Projects

As usual, I've been working on projects here.

What I do depends on the weather, literally.

Easter the weather was decent. We went to my father in laws cousins house. They are close to us( 8 miles), beats driving 40+ miles.

When we returned home, I began to paint the laundry room/ boys bathroom 

This is a before pic.

Ignore the mess.

I had picked out a light green. One of the boys was with me when I purchased the paint. He said nothing  negative about the color.

I began painting

Needless to say, 2 of them objected, including the one that was with me when I bought the paint.

I conceded, and bought another color.

I got the blue up. My goal is to paint the green on the walls surrounding the washer and dryer.

I want to also paint the ceiling a bright white to help reflect the light.

It's been cool and rainy here, so not real good painting weather.

Wednesday

Pictured above are my strawberry plants.

Normally they don't blossom until May.

My azalea plant in bloom.

My hanging baskets, one up the other awaiting. Wave petunias fill these out.

Hermit. Wanting to scare the chickens.

Zelda under the tree.

She is watching Hermie's.  He wants to be her friend. She is not interested.

Hermie trying to play with her. Zelda ran back into the house.

These flowers survived the winter. I love the pink blossoms.

Apple tree

Last year My boys planted two dwarf apple trees.

I noticed tonight that one has blossoms.

I love that the blossoms are pink.

The other doesn't have any blossoms yet.

Gardening

This week the weather has been pretty good.

My strawberry plants are beginning to blossom.

This pic was taken yesterday. The plants inside the fence are beginning to blossom as well.

I found 2 volunteer red lettuce plants and one green lettuce plant. Makes it easy for me if the lettuce reseeds itself. We have no problem eating it.

I have almost all the weeds out of the big garden. I am hoping Saturday to plant carrots and peas. 

This weekend

I had to work 1/2 day Saturday ( yuck). On my way home from work, I returned a bunch of left over segments from the Cub Scout pack. I got 51.95 in credit :) . Our budget is tight this year, so we are working at not being wasteful with the funds. Plus, who needs a bunch of segments to hang out in the awards box. I came home from work, I made 4 loaves of bread. I worked out in the garden until the rain increased, then came inside.

This morning there was a light must, so I went ahead and hung out a load of laundry. I made pancakes and bacon for the kids. The foster kids were super excited as I was making the pancake batter. The older one was interested in smelling the batter.

The weather did clear up later in the day, I filled a 5 gallon bucket twice with weeds. The garden space is looking good, if I do say so myself :). Tomorrow I am hoping to dig up my strawberry plants that volunteered themselves. I have a friend that would like them.

I noticed that my azalea out front is beginning to bloom

I love this plant when it's in full bloom.

I hung more clothes out on the line. It's breezy out, so who knows. They may be dry when I get up in the morning. Tomorrow is suppose to be in the upper 60's, so we will take advantage of it.

The boys are on spring break, the offered to do the lawn tomorrow, so we will see.

Done!

   I got the attic done. I had two friends pick  up the empty totes. I ended up with 5 bags of stuff for the thrift store and 7 bags of garbage. It feels like a relief, to not have all that stuff- too bad garbage pick up isn't until later this week. I am stuck looking at the bags in front of the garage until then.

   Jon and I took the two foster kids to the Northwest Railway museum. It's locTed in the town of Snoqualmie. It only takes maybe 25 minutes to drive there. They have several types of trains for people to look at. They are enclosed behind fencing, but they do have some you can climb into. The kids had a great time. They love trains. It was partially sunny, which was a nice change. I also walked them down to see the river. I had my camera, but the batteries died. The water a beautiful shade of blue- gray. It was also running high and fast. In April, the train museum has a train run to North Bend- Snoqualmie Falls. I am going to take them on it. The older one did pretty well listening and following directions. The younger one I had harnessed, as he likes to take off and run. He enjoyed looking at the new things. Both of the kids were asleep before 730, the fresh air was good for them.

  Andrew and Ryan went camping with their troop to Fort Warden. It was sunny almost the whole weekend. They had a good time too. I made roast beef with potatoes, rice and salad. All the boys said it hit the spot.

  This week, I'm going to try to get into the garage and purge my hanging shelves. That's my goal for this week...

  

Attic clean up update

I am almost done. I went thru all of the totes, and went thru some a second time.

Here is what I have emptied

Notice the tall brown sack? Yeah, it's full of papers. I have filled 4(?) garbage bags.

I have a second brown bag that is 1/4 full, and another garbage bag that is on it's way to filling up.

The papers on top of the tub are for shredding. My foster kiddo loved shredding the papers earlier, so hey, why not? He shreds as I sort.

The boys bedroom floor is visible.

Tomorrow, Jon and I will put the totes back in the attic. The empty ones I will be re-homing.

I will keep some to hold decorations. I know I will not need ALL of them. In fact, I know I have four more big empty totes in the attic.

It's almost 1030 pm here, and that is way past my bedtime..