Wife's First Golf, Full of Hot Air, Underneath My Car, Growing Up

I golfed my first round of golf on Tuesday!! Sure it was a scramble (you pick the best ball from each shot and play from it) and sure the only two clubs I used were my wedge and putter, but man it was fun!


Many thanks to Wendy, Kathy and Sarah for not only putting up with me, but for helping me have a blast! I see many more "Ladies Night" golfing events in my future!


Wednesday afternoon was my last day of long term subbing for the school year and it ended on a high note with our very last class of hot air balloon flying! It was a pretty fun event! Teachers and students learn so much from practical experience!


Speaking of practical experience, I love how my new car place here lets me watch them work, they explain this while they're doing them and then have answers for all my questions. It's just nice to see what's going on, reminds me that my undercarriage is not indestructible and helps me learn more about science and the way things work which I hope will help me become a better teacher!
On a final note, I'm trying to develop a way for my cucumbers to not take up too much space. This is something I'm working out in my head. Taking some wire fence and staking it into the ground in an arch so the vines can grow up. Literally. Haha.


I'm linking up with Cindy at Live a Colorful Life and Really Random Thursday.
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Drive to a Fly-In, Plant Parenting, Etched in Glass

*Disclaimer, This ought to be three separate posts, but with the weekend rapidly coming to an end, and allergies getting the best of me, it is one post with three titles.

Saturday I had a fun field trip to a Fly In with my friend Mary! 

Ironically, we drove. We had an all girl caravan of drivers with unique cars. (I drove my Daisy bug, while she's not old, she is manual and does turn some heads.)

 I love this picture of Mary because it's so her! Her tires needed air so she just grabbed that air compressor hose and hauled it out there. (The part that makes her a kindred spirit is that it didn't quite reach so she had to move her car closer anyway. I totally do stuff like that all the time!)

 I loved that this airplane matched Mary's car buttercup!

The plane below was built by it's owner! His wife even helped with the riveting!

 These top wings reminded me of the kind of planes my Grandpa Jim and Grandma Dixie flew! (And the one Uncle Doug and Aunt Grace took us to Pismo in!)

 On my way home, I called my dad and said, "Have you ever been to a fly in?! It was soooo cool!" He said they went all the time when he was a kid....I guess things don't seem like such a big deal when your parents make you go. Here's Mary taking lots of pictures for the newsletter "Fly Paper."

 We've been meaning to get a picture of Daisy and Buttercup together, so after knitting Saturday afternoon I pulled my car behind hers and took a picture. Daisy looks so much bigger than Buttercup!

 I tried to get a picture of us with the cars, but it was having trouble focusing. Wouldn't you know it the picture takes as soon as I start laughing because its not working and Mary rolls her eyes?!

It was quite the fun Saturday and another new Kansas experience!

I spent part of today, Mother's Day, with "the children."

I had planted some Snow Peas at the community garden a while back, but had long since given up on them due to the snows we had this spring. Turns out, all they needed was for their mother to leave them alone.

 I took 12 plants to live with their siblings in the community garden. One of each variety of pepper/tomato I started from seed. All the shoveling, hoeing, planting and watering gave me quite a bit of time to reflect on my mom, how much I miss her, how much I learned from her and wish I could still learn, as well as how blessed I am with SO MANY, AMAZING role model women in my life to get advice from, be creative with, and enjoy their company. All of these interactions connect me with her in many ways as well.

 My friend Pat gave me some day lilies to plant on the West end of our house. I'm looking forward to them adding some dimension along that wall...and maybe helping that big sprinkler hub blend in. The oregano she divided and shared with me is doing splendidly as well! I never knew so much sharing could happen in gardening! I'm so lucky to be learning from her and hope that I might get the chance to pay some plants forward as well!

 Also... our grass is GROWING!

and the leaves are finally making an appearance! 

(Not for lack of trying but the weather just hasn't been cooperating.)

 Also making an appearance are my allergies. After all that time outside, I've been congested the rest of the day. Time for an inside project. I've been wanting try etching our name into our Pyrex pans for a while now. I got the cream on an adventure into a town with a craft store and used the vinyl decal paper that came with the Cricut we got for a wedding present. Thanks M&C!

 Lo and behold the recommended settings worked perfectly, and I had the letters and place the letters came out of to stick on to the pans and apply the etching cream. I used painters tape to make my straight line borders and protect areas I didn't want etched because it's waaaaay cheaper than Cricut decal paper.

 The directions say leave it on for 60 seconds. I found that this did not do the trick.

 So I reapplied the tape and left it on for 30 minutes. Ahhhh much better. I did a couple rounds for good measure and even crisp etching.

 Here you can see the outer rectangle more clearly.

 This is the second one I did, with the part of the page the letters were cut out of. 

I'm pretty happy with the final product. The other pinners and bloggers were right. 

Now I want to etch everything!!!

Packing A Bug

Well folks, I made it to Colorado Springs! I am happily reunited with Luke and loving it! BUT first, I had to pack my car up. I thought I'd share the process with you! 

It all starts with this perfectly empty palate.  

 Then it turns into this:

 I said "Good thing I'm not claustrophobic." Ruby's mom says "Good thing you're short." All true. This is what the back looks like. I try and cover it all with sheets or a blanket to kind of protect it from prying eyes/sun/whatever. That's what my dad did so I do it too haha.

Now the trick to packing this curvy lady car is to chink all the gaps with clothing. Square boxes don't perfectly fit the curves so I stuff my clothing between all the gaps as I go.

 Here are all the clothes I removed from that last pictured space!

Now here's the back without the blanket. See how I've used my clothes to fit the curve of my trunk! I'd also like to think that they protect the boxes from the rather emphatic trunk closing I have to do when the packing is done. If I don't use great force, that baby wont close and I'll have to look at my trunk light the whole way.

 So here she is, outermost layer of clothes removed. Still looks pretty full eh?

 Here's the box full of clothes! It would have never worked if I had tried to put that whole box in there!

 Sweatshirts are good for filling the bigger gaps.

 Next trip. More clothes, but I've got some boxes too.

 Third trip, getting the smaller boxes out.

So, now is the right time to mention that we live on the THIRD FLOOR! I'm starting to feel the burn.

We're finally starting to get somewhere! 

I use the crates I pack things in for shelving wherever I'm living. Luke doesn't particularly like them, but gosh gee golly they're convenient. I cushion the very bottom of my car with coats and squishy clothes, then put the boards down so I have a completely flat surface for my cutting mat. Essential for quilting! Also essential it stays flat. Then I also have a completely flat surface for my biggest foundational boxes that fit perfectly under the bed. Everything has a purpose/place in packing, storing and living.
Here are some of the things that were in my car.

Here are the shelves before being readjusted with the big boxes Luke brought up for me. (Sorry, I had already started unloading them before I thought to take a picture.

Here they are after I reconfigured them.

They're not particularly pretty but they're functional in our tiny apartment. They're especially convenient because we still don't have all of our stuff all together! We have some at John and Neola's, some in storage in Fresno, a bit at my dad's and I still have some at Tanya's! Gosh gee golly I'm looking forward to being all in one place!

Das Auto ist kaputt.

Do you know kaputt I the German word for broken? I thought it was slang.

My car window won't roll. Before that my car wouldn't start. Before that it sounded like there were squirrels living in it. And it screamed at me in the morning. I've almost put enough in it to equal a car payment for the year.
I'm losing faith in the bug. But especially I'm losing faith in the people who work on the bug. Two years ago they replaced the same exact part their replacing today. They say it's nothing I'm doing, that sometimes you never have to replace this part and sometimes they break a lot.
They've said that the last 3 times I've been in here. The service guy and I are on a first name basis.
I wish we weren't.
So I'm thinking...message school helped me to be better aware of my health. Maybe I need to go to mechanic school so I can semi understand this car business. I feel so naive and vulnerable to be duped.
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Last Week

Last Monday Aunt Maggie, Uncle Mike, Tanya, Kim and I all made the trek to Merced to have a delicious dinner at Dad and Cheri's new house.



Cheri made a great dinner with some much enjoyed special touches!







I've been dealing with many car repair adventures which have given me a chance to do some knitting!



And I squeezed in working on these lanyards Saturday morning. I like em! I'm contemplating the idea of making ric rac twists too!



I am loooooving 5th grade and my purse is often as pictured below. Full of books to share! We sometimes do book clubs at lunch!



Also why I love 5th grade: Girl Scouts!!! My cookies are here!!!!



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