Life Lately

Here are a bunch of random updates from our past week or so.

I absolutely love this picture. I was trying to get a selfie with May and she wouldn’t quit licking my chin. She is such a loveable dog.

Friday after work I stopped by one of Justin’s coworker’s house to pick up a bunny for Wyatt. Justin built it a pen and it seems to be getting along really well with as-yet-unnamed Kitty Kitty. We’re calling the rabbit Doc, as in Bugs Bunny’s saying, “What’s up, Doc?”

Other than the new bunny, our life has been pretty normal, just chugging on along and getting ready for my big trip to India. I leave in less than a week and don’t think I’ll EVER be prepared enough.

Our new tractor

Justin has been looking for a while for a small tractor that we can use at the house for the garden and to move heavy limbs and stuff like that. I think he is excited about the idea of fixing up an old tractor with his daddy too. He found this one in Sylvester last week and went and looked at it. It is a 1951 Ford 8N. Someone tried to restore it one time and painted it blue.

After talking it over, we decided to get it. He took Wyatt to pick it up yesterday and that boy was some kind of excited! I love that we have a son that likes being outside and helping out in the garden as much as he does.

We hope that one day it will look like this:

Here are a bunch of pictures of it. I am thoroughly documenting the transformation.

June Happenings

Earlier this month, Justin went to Calhoun Produce and got strawberries to make some strawberry jam. It is fabulous! I’m so glad he likes doing this kind of stuff.

 

Our sunflowers are finally blooming and I love using a variety of jars and bottles to show them off. I have a milk bottle that sits on the dining room table. I put my sunglasses on one to show the scale. These flowers are big and getting bigger every day!

 

I put a sunflower for Mama and Daddy in a Georgia wine bottle at their house.

 

Last Saturday we ate some fresh watermelon at Mama and Daddy’s house and I was snapping pictures of Wyatt. Mama remembered she had the Watermelon Days Festival magazine that featured him when he was a year old. It’s neat to see two years later he still loves watermelon and he has almost the same expressions!

Justin came home from the fire department Sunday morning and we welcomed him home with bacon, grits, and eggs. I coached Wyatt earlier to tell him, “Happy Father’s Day!” but he shouted as loud as he could, “Happy Mother’s Day, Daddy!” We got a laugh out of that. Justin got a new pair of sunglasses after I realized a week ago that his were older than Wyatt. We’re going to get his old glasses repaired so he has a backup pair in his little truck.

After church and lunch at Mama and Daddy’s house and a nap, we headed out to Sheldon and Desiree’s house for dinner. Amanda and Rivers took Wyatt out in their kayak in the pond and Justin helped the kids shoot his .22 rifle. Wyatt kept saying, “I can do it ‘gain?!” We spend a lot of time teaching Wyatt what to do if he ever finds a gun and the importance of not touching them without an adult.

 

 

This is how Wyatt welcomed Monday morning. I got him up and told him to come in the bathroom to take his vitamin and brush his teeth. I kept getting ready and when I realized he didn’t come in, I went looking for him. I found him passed out back asleep on the pile of dirty laundry. Crazy boy!

May the Odds Be Ever In Your Favor

I might have mentioned before that May is a pedigreed dog and her official name is May the Odds Be Ever in Your Favor Cook. I’m a teen fiction dork and I fully accept it.

May is the sweetest thing and she and Wyatt have turned out to have a really nice love-hate relationship. May loves to chase his training wheels and Wyatt hates it. Really they get along for the most part and she is the perfect type of dog for our lifestyle, especially in the summer time. She walks up and down the dirt road with us:

Chases cows at Uncle Glynn’s:

Runs alongside the four wheeler:

And loves any body of water she can get in, including the galvanized bucket of drinking water we give her. Yes, I will walk outside and she will have her front two legs in her water bucket.

Jeb was a great dog and now that we have seen how smart and good May is, I don’t think it will be any other way than for us to have a blue heeler all the time.

Fun Filled Saturday

Last Saturday, I met my SIL Amanda at a women’s event in Tifton sponsored by the local hospital. A lot of the topics were things we already knew about like canning, but Amanda loved seeing Joann Fabrics’ table with the crochet items. She wanted to sit down and ask the instructor how to do a particular pattern. I sat down and the instructor asked if I wanted to learn. My mama, Mrs. Desiree, and Amanda have all tried to teach me how at one time or another and I just assumed I was a lost cause. I gave it another shot and quickly learned how to make a foundation chain and how to add a second row. It’s not a masterpiece, but I did it myself. I don’t think my lack of understanding before was anything more than needing to be in the right frame of mind.

After the women’s event, I stopped at a yard sale. I scored this brown basket with burlap bows and a pair of what I thought to be men’s lace up Crocs for my nephew Ben. Apparently, I can’t tell the difference between a 6 and a 9. So Ben ran out of luck and I got a new pair of garden shoes. I love this little hand-painted sign I picked up too. It’s perfect for my back door.

 

Here is my basket in the kitchen loaded up with squash Jake and Ben grew and a cabbage I cooked up for supper.

 

After the yard sale, we headed out to Wendy’s house for Emma’s 9th birthday party. The kids had a blast on the water slide and in the pool.

 

 

We like to joke that Ella is Wyatt’s girlfriend. These two have so much fun together!

Master bathroom upgrade

Our master bathroom is spacious. I am grateful to have such a nice space because it’s just easier to let Wyatt bathe and get ready downstairs with us. Unfortunately for us, it is a little dated sporting harvest gold tile, tub, sink, and toilet. Secondly, we had an open tub like below and a plastic corner shower. The floor of the shower was cracking before we moved in, but Justin wasn’t happy risking any damage to the wood below from minor leaks.

Other than dropping several thousand dollars on a major renovation, we had few choices. We could spend $500-800 on a new corner shower or we could convert the tub into a tub/shower combo. I liked the second idea much more. Justin removed the paneling off the wall behind the shower plumbing and was able to convert the spout and temperature knobs to fit a shower head as well. We ordered an L-shaped shower curtain from JSharone’s (online custom shower rod maker), and rigged up TWO shower curtains with Ikea curtain clips. It’s a big tub.

 

It is actually a good solution and works well for us. If you look at the very bottom you can still see the harvest gold peeking out. We are going to buy a Rustoleum Tub and Tile Refinishing Kit and give it a fresh coat of white. Our next steps are to tear out the old shower, re-tile and replace the tiles that were cut to size, paint the walls and cabinets, change out the countertops and sink, and possibly add some molding. We were able to convert the shower and purchase the shower curtains and liners all for less than $300. Justin reminded me that we completely gutted our kitchen in the old house for less than $5,000 so we should be okay budget-wise. Thankfully I am surrounded by men that are very handy.

Garden and yard update

It is amazing to me that we have had more than four solid months of flowers blooming at our house with no sign of it slowing down. Here are some of the ones that have showed up in the past week and a half.

These day lilies have the most wonderful scent! I suppose they might all have a good smell, but I don’t get in the habit of stopping to smell them. When I grabbed up a few to put in my dirt road blue medicine bottle, I was overwhelmed by the delicious scent.

Canna lilies are popping out by our air conditioner. I might ask for someone to send over some orange ones to group with the red ones next year.

Bottle brush plants

I have feelers out to some of my flower friends. I called this one a carnation tree but I think my best guess is that it’s a Kwanzan cherry tree. If you know any better, let me know!

 

Our sunflowers have a target height of 10-12 feet tall and they’re getting close! I even see some yellow petals poking out of the heads. It won’t be long now.

 

One night we took the four wheeler out down the dirt road and came across wild blackberry bushes. We had to be careful to watch out for snakes and thorns, but Wyatt, Justin, and I were eating them as fast as we could pick them. It’s so cool to pick them right off the bush, right where God planted them!

 

Our corn is getting tall and we can see the ears starting to form. I love the colorful tops! It’s also neat to see our decorative gourds and pumpkins forming because we never know what we’re going to get. The cross pollination is making for some awesome designs so far. Fall is going to be gorgeous at our house!