Keeping Busy!

Well, Hello! Long time, no see!  Like my hydrangeas?  I love 'em...just wish I could figure out how to keep the petal from turning brown.  I don't know if they're getting burned, or what.

We have been uber busy around here. Looking at my calendar, there were only 3 days in June that we had absolutely nothing going on. The weekdays in July are a little calmer, but our weekends have been pretty full so far. This coming weekend, the only thing I have planned is grocery shopping, then the boys and I are headed to Kansas City next weekend for a family reunion. About three weeks after that, we'll be headed up to the panhandle - still hoping to convince Jeremy to come, but he's not a traveler - for a few days. We'll come home one day, have the next day free, then the boys start school - I'm exhausted just thinking about it!

We've given a good chunk of our summer to baseball and softball. There are 3 baseball teams - A Team (ages 9-10), B Team (7-8), and Little League (11-14). In years past, the A & B teams have practiced on the same night. They've had the same coach, and since there are never enough boys for the A team, several of the older B team players play for both. They also always played on the same nights. Everything changed this year. Taylor was on the A team, and Landon was on B (they are also always short, so they let 6-year-olds play). They had 2 practices a week each, on different nights. Taylor had 2 games a week, and Landon had 1 (unless it was a home game where they played a double header), also on different nights. Although the practices dropped off once the games started, we were still at the field to watch my niece play softball!

This also seems to be the year for reading.  I had watched Emma when it was on PBS, and was inspired.  She made a list of 100 titles to read, so I did the same, although mine has grown since then.  I am always adding to it!  I've noticed from several other blogs and comments by many different friends on facebook, that there are a LOT of people who have decided to read 100 books this year.  I haven't given myself a specific number or timeline, but I did create a blog here with my list, and I write a little review over each book (I'm not the best writer, so please bear with me!  I've been working on getting the list into alphabetical order, but it's a work in progress.

Other things that have kept me from my blog?  Well, last weekend between 1:30pm Saturday and 4:30pm Sunday, I put together 2 poodle skirts from scratch, with no pattern (and my mom helped hem the underskirts, which was a HUGE help).  I was pretty impressed with us!  I've also been searching for a new dentist...ours walked into a propeller, and his replacement isn't comfortable with the tools, yet.  I've been making almost daily calls to my great-uncle's estate lawyer's office in Chadron (long, frustrating story there).  I'm getting things ready for a new grand opening of my shop, and am still trying to decide if I'm going to stay with Etsy, or go somewhere else.  I've repainted the living room and kitchen, and wallpapered the kitchen backsplash.  One of my new projects is going to be a Grandmother's Garden Quilt.  There's a pretty good post about them here.

And, yes, I did go see Eclipse, and even beyond the terrible acting, there were few parts of the movie I actually enjoyed.  Disappointing after all the hype.  The Bug and I are looking forward to November when the first part of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows comes out!