Busy Summer

We had a busy weekend as usual, in fact we have spent the last several weekends early in the morning before it gets too hot weeding our newish lawn. It has been hot here this week and temperatures reached 103ºF today. Look below, the lawn is not doing so well except for around the edges. I think it's a combination of the weeds, heat and over watering. There was a little moss in areas and little tiny mushrooms. A sure sign of over watering.

This is one of the many culprits, suffocating our new grass. It starts out so small you can barely pick it up, but if left unattended it can spread to the size of a large dinner plate or larger.

We put more seed down and a sprinkling of soil and although you can't see it, we have a net covering it so the birds can't eat the seed. It's starting to grow again, at least on half the lawn. We shall see what happens. Maybe we will be buying sod in September.

I finished the hat for Miss Rachael! Doesn't it look great on her? Rachael always looks great in hats. Making the hat went quite quickly and I didn't use one full ball of yarn, so I decided to crochet some fingerless gloves for her..... I found the pattern here by way of Pinterest. Don't you love that site?

Although I wasn't prepared for how many gloves I was about to make!!! I think I made about three   pairs by the time I was happy with how they looked. Luckily the pattern was very easy and I probably could have made them in my sleep by the time I was finished. The first one I was pleased with but it's partner was too big and my tension was too loose. So I started on my 3rd glove.... I liked that one, but the colors didn't look right.... Number 1 glove was too grey when Number 2 glove was more green..... So both got ripped out and made all over again, mixing the colors up a little. Not the best thing I've ever crocheted but Rachael was happy with them and they will keep her warm and toasty come winter.

Remember the other yarn that I showed you a couple of days ago??  Well I started to crochet something with it..... It's going to be a gift for a little person at home (aka Wales)! Yes we still refer to Wales as home.

Can you guess what it might be?? It looked kinda strange to me when it said shape! Usually I knit things like this!!! All will be revealed soon.

So yesterday morning I had an early start, Miss Abbey had to be at an orientation for college at 7am. Which meant I had to get up at 5:30am. I let the dog out and she went crazy nuts, barking and growling at something out front. When I finally gave up trying to call her back so she wouldn't wake the neighbors, and was now awake enough to think to look out of the front window....Imagine my surprise, we had just be TP'd (Toilet Papered)! (It was new to me 20 years ago. It's something teenagers do when at a sleepover. Usually to friends.) Toilet paper was everywhere, in the trees, bushes, lawn porch chairs and mailbox.... I was not impressed at 5:30 in the morning. I had a full agenda of cleaning that needed to get done. But luckily it didn't take me long to pull the TP down while I waited for Abbey to be ready, when I was more awake I finally saw the funny side of it. I forgot to take photo's of it though to show you!

In the midst of my cleaning frenzy Miss Rachael decided to start her painting. Our church asked her to paint six canvas's that was 36ins x 36ins last October and she did a wonderful job. So they asked her to do four more. By the time the canvas's arrived there is just 3 weeks left before her big move.  These canvas's are 24ins x 48ins and she has another two that are 48ins x 60ins. I'm not sure how she's going to finish them all in time. But she's certainly working on it.

The above pic is of Rachael in action! (I had to sneak this pic when she wasn't looking!) I love watching her paint, seeing it all come together slowly. When I saw her sketch in pencil, I never imagined it looking like this!

Still not finished but it's defiantly taking shape. Jenny came over to help her paint some of the fill in colors. She said it's Rachael's version of paint by numbers. I will post pictures when she has finished them all. I did manage to get a lot of cleaning done and a lot of laundry despite the paint studio being in my kitchen area. More light Mom, she tells me.

Miss Abbey has returned this evening from her over night orientation at college, tired but excited to start college life. I still can't believe my baby is ready for college. 

Twenty One more days till Rachael moves to Wales and our month long vacation. 

I have very mixed feelings!! Excited for our vacation, and excited that Rachael will be starting a new life, but sad that we won't get to see her very often. It's going to be hard to fly home without her.

Time to start putting stuff aside and start thinking about packing. 

Rachael's Jewelry party will be this Thursday night and Sunday afternoon. Did I mention my creative daughter makes jewelry too. I will post photo's soon.

Hope you are all having a blessed week.