Friday wasn’t terribly exciting…mostly cleaning up and getting things ready for Karen’s move on Saturday. 

The move went very well, I think.  It was amazing how much they had crammed into that apartment!  But it’s all in their new house now.  It was crazy hot on Saturday, too, and we had 12 adults (+ the nieces) working.  We needed all of the adults because it was just so tiring to be in the heat and working.  It was also good that Chris borrowed the box truck from Cedarville or we might still be working!  Of course, for me, the brightest note (no pun intended) was that I got Mom’s piano.  It is now happily sitting in my little living room.  I even started sorting through the sheet music and books in the bench to see what’s there.  YEAH!

Saturday night, I hosted a supper for everyone.  They came over and ate, and then everyone went their separate ways.  Needless to say, I was beat and my feet were killing me!  So I soaked them in my foot massager in front of the tv for a bit, then went to bed.  Sunday was very calm.  We just relaxed and hung out.  Eric figured out how to load one of his very old computer games onto his new computer, so he actually played a game all afternoon.  We did nothing strenuous: reading, goofing off, etc.  And we even went to bed before our lights turned off! 

It rained all day yesterday, but it was a nice rain.  Still sometimes I wish it could rain from a sunny sky…grey days are too dark for me.

Anyway, I got around and headed to Cedarville yesterday.  I did some thing in my office (checked my mail, got my books for planning, etc.) and ran to the library.  Then I went to my parents’ house.  I had a number of things to drop off there, and I had lunch with them.  Then I chatted with my mom until she left to get a manicure…can you believe that my mom is getting a weekly manicure now?  It’s still sort of funny to me!  But it’s a nice way to pamper yourself, so I’m glad she does it.  Anyway, then my dad and I looked at his books (which he is reorganizing since they had to box them all up when they got new carpet in the upstairs) and other fun stuff he’s collected over the years (two toy trains, two brass horses that belonged to his grandma, all sorts of shells, some old trophies and a toy gun among them).  We also found a stack of old Father’s Day cards that he’d kept…after 10 years or so, they are quite funny again! 

I left there about 3:00, so I just barely beat Eric home.  Then we just sort of putzed around for the evening.  I did go out to get coffee so he would have his morning caffeine today, but then we just sat and watched tv. 

Today I have a number of projects to work on.  I need to tidy up my house since people are coming over tomorrow night after we help Karen move.  I’m going to make some desserts for that as well today.  I have some books (and I brought home a whole stack from my dad) that I’m going to sell at Half Price Books.  We could sell them in our yard sale next weekend, but I’m sure we’ll get more for them at the store.  Also, Karen and I need to do a bit of grocery shopping for dinner tomorrow.  So I should be plenty busy today!

Yesterday, I worked mostly on a reading to do at church last night during a praise & worship time with the Music & Arts ministry.  I also did some cleaning and organizing (not much) before Eric got home.  I needed to go get more coffee for my husband (he likes Tim Hortons ground coffee at home), but I didn’t yet.  I may do that tonight sometime.

I’m heading to Cedarville for the day…nothing like driving in rain and thunderstorms.  But at least it saves me from having to water my garden this morning!  I need to work in my office a bit and then I’m heading to Mom & Dad’s to drop some things off there.  Eric is at a meeting this morning in Dayton.  He had to be at the meeting place at 6:45 so they could leave.  And they’ll be back early enough that he’ll have to go work for a few hours anyway.  I think if you have an out-of-town meeting, it should take the whole day!

Yesterday was not terribly exciting…I had trouble focusing on anything so I didn’t get much done.  I did take down the bed in our guest room so it would be ready to be moved this weekend, and I consolidated all the stuff that will be going to Karen’s so now everything is in one place.  But other than that…I didn’t really get much accomplished.  I did talk to my mom for a good long time in the afternoon, so that was nice.

Today is still a bit up in the air.  I might go to Cedarville, but I might save that for tomorrow, too.  So I guess that’s about all I have for now.  Maybe I’ll have more to say later!

I’m glad you all missed me yesterday!  I got on for the first time at 4:40, so I decided just to wait until today to post.

We left on Friday afternoon for the farm and spent the afternoon and evening getting ready to camp.  We had to mow the hill before we could get down to the campsite, but Eric got to use the newest tractor to do it so he was very excited about mowing!  Then we set up our campsite and had dinner (it was probably 7:30 or 8:00 by that time).  Then we sat and watched the fire and listened to coyotes (one in particular) and other such critters.  We went to bed around 10:30.  Sometime around midnight, it started to rain.  It rained most of the rest of the night, and I was, thus, up for most of the rest of the night (rain on a tent is VERY loud!).  It was still raining when we got up in the morning, so we made coffee and then drove back up the hill (Eric wanted to make sure we actually could get up the hill) and headed back to the farmhouse.  We spent Saturday morning reading, had lunch, finished our books, and then took a 3 hour nap (since we’d been awake all night).  That night was the last night of the Adamsville Homecoming (a festival similar to CedarFest), and we went up to see the fireworks.   Then we went to bed.

Sunday was church in the morning.  My mother-in-law had been at a conference in Pittsburgh, so she got back just in time for the sermon.  Then we went out for dinner, hung out at the house for a while, went over to Patti’s (Eric’s aunt) for supper, then came back to go flying.  My father-in-law has a paraplane and it was fit to fly, so he and Eric went up for over an hour and got lots of pics with our new digital camera.  They had a blast.

Monday we went into Amish country to buy cheese (Pearl Valley Cheese is the BEST ever, and it’s made with milk from the Hogue farm!).  We took the long way home, stopped in to chat with the grandparents Hogue, had lunch, then loaded up and came home.  I had about enough time to empty the Jeep, shower and get clean, clean the house and finish reading the chapter before the girls came over for Bible Study last night.  And I slept like a log last night because I was exhausted!

Still not sure what to do for today…I’ll figure something out!

Eric is on vacation for today and Monday.  We’ll be heading out to the farm to do some camping this weekend and hang out with the family.  We bought some supplies for camping last night, but we’ll have to return some stuff today (I hate finding out stuff is broken AFTER you get it home!).  And other than that, I have a few things to do to get the house ready to be gone for a couple of days…isn’t it odd that I have to clean my house because I won’t be in it?

Thankfully, Karen is going to water our plants for us…so hopefully they won’t die while we’re gone.  We’ve gotten a lot of zucchini already, and the tomatoes are doing very well.  We have TONS of peppers growing.  But the beans are still “on the way.”  Don’t know if we’ll end up with any of those really, but that’s okay.  We have gotten a small harvest, which is a good thing for our first try!

So yesterday…I cleaned the kitchen and swept the floor, emptied the fridge (and then the garbage!), vacuumed the floors, washed the sheets and remade my bed, loaded up the recyclables and dropped them off, then worked on my other projects for the afternoon.  Not really that exciting, I guess.  But it’s funny how just a trip to Home Depot to empty our recyclables containers is enough to feel as if I’ve gone out and done something!

Last night,  we met my parents and Karen & Erik for supper.  Then Erik went to orchestra and I went home (no drama this week). He got home early, though, so I didn’t have to amuse myself for too long.  We both climbed into bed to read for awhile about 9, but we didn’t get to sleep until 10:30 or so…use your imaginations!   I had really strange dreams all night, though.  I always wake up tired after nights like that.  Apparently, I need to be less active in my dreams!

Today is laundry day.  Eric is taking off Friday and Monday, and we’ll be heading out to the farm for the weekend.  We were going to go to Chicago, but we waited to long to book a hotel, so it was more expensive than we’d wanted to pay.  Oh well, c’est la vie!  So we’re going camping for a bit and we’ll probably do some running around in Amish country as well (trip to the bulky store and Pearl Valley Cheese…YUMMY!).  But before we can go, I need to do laundry…so that’s my agenda for the day!

Nothing too exciting…

1.  Eric got a new “toy” yesterday (he’d ordered it last week)…wireless headphones that he can use with this computer.  It was amusing to watch him walk around the house all evening with them on (he was listening to music!).

2.  We went out for Greek food last night…yummy!

3.  We watched some tv when we got home (Travel Channel and Discovery Channel).

4.  Today I have no interesting plans at all.  I might clean the kitchen…again.

Yesterday, I was planning to go to Cedarville, but I changed my mind.  I was going to order textbooks and work on class planning in my office.  But then I realized I could do the requisitions from home.  And then I found out that both of the books I used have been upgraded to a new edition, meaning that I can’t plan a class until I have the new books in hand.  Dumb newer editions!  Anyway, I figured there wasn’t any point to going to CU if I couldn’t do very much. 

So, instead, I bought shoes for myself (3 pairs!).  I got a new pair of
casual brown shoes, a new pair of brown sandals, and a new pair of
“beater” flip-flops to replace the ones that got soaked in Ryan’s
flooded basement.  I also ran a couple of other errands while I was
out, but the shoes were my big find!

Not sure what I’ll do today.  I could drive to Cedarville to drop off some yard sale stuff and check my office mail.  But that just doesn’t seem like a very significant reason to drive the 2 hours.  Maybe I’ll get my oil changed instead!

On Friday night, about 10:00, Ryan (Eric’s brother) called.  The result of their discussion was that we left our house around 9:45 on Saturday morning to work on Ryan’s flooded basement. It turned out that his sump pump had burnt up (the motor was shot), so Eric pulled it out, we bought a new one, and then he installed it.  When he plugged it in, the water gushed out of the basement with the sound of a thousand gallon toilet being flushed.  Unfortunately, his sump is not at the lowest point in his basement.  So we ended up spending a couple of hours sucking up the water in Eric’s wet vac and pouring it into the sump to be sent out to the street.  He has a VERY large basement, too, so we figured we dumped around 150 gallons of water just by ourselves.  There was also lots of trash (and some stuff that is not trash) all over the basement, and (here’s the kicker), the cats who live in the house seem to like to poop just in front of the litter boxes, rather than in the litter boxes, so the water was not clean water and the whole place had a very rank smell.  I found myself repeating my theme word regularly while we worked…YUCK!

Anyway, the day got better from there.  We got home, cleaned up (YEAH! ), then drove to Cedarville for Chris’ birthday party.  It was actually a lot of fun.  The girls are very amusing to watch, especially when they are entertaining each other.  Holly was a bit grumpy to start out, but she got over it.  And Chris seemed to like his gifts…always nice!

Sunday was pretty uneventful. Church, dinner (grilled hamburgers and the first zuchini of our harvest (also grilled)!), then we just hung out.  Eric read, worked on his computer.  I surfed the net, cleaned the kitchen and then just worked around a bit.  We watched some TV before going to bed.