Busy Week....

My husband and I spent the weekend prepping the living room, hallway, entry-way and downstairs hallway walls for painting... pounding in nails that had started to bulge from the house settling, spackling, sanding, scrubbing, wiping down all the walls and taping the moulding. We picked out the paint at Lowe's early this afternoon right after B's swimming lessons - Valspar Filoli Antique Lace which is a lightish tan. Can't wait til we have it all done and we can finally hang our brand new curtains up - that we bought back in March. My husband absolutely loathes painting though. Hates it with a passion lol! Especially the "cutting in" part up by the ceiling. He tried one of those straight edge things and the paint leaked through. Thank goodness for blue painter's tape though. We discovered it is our friend and leaves a nice clean edge. One wall has been painted in the living room so far and I'm loving the new color (no pics yet though)......

I get real nervous though every time my husband goes up on the ladder in the entry way. That's the part I'd be willing to pay a professional painter to do. Too late to think about that now since he already took a week's vacation off from work to paint. Did I mention he hates painting???.....


 B. was wanting to help us paint "just one spot." Luckily, she gave up on that thought. lol! This is our first time painting since we built the house eight years ago. I'll be glad to get rid of all the blue. Although we'll still have it in the kitchen and two of the bathrooms for awhile. B. is wanting us to paint her room too. She has had a country ragdoll theme (raggedy ann) since we built the house - when she was two. She wants her walls to be pink and zebra striped accents (comforter, etc.). Don't see it happening this week. But I'll probably end up being the one to do it because we all know my husband isn't looking forward to it. lol! But then again, by then he'll have had lots of practice. lol! B. has wallpaper border up in there too that needs taken down. Fun fun. Painting her room won't be anytime soon though. I'm happy to get a huge main part of the house done for now.

So between swimming lessons, painting, and VBS in the evenings, we have quite the busy week ahead of us.....

Hope you all have a good one,

My Goodness it is Miserably Hot Today

We are under an Extreme Heat Warning today with a record-breaking heat index of 107 degrees. My poor hydrangeas & tomato plants are wilting in all this heat. And we just watered everything last night and had to again this afternoon. As you can see, one of our black-eyed susan plants is in full bloom along with the gladiolus and coneflowers...

I saw some "critter" in my flowers the other night when I was watering - a small black animal. Don't know whether it was a mouse or a mole. Hopefully, it ran down into the woods though. Speaking of critters, I came across my very first garter snake this past week when I was watering the tomato and pepper plants. I think it might have been hiding in there because it came from that direction when I spotted it. I called for my husband, and only looked away for a second, and it was gone. Not sure where it went though. But hopefully, I won't be having any more encounters with the thing. The shovel is there just in case. I can't believe how HUGE our tomato plants have gotten. They are getting taller than the fence we put around our little garden and so we are hoping the deer won't start eating them...

We have a few tomatoes growing, but have yet to see any peppers. I do have to say that we've tried growing tomatoes and peppers in containers on the deck in the past and also have tried the Topsy Turvy thing for growing tomatoes upside down. And they have never done this well. Ever. Planting them in the ground with soil from down in the woods and some mulch makes them grow so much better and stronger.

Remember when I told you all about B.'s recent bee sting? Well, I ended up getting stung five days after she did earlier this week on Tuesday - the day before the 4th of July. And it just so happened to be by the same exact lounge chair at the pool where she got stung. As that thought was crossing my mind, I felt something sting me on the tender part of my arm - ouch! I never did see what stung me, but B. said that she did and it was the same exact type of bee that stung her the Thursday before. I went to the lifeguards, got a bee sting wipe and bandaid - but no stinger could be found. It hurt like heck. The next day - the 4th - my left upper arm was all swollen - and it was spreading. Something wasn't right. My husband came home from helping his dad set up for the 4th of July cookout at their house, and we took a credit card and starting really scraping against where I got stung in different directions until I heard a click. Sure enough, there was a stinger still left in my arm! It had been in there for over 24 hours and my arm was swollen from my armpit to my elbow. My sister-in-law who's a registered nurse said cellulitis might happen and that I might need an antibiotic and so my husband took me to the Med Express place. So I was on prednisone for a couple of days and am on an antibiotic now. The itching was almost unbearable - especially at night when I was sleeping. But taking Benadryl and keeping ice on it seemed to help. What a way to spend the holiday, but we still had a nice 4th of July and I tried my best to not let this dratted bee sting ruin my day. B. and I made patriotic cupcakes the night before...

My husband,  our nephew, Matt, B., and I went up to Pittsburgh on the 4th to see the fireworks. It was miserably hot on that day with a heat index of 100+ degrees, but there were still tons of people there and they also had the 35th Pittsburgh Three Rivers Regatta going on...

They were giving out free samples of Turkey Hill vanilla ice cream which was quite refreshing and welcoming in the miserable heat...

They had live music by Phil Vasser. I think he was there last year too. And the fireworks were phenominal, as always, which we watched from the rotundra at Heinz Field....

We parked far away and had to do A LOT of walking. Needless to say, I got my excercise in for the day and was drenched in sweat by the time we got back to the car afterwards. We got out of there before traffic got too bad and made it home just in time before a bad thunderstorm came through here late that night that left a mess of branches and leaves all over our yard and patio. I spent the next evening cleaning the patio and spraying it down with the hose and sweeping it all off while B. and my husband picked up branches in the yard. Looks so much better now out there. Even killed more than several nasty slugs with table salt. Ewwww.

 Yesterday, B. finished up her 4th week of Level 5 "Stroke Refinement" swimming lessons and they had their "fun day" which she had a ball at. She still hasn't passed Level 5, but she did a whole lot better this time around. The lifeguards wrote this on her certificate..... "Continue Level 5 - This is a rough level to complete because of the distance it asks to complete. She knows the strokes and their concepts - just has trouble with the length." She passed pretty much everything on the test except for the butterfly stroke - because it's really hard to do and she gets tired before completing the required length .....- "has right idea but cannot complete full distance.",,,,, and she has a bit of trouble with the shallow diving off the edge of the pool as smoothly as they would like her to. Oh well. She did very well with everything else though - breastroke, front crawl, back crawl, elementary backstroke, sidestroke, swimming underwater, tuck surface dive, pike surface dive, flip turns, treading water, survival float, back float and so on. I'm actually really proud of how far she's come. She's become quite the little fish in water.

Anyway......

 They are taking a break next week due to Community Days taking place there in the park and there won't be anywhere to park the car. I asked B. if she wanted to continue and do the last two weeks that they are offering and she said yes. I'm leaving it up to her and she's not ready to give up yet. But I think she just likes getting to go swimming in the mornings, plus she made a friend. We really don't care if she ever passes Level 5. lol! The important thing is she knows how to swim and she's come a really long way.

Afterwards, I took her to Subway for lunch, got more Benadryl for our bee stings and hydrocortisone cream since B's bee sting has started itching after a week. At least hers didn't get real bad like mine did. Then I took her to see the Katy Perry movie in 3D like I promised her. It was a pretty good movie and B. and I really enjoyed it. She's one of our favorite singers. Yeah, I like her music too as well as Lady Gaga's. :)

I almost forgot to mention that I took my very first scrapbooking class online last night - well my first scrapbooking class ever actually. They are offering different scrapping classes over at True Scrap ala carte for only $9.99 each and today is the last day to get them for that price. Tomorrow they go up to $13. I got the scrapbook stamping class by Nichol Magourik - which was really informative and I have Shimelle Laine's class - "The Perfect Collection: Using your favorite collection pack to the very last scrap" to watch yet.  I love how Nichol layers her stamped images and incorporates them into her scrapbook layouts.  They both come with .pdf handouts and a 40 minute video of instruction. Not bad. There are other classes being offered, but I couldn't go too crazy. lol! So I got just those two.

Well that's all for now. I hope you all stay cool in this miserable heat. Gonna take a quick dip in the pool and then we have reservations at 6:00 at a "new" Italian restaurant that we've never been to across the river that opened about a year ago. We're going with my husband's sister, her husband and our nephew. At least I don't have to cook in all this heat. ugh.

Til next time...

In the Good 'Ole Summertime

We have been enjoying all the wonderful things about summertime this past week. Well except for the extreme triple digit temperatures and humidity. lol!

B. had lots of fun swimming up at her cousins' on Friday and doing the cannonball umpteen billion times. lol!

Poor B. got stung by a bee Thursday morning right before swimming lessons. It was some big fat brown thing. B. said she saw brown and black stripes and also yellow. She layed her towel across one of the lounge chairs they have there and went to lay back, when all of a sudden she started screaming and crying. The bee was on the tender part of her lower arm and it didn't want to let go. I flicked it away and got her to the life guards for treatment a.s.a.p. Luckily, they had some bee sting wipes and they got the stinger out right away. I felt so terrible for B. and I wasn't real sure if she was allergic or not since she had never been stung at home, or at least "I" had never seen her stung by an actual bee before. I know she got stung by "something" last summer at night one time, but we're not sure what stung her. Although she says she has been stung on the playground at school before. Anyway... I got some Benadryl and gave one of those to her right away just in case. The chlorine in the pool seemed to also help a bit too. That was four days ago, so she's all better now. Poor thing. Now I make sure to keep some bee sting anesthetic and Benadryl with me at all times during the summer. Just in case.

Saturday, we went up to my aunt and uncle's for an early 4th of July cookout with friends and family. My uncle is an over-the-road truck driver and he's gone for months at a time. They have the cutest, sweetest little silver Yorkie that B. just fell in love with, Phoebe, that my uncle takes with him when he's on the road. Now B. wants one, which doesn't surprise me since she's a huge dog lover (our whole family is). But we already have two dogs. So I don't know. Maybe someday...

Later that evening, B., my husband and I went to see fireworks...

We're planning on going to see fireworks again on the Fourth, depending on the weather.

I've also been walking when I have the time and I think my new shoes are finally broken in. They were bothering me when I first got them and I had tried on every pair they had in my size. Shopping for shoes is not my favorite thing to do.  I just picked up some shorts and yoga-type pants for exercising/walking in at Family Dollar this morning - buy 2 get the 3rd one for a penny. Not bad.

We've also been eating more fruit this summer.  I picked up a HUGE yummy watermelon this weekend for only $3.50 at Aldi's and cut up half of it to take up to my uncle's and still had a bunch of it left. So much better & healthier to eat a couple small pieces of watermelon or canteloupe when craving something sweet. And B. loves the watermelon especially. Don'tcha just love my super cute watermelon knife?? lol! It is actually quite sharp believe it or not and I've been using it a lot since I got it  at Wal-Mart earlier this summer...

We've also been doing a lot of grilling this past month since my husband got his new infrared grill at Lowe's. We love how it cooks (so much better than the grills he's had before). And best of all, no flare-ups - at. all. None. He's grilled everything from steaks to barbeque ribs, to bratwurst, to chicken to burgers, to veggie foil packets, to fresh corn on the cob so far. Everything is always cooked to perfection...

No crafting time this week but I did come up with a pretty cool idea - while I was sleeping nonetheless. lol!  I have lots and lots of layouts that I want to do, but because I didn't start scrapbooking until about 3-1/2 - 4 years ago, I'll never be "caught up". I don't even worry about ever being "caught up". So sometimes I think that having so many pictures that I want to get into scrapbooks can be overwhelming because there are times when I don't know which subject or event or whatever to scrapbook next. I just scrapbook whatever I'm in the mood to scrap and have no desire to scrapbook chronologically. But the problem sometimes is deciding on "what" to scrapbook. So in this dream that I had - I made a jar with little strips of paper that I had written the different layouts that I plan on doing. I could pull one from the jar and if it said "Easter 2007" - then that would be what I work on next without thinking about it too much. I have no idea where this dream even came from. But I think I may give this a try. lol! It just might work to keep me motivated to get the next layout going and the one after that, and so on....

If I'm not back on here before then, I hope you all have a happy and safe Fourth of July....