

 

[SharLamb]

Nancy, I'm glad to hear you have safe places to ride. We too, are blessed with hundreds of miles of off-road trails that used to be railroad tracks, as well as hundreds of miles of paved pathways. The former railroad tracks are very well maintained, but mostly packed crushed rock. No strollers, and very few walkers/joggers. We do have to share the paved pathways with walkers and joggers, but if we time it well (& we CAN since we're retired) that isn't an issue either. This year THE ISSUE has been the heat. It has just been too hot. I was happy to see that Friday things are going to cool down to the low 80s for awhile.

Crisis at our house today. The DVR didn't record The Tour! I don't get this machine. DH set it up to record the entire series. It SAYS it is going to record it. Why didn't it record? He doesn't want to have to get up at 4:30 to make sure it is recording. Not the first time this has happened. We NEVER had this problem when we had TIVO. I know. This is a total First World Whine. LOL

Off to church in a few minutes. Our regular hosts don't have air conditioning, so another couple that does, volunteered to move the meeting to their house today. We were just about to volunteer, but kinda glad they beat us to it. I've had people over two days in a row, so don't mind letting someone else be responsible today.

Bombs were going off in our neighborhood until after midnight last night. Some were so loud they shook our house. I'm pretty sure most of what we were hearing was not legal fireworks. But there are Indian reservations nearby, and the restrictions on those fireworks is much more liberal. I wish there was a way to keep them out of our neighborhood. I feel so bad for families with babies and young children and pets. The town surrounding us has banned fireworks of any kind, but we are just outside the city limits, in the county. I think everyone from the town come out here to blow up their goodies.

We had a nice evening with our friends, and the food was all delicious. Only sorry it was too hot outside to eat on the patio. BTW, for those who still enjoy sweets (rare treat for me), we discovered THE BEST new (to us at least) thing...from Costco, again. It is CARAMEL GELATTO! OMG! I love caramel more than any other sweet (more than chocolate), but have always been disappointed in ice cream that claims to be caramel. The Costco caramel gelatto is the first frozen caramel dessert that not only did not disappoint, but made me say "WOW" out loud. The price is WAY better than any other gelatto we've seen at regular stores.

Okay, I'd better get dressed...wouldn't be good to show up at church in my nightshirt!

Stay cool!