It really is! The last month has been a hodgepodge of just real life living.

I traveled twice for work, taking the kids with me for one trip. Shout out to my Dad and Mum for giving them an amazing week in Orlando while I worked. I did get the fun of that first Disney experience over the weekend before we headed back. The only “thing” missing was CAT, who stayed behind due to work commitments.

The forced smile from Grasshopper pretty much defines the trip of “Hey, smile so I can take your picture. Try again. No really… Take 3. Smile dude! Fine, good enough.” And Cricket’s look by the third or fourth attempt at each shot. Overall it was a lot of fun though.

Back at home base, our neighbor brought us gallons of cherries that the kids washed and pitted so I could freeze them for cobblers and ice cream later. After pitting them for hours across multiple days using the pinching method, they decided that we need a couple of cherry pitters in time for next year’s harvest. Next up: blackberries!

The temperamental weather has not done any good as far as the garden goes. We have a few things trying to produce, but most of my second round seeds didn’t make it after rotting from too much rain. That was after a 50% sprouting on the first round. I got a few sugar snap peas off the plants before they withered away.

Most of the herbs drowned, but I did have a good return on the mint and oregano from last year. I have been clipping and drying them both periodically.

The very edge of that picture is the ONE salad worth of lettuce that actually came up. The other 5 plants drowned, so no garden fresh lettuce this year. We’ve had a couple of strawberries and I am hoping for a few more this week, now that the bunnies quit stealing my plants. Yes, whole plants went missing.

Meanwhile, we have been able to get a few projects done around here. Well, mostly done. CAT brought a big storage cabinet home to help manage the stuff in the shop. We put some large casters on it and had quite the adventure getting out of the trailer. But it’s standing. Next up is cleaning and painting.

Especially the shelves.

My boys worked hard at getting some rock out on the driveway. It was getting rough in some spots and slippery in the rain in others.

This was my view, driving the truck as they shoveled the rock out of the trailer.

In the midst of projects, the dryer decided to stop working. So we did a quick internet search, and we were able to determine the issue. Thankfully, it was a pretty inexpensive and easy fix. So easy, in fact, that I took the dryer back apart, installed the new part, and put it back together by myself.

All that fuss for that little white conductor. But we can dry clothes now.

On our last trip to the city, we picked up a ballast for the light in my closet that had not been working well. CAT made that a priority (so good to me!) and got it repaired.

While he was at it, he fixed the light in the garage that was having the same issues.

While he worked on that, I started on the new garage door opener. It looked something like this all spread out over the garage floor. Tank is supervising. The opener is together and hanging. We just need to level the door out and hook it all up.

That pretty much sums up our time since the rain has stopped and we can actually get some things done around here. Oh, and cute kittens, just because. Here are Boots and Blinkin, trying successfully to be adorable.

Oh, CAT did buy me a new camera, so image quality might improve if I remember to grab it before projects… 🙂

~Mouse