Photo Dump Day

Big Weekend ahead, time to clean off the camera. Lucky you.

Pizza party at Mark's house last Friday night, a perfect ending to a long hard day of cleaning at Mom's house: Good friends, good beer, good pizza. I can't remember the last time I laughed so hard for so many hours. I needed that.

Landscape architects bring the most interesting ingredients to a pizza party. My olives and mozzarella were trumped by Shirley's nasturtiums:

This was beautiful and delicious, I loved this pizza.

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A few weeks ago, after lamenting on a tough day that watermelon made me feel good, Danni, from On The Way to Critter Farm, asked me if she could at least send me some watermelon gum to make me feel better. Yuk! No thanks, I told her.

She sent it anyway. It came special delivery, from Frugal Mom, who had just been visiting Danni in Oregon. She and her daughter K waltzed in one evening and handed me a very bulky envelope. There was a pack of Watermelon Bubblicious inside, along with a note that read "I know you don't like this, but every time you smell it, I'm sending you good thoughts."

I felt compelled to at least get one photo blowing some bubbles. Oh, the fun we had trying to get a decent photo. Starting the gum was a *chore,* and I needed 2 pieces for a decent bubble, so I had K warm up a second piece for me. Here's the hand off after she had it nice and soft:

The delay on Frugal Mom's camera made it very difficult to get a shot. She'd snap when I had a big beautiful bubble, and end up with a photo of gum all over my face. Time after time. This is the best we can do, my best bull-frog imitation.

Look how mean I look; that is real concentration, folks. That gum tasted awful and gave me watermelon syrup saliva. Thanks Danni, darling. The rest of the pack sits on the mantle, freshening the air around it.

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Oh, and not be outdone by bubblegum, Frugal Mom brought along her own pick-me-up gift:

A bouquet from her own yard. This was taken weeks ago, and still those flowers sit on my mantle. They don't like quite that nice, but they're there.

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2 weeks ago Clint and I met friends and family in St. Louis for a blast-from-the-past concert: 38 Special, Styx, and REO Speedwagon. Read: A bunch of old farts in the audience. We were reminded of our own ages when we spotted this guy sitting 2 rows in front of us, waiting for the concert to start:

Why didn't we think of that?

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This is currently what we're calling our "deck." It will be a bonafide deck someday, but for now, it's 2 planks of wood and a Smokey Joe.

We love it.

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Here's someone's bike, locked up, downtown. I don't imagine the owner of this one was a happy camper when he discovered this.

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My Biker Baby at Bed Bath & Beyond:

I love me a man that will not only spend 3 hours picking out THE perfect shower curtain with me, but will escort me from store to store on a Harley Davidson while he does it. We've decided that if it took 3 hours to pick out just the shower curtain, it really will be years before our home is finalized.

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And last but not least, here's before and after pictures of just ONE room that I tackled at Mom's house last week. This was the bedroom I grew up in, and the room that ceiling recently fell through, after heavy rains. On top of that junk sat the ceiling, the insulation, and bleah, more mold than I want to think about. I really am amazed I didn't get sick from it. What's the statute of limitation on a mold spore anyway?

I still have to arrange to get the ceiling fixed, that's next on my agenda. Anyway, here's the room as it was last Friday morning:

And as it was Friday afternoon:

I'm closing in on transforming every room in the house in this manner, and then: The garage, aurghhhhhhh, the black hole that is the garage. Still, I feel infinitely relieved to have the house back in order, or on it's way. It won't return to the chaotic state that it was originally in, as all of that stuff has been tossed, donated, or set aside for a garage sale.

And anyone that gives my Mom a box full of books, sweaters, or yarn will have to answer to me!