My Resolutions - November Update

November!  Where has the year gone? It’s been a whirlwind of moving.. cleaning.. and moving.

1) Post 1 book review a month on my YA blog. 

I have posted 12 reviews. Not one per month, but I definitely have stepped up my pace of posting… so we will average out to one per month!

https://librarynut-booksforteens.blogspot.com/

2) Renovate the Master Bedroom & Bathroom. 

This is happening!!!!  

Walls are being torn out and ground has been broken!

17 years after we first said this needed to be done, it is finally going to be done!

3) Find good homes for the books  

They have all been homed outside of my house.

4) Go explore 2 new to me places  

1) Oregon - for a little adventure!

2) Turkey Run Park in Virginia.  It's on the way home from my Mom's house.  Beautiful park on the banks of the Potomac River!

3) Dallas, Texas. I went for a funeral, but stayed an extra day to explore.

5) 40 Bags in 40 Days Lenten Challenge

These were kitchen size garbage bags full of stuff, along with several BIG boxes. I've since gotten rid of much, much more.  But the Lenten Challenge was a HUGE success!

If you saw last weeks post, you know that we got rid of 100 boxes of shredding. JUST shredding. We cleaned out a LOT of stuff.

6) Get together with 1 friend each month  

I don't think I should have to write this down, but you know, it's been a weird couple of years. I want to make seeing people we love a priority. Doing this after 2 years of COVID Restrictions is going to make this an extra special challenge.

January - Jim & Kathy! We had a fire outside in the fire pit and got to catch up over a couple of hours!

February -  Joe, James, Dan

March - Crissy, Gloria

April - This was the month we had Covid, so we saw nobody and went nowhere.

May - Vince & Suzanne, Judy

June - Sharon

July - Crissy and her Mom

August - Esther and Tim            

September - All of my cousins.

October - Andrew & Cheryl

 

7) Another stamp in my National Park Passport

The Mission Trail in San Antonio!

OK, so that was back in January. I need to get another stamp.

8) Landscape Front Yard 

This has been on the list for several years now. I really want to get this checked off this year!

I don't think this will happen this year. With the renovations going on in the house, I want to wait until they are finished before I begin working on the yard. I don't want the contractors tearing up the new landscaping. 

9) Clean out the Garage

If you've read the blog for any length of time, you know that we bought this house 17 years ago from my in-laws. And you also know that they were borderline hoarders. We've made progress in the house, and while there is still clutter in the basement, I believe that we will have the last of it out by the end of this year. (See the 40 bags in 40 days challenge.) There is no longer any junk in our basement! 17 years later and we have finally cleaned out the house. Finally.

 But the garage is another story. 17 years, and we have not yet been able to park our cars in the garage because of the amount of stuff. Our goal is to be able to park a car in the garage by the end of the year. when we move back into the house next year.

One major advantage of having hired a trash hauler to finish cleaning out the house is that we now have the name of someone who is willing to come and clean out the garage next year.

10) Get the kayak out in the water once each month during May, June, July, August, September, and October.

Seriously, we have a kayak.  Why aren't we getting out in the water with the kayak more often? What is our excuse? The kids have moved out. We don't have to worry about finding a sitter or getting an extra kayak for them.

We didn't get it out at all. Something about clearing out tons and tons of stuff out of the house.

11) Get my Bike fixed and get out for some bike rides.

I bought my bike over 30 years ago. I rode it a lot before the kids got busy in high school. Now that everyone is out of the house, it is time to pull out some of the things I really used to love. The top of that list is riding my bike. In order to do that, I need to get the bike fixed. The tires are dry rotted, and I'm sure it's got a host of other issues going on.

Maybe now that the house is finally cleaned out, I can dig the bike out of the garage and get it fixed up!

12) Visit My Cousins in Texas (a trip postponed from 2020)

Done! We made it down over a long weekend in January! It was so good to see my cousins and my aunts and uncles!  I even posted a few pictures from the River Walk in San Antonio. It's been 10 years since I last got down here. I can't wait another 10 years to get back. Family is too important. And time is fleeting.

Breckinridge Park! We met up with my cousins at the same outdoor pavilion where I had my 5th birthday party! That pavilion is just off to the right from this picture.

Second Trip to Texas in September for a family funeral. I got to spend time with cousins from as far away as Japan. We really need to find a way to get together that does not involve funerals. I think this will be one of my goals for next year.

Other Goals:

I’ve got a couple of other goals I would like to accomplish this year, but I honestly don’t know if I’ll be able to get to them. If I do, I’ll be thrilled beyond words. If not? I’ll add them to the list of things I want to get to in 2023.

Goal #1

Get out to Kansas to visit Middle Child. 

Done! We went out earlier this year.

Goal #2

Get the large piles of brush out of the yard.

Done! The tree people are also taking out 3 dead trees!

Happy Halloween!

I think my most/least favorite Halloween memory was 1997. 

Our oldest son fell off of the jungle gym at preschool and suffered a compound fracture.  I received a call from the school staff as the ambulance was pulling away from the school. It was 4 days before Halloween.(Oct. 28)

It's funny the things you remember. I had a pot of ramen noodles boiling on the stove. I turned the burner off, grabbed the baby out of the crib, pulled my toddler out of his bed and took off for the hospital. (This was before cell phones.) I left a note pinned to the door for my husband along with a request for him to call his parents to see if they could meet us at the hospital. I had bought a huge pumpkin that morning, and had plans to carve it that afternoon with the kids. The pumpkin was still sitting in the back seat of the car.

Husband got home about 10 minutes after I left the house, and his parents were able to meet me in the waiting room at the hospital and take the kids home with them. (And my car. It had the car seats.) We found out that the kid was going to need surgery to reset the arm.

It was a very long night. He went back for surgery around 10 pm, and came out around midnight. He asked his father to spend the night with him, and I went home. Remember the ramen noodles? They were still on the stove, sitting in water.  They were next level awful looking. They went into the trash.

When he came home the following day, he had 2 pins in his arm around his elbow and a cast that took over most of his left arm, with a sling built into the cast.

Halloween day, I decided that we needed to keep things as normal as possible. So, I pulled the pumpkin out of the back of my car. The pumpkin that had been sitting there for 4 days. In the heat. In the back of my Honda Civic. While the toddler used it as a step stool to get into his car seat. The bottom was rotting.

So, I put the pumpkin on the grass, turned it over and scooped out the guts.  It turns out that if you do things this way - with rotting pumpkin - it is actually very easy to scoop things out. We decided to leave the entrails, if you will all over the ground and cut a very weird lopsided face into the side of the pumpkin and then put multiple tealights around the mess.  As the pumpkin continued to rot and fall apart in the heat of the tea lights, it made an especially gory mess.

The kid with the broken arm dressed up as a starving artist that year.  I had a beret (no comments about that - we weren't THAT far out of the 80's).  He wore sweat pants and a huge t-shirt that we were able to get the cast through.  We attached a piece of cardboard cut out and decorated to look like an artists' palette.  Voila!  1 starving artist costume!

I hope each and every one of you has a safe Halloween!

The Marathon - Home Improvement Addition

 If you’ve been around my blog for any length of time, you know that we bought our house from my in-laws. And they never moved their stuff out. We moved in, our stuff intermingled, and the long nightmare began. It’s been 17 years of cleaning and sorting. I’ve done cleaning challenges. I’ve gotten rid of 23 Things a Week for a couple of years. I’ve participated in the 40 bags in 40 days challenges. And still - there was always more stuff to clean and sort.

When we decided we needed to renovate the house. OK. With the black mold issues we kind of HAD to renovate the bathrooms. And because of the black mold - absolutely everything had to be out of the house.

We moved ourselves out of the house in July. We took what we had to live with us. We had to put the stuff we wanted to keep in storage. And then? There was everything else. For the next three months we slowly sifted through the everything else. 

The paper.  OMG. The paper. All told, we’ve taken over 100 boxes to shredding events around Central Maryland. That doesn’t count the boxes we’ve taken to the Paper Recycling Boxes around town.

We donated to the Habitat ReStore.

We recycled - a lot.

At the end, we hired a junk hauler who came and took the rest away.

Our house is finally empty.  FINALLY.

I suspect that we have many paper loving insects in our house that are slowly starving to death.

Seriously. 17 years. It’s been 17 years that we’ve been in that house and 17 years that I’ve been cleaning it out. And now? It’s finished. I feel like I’ve completed the worlds strangest and slowest marathon.

Teen Top Ten List

 I just published this list from the Young Adult Library Services Association on my YA Book Blog  here: https://librarynut-booksforteens.blogspot.com/2022/10/teen-top-ten-list.html.

If you're interested in a list of books nominated and voted on by teens for 2022, I encourage you to click on the link and head over to my other blog.  I'm trying to stay out of trouble, so I'm not going to copy and paste the entire post here, lest I get flagged by The Google for plagiarism.  ;) 

Enjoy!

Make Your Own Fascinator!

 I originally published this post on 5/21/2018. I had made my very own Fascinator to wear to work on the day of the Royal Wedding. While Fascinators aren't exactly high fashion in the United States, they are a LOT of fun to make and wear!  And with Halloween quickly coming, I thought someone might like to make something like this to wear as part of their Halloween costume!

I made a Fascinator on Thursday to wear to work on Saturday in celebration of the Preakness - oh, and the Royal Wedding.  It was actually very easy to make!

I used the pages of an old book that was falling apart to make a large paper flower.  Since I used a Dr. Seuss book, I used bright purple berries to make the centers of the flowers.  I hot glued the flower petals together.

I bought a spool of tulle and a found a spool of sparkly rhinestones in the endless crap supply in my basement, and a headband from the grocery store.  I scrounged some floral wire up at work, and the next thing you know, I had a fascinator.

I looped the tulle into 8 very big figure 8's, and then tied it in the center with the floral wire.  I did the same thing with the blingy tape, and wired it onto the tulle with the same floral wire that I wrapped around the tulle bow. 

I then hot glued the paper flower into the middle of the bow.  I wrapped the wire from the flower around the headband and Voila!  It's a fascinator! 

Oh, the feathers!  I forgot them!  We had a stash of feathers at work that someone brought in for craft projects.  I brought 3 of them home to use for my project. 

Note: Don't you love how I didn't bother to link any directions on how to make that flower in the middle? I know I cut petals from the book. I know they were rounded on one end and a square triangle on the other.  Honestly, what was I thinking when I wrote these directions?  I didn't have a Cricut at the time, but I seem to remember cutting out the petals that looked something like this: https://sweetredpoppy.com/how-to-make-large-paper-flowers/ and then took some poetic license with the shape of the flowers and the size of the petals to make a flower that would look decent on my head.  Seriously, why didn't I post the link or the pattern?  What was I thinking?  

Squirrels

So here’s a serious question. 

Squirrels. Here in the Mid-Atlantic are usually light brown or gray. 

This little guy above is what I think of as a typical Mid-Atlantic squirrel. I took this picture in Sunday morning. 

But we recently moved out, and we are living close to a major river and environmental area.

But do you know what I’ve been seeing running around here lately? 

Black squirrels. The last time I saw black squirrels was when we were in Niagara Falls. 

And now, they’re running around Central Maryland? 

Is this a thing anyone else has noticed?

The picture below is one of the squirrels from around Niagara Falls. 

 

Random Pictures

 A dump of my photos from September! Enjoy!

Hermie

Look who I found on my morning walk!

View from the spillway. 

So much fungi!

It feels like a Cathedral. 

Random Legos found in the library floor. 

I checked out a ukulele! Bonus, I’ve been working on playing it!

Dallas, Texas

 Last month we attended the funeral of my mother's youngest brother in Dallas, Texas. He served in the United States Army during the conflict in Vietnam. After his service, he went on to live a long and very fruitful life. He had 4 children, and he has many grandchildren. 

The funeral was on a Friday, and my sister and I spent an extra day in Dallas, exploring this beautiful city!

Here’s a few pictures from our visit:

The sculpture garden at the Nasher Sculpture Center. 

I kept seeing these Red Pegasi around town. Anyone know the story behind them?

We found the most amazing taco restaurant in this tiny little store front. 

The train station at the airport. When I got there, a plane was driving over the bridge. So cool!

The controls for my room. I swear it was smarter than me!

At the entrance to the National Cemetery. 

Light rail downtown. 

Oh, I’m done. So done!

My Resolutions, October Update

It's been a while since I've done this. So much chaos in my life over the past couple of months. Just so much chaos.  But, here we are now!

1) Post 1 book review a month on my YA blog. 

I have posted 6 reviews.  SIX! I seriously need to get in and update this. I read enough Manga this summer, I really do have enough material to update this!

https://librarynut-booksforteens.blogspot.com/

2) Renovate the Master Bedroom & Bathroom. 

This is happening!!!!  Contracts have been signed and the house has been cleaned out! 

17 years after we first said this needed to be done, it is finally going to be done!

3) Find good homes for the books  

They have all been homed outside of my house.

4) Go explore 2 new to me places  

1) Oregon - for a little adventure!

2) Turkey Run Park in Virginia.  It's on the way home from my Mom's house.  Beautiful park on the banks of the Potomac River!

3) Dallas, Texas. I went for a funeral, but stayed an extra day to explore.

5) 40 Bags in 40 Days Lenten Challenge

These were kitchen size garbage bags full of stuff, along with several BIG boxes. I've since gotten rid of much, much more.  But the Lenten Challenge was a HUGE success!

6) Get together with 1 friend each month  

I don't think I should have to write this down, but you know, it's been a weird couple of years. I want to make seeing people we love a priority. Doing this after 2 years of COVID Restrictions is going to make this an extra special challenge.

January - Jim & Kathy! We had a fire outside in the fire pit and got to catch up over a couple of hours!

February -  Joe, James, Dan

March - Crissy, Gloria

April - This was the month we had Covid, so we saw nobody and went nowhere.

May - Vince & Suzanne, Judy

June - Sharon

July - Crissy and her Mom

August - Esther and Tim            

September - All of my cousins.

 

7) Another stamp in my National Park Passport

The Mission Trail in San Antonio!

OK, so that was back in January. I need to get another stamp.

8) Landscape Front Yard 

This has been on the list for several years now. I really want to get this checked off this year!

I don't think this will happen this year. With the renovations going on in the house, I want to wait until they are finished before I begin working on the yard. I don't want the contractors tearing up the new landscaping. 

9) Clean out the Garage

If you've read the blog for any length of time, you know that we bought this house 17 years ago from my in-laws. And you also know that they were borderline hoarders. We've made progress in the house, and while there is still clutter in the basement, I believe that we will have the last of it out by the end of this year. (See the 40 bags in 40 days challenge.) There is no longer any junk in our basement! 17 years later and we have finally cleaned out the house. Finally.

 But the garage is another story. 17 years, and we have not yet been able to park our cars in the garage because of the amount of stuff. Our goal is to be able to park a car in the garage by the end of the year. when we move back into the house next year.

10) Get the kayak out in the water once each month during May, June, July, August, September, and October.

Seriously, we have a kayak.  Why aren't we getting out in the water with the kayak more often? What is our excuse? The kids have moved out. We don't have to worry about finding a sitter or getting an extra kayak for them.

We didn't get it out at all. Something about clearing out tons and tons of stuff out of the house.

11) Get my Bike fixed and get out for some bike rides.

I bought my bike over 30 years ago. I rode it a lot before the kids got busy in high school. Now that everyone is out of the house, it is time to pull out some of the things I really used to love. The top of that list is riding my bike. In order to do that, I need to get the bike fixed. The tires are dry rotted, and I'm sure it's got a host of other issues going on.

12) Visit My Cousins in Texas (a trip postponed from 2020)

Done! We made it down over a long weekend in January! It was so good to see my cousins and my aunts and uncles!  I even posted a few pictures from the River Walk in San Antonio. It's been 10 years since I last got down here. I can't wait another 10 years to get back. Family is too important. And time is fleeting.

Breckinridge Park! We met up with my cousins at the same outdoor pavilion where I had my 5th birthday party! That pavilion is just off to the right from this picture.

Second Trip to Texas in September for a family funeral. I got to spend time with cousins from as far away as Japan. We really need to find a way to get together that does not involve funerals. I think this will be one of my goals for next year.

Other Goals:

I’ve got a couple of other goals I would like to accomplish this year, but I honestly don’t know if I’ll be able to get to them. If I do, I’ll be thrilled beyond words. If not? I’ll add them to the list of things I want to get to in 2023.

Goal #1

Get out to Kansas to visit Middle Child. 

Done! We went out earlier this month.

Goal #2

Get the large piles of brush out of the yard.

Done! The tree people are also taking out 3 dead trees!

A little "too much" nature

 Husband was recently out of town for a family wedding. I was looking forward to spending a day doing not much of anything.

And then I got a call from my next door neighbor, letting me know that we had a dead deer in the very back corner of our back yard. Public works will only pick up a dead deer if it's within 50 feet of a county owned highway.

So, the neighbor and I got out there and did the ugly work of getting the deer out to the front of the house by the road where public works was waiting for us. They did the even uglier work of picking it up and getting it into the back of the truck. They told us that they were going to stop it by the nature center. They have several buzzards that are currently being rehabbed for injuries and this way, the buzzards could continue to forage and not lose their "edge" by getting used to human food.

All in all, a pretty cool circle of life thing when you really think about it.

But I was still having some issues wrapping my head around the death of the deer. And the smell.  I could smell it everywhere, no matter how many showers I took.  Honestly, I was beginning to feel a little bit like Lady Macbeth, but instead of saying "out damn spot", I was saying "Out, out damn smell"...

"I'm going to get a dog"

 Last time I saw my Mom, she told me that she was going to get a dog.

And she was going to tie a man's tie on it.

And she was going to name the dog Ty.

Then she told me she was going to get a horse.

And ride it over to the White House.

And pick up Joe.

And then they were going to go riding together.

There was so much more! She was in rare form when I was there! 

Family Funeral

I motioned last week that I had recently been to a funeral. My mother's youngest brother, Roger, passed away in the middle of August. Since he was being buried in the National Cemetery, we had to wait for a spot to open up in THEIR calendar so that he could be interred.

The first available spot for him was Sept.10. 

My sister and I ventured to Texas together to the funeral for the first trip we have EVER taken without mom. 

The funeral was solemn, Taps was beautiful, and the family had the trumpeter play "God Bless America". His children received the flag that had been draped across his casket, and he was interred next to his wife who had passed away 20 years ago.

After the funeral, we all gathered together for a very large and rowdy celebration of life.  We pulled all of the tables together.  What is this business with separate tables that only hold 8 chairs each? We pulled 4 tables together and shoved as many people around the table as were willing to sit together.

Many stories were told. So many stories!  We spent several hours piecing together the individual pieces of stories that each one of us knew to make an entire story from beginning to end! And the laughter!  Oh, so much laughter as we recalled stories from long, long ago.

We decided that we need to stop meeting only at funerals. We are now working on a plan for next spring where we can gather together just for fun. 

Mom's brother was 82. He was an Army Veteran. He was a husband, father, and grandfather. We are all going to miss him and his laughter. 

Manga

 Are you into reading Manga? I wasn't, until this summer. One of the other librarians on staff encouraged me to read a few series.  And then, I go hooked. I love Manga! I love the story lines, I love the format that is so accessible to kids across the board. Whether kids are struggling to read, or accomplished readers way above grade level, manga is an equal opportunity format. The fact that it is a graphic based format makes it easier for struggling readers, and the white spaces between the panels encourage higher order thinking skills painlessly.  (making predictions, drawing inferences).  

Manga is different than Western Graphic Novels in that you read them from right to left, and you start each page on the top right hand side, reading to the left, and then returning to the left side and going down a line. I'm convinced that reading in this format is going to help me stave off dementia!

While I enjoyed most everything I read, I was drawn to "Slice of Life" manga.  Slice of life is based around the life of a person going about their day.  From chores, to school, to preparing meals.  

In no particular order, here are my favorite Manga series that I read this summer:

Yotsuba & !

Yotsuba and her father encounter many adventures when they move into a new house in the big city! Every day brings new adventures!  *Note, in many ways, I felt that this series was a "read-alike" to Junie B Jones or Ramona Quimby. This is the only series that I read that came out of the children's section.

Silver Spoon

Yugo Hachiken chooses to go to an agricultural school instead of the Academic School that his parents had planned for him to attend. Hachiken's life takes an interesting turn as he begins to understand the world that prepares the food that he eats, and applies his business acumen to helping the future farmers i the school grow their business models.

The Ancient Magus' Bride: Wizards Blue

Definitely NOT a slice of life!  The ancient wizard has chosen a bound partner who's job will eventually be to kill her. Wonderfully fun fantasy full of action and adventure, with a touch of magic tossed in for fun.

Spy X Family

Super Spy must acquire a family in order to spy upon a foreign diplomat/businessman who has designs on taking over the world.  Said spy quickly finds a family.  He unknowingly marries an assassin for hire and adopts a telepath. This series is solid gold!  We can't keep it on our shelves. It keeps getting checked out!

Living Room

High School student lives in the big city in her uncle's boarding house with really hot college guy across the hall who might be as interested in her as she is in him.  Or is he?  Very sweet series!

The Way of the House Husband

This delightful series follows the life of an ex-Yakuza gang member who retires from a life of crime and becomes a House Husband.  I love the comic absurdities throughout the series!

Have you read any Manga? What are your favorite series? Inquiring minds want to know!

*If you're curious to find out more about Manga and how it supports reading, you can find out more here: https://www.ncwlibraries.org/the-benefits-of-manga-and-graphic-novels/

Random Pictures

 The last two months has seen a lot of upheaval in our lives.  Among other things, we moved to an apartment in another town so that our house could be renovated. (There are no affordable apartments near where we live.) We are back in the town where we first lived when we got married and started raising our family.  The move-out slowly continues. Here are some random photos from the past couple of months.

Hermie in our new apartment. Not only did she discover the space over the refrigerator, she also discovered how to open the cabinet over the refrigerator! Gotta love cats!

The path around the lake. I find myself walking this a lot.

Sunset from the hilltop at home.  #nofilter.

A floating island of weeds in the middle of the lake!

A pretty sunset! #nofilter

Mushrooms abound after all the rain we've had in the Mid-Atlantic recently. I found this little fairy ring on my Monday morning walk.

The lake is very pretty! Considering we live very close to here, I'm really glad that it's so easy and fun to walk around.

Above and below, pictures from the Rachel Carson Greenway in Montgomery County, MD. You can find more information about these trails here: https://montgomeryparks.org/parks-and-trails/rachel-carson-conservation-park/rachel-carson-conservation-park-trails/

With a Parent in Hospice, life is never certain for the family

 I haven't been on for a while. I was just checking the dates. It's been over 2 months.  

Mom is still hanging in there, and we are treasuring every day that we have. 

Her youngest brother passed away about 2 weeks ago. I just got back from the funeral last night.

I've had many - too many - "get down here right now, this is it" phone calls.  We head down, the crisis passes, and then life slowly limps along. 

But I am still here. I am spending many days with Mom. 

I'll keep blogging as I can. Thank you for checking in, and thank you for thinking of me!

My Resolutions, July Update

Well this has been a hellishly stressful month. We thought we would be out of our house and into an apartment by now. But no.  The management company called us on Wednesday and told us that there was a maintenance issue that would keep us from gaining access to the apartment until July 5. When we called the moving company to reschedule, the next available date will be July 15. So, we will be moving small things over slowly over the next ten days. 

We spent this weekend moving stuff over to the storage unit and the thrift store and to the shred mill.

But, thinking that I was going to be moving out this past weekend, I have been continuing to pack things up as if we were moving this weekend.  I honestly think the biggest challenge was tracking down all of the library books. I consistently have 50 books checked out at any given time. I had to track them all down and make certain that they were returned. I didn't want to accidentally lose one somewhere in the chaos and then end up paying for the book, only to find it a year from now when unpacking some random box.  

In spite of all the chaos here, I did work on my goals for the year!

1) Post 1 book review a month on my YA blog. 

I have posted 6 reviews so far. Most of them were published in June, as that is when I was looking for and reading books to talk about with the schools. 

https://librarynut-booksforteens.blogspot.com/

2) Renovate the Master Bedroom & Bathroom. 

This is happening!!!!

3) Find good homes for the books  

They have all been homed outside of my house.

4) Go explore 2 new to me places  

Who doesn't love an adventure? I have a list of places that I want to go see. I'm going to put out a map, and get some darts, and see where we end up.

1) Oregon

2) Turkey Run Park in Virginia

5) 40 Bags in 40 Days Lenten Challenge

These were kitchen size garbage bags full of stuff, along with several BIG boxes.

6) Get together with 1 friend each month  

I don't think I should have to write this down, but you know, it's been a weird couple of years. I want to make seeing people we love a priority. Doing this after 2 years of COVID Restrictions is going to make this an extra special challenge.

January - Jim & Kathy! We had a fire outside in the fire pit and got to catch up over a couple of hours!

February -  Joe, James, Dan

March - Crissy, Gloria

April - This was the month we had Covid, so we saw nobody and went nowhere.

May - Vince & Suzanne, Judy

June - Sharon

 

7) Another stamp in my National Park Passport

The Mission Trail in San Antonio!

8) Landscape Front Yard 

This has been on the list for several years now. I really want to get this checked off this year!

9) Clean out the Garage

If you've read the blog for any length of time, you know that we bought this house 16 years ago from my in-laws. And you also know that they were borderline hoarders. We've made progress in the house, and while there is still clutter in the basement, I believe that we will have the last of it out by the end of this year. (See the 40 bags in 40 days challenge.) There is no longer any junk in our basement! 16 years later and we have finally cleaned out the house. Finally.

 But the garage is another story. 16 years, and we have not yet been able to park our cars in the garage because of the amount of stuff. Our goal is to be able to park a car in the garage by the end of the year. when we move back into the house next year.

10) Get the kayak out in the water once each month during May, June, July, August, September, and October.

Seriously, we have a kayak.  Why aren't we getting out in the water with the kayak more often? What is our excuse? The kids have moved out. We don't have to worry about finding a sitter or getting an extra kayak for them.

We didn't get it out in May or June.  We still have time left!

11) Get my Bike fixed and get out for some bike rides.

I bought my bike over 30 years ago. I rode it a lot before the kids got busy in high school. Now that everyone is out of the house, it is time to pull out some of the things I really used to love. The top of that list is riding my bike. In order to do that, I need to get the bike fixed. The tires are dry rotted, and I'm sure it's got a host of other issues going on.

12) Visit My Cousins in Texas (a trip postponed from 2020)

Done! We made it down over a long weekend in January! It was so good to see my cousins and my aunts and uncles!  I even posted a few pictures from the River Walk in San Antonio. It's been 10 years since I last got down here. I can't wait another 10 years to get back. Family is too important. And time is fleeting.

Breckinridge Park! We met up with my cousins at the same outdoor pavilion where I had my 5th birthday party! That pavilion is just off to the right from this picture.

Other Goals:

I’ve got a couple of other goals I would like to accomplish this year, but I honestly don’t know if I’ll be able to get to them. If I do, I’ll be thrilled beyond words. If not? I’ll add them to the list of things I want to get to in 2023.

Goal #1

Get out to Kansas to visit Middle Child. 

Done! We went out earlier this month.

Thrifty Thursday

Leftovers.

I know, when we had teenagers in the house, we didn't have a lot of leftovers. When we did have them, it was because whatever I made was just so bad that nobody wanted to eat it.

But now, we find ourselves with leftovers that we can't finish before they go bad. Even worse, when I make them into something new, the something new isn't getting finished before things go bad.  What to do? What to do? 

Enter my giant freezer. I have been making a roast of some type on Saturday night. Sunday finds me taking the leftovers and making them into other things, and then freezing these things into smaller portion sizes that will feed the two of us.  So, when I would have made a 9"x13" pan full of chicken and dumplings, I am now freezing two 8"x8" size pans.  That's enough for us to have dinner, plus leftovers for lunch for a couple of days.

The huge pot of chili?  (I honestly don't know how to make a small pot of chili.) I'm freezing leftovers in quart size containers that we can take out and easily reheat for dinner on a busy night.

But what about the odds and ends of meat? Meat is getting too expensive and needs to be saved up when you have it. I've been taking those weird odds and ends of meat and then tossing the meat into a food saver bag before I suck all the air out of it and toss it in the freezer. I'm not positive what I'm going to end up doing with that meat, but I do know that I just bought myself some time to figure it out.  Pot of soup? Stir Fry?  I will figure that out on the day when I pull it out of the freezer and need to make something with it. 

Believe it or not, this has actually made a huge dent in our bottom line.

Fruit.

I've gotten absolutely obsessive about fruit lately.  I'm making a point of pulling out what I know we can eat and then freezing the rest. I'll have a lot of frozen fruit for my yogurt, muffins, and oatmeal this fall and winter. 

Veggies.

I've been freezing and dehydrating extra veggies as they come in. I'm putting the dehydrated veggies aside for soups this winter.  My goal is to eventually mix them all into the portions I'll use for soup. But for now, I'm saving the veggies in separate bags until I have enough to put together a bag for one pot of soup.

So, what kinds of things are you doing with your leftovers? How are you stretching out your food budget?

Picture Books

This was harder to put together than I thought it would be. These are the covers of my favorite picture books.  All of them are beautiful stories with amazing images that pull the reader into the book.

 

A young girl harvests sweetgrass to make baskets with her grandmother.

 

 

How do you wear a sari? What happens if you put it on your own way?

 

 

Amira doesn't want to miss school for the Eid ceremony because it's picture day.

 

 

 Find out what it takes to harvest the salmon that you eat.

 

 

A mother sings a love song to her baby.

 

 

 

A little girl discovers how wonderful her family is when she talks about their wonderful eyes.

 

 

Help Mel!

 

Noah makes a seal out of sand on the beach.

All images are from worldcat.org

Chapter

I highlight books for older readers on my blog Books for Teens.  I have a few of the books here that I talked about with the kids in 3rd-5th grade. The great thing about chapter books is that they can be enjoyed by older readers as well as read out loud to younger readers. I'm going to attempt a short summary for each of these titles, or else my post would be forever and a day long.  I'm going to highlight the ones that would easily cross over to older readers on my book blog over the next few month.

image: worldcat.org

Fans of Harry Potter will love this book!

Amari Peters finds herself at the Magical Institute studying to be a magician after her brother mysteriously disappears. Convinced that he is alive, Amari looks for clues to her brother's disappearance while studying to be a magician. Shunned by many of the students because of her tremendous power, Amari struggles to find friends that she can trust to help her in her dual quest.

*This is ones of the books I'm having trouble writing only one or two sentences about because I loved the book so much, and there's just so much that I want to say!

image: worldcat.org

 This winner of the 2021 Newberry Award is based upon Korean Folk Lore.

Lily makes a deal with a magical tiger to save her Halmoni. As Lily works to meet the demands of the Tiger, she discovers more about her family's history. An enchanting tale that shows the power of love across generations. 

I'm having trouble containing myself on this post. I'll have a review of the book up on my book blog soon.

 

image: World Cat

 A first person point of view of the Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster. This compelling story captures the uncertainty that the residents of the areas around Chernobyl felt in the days and weeks surrounding one of the worst nuclear disasters in history.

 Link to my review on my blog is here: The Black Bird Girls

  

Spending the summer on the reservation with his grandmother means no electricity, no running water, and no video games. But Nathan's summer takes an unexpected turn when he finds a sick water monster on his grandmother's farm. Healing the Water Monster involves a journey that has great risks as well as rewards.

Riley Oh is a non-magical person (Saram) who lives with her parents and adopted sister. Her sister hatches a plan to share her magical powers with Riley. But when the plan goes horribly awry, Riley finds that not everything as it seems, and that she, herself is faced with the task of saving her sister.

From Kate DiCamillo comes this wonderful story of a girl named Beatryce who is being sought by an evil king, for she holds the keys to his ability to remain in power forever.

I have a talk about this book on my book blog here.

I reviewed Charlie Hernandez for my book blog a while back. You can find it here.

 

Unless noted otherwise, these images were taken by me, LibraryNut.