No Words

My dear friend, Julia, lost her husband today. 

And I don't know what to say or how to make it better in any way. 

And so we leave a sign of love and light in the darkness.

Summer bounty

Bonus cantaloupes! I suspect these came from one of the cantaloupe innards I left in the compost pile. I'm not good a compost, so nothing ever gets hot enough to kill seeds or weeds. I'm resigned to it. 

 

The Tami G's are loving the Titan. I foresee more archway tomatoes in the coming years!

Why buy potatoes at Costco when you can grow 4 miniature spuds over the course of 5 months?

It's cuke time. These babies are bound for a basket in the foyer at church.

The zinnias are giving their glory to the monarchs

The morning glory is going gang busters and really giving shade to my little baby arugula sprouts!

Most of which have opted for growing in the pathway, rather than the garden bed. Kids. 

The miniature pumpkins are UHdorable.

And my three rogue sunflowers are really starting to feel confident. I love how they are different heights. It's very organized. I hope the asparagus doesn't mind sharing the bed for the next couple months.

My birdhouse gourds! Can't wait to see how these turn out. 

My stars, that morning glory is glorious!!

 

First Day of School!

3rd Grade!

5th grade!

8th grade!

11th grade!

 

SBL - Modern

School starts tomorrow....so we need to squeeze in a few last bucket list items. 

We have been waiting for the Pulsology exhibit to come to the Kemper Museum of Modern Art. 

The entire room is under a canopy of lights hung in waves. There are sensors throughout the room and when you but your hand under one, it sinks up with your pulse. The lights will then start pulsing with your pulse. It s a very cool mix of art and technology.

We popped over to the Musuem of Toys and Miniatures. Man, there was some very cool stuff back then.

Not cool enough to make me wish I was born back then...but still.

Off to Betty Rae's for some ice cream...

And back home to make good on my promise to let the girls color their hair before school starts. 

I was nervous, but I think it looks pretty cool!

Vaccines and masks

We are the point in the pandemic where we are getting vaccines because we need to be able to go to school and we need to be able to at some future point stop wearing the masks. 

But for now we are buying the ones from Aldi that fit better than most...then we are removing the metal nose clip and cutting out one of the layers. 

Because it is absolutely 100 percent is about the appearance of compliance. The science doesn't back up the use of masks as they are being used. 

So we are making it as bearable as possible if we absolutely have to wear one. Otherwise, we have become a part of the silent the protest. We simply don't wear them. 

It feels stupid and rebellious and fully ridiculous. 

Bonus Bonus SBL - Newsies!!

 Perhaps I haven't made a huge secret of the fact that I don't especially enjoy the actual plays at Theater in the Park?

It's more about the summerness and the way it makes me feel to do something fun with the kids. 

But this one was the real deal.

The acting. The singing. The dancing. 

Perfect!

And, by dang, we went two nights in a row! One with the YW and one with Meg and Friends...just to make sure they new how really awesome it was!

I can

 It's been a really long time since my garden was giving me enough tomatoes to even consider canning a few. I've got an entire countertop occupied with tomatoes of every shade from blushy orange to deep red. I knew if I didn't get the ripest ones blanched today, I'd be tossing them in the compost tomorrow. 

When I get enough of them, I'm going to make a nice batch of chili sauce to put on my eggs. 

I can smell them cooking already!