ben had the computer at work the last two days . . .
that means that he is doing billing and getting new jobs ready!!!
i have two more summertime posts . . . they'll appear sometime . . .
i am getting something really exciting ready for the end of the month . . .
sneak peaks to come next week!
i'm off - but i'll be back later today . . .
i hope you are all having a lovely friday! i am!
these all live in my yard!
and there are lots more -
it has been so fun to plant bits of this and that
plants from my mom and my neighbor
and my sister-in-law
and a friend from church and a few i've bought -
most of my plants have a little story . . .
bits of sunshine!
(though it was cloudy yesterday when i took the pictures . . . )
I decided that this week, I am going to tell about our summertime in pictures.
I have a few ideas - and we'll see what else comes to mind . . .
I started today with pictures from our weekend of playing outside . . .
Also, a great BIG, HUGE thank you to Heather for making my lovely Maddie Top Tutorial Button - it looks so happy on my side bar! I LOVE it!
"God has gifted you with talents. He has done the same with your neighbor. If you concern yourself with your neighbor's talents, you will neglect yours. But if you concern yourself with yours, you could inspire both."
-Max Lucado
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I posted this previously (on my Reflections page), but decided that it was a good Sunday morning thought . . . a good thought to bring into a new week . . .
today i'll be
:: getting ready for a huge picnic tonight
:: taking my kiddos swimming again
:: making (or buying?) a sign thanking our troops, veterans and their families
to put on ben's truck for the parade tomorrow!
:: having loads of fun tonight with my family and some dear friends
:: fireworks!
for my dear readers in the US, think about why we celebrate this weekend
be grateful for our freedoms
be grateful to the troops who serve and have served
be grateful to the families who share these brave men and women with the world!
and to everyone :: have a happy weekend!
p.s. my jam "recipe" is sold in some grocery stores and in fleet farm and maybe places like super wal-mart . . . just ask a clerk where the canning supplies are . . .
indulge me?
here are some more berry love pictures.
i had two little apron-ed helpers yesterday ::
our sweet neighbor lady made the matching aprons for us.
and we needed some sweet treats after all our jam making this morning ::
these were so yummy! we threw strawberries, vanilla ice cream, milk, and a few handfulls of mini marshmallows into the blender, blended it up, and Ta-Da! oh. so. yummy!
we made one for isaac, too ::
and my jam recipe?
this ::
it's awesome! it's easy! no cooking. 4 cups crushed berries. 1 1/2 cups sugar. one packet of this. some jars. about 15 minutes per batch. and kids can do ALL of it (with minimal adult supervision)! i'm pretty sure it's vegan also (for some of you who would be interested to know). that's it. that's all there is to it!
the berries are finally ripening!
we went picking yesterday morning!
and we'll go again - at least once more
so we can make more jam
and put packages of berries in our freezer
and eat lots of them -
plain and on icecream and in pie and smoothies
oh, how i love strawberries.
Have I ever mentioned how much I love books? I don't know that I have. Well, I do. I love books. I really love them. I don't allow myself to bring home new ones very often, because when I do, I don't do much of anything until I've read the whole book . . .
Heather who blogs at beauty that moves wrote and hosted a book favorites post a few days ago.
Ellie over at petalplum had this list up the other day ::
The BBC believes most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here. (I've read 34 of them . . . I guess I'm not "most people" . . . )
1) Look at the list and put an 'x' after those you have read.
2) Put a % after those you've read a portion of.
3) Add a '+' to the ones you LOVE.
4) Star (*) those you plan on reading.
1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen (+)
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien (+)
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte ()
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling (%)
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee (X)
6 The Bible (+)
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte ()
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell (X)
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman ()
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens ()
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott (X)
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy ()
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller ()
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare (%)
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier ()
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien (+)
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk ()
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger (X)
19 The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger ()
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot ()
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell ()
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald ()
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens ()
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy (X)
25 The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams (x)
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh ()
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky ()
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck (X)
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll (X)
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame (X)
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy (X)
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens ()
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis (X)
34 Emma - Jane Austen (X)
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen ()
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis (X)
37. Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini ()
38. Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres ()
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden ()
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne (X)
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell (X)
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown ()
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez ()
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving ()
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins ()
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery (+)
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy ()
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood ()
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding (X)
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan ()
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel ()
52 Dune - Frank Herbert ()
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons ()
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen (X)
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth ()
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon ()
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens ()
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley ()
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon ()
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez ()
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck (X)
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov ()
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt ()
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold ()
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas ()
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac ()
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy ()
68 Bridget Jones' Diary - Helen Fielding ()
69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie ()
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville ()
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens ()
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker ()
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett (+)
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson ()
75 Ulysses - James Joyce ()
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath ()
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome ()
78 Germinal - Emile Zola ()
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray ()
80 Possession - AS Byatt ()
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens (X)
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell ()
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker (%)
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro ()
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert ()
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry ()
87 Charlotte's Web - EB White (X)
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom ()
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle ()
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton ()
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad (%)
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery (+)
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks ()
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams ()
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Toole ()
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas ()
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare (X)
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl (X)
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo (X)
And here is a list of some of my favorites ::
My Bible
My journals
Peace Like A River ~ Leif Enger
The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax ~ Dorothy Gilman
God Came Near ~ Max Lucado
The Princess Bride ~ William Goldman
The Importance of Being Earnest ~ Charles Osborne
Anything by Grace Livingston Hill
Snow Falling on Cedars ~ David Guterson
Pilgrim's Progress retold ~ Gary D. Schmidt
Educating Esme ~ Esme Raj Codell
A Song I Knew by Heart ~ Brett Lott
The Speed of Light ~ Ron Carlson
At the Back of the North Wind ~ George MacDonald
Poems With Power to Strengthen the Soul ~ compiled by James Mudge
As Always, Jack ~ Emma Sweeny
Tuesdays with Morrie ~ Mitch Albom
The Notebook ~ Nicholas Sparks
Roget's Thesaurus
Elizabeth of the Mayflower ~ Myrtle Jamison Trachsel
Little Miss Sunshine ~ May Hollis Barton
The Kirsten Books ~ Janet Shaw
The Little House Books ~ Laura Ingalls Wilder
Out of the Dust ~ Karen Hesse
Magic Elizabeth ~ Norma Kassirer
Jenny Lind and Her Listening Cat ~ Frances Cavanah
Because of Winn Dixie ~ Kate DiCamillo
Strawberry Girl ~ Lois Lenski
The Hobbit ~ JRR Tolkien
The last few on my list are adolescent literature that I still love very much. All of these are on my shelf of favorites and I re-read them when I get the chance.
Do you like any of the same ones I do? What are some of your favorites that I don't have listed? Tell me about your book love!
Elissa, if you aren't home yet, stop reading. You may not read this post until you are home and have opened your mail!
The sneak peak from last Monday :: Looks like this ::
It went to my dear friend Elissa. The yellow fabric matches her kitchen curtains. I "borrowed" a piece of the fabric from her when I visited in March.
And now I returned it to her. *smile*
I also sent her a bunch of other goodies.
Including this :: She is expecting a baby in November. So I also made her a skirt with a nice stretchy waist band, and I sent her some cute maternity tops I found at a rummage sale.
I love packing up a fun gift and popping it in the mail.
I have a few more packages on my little "to-do" list. So, more sneak peaks. And more love being sent around the world!
Have a happy Monday!
The idea for the kitchen flags came from here. Pop over and visit Heather. Her blog and her ideas and crafts and home are all lovely!
