Day 167

We’ve been seeing a lot of this lately…

which means lots of rained out baseball games.  I think LilCrockett has had more cancelled games this year than he’s played.

Day 166

I finally broke down and went to the doctor today.  I’d been feeling very worn down and was having some symptoms like tightness in my chest and being out of breath with even light activity.  I figured it was just a virus, but thought I’d better get it checked out anyway.  I figured they’d tell me to just go home and give it more time.  Well I was wrong.  The doctor heard about my symptoms and decided to do a chest x-ray and an EKG just to make sure there wasn’t something more serious going on.  Again, I figured it was just a waste of time and tests.  Fortunately the EKG was fine so my heart was OK; however, the chest x-ray showed some mild pneumonia, particularly in my lower, right lung.  I was a little shocked.  On one hand I was glad that there really was something wrong (that I’m not really a hypochondriac); but on the other hand, I did not want to get this kind of diagnosis.  Seems a little odd to have pneumonia at my age, especially when it’s summer.  Anyway, he prescribed 2 antibiotics, told me to get some rest and come back in 2 weeks, and sent me home.  I must say that having an actual diagnosis is probably a good thing because I’ve taken my recovery a little more serious…it will force me to get lots of rest and take care of my body rather than just trying to will my body to be better.

Here are some more flowers from my yard.  This one I do know.  It’s a Clematis that I got as a start from my late grandfather’s plant.  Besides the fact that the flowers are beautiful, I love that it’s a living reminder of him.  My grandpa told me that Clematis plants can take several years to really take off, and this one was no different.  In fact, it actually had a rougher start than normal.  We originally planted it out by our shed and unfortunately, the neighbor’s lawn service mowed it down several times thinking it was a weed.  We moved it to a safer location and finally a few years later, we have this big beauty.  I know grandpa would love it too.

Day 165

Crockett left on Monday for Chicago, where he’s working the rest of the week.  As a result, I am a temporary single parent and handling everything myself.  On top of that, I haven’t been feeling the best.  So I haven’t been taking any photos.  These are more flower photos taken earlier in the week.  And again, another mystery plant, but I love it.

Day 164

Here is another flowering that is blooming in my front flower bed.  Unfortunately it’s another mystery plant as I don’t know what it’s called.

Day 163

My front flower bed is in desperate need of some work and since the afternoon temps were great, I decided that there likely wouldn’t be a better time to get started.  Besides wanting to replace the mulch with rock, I find this bed to be overgrown and filled with weeds and unwanted plants.  It’s getting to be somewhat wild-looking.  We dug up a lot of the bulbs from plants that had already flowered this season, took out some persistent prairie grass, and removed a lot of weeds.  There were quite a few flowers still blooming, so we left those for now.  Eventually, everything will get taken out and I will redo the entire bed.

I was hard at work removing some weeks and prairie grass, when I looked up and saw a bumble bee about a foot away nectaring on some flower heads.  I was a bit startled, but found it pretty cool that he was so unconcerned about me.  Slowly I backed away and ran in to get my camera.  Over the next few minutes, I took tons of pictures of him getting closer and closer.  He was so busy feeding that he didn’t even seem to notice me.  Here are a few of my favorite shots.  Wishing I had a macro lens now though!

Day 162

The neighbors and some other friends are camping at a local campground this weekend, so we went to visit them for the day.  It’s nice because the kids get a taste of camping without all the work that’s associated with it (packing, set-up, take-down, etc.).  We spend a lot of time sitting around the campsite visiting and eating (seems like we snack the whole time), but there were some other activities as well.

Hanging out…note how our neighbor Ambo is dressed in long sleeves and pants despite it being a nice warm day.  She and her sister hate cicadas and can’t stand them landing on her bare skin, so they cover up.  Unfortunately the cicadas were thick in the trees at this campground  and we spent quite a bit of time dodging them.  Our friend’s dog would root through the grass so she could eat them.  Yuck!

We brought LilCrockett’s ball and glove so that he could practice catching.  After some time spent playing ball with Crockett, he was doing really well….catching nearly every ball.  I think maybe he’s getting the hang of it.  Here he is throwing the ball back to his dad. 

We brought our slip-and-slide to the campground as well and the kids had a blast.  We found a portion of the commons area with a little hill and it made the slide that much more fun.

At one point, a clover stuck to the side of LilCrockett’s face.  He played for quite a bit longer and it stayed put, so I had to get a picture.

The kids were having so much fun that a few of the adults had to get in on the action.  Here’s our neighbor Joe trying to slide down while standing as my kids cheered him on.  He made it too!

Joe with his daughter Lupa after they did a run down the slide together.

Thought Crockett had tried the slip-and-slide earlier in the day, my neighbor Mary guilted him into going again while Joe was trying it.  He tried the upright slide too and made it almost as far as Joe.

And probably one of my favorite pictures of the day…our neighbors Ambo and Lupa.  Look at that sisterly love!

Day 161

Now that summer is here, we have started a carpool with a friend so that we don’t each have to make 2 trips out to the school for drop-off and pick-up at summer care.  For the past few mornings, the kids have been working on plastic bead designs.  The kids place plastic beads together in a pattern on a shaped base and then I use the iron to weld them together into a single piece.  They were hard at work and being so good that I had to take a photo.  These aren’t the best photos but they do document part of our morning.  Now I just need to get some photos of the finished pieces.