POKEY PEAS REFUGEES CHALLENGE for July 2016

Happy Wednesday! Boy, it has been hot but glad the evening have been cold. So I have been getting more of my walking in then. Tonight is another park concert and I am looking forward to going. Worked on a few cards last night and hope to do more of it today. Hope you all are having a good day.

justjac - HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!!!! You two are almost still newlyweds! LOL! I hope you both had a lovey dovey time. It is nice having you here and sharing your work too. I gotta go to the gallery and see more of your layouts.

grammadee - Teaching already? I guess Summer vacation can't last forever! Have fun enjoying your garden and scrapping before work starts up.

maribeth - When you talked about your home improvements I thought about all these tv shows I've been watching on HGTV. I am hooked on "Fixer Uppers" and some of the other ones. I love seeing how they remodel these homes and all the fab ways they decorate them. So cool! I don't own a home yet but I guess I am getting lots of ideas for when we do get a house. I can imagine myself going decorating crazy!!!! LOL!

Happy Friday!  I've left love on all of the projects I've missed, except for the ones without links posted here. I hope to make it to the gallery over the weekend to get those.

Forgive the longer post whilst I play catch up to all that I've missed.

justjac, Not to scare you off of your remodel, but we're rehabbing a 100-yr old farm house. It's a complete nightmare. If I had known what I was getting myself into, I would have knocked it down and built new. It would have definitely been much, much cheaper. Although, we have to go to the studs in each room. This year our focus is hopefully to finish the upstairs with the exception of the new window that needs to be put in the hallway and our room that was finished before we leveled the house and now has huge cracks in the walls.

nylene, I hope you’re enjoying your silhouette now. I have NO tomato plants or any other vegetables this year, just trees and strawberries. I envy your tomato plants. Although we did get the deer fencing put in and a new larger tiller, so we’ll hopefully be ready for next year. Don’s tilled the garden twice this summer – once to kill the weeds and once to add in the compost, and he’s been anxious to do it again and I'm sure will do it a couple of more times before fall.

grammadee, I laughed at your dd’s comment of work being a place to relax and be ME! I had no intentions of being a SAHM. But once I held that little bundle of boy, I knew I didn’t want to be apart from him for 60 hours a week. I also had NO intentions of homeschooling, but God led me down that path. You’ve been so busy putting up your food, and I’m jealous. A lady at Don’s client gave us some zucchini and I’ll be putting that up as relish, hopefully over the next 2 days.

kellyr21, you would be a great Martha Stewart with all of your interests. If you want to practice decorating, but don’t want all the cupcakes or normal sized cakes around, use Styrofoam circles (I think in the flower department) and wrap them with clear wrap taped at the bottom. You get the practice but without having to bake.

maribeth, I love the idea of staying put while camping and just relaxing, of course, I call that staying home. Ha. I was sorry to hear you were stressed but am glad that you are back to your positive self. Also I can’t even count the number of times I have written a post and then not gotten it through. Sometimes if you post on a thread at the same times as someone else, you get kicked back, and I don’t wait to see.

knutschen, glad you had some time off. The waterslide sounds like fun. I hope you get use to the larger unit or that they change again to make it easier to care for the patients. Also, glad to hear that your eye is doing well.

Today, Don and I were hoping to start cleaning the basement from when the contractors leveled the house in December. I used to know where everything was and now it is all mixed up mash of I don't know what. Not to mention the tarps are still on, but only offered a slight protection to the grinding out of concrete - yep dust everywhere. However, my washer is leaking drastically, so he has to look at that first which means I’ll have some just normal clean-up the house time. The kids are doing another Chopped round on Saturday (ribeye, summer squash and raspberries are the must use ingredients). Hoping that I can finish a page that has been on my desk since before we went to Grand Rapids on Sunday.

Stopping by to say Hi and wishing you a great weekend! I have been so busy this past week I have barely had time to stop by here and read the chat! My friend is going to honor all the men in her family who have served our country at there family reunion. Starting with her Father who served in WWI. He even was awarded the Silver Star. She had all the family members send her the photos and info on each one and we fixed the photos and added their service information to the bottom of the pages. I had a lot of correcting to do on some of the photos. Then my printer started giving me fits. It is going to be a goner this time. I already purchased a new one but will use up my ink in the other one before I install the new one. I only have one more photo to do and I am trying to correct the frame of the photo.

Our garden has big plants but so far we have not had much produce. I have made Zucchini muffins and these really tasty cheesy bites which are made from zucchini and take about 5 minutes to mix up. Both recipes are on my recipe board over at Pinterest. We have had unbearable hot humid weather but not very much rain-we are down 2 inches.

I have written a book so am going to get off-have a great weekend-hope to get back tomorrow!

Hello Ladies. Sounds like everyone has been busy!

nylene , your gathering sounds like it was a lot of fun and also very productive! That is a lot of cards! And great that you are working so hard to learn the Silhouette!  To answer your question, Nanking cherries are very much like chokecherries, but a little brighter red in colour and a little sweeter.  Your story about the mulberry tree reminded me of all the wild berries we picked (and ate!) as kids, and the chokecherry syrup my Mom used to make:  even the memory makes my mouth water! 

kellyr21 , I bet there are moms who would love to purchase your cupcakes for birthday parties. Thanks for asking about my little job. I did prep this week, sent in the printing order, and have been doing a lot of thinking about how I might present the topics I have been given, but I try to keep an open mind until I have met the students and find out what they already know and what they want to learn.

scrapincin , that is a big project you are doing for your friend. How sweet of you to do this! AND help out nylene !

LisaDV , it is good to hear from you. I don't envy you the task of sorting through everything that has been stored away.

We spent the day at the district agricultural fair. We went at noon so that dh could watch the tractor pulls. Dd & family met us there, so I spent most of the day hanging out with them around the petting zoo and the little kids' rides and the food venders. That boy put on a lot of miles today, and so did I!  Ended the evening at the pony chuckwagon races.

I don't know what I would do with 100 degree heat! It was about 25C today which is about 80F, and I have to admit I was looking for shade every chance I got!

Well, need to get to bed soon, because a day off out here on the farm means double duty tomorrow. More picking and freezing, and since it is supposed to be cooler tomorrow, I hope to bake some Saskatoon puddings for dessert and for freezing.