Holy yard work, batman!! Memorial day weekend is upon us, and today was spent in the following manner:
Slept in, and was woken up by someone ringing the doorbell around 10:30. The fam was at church, and I was in a just-woken up stupor, plus in my pajamas, so I didn't answer the door. I tip-toed down the hallway to see who it was, but whoever it was walked away before I could get a good look. Plus I was still rather bleary eyed, so I doubt I would have been able to see anyway. Ha.
Enjoyed some home made chocolate chip banana bread (reason # 1,345 I'm glad to be living at home for the summer), and then read several more short stories out of my Mark Twain book. I'm over 3/4 of the way through it's 480 pages, and still loving it. So great.
The fam got home from church and we ate lunch. The dinner table conversation drifted into a serious discussion of what various items we wanted to achieve in terms of home maintenance/improvement over the summer, specifically in terms of yard work. I grabbed a notebook and we came up with close to 20 items, from small, one person jobs like clearing up a pile of branches along one of the fence lines, to bigger projects like organizing the north shed and painting all the gates (we decided on a nice red color, which I strongly approve of). After discussing, we said a prayer, asked the Lord to bless our plans and our work, and then went to it. We grabbed wheelbarrows, pitch forks and shovels and headed for our goat pen, adjacent to the north shed. It hadn't been properly cleaned out in... well... really not since we'd gotten goats. There were several layers of hay and poop on the ground, all packed tightly into probably a 2-3" deep mess. It was incredibly heavy, soggy, dirty, and smelled utterly horrendous. We did that until it started raining (it had been threatening to since we started), accomplishing about half the job.
Of course the rain stopped as soon as we had got everything put away, but we were all tuckered (and grossed) out, and moved on to lighter work. I used the electric hedge trimmer and shaped up our shrubberies along the front side of the house while Elise, Julia, Mom and Johanna all worked to pull weeds in the various flower beds, rocked areas and shrub lines around the house. We worked from 3ish until close to 8pm, and got quite a bit done! There is now a rather substantial pile of hedge trimmings, overgrown weeds and dried out logs, sticks and twigs in our fire pit. It'll make for a great birthday bonfire in a couple weeks. :)
Post-yard work we had a great supper and then had a hilarious time playing with gummy Peach rings. The game was to tilt your head back, put the candy on the top of your forehead, and then try to get the candy into your mouth without using your hands. It was hilarious, because the best method was to rapidly and fervently raise one's eyebrows up and down to get the peach ring to slowly but surely make its way down the forehead towards the bridge of the nose, where it would inevitably fall into one of the eye sockets, covering the eye. Then, it would just be a game of chance, whether the contestant would successfully corral the candy into his or her mouth by use of tongue and gravity, or whether it would fall off the face and onto the floor, from which it would be hastily retrieved to do the whole thing over again. Watch for a video on facebook soon (hopefully). It was hysterical!!
Tomorrow being Memorial day, I'm guessing we'll spend most of it outdoors doing more yard projects. The weather looks promising for said activities, so I'll be rather surprised if anything else happens. Yay summer!
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Saturday, May 29, 2010
This is a happy blog post.
This weekend has been good. Spent Friday night at the mall with Anders, mostly perusing Barnes and Noble. It made me want to buy books and books and books and books and books. Especially that whole shelf stocked with classics by Dickens, Austen, Poe, Kipling, Dickenson, Twain and more. Ahhh!
Speaking of reading, I'm currently one chapter through Ann Graham Lotz's best seller, The Magnificent Obsession. It was given to me a couple weeks ago by my mentor Bob. It's had some good things to say, so far. It pulls from Abraham's example of faith. The one thing that kinda bugs me though is that when she goes into "I wonder what his peers were thinking at this point in time?" mode, she makes them all think distinctly modern-day, western-style thoughts, which then distract me and make me say to myself "actually, I'm almost positive that's nothing like what they actually thought." Oh well. Like I said, I'm only one chapter in.
Post-mall hanging, I went back to Anders house and was pleasantly surprised to discover Austin was home for the weekend, so I got to see him. The three of us, plus Scott, James and True David all played this (admittedly nerdy) roll-playing game called "We're All Gonna Die!" (click link to see rules). I was pretty skeptical that I'd enjoy myself heading into it, since RPG's of any sort are definitely not my usual cup of tea, but it was actually pretty fun. Mostly because Anders and True David are hilarious.
Today I slept in until about 10:30, an event which has occurred with a fair amount of regularity since school got out. I am most pleased about this. For the most part, today was fairly lethargic, physically, mentally, etc. I read a bit and then plaid some super slacker tennis with Johanna and Cassia. After they left to go wherever they went, I chilled in my room and watched this video lecture about the fashion industry and its relationship with Intellectual Property. Interesting stuff.
Then I headed to a friend's grad party, where I chilled for a couple hours and enjoyed the food and conversation. It was a PSEO student from Crossroads, so I got to see a lot of my college friends there, including Levi and Jerod, which was awesome.
Picking up Matt and heading for church followed the grad party. Steer gave a great sermon on the joy of prayer. Prayer is one of those topics which has come up in several different places in my life recently. It's definitely prompted me to take a closer look at my prayer life and re-examine the frequency, duration, variety and nature of my prayers.
One of the highlights of the service was definitely the SEPTUPLE BABY DEDICATION! Six parents had seven children dedicated to the Lord during the service. I love baby dedications, it's so cool to see parents taking such a public step and saying "Hey, we love our kid, and we care about his/her upbringing, and we want to show the world that we are going to strive to be intentional about how we raise our child." Love it, love it, love it. Plus the baby pictures they show on the screen are always adorable. :-)
Post-church, Matt and I drove over to Crossroads and walked from there, all the way around the southern portion of the Zumbro trail, from school out to Mayowood Road down by the closed bridge. We then walked along the road back to school. Total trip covered probably 5 miles at least. We had a great conversation covering life, relationships, politics, false religion and true religion that didn't stop until I dropped him off at his house a bit before 11pm. It was a great night!
I just checked my calendar a bit ago, and saw that I have absolutely NOTHING on it for tomorrow OR Monday. Sweet. Feeling some reading coming on, and possibly an attempt at finishing my mammoth goal of organizing the family library. Weee shall seee.
Speaking of reading, I'm currently one chapter through Ann Graham Lotz's best seller, The Magnificent Obsession. It was given to me a couple weeks ago by my mentor Bob. It's had some good things to say, so far. It pulls from Abraham's example of faith. The one thing that kinda bugs me though is that when she goes into "I wonder what his peers were thinking at this point in time?" mode, she makes them all think distinctly modern-day, western-style thoughts, which then distract me and make me say to myself "actually, I'm almost positive that's nothing like what they actually thought." Oh well. Like I said, I'm only one chapter in.
Post-mall hanging, I went back to Anders house and was pleasantly surprised to discover Austin was home for the weekend, so I got to see him. The three of us, plus Scott, James and True David all played this (admittedly nerdy) roll-playing game called "We're All Gonna Die!" (click link to see rules). I was pretty skeptical that I'd enjoy myself heading into it, since RPG's of any sort are definitely not my usual cup of tea, but it was actually pretty fun. Mostly because Anders and True David are hilarious.
Today I slept in until about 10:30, an event which has occurred with a fair amount of regularity since school got out. I am most pleased about this. For the most part, today was fairly lethargic, physically, mentally, etc. I read a bit and then plaid some super slacker tennis with Johanna and Cassia. After they left to go wherever they went, I chilled in my room and watched this video lecture about the fashion industry and its relationship with Intellectual Property. Interesting stuff.
Then I headed to a friend's grad party, where I chilled for a couple hours and enjoyed the food and conversation. It was a PSEO student from Crossroads, so I got to see a lot of my college friends there, including Levi and Jerod, which was awesome.
Picking up Matt and heading for church followed the grad party. Steer gave a great sermon on the joy of prayer. Prayer is one of those topics which has come up in several different places in my life recently. It's definitely prompted me to take a closer look at my prayer life and re-examine the frequency, duration, variety and nature of my prayers.
One of the highlights of the service was definitely the SEPTUPLE BABY DEDICATION! Six parents had seven children dedicated to the Lord during the service. I love baby dedications, it's so cool to see parents taking such a public step and saying "Hey, we love our kid, and we care about his/her upbringing, and we want to show the world that we are going to strive to be intentional about how we raise our child." Love it, love it, love it. Plus the baby pictures they show on the screen are always adorable. :-)
Post-church, Matt and I drove over to Crossroads and walked from there, all the way around the southern portion of the Zumbro trail, from school out to Mayowood Road down by the closed bridge. We then walked along the road back to school. Total trip covered probably 5 miles at least. We had a great conversation covering life, relationships, politics, false religion and true religion that didn't stop until I dropped him off at his house a bit before 11pm. It was a great night!
I just checked my calendar a bit ago, and saw that I have absolutely NOTHING on it for tomorrow OR Monday. Sweet. Feeling some reading coming on, and possibly an attempt at finishing my mammoth goal of organizing the family library. Weee shall seee.
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Work, gardening, life
Still feeling the high of passing the test. Or it could be the sugar buzz from these amazing brownies Julia made tonight. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
Yesterday was good. Didn't do too much of any real lasting consequence, but did make a fun video with my sisters. If you haven't seen it, it's on facebook.
Today was good. Utterly beautiful weather!! Slept in, and then finished reading Fireseeds of Spiritual Awakening, by author Dan Hayes. The 2010-2011 R.A. team has been assigned to read it over the summer. It's a quick read, 150 pages. Good book, got me thinking about a few things for the school year, and for me personally.
Went in to work for my internship at the RDA this afternoon, and had a reasonably productive afternoon there. My supervisor is an incredibly dedicated and hard worker. She spent the first part of this week in Chicago, and because of a flight delay, came directly from the airport to work. Her suitcase was in her office when I walked in. Yeahwow.
This evening was great. Got home from work around 4:30, and had a great cup of Tazo tea, orange flavor. Sat alone with my thoughts outside my room on my little secluded porch and just took it all in. Lovely.
After that Julia and I went for a bike ride for probably an hour or so, covering quite a bit of ground. When we got back it was just about time for supper (stir fry, yum). After supper I did some reading from my Mark Twain collection that I bought in Omaha on choir tour, and then helped plant cucumbers in the family garden.
I clearly see the incredible value, both monetary and otherwise, of home gardens; heck $2.39 bought us enough cucumber seeds to give us a crop that will easily last the entire year. But even with helping in our garden every year, I've never derived that much enjoyment from the activities involved in gardening. I delight in dining on fresh fruits and veggies, but haven't ever really willingly tread the path from the house up to the garden to put in the work that ends in said results. I wonder if it's because of the size of our garden. It's, I believe, close to an acre in size, so no small little thing. Perhaps something smaller might be more enticing, knowing that I don't have to spend hours upon hours in the dirt. But I remember when we had a smaller one at the bus garage growing up, and I don't recall being particularly enthused about working in that either. Hm. I've never really had an interest in actively participating in agriculture/planting/gardening, I guess. I help when asked, but don't foresee having one for myself.
On the docket for tomorrow: Reuniting with a good friend from my scout troop, Anders. Should be fun. :)
Yesterday was good. Didn't do too much of any real lasting consequence, but did make a fun video with my sisters. If you haven't seen it, it's on facebook.
Today was good. Utterly beautiful weather!! Slept in, and then finished reading Fireseeds of Spiritual Awakening, by author Dan Hayes. The 2010-2011 R.A. team has been assigned to read it over the summer. It's a quick read, 150 pages. Good book, got me thinking about a few things for the school year, and for me personally.
Went in to work for my internship at the RDA this afternoon, and had a reasonably productive afternoon there. My supervisor is an incredibly dedicated and hard worker. She spent the first part of this week in Chicago, and because of a flight delay, came directly from the airport to work. Her suitcase was in her office when I walked in. Yeahwow.
This evening was great. Got home from work around 4:30, and had a great cup of Tazo tea, orange flavor. Sat alone with my thoughts outside my room on my little secluded porch and just took it all in. Lovely.
After that Julia and I went for a bike ride for probably an hour or so, covering quite a bit of ground. When we got back it was just about time for supper (stir fry, yum). After supper I did some reading from my Mark Twain collection that I bought in Omaha on choir tour, and then helped plant cucumbers in the family garden.
I clearly see the incredible value, both monetary and otherwise, of home gardens; heck $2.39 bought us enough cucumber seeds to give us a crop that will easily last the entire year. But even with helping in our garden every year, I've never derived that much enjoyment from the activities involved in gardening. I delight in dining on fresh fruits and veggies, but haven't ever really willingly tread the path from the house up to the garden to put in the work that ends in said results. I wonder if it's because of the size of our garden. It's, I believe, close to an acre in size, so no small little thing. Perhaps something smaller might be more enticing, knowing that I don't have to spend hours upon hours in the dirt. But I remember when we had a smaller one at the bus garage growing up, and I don't recall being particularly enthused about working in that either. Hm. I've never really had an interest in actively participating in agriculture/planting/gardening, I guess. I help when asked, but don't foresee having one for myself.
On the docket for tomorrow: Reuniting with a good friend from my scout troop, Anders. Should be fun. :)
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Today was HUGE
Third day in a row I've blogged. Hm. Cool.
Today I passed my DANTES test for Ethics in America. I received a score of 431 out of 500 (the scoring starts at 200, I'm still trying to figure out what percentage that is). This was the last big test I needed/wanted to pass to get credit for college. Yahoo!
Even more importantly, this was psychologically the last big barrier (at this point in time) that I needed to hurdle to graduate. I just completed a 22 credit semester this spring, and the most I'm schedule to take next year is 20. I know I can do well with in-class work, it was these big tests that I would get all worked up over. So with those out of the way now, I'm definitely feeling confident that all the planning last summer/early fall will truly come to fruition, resulting in a 4-year degree in 3 years. Which is a pretty great thought.
Other events of the day include some tennis with all 4 sisters, doing a couple hours of work for my internship with the Rochester Downtown Alliance, and enjoying the view directly outside my outdoor exit from my room, where I intend to do much more reading now that my test is out of the way:
I am SO blessed. SO blessed.
Today I passed my DANTES test for Ethics in America. I received a score of 431 out of 500 (the scoring starts at 200, I'm still trying to figure out what percentage that is). This was the last big test I needed/wanted to pass to get credit for college. Yahoo!
Even more importantly, this was psychologically the last big barrier (at this point in time) that I needed to hurdle to graduate. I just completed a 22 credit semester this spring, and the most I'm schedule to take next year is 20. I know I can do well with in-class work, it was these big tests that I would get all worked up over. So with those out of the way now, I'm definitely feeling confident that all the planning last summer/early fall will truly come to fruition, resulting in a 4-year degree in 3 years. Which is a pretty great thought.
Other events of the day include some tennis with all 4 sisters, doing a couple hours of work for my internship with the Rochester Downtown Alliance, and enjoying the view directly outside my outdoor exit from my room, where I intend to do much more reading now that my test is out of the way:
I am SO blessed. SO blessed.
Monday, May 24, 2010
Another day in the books.
Sleeping in until 10am.
Croquet with my sister Julia.
Planning my birthday party.
Studying for my DANTES test.
Cleaning off the side walkway for an outdoor reading nook.
Watching Johanna and Cassia play in the sprinkler.
Lunch at John Hardys with Andrew.
Driving with windows down, sunroof open, music up.
Volunteering at Christos Bookcenter.
Spending time with the Word of Life.
Wandering around the Plummer House gardens.
Another summer day in the books. Sweet.
Croquet with my sister Julia.
Planning my birthday party.
Studying for my DANTES test.
Cleaning off the side walkway for an outdoor reading nook.
Watching Johanna and Cassia play in the sprinkler.
Lunch at John Hardys with Andrew.
Driving with windows down, sunroof open, music up.
Volunteering at Christos Bookcenter.
Spending time with the Word of Life.
Wandering around the Plummer House gardens.
Another summer day in the books. Sweet.
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Things that have been rocking my world lately
Things that have been rocking my world lately:
-Jesus Christ
-Oswald Chamber's devotional, My Utmost for His Highest
-Ultimate Frisbee
-NOT working 40+ hours a week
-Audio books
-The band Jars of Clay
-Cold ice cream sundaes on hot muggy Sundays
-Deep conversations with people I haven't seen in months
-Climbing trees
-Living at home
-Jesus Christ
-Oswald Chamber's devotional, My Utmost for His Highest
-Ultimate Frisbee
-NOT working 40+ hours a week
-Audio books
-The band Jars of Clay
-Cold ice cream sundaes on hot muggy Sundays
-Deep conversations with people I haven't seen in months
-Climbing trees
-Living at home
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