Hmmm...
gremlins again today...this should have posted at 1:00 am  last night.  But here it is now!
I came into the family room the other day, mug of tea in hand , and I looked out the patio door.  I almost dropped my mug.  lol...
You know how a really small puppy plays in the grass...jumping over the grass ..falling over..wiggling,(giggling) then getting up and jumping again and again..well, out the in the (not long) grass was a tiny little chipmunk...cavorting in the grass! Sooo cute!
   I could remember  the delighted squeals of laughter of my own babies when they first touched grass  lol...quite the entertaining sight.
   The cat, MissT has been staying in...far too hot for her to be out.  She has been shedding like crazy, STILL!  So she lays at the patio door watching whatever comes to the bird feeder...squirrels, doves, finches, wrens and  chipmunks.
 I actually think there might be chipmunks living under the back porch.
It's been so hot here..
  I will have the patio door open for a little while in the morning until it starts to get too warm in the family room, then I close it up again.
Yesterday we sat out on the back patio in the rain.  Enjoying the sound of the rain and coolness it brought. We have been doing that a lot!
 One evening a storm blew up suddenly (it had threatened all day long) just as we sat for dinner...well it rained, then poured, then teemed and thundered...we were stuck..we couldn't leave ...our dinner would have been ruined....so we sat and ate and by the time we finished we were wet...even under the canopy.  We listened to the peals of thunder that went on and on.

Every evening we are cooking and eating outside ...the other day we even cooked the pasta on the BBQ...as long as the flies and mosquitos don't bug us (me).  Surprisingly, they haven't been too bad.  Now that I've said that, they will get bad! lol

We'll sit out and have our tea and coffee and watch the dragon flies swoop around catching bugs.

Today Thing Two had a friend over, so yesterday I primed a couple of wooden  plaques and a couple of large stars from the dollar store.
Then when Friend One arrived I took their pic..printed it out.  Had them cut it out, then we podged it on to the star.  After it is dried we will paint the stars...and they can take them home.
Friends' Mommy said she would be staying only a couple of hours...they have a new baby nephew to go see.
 So we have quite a few things to squeeze into the day.. the girls want to play with their dolls.  Thing Two is anxious to show off her new doll clothes.


painted and exchanged



I have some new patterns...we can sew some more this week while Thing One is at day camp.

Maybe I can get some more shoes made for the doll.  The take a long time.  I will have Thing Two help!

In the meantime I have started sewing my spiderweb blocks together. Haven't really got much done.  But I did expect this would happen in the summer...I just get too busy with the girls, and the garden.  That will soon come to an end, they are growing up so fast and summer is half over!

 This week has really been a bust.  I have been watching FAR too much TV.  Even I am sitting here yelling "ROW! ROW!"  , or "!RUN!"  "GO GO GO!".   lol....it's hard on my throat because it is a little sore still.

I am so proud of all the Olympians!  All of them ..no matter what country they come from..( well maybe I'll exclude  those who didn't put through their best effort)

Good thing the Olympics only come every few years!



Thing Two and I have big plans for this week....(Thing One is at day camp),
she wants to sew...she also wants her own machine. Too bad I got rid of all the extras I had.  Well, I misplaced (?) one.  I don't know what happened to it...really!  I don't! My sister has many (10-12) featherweights...she is running out of room for them all...so she has promised to bring one for Thing Two when she comes for a visit in September. 

It will be a short week, so no dawdling  on the crafts!  lol  Our time will end quite early.  Camp is finished at 3:00, so anything we start will have to be almost completed by then. She says she would like to make another small quilt. And some doll clothes.  I made her 2 body suits (leotards) a skirt, a dress and 5 pairs of tights for her doll.  I made the tights from pantyhose and trouser socks (like knee highs)...she is the best dressed doll around! lol!

We did some decoupage today, hopefully we will get it all finished in time for mom's birthday in September.  We are decoupaging glass and plastic Christmas ornaments for her.  We have enough for Thing One to do some too...

When I picked Thing One from camp she was hungry and hot...she wanted in the pool right away to refresh herself.

Someone told me they would be over if I talked about family dinner night.
It was tonight....come on over...but it's all gone..
We didn't have pasta...we (me, since I do the cooking...you cook, you decide)...wanted corn (again). The corn harvest may be affected by the drought, but it sure does taste great!  Other people who will remain nameless wanted burgers...there was some chicken in the fridge that must be cooked.  So we had a real summer BBQ
...corn, chicken and burgers...
Thing Two worked on a "day of the dead" skull...turned out real nice...Thing One vegged in front of the TV.

Thing one hasn't worked on her skull yet...I wonder if she will?

We had some left over corn on the cob...I removed the corn and made it into a salad along with green and red pepper, sweet onion, cherry tomatoes and italian dressing.  It was really, really good.  Went great with the leftover BBQ'd chicken.          

I still have the sore throat...all raspy ..I hope it doesn't last too long.
The girls wanted to go shopping, so off we went to our local Value Village.  The girls found themselves a couple of really nice jackets.  They are being washed as we speak...everything get washed when it comes in....we purchased a nice wool jacket for Thing One and I gently hand washed it too..She is definitely becoming more fashion conscious...and fussy!
My daughter calls Value Village the old gifts home..where unwanted,wrong sized gifts go to find new life...lol
The girls are happy with their purchases...and we killed an afternoon...
Tonight, I am going into my sewing room...first the mister wants me to fix a strap on his golf bag...all done...I redid the strap all together and gave him a velcro strap.  He broke the parachute clip on his strap and I told him it won't hold.
Now I am going to sew!  If it kills me!
And Monday is a holiday, so no blog for that day.  I'll talk to you Tuesday.

oh crap...I have something...sore throat...really runny nose...feel like crap...and the girls are here.

I brought out some of the crafts I bought for the girls to work on and they seemed really excited.  I had purchased a large canvass for each of them plus a "mod" wall decoration I though we would podge to the canvass then paint. 
They didn't want to do that.
They want to paint a scene on their canvass and just decorate the mod wall art.


Courtney's

 Sooooo..The wall art is slick plastic and I really don't think the paint will stick to it..I thought that if we covered it with podge it would be fine...but they don't want to do that...I had purchased  some alcohol inks and they work on glossy surfaces.  I brought those out...gave the girls each an apron and some plastic gloves....and they "painted" the wallart with the inks.  I had one applicator and made 3 more for them to use.  Eventually I had to have Courtney take off her gloves because they were far too big and she was wasting ink and making a mess.  I ended up with messy hands just cleaning up her mess...lol..
The wallart is quite pretty in person; the picture doesn't do it justice. 
Each girl did something different.  They put gold and silver ink on them along with the various colours.
I am having them take home their completed projects so that they can find some where for them..lol





Hayley's







We cleaned off the applicators with alcohol onto photo paper...these turned out fantastic.  Both girls did a great job on their craft...although Thing One did get a headache from the alcohol.  I think they had more fun decorating the paper than any thing else.





pretty paper made from inks

We can use some of this pretty paper to make a birthday card for mommy!

stamping off the excess ink



August already!  It seems so much later because we have had hot weather for so long now..very unusual for us.  At least last week we had lots of rain.  Lawns around here were brown and crunchy....lol...I read in the paper about a man who has a side business (he is a teacher) spraying lawns with green dye..costs about $200...lasts for months..

My garden looks like it's September.  All my black eyed susan are out.   The purple cone flower  is out..both are daisies and both have been in blossom for quite a while and are almost finished.  My hostas aren't in bloom yet, but I dug them all up this spring and split them.  I made a whole lotta people on Freecycle very happy.  I must have given away a thousand dollars worth of plants!
I had some miniature red roses by the back door that shot up, were covered in blooms most of the month.  I had to cut it back hard, the stems were spindly and didn't support the blooms.  It's coming back nicely and has been blooming again.

The weeds have been bad for me this summer.  I sit on the lawn and pull them up, but they seem to be never ending.

I have a lot of bind weed.... and I pull it and pull it..some of the plants are pretty big,  my fingers get sore from pulling it out by the roots.  And of course,  all that ground-in dirt is impossible to wash away, I hate to sew in case I get my project grimy.  Maybe next summer, the mister will pull all the weeds for me.....