Garden pictures

I finally got out and took pictures of the garden in full bloom. Too bad I am not a photographer! I took pictures of the bird house gourds which you actually can see. There are several with the pond too. One with a water lily blooming, one with fish and one with a frog on the edge. I hope you enjoy them.

The great commissary case lot sale!

Friday morning we got up early and headed to Ft. Hood. We weren't first in line but close. The USO had set up a canteen and served coffee. Yipee! The manager was so extra nice! I actually wound up offering my services as a volunteer! Personable bosses are getting so rare that its a pleasure to meet one.
Any way, we got some very super deals. I won't list them all here. Inside the building itself were the meat and frozen stuff. Some meat items were 50% off. Thank goodness that we had cleaned out our freezer. I was lucky enough to have been given a $25 gift certificate by the store manager. Our bill was $301 and by the time they took off the certificate and all the coupons, we paid $198. Thats what I call a sale!
They had a DJ playing music, free ice water, coffee & various prizes and some extraordinarilly nice, helpfull people working there.
The temperature was warm but we had a nice breeze and all in all a great morning. We got to the store at 7AM and were back home by 11:30AM.

Great news!

I just sent Shanna an e-mail so I hope she gets it before she reads this....
We are going to be great grandparents again. Jessica, the older sister of Shelby's mother Jennifer, (check previous blogs) is expecting in Dec. She is so excited as we all are. She waited until her hubby got his Masters degree. And he did, and she is! Of course we will keep everyone posted. Jessica is a teacher of elementary music. I think she would much rather be a mother right now. Teaching has become so much tougher with the new generation.
My youngest son is also a teacher, who really is following his dream and loves it, can attest to this generations apathy toward learning. He teaches HS sciences.

This was supposed to be a lazy day. And I worked my head off. Well, not really but far more was done than I wanted too. We went out and weeded some and pulled all the rest of the onions and laid them out to dry. There are still way too many. Hubby loves to eat them when they are small and green. However, he can't keep up with them...... We are picking beautiful tasty tomatoes. We had to go and get a bird net to go over them, the bird started on them as soon as they turned just a little pink. We had sandwiches with them on and what a difference from the "store bought" ones. The bird house gourds are really getting on. We can count over ten already. Still a lot of male blooms. I will fire up the camera tomorrow and snap some pics of them.
We went to visit the gr. grandbaby. What a doll! I actually got to rock her to sleep. She really fights sleep too. My daughter did! It must be a girl thing.
Tomorrow we go to case lot sale # 2. The 1st was ok but not nearly the amount that "our " commissary usually has. Ft. Hood has 2 commissaries. Early start tomorrow so must get my beauty sleep.. (oh if that really worked i'd sleep 20 hours.)

Too much work for very little return!

That's what our garage sale turned out to be. We should have stayed home and did the sale Friday. There were 34 garage sales in this town alone. The city next to us had twice that amount. Oh well. And the sad part is that we were stuck here with ours and didn't get to go to any of them. LOL.
Most people just looked. Pleasant weather and nice shoppers tho.
After the sale we just stuffed the stuff back into the garage so we could get a little rest. Our granddaughter Jessica was in a dance recital. She is my daughters age, 26, and part of her Christmas present was dance lessons. She took jazz, hip hop and tap. (she took ballet, jazz and tap as a young girl). We had a grand time. The little bitty kids were so cute and sooo funny. And of course Jessica was great.
This morning after breakfast we sorted out the items we wanted to keep and those that will be donated. Cleaned up the garage and the storage shed and put it all away. I admit to being exhausted!
I guess we will have to have another sale in the fall. Maybe the timing will be a whole lot better.
Sad thing is that no one even bought one book! That is usually the fastest movers.

Garage sale time!

After putting it off for more than 2 months, we are finally getting everything ready. The big day is Saturday. I wanted it to be tomorrow because we live just 2 houses from an elementary school and business is very good. However, we just had to go fishing Wed. morning. The weather was so perfect. We caught fish none of which were keepers. But had a blast. We saw 5 deer grazing at the water's edge, heard wild turkey in the distance and saw hundreds of bird. The blue heron were beautiful.
Saturday will be nice too!
We are unloading more of the stuff we thought we had to keep. And hopefully we will make a little money and have more room for more stuff!

Time management?

Since we retired we seem to have lost more time! Every intention to get work done that has piled up gets pushed aside for something else. I will admit that "other things" popping up are far more important than work. lol Sunday we drove to Dallas to visit Sarah. Our son in Ft. Worth joined us and as usual had a great time. We went to the farmers market and spent a lot of time in the garden area. I bought a new kangaroo fern and a plant called jacobs ladder. It's very attractive with spring green varigated leaves. It is a shade plant but will bloom in the fall. Adam, our son bought me a large Chiminea(spelling may be wrong) I am looking forward to having a fire in it this fall. It's very nice! I was out taking pictures this afternoon and batteries died before I got to it. We went to Jake's hamburgers and they were super. We gave the kids the choice. Glad they chose Jakes. It's a landmark type of business. And crowded but fun.
We just rested on Monday. Those trips seem to get harder on us as the years go by. Wednesday we went to Cedar Park to the Hill Country water gardens. We just had to replace our koi. We had purchased some small ones but they just can't be seen as well as the larger ones.
Yesterday we went to the PX at Ft. Hood and I was surprised by hubby telling me to pick out a sewing machine for mother's day. I started to pick out a computer type, but realized that I don't sew enough or well enough to justify the price. So I settled (gladly) for a White 35 stitch machine.
I am including some of the picture I took this afternoon. One is of the topiary that Sarah had gotten me for my birthday. I planted it with just impatients. I watched a man at the garden center at the farmers market plant one and I realized just what I need to plant next year. I am a visual type person. Seeing it done inspired me more than any instruction book could ever do. The one with the dog in it also shows the jacobs ladder and the fern. I hope you can see it okay.

The great job!

Every day this week my daughter has called(she does this all the time...lol) actually bubbling about her new job! I didn't realize how much I have missed the happiness about her job before. Previous jobs were just a job. She did them well, but hated the atmosphere that surrounded them.
This is what the new job has been so far. She was given a promotion the 1st day, they actually listened to her suggestions, gave her a truck to use, they appreciate her and are doing every thing to keep her happy. She was made a property manager with several multi million dollar properties.Who can complain? In case I didn't mention before, her degree is Horticulture, with an emphasis on turf grass. And a few others tucked in. When she did her internship it was with a golf course which she wanted more than anything to stay with it. She took a job with a landscape company and liked it at the first, but it became a nightmare. The company was going broke because of mismanagement and finally gave her a notice. (with good benefits and pay) She is not used to being idle and went to work for a company that does background checks of resumes. She hates an office type job but took it and of course did great. They wanted her in their upper management program but office politics started and when she found this job, resigned. Now to hear her so happy its a pleasure.
If I made her sound negative it wasn't intentional. She is a very positive type of person. She just doesn't care for the bad vibes.

The pictures are of Shelby and hubby. Actually a bad pic of her but I couldn't resist the look she was giving him. She is still very tiny. And I found out she can really throw a good fit.........lol

This and that

Another eventful week! I got an order for a stepping stone. It had lettering on it which isn't my best thing to do. But I did get it finished. We took it to the store last Friday. I hope they liked it. They wanted butterflies and lady bugs. They turned out great. And stupid me I didn't take a picture of it! I am working on a stepping stone with a poppy on it now. I have several ideas of what to do on further ones too. The only problem is it's spring and the outdoors is calling me! I am in a place now where I have the "I don't wanna" blues. We go tomorrow to see if I have a check waiting. Then I will be in a better mood to paint!
We got to take care of the newest gr. grandbaby on Monday. She is a charmer!!! Pics of grandpa holding her will be included if blogger allows it.
We went to Waco Saturday to do some shopping. (had planned to do it Monday but plans changed to take care of Shelby) I got to go to Michael's. My most favorite thing and hubbies least. lol. I stocked up on some paint and a new instruction book. ( Instruction books..I have hundreds now. Over half will go in a garage sale.) The trouble with new books is they alway have new paint colors. I do my best to match, which isn't always close enough. But I guess I am picky, no one else seems to notice. We also went to Fiesta grocery store (it caters to the hispanic families for the most part) and we picked up some nice big fresh shrimp for the bbq. After I have bbq'ed shrimp twice, hubby decided that he could live without it! It kind of upset me because he let me pretty much waste the shrimp. Oh well. Live and learn.
Monday we took our boat to the shop in Waco. It just isn't running properly. It will be ready next week.
Today we did the yard work. I mowed half so hubby wouldn't have so much to do. It's getting hard for him to do it in one day. I weedeated the Iris' down. It looks different with out them but we are taking them out in the fall any way. We planted birdhouse gourds and I wanted to have plenty room to grow. The bermuda grass was taking them over too.. Nice grass but a real pain in the flower beds. Thursday is the Ft. Hood commissary will have their warehouse case lot sale. We certainly will go and stock up! Some real deals.
Saturday we are planning to go see Sarah in Dallas. She always benefits from our case sale deals. She just started her new job, which she tells me is awesome.

well pics are not available right now (again) Will add them at another time