Fall, upholstry, camping

It’s a rainy day in the neighborhood. I feel a nap coming on.


Monday I worked outside, doing this and staining the floors of the porch and deck.

I finally got this project done last week. Putting landscaping fabric down, mulch, bird netting over so the mulch doesn’t blow or wash away, then more mulch, lined with rocks.

Tuesday I had two cute boys here. Here’s Jack:


I’ve done some upholstery projects. I made the bench, my first piece of furniture. The pink chair is the yellow one I got in Mn. I did it one night when Steve was gone. It’s amazing what you can do with a staple gun and a glue gun.

The burgundy chairs on either side got an uplift and new cushion innards. Shannon got into reupholstering too.


Anne and Dan went camping with John and Erika last weekend near Rochester.









I figured out we'll be camping 19 of the 30 days in September with our family camping weekend Sept. 6 to 10 and our vacation to Missouri Sept. 15 to 28.

Here’s a composite of the three musketeers.

John and Erika are staying here this weekend to attend Trisha Van Ee’s wedding in Pella. Herm and Dawn are staying here too.

Rain, squirrels, pie

It’s a cloudy day in the neighborhood. We had a good weekend in St. Paul, although it rained non-stop from Saturday morning on. And absolutely poured on the way home Sunday afternoon. Then magically stopped south of Mason City, where it was sunny and 20 degrees warmer.

John and Steve got the first coat of mud on the nursery wall. We also got a pile of branches and stumps cleaned up in the alley.

I picked up a couple of bargains at Herbeger’s again. One was this $86 suit jacket for $2.99!

It goes nicely with the fabric I got last week.
We went to church with Lou and had coffee at their house afterwards.

Dylan showed us drawings from the weeklong fashion illustration class he took this summer. His drawings at age 12 look better than some in my graphic arts class 34 years ago.

Anne and Dan and family joined us at John and Erika’s for Sunday dinner.


Anne brought the dessert, two of these:

Here the Great White Hunter in an early morning outing attempts to thin out the population of squirrels living in the huge walnut tree which canopies most of their back yard and from which rains a steady deluge of walnut 'droppings' which turn all things black.






The happy hunter and the...


...deceased.

This from Anne:
I made grape nuts from scratch today. When I told Ellie what I was making, she had a puzzled look on her face and said, “What do you mean you are making them from scratch?” I told her I was going to make our own grape nuts (she has been begging me for them recently). Her reply, “What are you going to make them out of? Wood?”

This from Laurie:
A few months ago, Shannon received a Mr. Potato Head set that includes a potato, an ear of corn, and a carrot. His favorite thing to do with them is get them dressed and make them talk to each other. One of the hats looks like the top of a carrot, and Shannon calls it a "tree." This morning, Shannon starts asking for the tree to put on Mr. Corn, and I point out that Mr. Potato Head is already wearing it. So, Shannon has Mr. Corn nicely asking Mr. Potato Head for a turn with the tree. Once Mr. Corn is wearing the tree, Mr. Corn very politely says thank you.

Another funny thing Shannon does is say excuse me ("ee me") for everyone. So, if Jack burps, Shannon will say, "ee me, Jack." If Sean burps, Shannon will say, "ee me, Papa." He even uses "ee me" if he is attempting to give someone an object.

A cool roll cloud from last week.

Fog, mummify, 'nack

It’s a foggy day in the neighborhood. We’re headed to John and Erika’s at 2 this afternoon to continue work on the nursery. I think the forecast is for cooler weather- rainy and cold, actually in Mn. Anne and Dan and the kids are joining us for Sunday dinner.

Here are a few pics from Ellie and Kara's first few weeks of home school. In art last week they made fat statues out of clay and skinny statues out of pipe cleaners.


Here they were filling our chicken that we are mummifying with the salt mixture.


I guess Natalie is homeschooling too.


A sunrise this week.


Watching Jack and Shannon is going well; I have enough energy. Here Shannon helps himself to a "'nack".


This is what I'm working on now- making them into juice.


I started our Christmas letter this week. Last year I put it out in July, so I'm late!

I spent a couple of hours at JoAnn Fabrics the other day and came home with some really nice pieces for skirts at $1 and $2/yard. It's been 15 years since I've sewn for myself.


Well, that's all for now.

Tree, bridge and patch

It's a wet day in the neighborhood. We’ve gotten several inches of rain in the last couple of days.
Our weekend in St. Paul was great. John and Steve worked on the nursery Saturday morning installing some outlets and sheetrock.

In the afternoon the four of them went to a Twins game; I was pooped from my morning project of putting together a sitting area on the front porch. That night we went out for Chinese to celebrate both of our anniversaries, (Us-33, they- 4) and Ezra’s 2nd birthday.

Sunday afternoon was Ezra’s birthday party. John and Erika’s small group came.

Steve and I stopped by the bridge site Sunday but weren’t able to get close to see much. The whole area was taped off on both sides of the river.

From Laurie

I'm not sure how many of you have ever noticed the very large maple across the street--the one with three full size trunks. We've always wondered what would happen if it fell down. One of the trunks appears angled nicely to take out most of our dining room. And, Sean often has me move the van out of the east driveway if there is going to be a big storm.

Well, last night we found out just how much damage that tree would do to our house. And, it would not hit our house--just lay at our doorstep:

It would also not crush whatever vehicle was parked in the driveway--just merely brush it:

Pretty incredible, really. Given what it could have been, it really isn't that bad. We're disappointed because it took out our Japanese maple and two of our crab trees. The Japanese maple had about 5 years of good growth and the crab trees had about three. And, I'm sure our lawn will be torn up pretty good. But, hours earlier, Jack was sitting in his car seat in the path of the tree while I got Shannon's car seat out of the Bronco. And, Shannon was running around the front lawn. Or, if had happened around lunchtime, the large trunk would pretty much have destroyed Dad's van, which he often sits in for awhile finishing a phone conversation before coming in for lunch.

Another ironic part of the story is that as we were leaving last night, I thought to myself, "I can just see that tree coming down, and thinking how glad I am that we are not home tonight." Of course, I was imagining it taking out the part of the dining room I'm sitting in right now (and the front porch).

On a positive note, it is already letting more morning sun into my living room. :)

In the end, all I can say is that God is truly good--and a little bit funny. (although, Sean isn't laughing yet.)

Update: We didn't have to pay to have the tree removed!! The city just finished cleaning it up. They were out there with rakes and brooms. Awesome!! And, it looks like both crab trees might survive. The tree pushed one of them over a little, but we can right it. And the other one is standing straight up, just missing about 95% of the branches. The Japanese maple might also be spared. When we first moved in, all but about 10 inches of the tree had been ripped off--but it still grew. Now, two of the three large branches have been torn away, but one of them is still there. So, it might also be saved!!

The tree DROVE the ‘No Parking’ sign on the boulevard all the way INTO the ground. The only thing sticking out was about three inches of gnarled metal. I watched them pull it out of the ground with the great big jaw thing. All the guys were saying, "Wow, I've never seen anything like that! Not in all my years of doing this. That is amazing." I also saw the inside of the tree, which was pretty hollow, so it was only a matter of time.

Here’s an update on the patch
I'm doing a whole patch now and no longer need any anti-nausea meds. Below are the possible side effects listed from the drug package.

My side effect seems to be a compulsion to rearrange stuff, which would fit under the compulsive behavior category. (Steve's been hoping for one of the other side effects. And it's not gambling.)

I rearranged John and Erika’s spare room (to their partial chagrin- but what are ya gonna do with an out-of-control mother/in-law?). We're going back in two weeks so maybe I'll be restricted to....shooting squirrels with the BB gun. John wouldn't mind that since they make a huge mess from eating walnuts.

And then we picked up this chair from Craig’slist.com in Minneapolis.

The price was right, but not the color. I have some fabric here that would be perfect. So I commenced taking the thing apart after going online to read that it isn't that difficult. You just put it back together in the order that you take it apart. Then I took off the back, step 2

Uh-oh.

It seems this will be a much bigger job than I imagined.

Reupholstering a channel back chair is probably taught at the 501 level. But I like the challenge of figuring it out. I’m taking pictures as I go and making notes so I MAY be able to put it back together some day.

In other news, I had Jack and Shannon here yesterday (Tues.)on Laurie's first day back to work. All went well. Jack even took the bottle without a fuss. They'll be back tomorrow (Thursday).

]

Steve's in Omaha trying to golf between rain showers.

Historic Day

Well, it’s an historic day in the neighborhood. This day in the year of our Lord 1974, Steven Wayne Hoogeveen and Connie Louise Kelderman said “I do.”

We’ll celebrate by reading a couple love letters tonight. And maybe we’ll have to try out our latest camping purchase, an air conditioner. I believe we now have ALL the conveniences except for maybe a Jacuzzi. Hmmmm.

Celebration is also in order since the patch has brought a minor miracle into my life. (I fully recognize that ‘minor miracle’ is an oxymoron.)

Neupro, which addresses tremor and muscle rigidity, has really done the later for me. When jogging, I feel like I’ve gone back in time to when jogging was more effortless. Movement, in general, is easier, less effortful. Range of motion is increased as well. So I’m hoping that now I can strengthen those atrophied muscles so that I can go back in time when my typing didn’t look like this due to a very weak left hand as illustrated by this not-yet-corrected version of the first paragraph:

well, itttt’s ans histoerid dday in the neigehborehood. This dsay in the year oef our lord 1974, stven wanae hoogeveen nd connie lousie keledsssmrean said “I do.”

My tremor seems about the same. I no longer need to take the anti-nausea med with the patch. I started Azilect a year ago – it slows the progression of pd.

On my second day on the patch my right foot apparently didn’t feel lighter. At least that’s not what the officer thought when he handed me a speeding ticket for $76. I guess feeling lighter has a downside.

Laurie and two of the Boys

Darin funny: Anne and the kids were in a kitchen store looking around. Darin exclaims, “Look mommy, a spankin’ spoon!” !” At a garage sale Ellie, the homeschooler, took note of the impressionist prints there.

Cassie came home yesterday.

We had a little party at Ann’s.

We did 23 pint of our own sweet corn Sat.

Friday we head to John and Erika’s. Steve has a meeting in Minneapolis Monday.

We are mindful of those affected by the collapse of the I-35 bridge yesterday.