RIP Season 2013

No words...only these images.

Grateful Friday

Today I give thanks for...

T. Bone’s homerun this week.  It was a sight to be seen and celebrated.

Ice Cream and custard and frozen yogurt and sometimes for lunch or dinner.

Our National Anthem.

T. Bone’s impromptu 12 ½ birthday celebration.  All that we needed was burgers and boys.  And balls...baseballs, footballs, basketballs, soccer balls, tennis balls, golf balls, goofballs...

Watching the fireworks from our yard as they went off all around us.

A mid-week getaway to the Wisconsin Dells for water park fun, family time and a scenic tour of the Wisconsin River.

Sharing the bbq platter at Buffalo Phil’s with Coach when I was all set to order a chicken sandwich.  When in Rome...it was the smart choice.

Road trips.  Even short ones.  There’s something so cozy about having my little family tucked in to our van destination bound.  And then equally warm and fuzzy to pack up and come back home.

Reflections.  Figurative and literal.

Lilies.  Mine and Mother Nature’s.

The kitchen has been closed for most of the week.

Lil spent the weekend with one set of grandparent and then the better part of the week with the other set at Camp Grandma.  She was a little homesick as the week wore on.  I’m not grateful that she’s rueful…just that she loves home enough to miss it.  We're both grateful for grandparents who spend lots of time with the kiddos.

Coach has been serious about his honey do list.

Super  fans.  Grandmas and Grandpas who come to cheer on their grandkids.  They all love it!

A movie night with T. Bone this week.  We ordered Identity Theft and laughed quite a lot even as we tuned out some of the expletives and fast forwarded a scene or two.

My camera arrived.  No more grainy phone pictures.  Amen!

Now

I came across this personal inventory on another blog recently.  Unfortunately I cannot locate the source.  I was doing a lot of catch up this week after being off the grid the week prior so I was all over the WWW.

Playing  Ruzzle.  I am not a gamer.  Except now I am.  In fact, just typing the word Ruzzle right now presented me with the overwhelming urge to get on my phone and play a few matches.  So I did.  Games are serious time sucks.

Drinking not enough water and too much caffeine.

Eating plenty of tomato sandwiches and salads, lots of leftovers and really anything that can be grabbed on the fly for we are spending more time at the ball park than in the kitchen.

Watching movies.  Edward Scissorhands this week, which was way creepier and far less funny than I remembered it.  Also Next Next Food Network Star and always some reality t.v. that shall remain unconfessed.  Also clouds in the sky and birds in the backyard.

Listening to Pandora.  James Taylor radio in the mornings and Jack Johnson or REM radio in the eves.  Also Sense and Sensibility when I walk.

Wearing summer shoes : Reefs and Birkenstocks make me a happy girl.  So do skirts and Perscriptive’s Caylx my go to summer scent.

Reading And the Mountains Echoed.  So poignant just like Hosseini’s earlier novels.  Also Barbara Kingsolver’s Flight Behavior, and I’ve so many more worthy reads in cue it makes me giddy.

Feeling rather hormonal truth be told.  I am blessed out one day and beat down the next.

Wanting the entire summer off and maybe fall and winter too.  I guess that is really the answer for dreaming.

Wishing time would just stop already and stand still.  After the 4^th, summer seems like a slippery slope.  I keep telling my glass is half empty self that we still have ¾ of vacation ahead of us and months of great weather, but it has yet to take hold.

Hoping I can figure out just how to use my new Nikon before Friday’s game since it is his last on these fields and maybe of the season.  Also hoping that tomorrow’s game is not his last.

Thinking that almost 9 and 12 ½ aren’t too shabby.  Miss Bit and T. Bone are busy enjoying a summer to remember.

Enjoying all things summer: plums, nectarine, green grapes and red cherries, an extra hour of sleep in the a.m., a 10 minute driveway to desk commute on workdays, boys in uniform, firecrackers and cloud creatures in the sky, vacations and staycations with my family, Instagram especially Project Life 365 and my mil’s recent snap of my girl loving on a hen named Henrietta, more daylight every day, iced tea and my new Bolle’s.

Loving life.

Bad Things.....

They happen in three they say.

1) I woke up at 8:57 this morning.  I was supposed to be at work by 9:00.  It was my first day back after a week off.  I probably should have been in at 7:00 to catch up, but didn't make it until 10:00.

2) At 8:58, I paused to look out the window while my coffee brewed, only to notice that a gust of wind upended our patio table overnight and glass shards were everywhere.

3) The Knights lost their first tournament team game tonight 3-5.

They also say there's always a silver lining.  I was very well rested thanks to 10 hours of sleep, Coach was home today to pick up all the pieces and order a new table top, and T. Bone hit a home run and was personally responsible for the 2 RBIs despite the loss.

On My Mind Monday

I know now that some people feel unhappiness the way others love: privately, intensely, and without recourse.

Khaled Hosseini

And The Mountains Echoed

Alphabet

Having a turn at this meme today.  It's light.  Seems about right for a summer Saturday.

A: Attached or single?  Attached and lucky.

B: Best friend?  Can count them on one hand. Beautiful blessings, real and true.

C: Cake or pie?  Cake.  Chocolate Cake or Grandma Rosie's Coconut Cake...Ina's now.  But I do like French Silk and Coconut Cream pie....go figure.

D: Day of choice? Tuesdays and Saturdays, but the only day I dread is Monday.

E: Essential item? My Keurig and real cream for my morning coffee.  Also my Aveda lipsticks, my library card and my lap top. Pandora.  My favorite knife...a serrated bread knife I blasphemously use for almost everything.

F: Favorite color?  Pink, but really all colors are beautiful.

G: Gummy bears of worms?  Neither thanks.  I'm a chocolate lover.

H: Hometown?  Milwaukee, WI

I: Favorite indulgence? Wine.

J: January or July?  I cannot choose.  I love the first month for the ushering in of something new, but July is splendid in all her red, white and blue.

K: Kids?  Two.  Both rather amazing.

L: Life isn’t complete without?  Love.  Loved ones.  Family and friends.  Dreams.

M: Marriage date? October 21, 1995. Etched in my memory.

N: Number of siblings? One brother and many fristers.

O: Oranges or apples?  Apples in the fall and oranges in the summer.

P: Phobias? Spiders.  All bugs.  Heights.  Disease.  I seem to be getting more phobic as I age.

Q: Quotes? I think in quotes.  They are my inner speak.  My best is Oscar Wilde's, "Every Little action of the common day makes or unmakes character."  I love it because it is such a good reminder of personal responsibility and how little things matter big.  And what's not to love about Oscar Wilde.

R: Reasons to smile? Just because.  Because it makes the world such a nicer, kinder, happier place.  My heart too.  But also when my son throws a knuckleball and wows all the fans in the stands, or when my daughter tells me to step out of the way so she can catch the little frog I have spied and then quickly set him free, or when the right song comes on the radio.  Right now it's Tracy Chapman's Fast Car.  It takes me right back to freshman year in college.  A particular night actually.

S: Season of choice? Fall always and forever, but I love the change of seasons.

T: Tag 5 people.

U: Unknown fact about me. I have lived within a mile of my first home my entire life except for summers on the east coast and four years in college.

V: Vegetable? Spinach, Brussel's sprouts, fresh green beans, sweet summer peas and tomatoes just picked from my aunt's garden.  I consider tomatoes a veggie btw.

W: Worst habit? Interrupting. People pleasing.  Saying yes when I want to say no.  The www.  Specifically, Ruzzle  right now.  It is addicting.

X: x-ray or ultrasound? I last had an MRI of my thigh.  That was 2 years ago.  I had a nasty tissue infection.  It still hurts. Muscle memory is profound.

Y: Your favorite food? Cheese.  Poached eggs.  Good toasted bread.  Pizza.  Cheese on good toasted bread and poached eggs on pizza!

Z: Zodiac sign? Leo with a Virgo cusp. I am a needy, attention seeking control freak.  Except usually I just want to be left alone and have someone else make decisions.  My parents were both Virgos.  That's why I think their marriage only lasted 4 short years.  Well, that and the fact that they were 19 and 20 when they wed.  My husband is a Scorpio.  He has only the best characteristics of the sign so far as I can see.  I take issue with the incompatibility between Leos and Scorpios...we've been together for 22 years and married 17.

Grateful Friday

Today I give thanks for the fact that I almost didn't realize it was Friday.  We've been on vacation and the day of the week has not been of much importance.  Spending time together, having fun, making memories...those are the kind of things that have mattered.

Luckily I took a few photos with my phone this week.  They aren't good, but they're ll I got.  My Samsung doesn't take good pictures as you can see.  It really has nothing to do with me.  That's why I'm ever so grateful that a brand new big girl camera is being shipped to me as I type here.

 This is one of Kermit's cousins.  Miss Bit caught him one day at the pond.  She knows just how to hold them and then she returns them right where she found them.  That way they can find their families she says.

 We enjoyed a boat excursion on the beautiful Wisconsin River. 

 Meet Captain Blackhawk. 

 The ducklings we met a month ago are almost as big as their mama.   

 And I think this turtle may have been alive since the Cambrian age.

 Pancakes anyone?

 The boys were happy to have us home so much and then after a quick trip, glad for us to return.

 This girl is not afraid to get into the thick of things.  Things like pond scum that is.

 Ready for a race.  A little sibling rivalry.

 She's already won his heart.

 Coach and I had a date to see Willy at Summerfest.  It was a great night listening to good music, drinking beer, eating pizza cones and the best of all...people watching!

 Clowning around at Witches Gulch.

 Monkey see monkey do.

  Beautiful sandstone bluffs.

Most precious lights of my life.