Summer Weekend Warriors 8/24: Beating the Heat

After all of the garage sale luck last weekend, Lucy and I got the bug. We decided to have one of our own! I had been thinking about this for awhile and decided to bite the bullet and just do it. When I told Husband what I was thinking, he was all for it. Our spare bedroom has long been absorbed in boxes and bins of baby equipment, toys, and little girl clothes that this family is not going to be needing anymore. It was time for it to go.

Mind you, this was my official admission that our family is just fine the way it is. I have known this for awhile, but it has been hard letting go of those little girl things, that symbolize my little girl is growing up and there will be no more babies in the house. Over the past couple of years I have slowly been giving away or selling baby items to friends, but this was the proverbial final nail in the coffin.

I was motivated, and I got all of those little girl clothes tagged. They were already pretty sorted by size, so that helped...but holy cow, was there a lot of stuff in that room! I knew Lucy had a lot of clothes, but didn't realize it was that much. Wow. Also all those baby toys that have been packed away for awhile...it was a lot of work! But we got it all out to the garage and after Lucy's dentist appointment early Saturday morning, we opened for business.

It went well, and I had a great little helper and saleslady. :) There was only one instance of wanting to keep something of hers that was up for sale, which happened to be a large pink stuffed Pegasus given to her by her cousin H. I couldn't complain. It was a hot day, and she was outside with me for most of it. When we didn't have customers she played with her stuffed animals and created artwork like this:

We got rid of a lot of clothes at the sale, but it was still only about half of it. A friend of Husband's came over later in the evening and collected much of the rest, which was fantastic. She brought over her 4-month-old daughter, who I got to hold while her mom shopped. She also brought over her bulldog Tater Tot, and he and Buddy completely wore each other out wrestling and chasing.

This morning, I went through what was left and pulled out a few items for other little girls I know (so look out, some of you have some things coming!), and bagged the rest for Goodwill. We dropped off a car full, including some household and other items we had leftover, and then went to Target to buy Lucy a new booster seat, since we sold both of her convertible carseats at the sale. It felt so good to purge a lot of this stuff, and gain some storage space back! Not to mention, Mom and Dad, you won't be surrounded by diaper boxes and plastic bins when you stay over next time!

Today was so stinking hot and humid with a heat advisory, so after our errands we didn't do much but watch movies in the air conditioning. This evening, however, we did get outside for a little bit to let Lucy run in the sprinkler. Tell me these images don't say "SUMMER!"

Summer Weekend Warriors – 6/22 CLEAN UP!

Well, this weekend started out with a bang…literally. Friday night we had an intense storm pass through just before 8PM. It was raining heavily and the wind was insane; in excess of 60mph. We lost several large tree limbs, one of which hit the roof of the house and rolled off into the front yard. Another hit the deck. The carnage was a little overwhelming, but nothing compared to others who lost whole trees, had extensive damage to their homes, experienced flooded basements, and/or were without power. We were in a very fortunate little pocket of maintaining electricity, while most of the neighborhood and a good chunk of the Minneapolis area were without for quite some time.

So, Saturday was full of cleaning up our yard and our neighbor's, who we always make a point to help out. We had great assistance from family and friends, and it took six adults six hours and sixteen trailer loads full of wood and brush to get everything cleaned up, with one patient teenager keeping Lucy occupied so we could all work! There is probably still one trailer full of miscellaneous little stuff in our yard, because we just lost steam and didn’t do a final rake. By mid-afternoon we were beyond done and exhausted. It did feel good to put in a hard day’s work, and even better that neighbors and friends came together to help each other out.

All I’ll say about Sunday is warriors one day, couch potatoes the next! We were all still pretty worn out. 

First Fire of the Season...

Snow...Finally!

The last time we actually had enough snow to sled across the yard was back in mid- January...and that was barely enough. We just really wanted to get out there! Lucy had a ball (aside from ending the excursion with a face plant in the snow) and we've been patiently waiting for another chance to get out there.

This week finally brought some decent snow to our corner of the Great North. Lucy and Husband have been outside after work/school nearly every day and today I finally got to share in the fun, too.  Luckily it was nice, wet snowman-making snow. The first day they made three tiny snowmen and a snow bunny, but those melted a bit then got covered with more snow (yay!) The second round they made a big snowman, and on my turn we made another little snow bunny and a "fort." Such fun! Temps of 50 degrees predicted for next week, so we're getting in the snow time while we can.

On a side note, Buddy is not a fan of our snow creatures. He sat in the window and growled at the first trio of snowment, and promptly "christened" the snow bunny on a trip outside. :)

Oh, the Weather Outside is Frightful

Well here it is again! Tuesday snow + weekend snow = beautiful mess! I say beautiful because it is rather pretty, particularly when viewed from indoors, with the modern convenience of HEAT. I say mess because a one-hour commute and one "snow emergency" parking ticket later, the snow can do terrible things to a person. Add that to the fact that the parking ticket was on Husband's vehicle, and he's not even here (he's in Las Vegas). It's completely my fault, I didn't move it soon enough. We have a wacky landlord who will not allow us to park in the driveway of our very charming duplex. This is because the main part of the driveway is filled with his two vehicles, which he cannot fit into the two-car garage conveniently situated to the rear of the property, adjacent to said driveway, because it is full of CRAP. So anyway, I didn't get home before the plows and Husband's vehicle got ticketed. At least it wasn't towed!

Aside from the commute and parking challenges, it seems the weather is causing other transportation issues - Husband's flight home is delayed. Right now it's only estimated at a half hour late, but it's still snowing here and it says visibility is zero at the airport. That can't make for a good landing.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Today we are getting our first "real" snow of the season. We've had a few flakes and some sleet before, but today it's coming down in big, fluffy flakes and sticking to the ground.

Hope you all have a wonderful day, and you are able to celebrate with those close to you. A big Thanksgiving hug to our family back in Iowa.

Ridin' the Storm Out

Wish I had my camera so you could all see the view out my office window...it's just shy of 6PM here and it's so dark outside it looks more like 8:30 or 9:00. There's a big ol' bank of clouds and some lightning and thunder, and the rain just started.

Volleyball game tonight? We'll see. It's scheduled in about an hour on the other side of town. Hopefully it's done raining by the time I have to walk to my car - no umbrella!

Update: Um, yeah. Tornado warning. Later taters (and no I'm not driving in it).