vacation

we're going to tropical Minnesota this weekend.
we'll be there 12 full days.
i need the break really bad. and how lovely to see my friends and family and spend all day every day with my secret agent loverman.

oh! my replacement camera just came. now i can illustrate this blog with photo's

you guys all visit soapboxgirls don't you?

the doing

hi citrus

i started my back"yard" landscaping project after you left. i must have dug 300 rocks out of that 10 x 8 space. can i just say that i hate the contractors who "landscaped" this poor little yard. i think what they did was take a big cement mixer added 1 part filthy dirt (not to be confused with soil: the life giving product of mother earth) .5 parts trash ( it is really exciting to pull pop cans, nails, bandaids and plastic bags out from under the rocks and dirt. it feels a little like wining a twisted raffle.) 2 parts small rocks, 2 parts big ass rocks. Then they mixed it together, poured it behind the retaining wall and covered the whole load of crap with bark.

but it's been fun to get up there sweating my ass of making something really lovely. we've built a smaller retaining wall in a half circle shape about 3/4 of the way back and have moved some of the existing bushes. i love it. almost homey. oh, and we tied that lovely smelling tobacco plant up so it stand tall and proud. it still smells great.

remember all of the outdoor projects we used to think up and spend all day or week working on? everything we did was for the experience of doing it. it never mattered what then end product was. we always felt completely pleased with our selves for taking on such impossible tasks and loved to recount them to anyone who would listen.

Here's some that I remember. You weren't part of all of them.Sometimes i had to hang out with the neighbor kids. What do you remember?

• living outside for a week. showering in a wheel barrel. peeing outside.
• cobble stone steps down a 20 ft incline to the creek.
• building a 100 ft frankenstein head only visible from an over head plane. we called the paper to get them to come and take and aerial shot. they didn't.
• building complicated forts that cover every bit of real estate on the lawn
• tying everything that had wheels together for the ultimate kid vehicle.

We didn't make it to the KEXP bbq (are you listening yet?) but here's a cool picture. i like it. this is the time we live in.
photo by: william anthony

Sewing

i bought a new sewing machine. it's really the first one i've ever had. i've used my mom's and friend' on and off though out the years, and then a couple years ago i bought one from my grandpa, but me and that machine could never figure out how to work together.

i'm extremely excited to contribute to A Month of Softies. The ladies here are so inspiring. I am going to try and do July's sock monkey theme. wish me luck.

dear readers

of which i have maybe 3 or 4. i've moved to this very fru-fru weblog neighborhood.
i think i will be very happy here and bring lots of new playmates for you.

i've been reading online journals and other types of internet publishing since 1999 and i have to say that it has actually contributed to my life in a positive way. i will probably go into more detail about this in the future, but for now i would just like to say that i am happy to finally be here and i look forward to hopefully putting something out into the world that will change something/one at least just a little.

you know what they say about the power of prayer....
i wonder if blogging is a similar phenomenon?

*this image is from the local library website. i thought it was pleasing to look at and appropriate.