Scattered Thoughts . . .

I was relocating some stuff that was behind a door in the train room so I can build and install some shelves on that wall.  One of these items was a panoramic photo print of Lake Champlain looking toward the Adirondack Mountains so I hung that on the wall next to the desk.  There was a Christmas sign that we put outside in winter that I moved to our storage closet (even though it will need to go outside soon).  And, there was a chalkboard that I had written our rules for the lake house.  I'm the one who wrote these rules on the chalkboard and I drew an image of the lake house on it too.  It came out fairly well although I wish the lettering was a bit more legible.  I actually like this idea and I even still think the rules are quite appropriate so I don't want to lose this chalkboard.  Actually, I should make another board with more permanent lettering for our backyard too!   Hmmm...  maybe even a smaller one for inside our home too. We haven't used this chalkboard with th

A s usual for this summer, it rained part of the day yesterday and was dark and dreary for much of the afternoon.  For brief periods, however, the sky did clear up nicely.  I was keeping a close eye on the weather and the sky yesterday because I was hoping that the night would be clear so I could get outside to watch and image the Perseid Meteor Shower.   August 11th and 12th were supposed to be the peak of the meteor shower but it rained quite a bit on those days.  We've seen very little night sky this summer and the 11th and 12th were no different.  I got a little lucky last night, however, so I was able to get some shots between fast moving clouds. Once we got dinner out of the way...  we had some delicious pork street tacos which consisted of a liberally seasoned pork loin that was slow-cooked on the grill until it was mouth-wateringly tender and then glazed with a homemade sweet and salty sauce, sauteed onions, and chopped grilled pineapple with a homemade spicy Mexican white

A ce just recently had his second birthday and Gee and Papa gave him a new bike for his birthday. We spent the whole day with Ace and Liza over the weekend.  All of us also spent the afternoon with the rest of the family at a local park.  Before we went to the park to meet with everyone else, we had some breakfast and then went for a walk while Ace rode along on his new bike.  He was pretty excited to be scooting around on his bike. Ace and I went out to the road while Gee finished up the breakfast dishes so I got a few photos of him before the four of us started on our trek around the park... When Gee and Liza were finally with us and ready to go, Ace seemed more interested in picking up small flowers and rocks.  He must have had a few of each in his pockets by the time we started on our walk around the park.  Liza must constantly find rocks in her washing machine! Ace has been watching Lukey pop wheelies on his bike and so this was Ace's version of popping wheelies... He only mad

We had Kenzie overnight again late last week.  She came to visit so we could do some back-to-school shopping with her.  Lukey was out-of-town with a friend so Kenzie visited us alone. After some penne and meatballs for dinner, we watched "Bride Wars"...   The next morning we headed toward Williston and Burlington.  By the look on her face and her hand gesture, I think Kenzie is saying, " What are you talking about?" Kenzie likes Old Navy so that was our first stop...  Kenzie seemed to have a jumble of different faces throughout the day... And, another face... And, another face... A quick visit to Ulta to pick up a few things (not for me!) for Kenzie... And, a stop at Barnes and Noble for some books... We had a good time with Kenzie, as always.  I just noticed the socks with sandals in the above photo...  like a lunatic who just escaped from a cell somewhere...   It was fun having Kenzie around for a couple of days and we look forward to the next visit with one or

O ur flower gardens took a big hit with all the rain we've had and the lack of sunshine didn't help at all but, surprisingly, I've been able to keep most of the flowers alive.   I found that all the rain was flushing all the nutrients out of the soil in the gardens, window boxes, planters and flower pots.  Once I noticed that our flowers were wilting and dying, I realized that all the rain was probably flushing out all the nutrients from the soil so I started fertilizing the flowers daily rather than weekly.  Once the flowers started to look a bit more healthy, I cut back on fertilizer but I'm still doing it far more frequently than usual.  Of course, we're still getting more rain than usual too.   As I said, the lack of sun has been a problem too and, unfortunately, there isn't anything we can do about that.  I suppose we can just make sure the flowers are getting everything else they need.   The other thing I didn't think about is that our flower pots, win