Putting up Corn

Yesterday was supposed to begin around 6am in the field picking sweet corn, but Michael finally decided to take me to Pirates, so we had to sleep in a bit. Then, since we had gone to Pirates, I had to stay home and bake my cakes while they went to pick the corn. Believe you me, I shed a few tears over that!! They got quite a load, and the kids hung in there shucking it and hauling out all the shucks. They put up 48 pints, plus sealing a few in the FoodSaver still on the cob. We don't know if this will work, but we saw it on the DVD that came with it, so we're going to give it a go. I had to go to work at the bakery before they were done, so I missed all the scrubbing, cutting and bagging. Then I got home and still had to decorate the cakes, but they were rather unimpressive, so I decided to post a picture of my impressive family instead. The kids kept coming in to see if they were on my blog yet, but I just didn't think it would be too nice to be in here blogging while they were in the 107 degree heat shucking corn.

I work with a young gal named Malarie at the bakery. She graduated a year ago and is trying to figure out where to go and what to do. Her friends aren't all that impressive, but they are a definite step up from her high school friends. She has a lot of talent decorating cakes but wants something more. She's always talked about opening a bakery, and I'd love to do that with her, but I've been young before and know not to really hang your hat on the dreams you're not going to aggressively pursue. Anyway, we both know she needs to move on from the bakery and that is upsetting to me. She's the best part about working there. But yesterday she started talking about Cosmetology school. I'm really hoping she'll do that. She's not afraid to live in a big city, but she will be taking a girlfriend with her, so that will be even better. Just knowing how talented she is with cakes makes me very excited to see what she can do with hair. But still, I hope she stays for a while!

Emily

This is Emily. When the kids and I started working on getting the basement cleaned up, we heard a leopard frog somewhere in the walls. We thought it was pretty strange, but didn't meet her until a couple weeks later. She's been a good friend and work partner. We'll usually find her on a wall and get her back in the sump pump well before she gets lost or squished. As we've been painting and spraying for bugs down there, Matthew finally asked if the smell would hurt Emily or if the poison bugs were bad to eat. Well, that was something I hadn't yet worried about. Yesterday morning, though, I found a dry, sticky, yellow mass that looked familiar. It was Emily. Her foot even looked like it had been caught in the sump pump. I started toward the trash can, but had to give her one more look. I flipped her over and was pretty sure I saw something move, like a heart or a breath. I dropped her on a bucket lid and put a few drops of water on her, and throughout the morning, she started coming back. So I kept giving her a few more drops of water until I could even put her in a bucket. On the way home, she was even trying to climb out of the bucket! I couldn't wait to tell the kids!! We've got her in the "hospital" for now, and we're going to go flush out the well this morning and see if we can't get her home back in shape. We are very excited to have Emily live with us and hope she likes the new house. The boys wanted to put her in a cage, but I'm figuring, she's living there now, why cage her? We're almost done waterproofing the basement, so she should soon have some peace and quiet down there. Well, until we move in!!

The Blue House

What we've always called the Blue House is once again turning blue!! Randy's been getting some of the new siding on up to the window height. Windows were supposed to be in a couple weeks ago... maybe today...

Mallory and I have been waterproofing the basement. We're using the same thing that's used on swimming pools, but it was no match for yesterday. We got quite a bit done yesterday before noon, but I checked last night and a lot of it was just plain sweating off the wall. Have no idea what to do about that. This whole project is beyond me. I'm not sure these walls ever dry during the summer. But anyway, it will all look better than before, and some of it will look really nice. I let the boys help paint the other day, but Morgan was getting stuck with the low stuff and soon got sick of it and left. Then he started bombing us with dirtballs through all the holes in the floor to show his disapproval. When I got back from taking care of that, I found the other two had painted the new toilet. What joy! Matthew said he thought it needed waterproofing. Now they wonder why they're not painting anymore. I told Michael that his boys were ruining my daughter. Grandma even caught them all skinny-dipping in the pool early this week. Matthew was very clear that it was his idea and that Mallory shouldn't get in trouble. Mallory is so smart when he's not around!! Morgan just got straight into his jammies. He was pretty sure that just going to bed was going to be his best option. Needless to say, they haven't been in the pool lately!!

I got all the locks, a couple doors and paint for the doors yesterday. Well, I'm sending Scott after the doors, but I dropped the $700 on them!! We quit at noon and I went shopping. As I was coming out of Home Depot I heard that it was 102 degrees. It doesn't seem much better at the moment. I think the humidity is right up there and the temperature is bound to follow. I'd best get moving before it gets too much worse!!

Coming along!

It really looks as though I may have a home soon. Homelessness can get quite depressing, but the progress on the blue house is raising my spirits a bit. It seems like someone is always waiting for someone else to finish something before he can get to this or that, but I guess that's all part of it. Michael's trying to hold me together and have some patience, but it's hard. Last week got pretty hot and this week sounds like the same, so we may not get much done except in the mornings. We're missing VBS this week and the kids ganged up on Daddy making Mommy look like a monster, but if I don't have the mornings to work on the house, I'm not sure anything will happen this week. The kids understood a while ago that we would be missing a lot of things this summer like VBS and swimming lessons, but I did get them to 5 Day Club. I'm also missing scrapbooking all summer. Can't even remember the last time I got to work on that. I'm doing a couple tins for my mothers-in-law and would like to get the second one finished and get those in the mail, but it's just a big juggling act to get this all done and get work done on the house. There's very little I can do anymore, but Randy keeps finding something to keep me busy. It makes me feel better. With all the rain last week, the basement is even too wet to paint. I left some fans on, so maybe Mallory and I can get some painting done today. It's not too bad working in the basement. We really had a great time with our cousins at a birthday party yesterday, so it's nice knowing that I haven't completely ruined their lives and abolished fun. Anyway, have to get ready for another day. Need to see what this week's plans are and where they include me. Have to make sure we get the arch and island figured so the electrician will come this weekend. He also wanted the closet figured, but I think that's far enough for what he needed to see. The siding is in and it's really pretty. The cabinets come this week, so the garage is really going to be full!! Hoping to get the siding and windows up this week. A few doors would be nice, too!! Ok, time to get the troops moving!!