MiniBullyMom's Musings

Well....I have been busy for the past two weeks getting ready for the family reunion in Lodi, CA which was held this past weekend. It was a blast and I was able to scan well over 200 photos plus items of my Great, Great Grandparents which were in a scrapbook brought by one of my cousins. I was able to complete 11 of 75 pages of the scrapbook I've been working on digitally. Now that everyone has seen what the pages will actually look like they are all excited about it. I went ahead and had it placed in the family reuion auction with the promise that the finished pages would be mailed to the buyer to be inserted into the book. My cousin Clara placed the winning bid which was $300!! I about fell over when it was announced.

Well we have done a ton of work in the backyard this summer. We decided to hold Christina's graduation party at home. The first photo is of the garage where a huge Pampass Grass plant used to be. Mike hated it from about the second year we had it. I loved it but realized after 10 years that it had performed it's original function and was tired of it's leaves getting mowed over. So we decided to rip it out. That turned out to be a major project in itself. It took a chain saw, electric hedger, axe, pick axe and shovel to get it out of there. The plant reached all the way over to the tiki torch on the right and about a foot past the tiki torch on the left. You can actually see a patch of dirt between the torches where the plant actually covered/laid over the lawn. We ended up planting four short pyramidalis trees along the old fence to hide the neighbor's garage. I finally gathered together my three beach logs and tied them into a piling (this was a project I wanted to get done last year) and hung the buoys we found at the beach also to create my beach scene. I have glass floats resting on a "stump" of wood we found another time in the flower bed that is the just out of the photo on the right hand side.

The toilet "arrangement" is the newest thing I did to drive my hubby crazy. We ripped it out of the bathroom this past winter because it was leaking. You just can't toss them in the garbage here but they will take them at the dump. Well it was the original toilet to the house and the only reason we took it out was because we couldn't retrofit the "guts" of it inside the tank. So I decided to plant it. I placed it in a hidden corner of the yard and filled it with "Impatients" of all things. Every guy who sees it just shakes their head but the women think it was a neat idea. One of my friends even fessed up that she was thinking about doing the same thing with one they had. Two weeks later we went to her house and lo and behold she had done it. Our husbands think we are both weird.


This is the last section of the backyard that we need to finish up. We have been storing campfire wood under the tarp and after we finish reroofing/painting the garage Mike will probably build a covered storage bin for it. We have debated making an arbor or gazebo to cover this deck but resisted so far since we have a covered patio attached to the little garage closer to the house -yes we have two garages in our backyard. I'm leaning towards an arbor of some sort because that would allow sun through but I'm just not quite convinced I really want to do that. We need to pressure wash, stain and fix the lattice work that runs along the sidewalk. The only reason we really don't sit out on that patio is that everyone across the street can see that deck because they are on a hill and it faces their front yards. The other patio provides lots of shade and has electrical outlets. I'm actually sitting at the bar on the covered patio as I blog. The next priority is getting this big garage roof shored up, reroofed and replace all the wiring in it. We are hoping to shore it up in September and immediately get it roofed before the "rainy season" hits in full force. Luckily we can roof half at a time and be okay. We bought the shingles off Craigslist and have then stacked in the small garage, the plywood and 2x4's are in the big one and now I'm hunting down tar paper and deals on flashing. Next summer we should be able to repaint the big garage to match the house, put a peaked roof on the little garage, rewire it and complete turning it into an oversized shed.


Now to get back to digiscrapping. My daughter is a huge Tim Burton fan and when I saw this new kit created by "Digital Reality" it reminded me of the photos I've seen of Johnny Depp as The Mad Hatter in the new Alice in Wonderland movie Tim Burton is filming. You can check out the entire kit at Divine Digital. There is an absolutely awesome string of paper lanterns in the kit.

...about updating my blog!

You would think that life would slow down during the summer and the hockey offseason. I don't know how I juggle it all during hockey season. I've about decided that it's because I get lazy during the off season and as such don't get as much accomplished.

We spend last weekend at the ocean and visited Westport for Pirate Days. We did a little geocaching, beachcombing and kite flying. I took some new photos of Washaway Beach . We took a family photo at Grayland Beach on a giant stump that washed up onto the shore and had fun just hanging out with our friends. It turned out to be a great weekend weather wise and this coming holiday weekend is supposed to be another great weekend. Weather should be in the high 70's/low 80's which will be perfect for camping and enjoying fireworks.

Since my last posting we have acquired a 5 month old, female German Shepard. We named her Hemi and she is cute as can be. I had my doubts about a "big" dog but she has actually done very well adapting. No fights between the dogs/cats and no "accidents" in the house. Which is pretty impressive considering she was a "farm dog" the first 5 months of her life. The upside 0f her becoming part of our family is that I no longer have backyard "poop patrol". After 17 years of being the main member of that patrol (the guys mulch it with the mower instead of picking it up) I was tired of doing it. So they agreed and we picked her up two days later. I will admit that she must of known that I was the one she had to butter up to when we went to see her the first time. She pretty much ignored everyone else except me that afternoon.

The kids are getting ready to gear up for hockey season. We traditionally take the month of May off and then in June they start Skills&Drills and add some Drop-in sessions in July so that by August they are ready and in shape. This year they both decided to take May and June off from hockey. They are excited because for the first time in four years they are looking forward to having the same coach as last year.

I just realized that it's been almost a month since I last blogged. My friend Kim has been making comments here and there about how she was looking for a message letting her know that I had blogged but I didn't realize how long it's actually been. Needless to say it's been a whirlwind of a month and May just seemed to be a real short month. So I'll give a quick recap of what's happened around the Burress House this month.
I decided to do some followup emailing for my family reunion scrapbook project the first week of the month. I had sent out a second batch of group sheets for family members to correct/update so their scrapbook page could be as current as possible. Some photos started coming back in and I've noticed that either I get no answer at all or a quick answer, photos and updated info.
Then my mom, brother, sister and niece made a quick trip down to Banks, Oregon to visit my aunt who had been diagnosed with Tissue Cancer. She had been experiencing flu-like symptoms for several months and having an extremely hard time just moving around. Six weeks ago she found out it was cancer, had three to six months to live at the most and treatment might give her a month or so more but no guarantee of it and she would probably be sicker as a result.
So we spent a day with her and I was lucky enough to see two cousins that I had not seen in over 15 years. We stopped at the Factory Outlet Stores in Centralia on our way down and did about an hours worth of power shopping at Bath & Body Works, Nike Clearance Store and the Vanity Fair/Lee Outlet. I bought work pants for Mike, my sister bought tennis shoes for friends down in CA, Rachael and Michael bought some aromatherapy "Pillow Spray" that smelt like lavender that's supposed to help you relax and go to sleep.
Then we spent a day getting Christina's graduation annuncements done. (I still have 50 left to make tonight). We have decided to have a party/open house/luau on the Friday after graduation. The dollar store proved to be a treasure trove of luau decorations and even had "Graduation Party" stuff with a Hawaiian theme. Christina's Cap & Gown arrived mid-month so it's becoming "real" to us that she is almost a "full fledged adult" and could actually get married/move out if she was so inclined....but I doubt that will happen because she recently informed me that she plans on living at home until she is 41.....I think NOT!!!! Now we have begun "Graduation Gift" negotiations.
I think part of the reason that the month has "flown by" is because Memorial Day weekend was earlier than normal. We went to Millersylvania for three days of camping with the Kelly's. Sam and I took the kids geocaching. Turns out the boys had dabbled in Geocaching while at Camp Goodtimes. We set out to find two caches (one of which was a two parter) found the first half of one then found out from some fellow geocachers we ran into on the trail that the second half was missing. Found "The Big Tree" cache, dropped off a Travel Bug at "It's Miller Time" and we planted a new cache. I still need to go upload the coordinates for the "KB Toy Box" at www.geocaching.com and update my log book to reflect dropping off the Travel Bug.
Last week I got news that my Aunt's cancer was more involved than originally diagnosed and that three months was on the "extremely optimistic side". While camping over Memorial Day weekend my mom had to call me and let me know that my Aunt passed away.
So this week turned into another busy week. I went back to work on Tuesday then left for Oregon with my niece and son on Tuesday night. Attended her memorial service on Wednesday then took an extra day to visit with cousins and my uncle who had flown in from Utah. It was a nice visit and all agreed that we needed to make an effort to get together and reconnect more often under happier circumstances. I took the opportunity to update everyone's family info in my genealogy program and was even able to have some family members identified in old family photos.

Hummie has decided to kick of National Scrapbooking Day (May 2nd) with a Cool Guy Scrapping Contest where you scrap about the men in your life/family. The contest will run over the next seven weeks with the winner being announced on Fathers Day. Her guys (she is the only female in the family) are going to be the judges.

Leave it to Hummie to dangle a contest in front of me that I just can't resist. She is kicking it off on Saturday and you can get all the info on it HERE at Hummiesworld.

She was thinking ahead and has even created a thread for "guy kits" so we have sources! Deb (Scrappin Cop) has a great kit you can get for free on her blog. I've posted a couple images from the kit so you can see them.

So...if you have a guy in your life who is into tools (what guy isn't) or who is a construction worker this may be the kit for you. Now I'm going to have to figure out if I can somehow coordinate doing a couple layouts for this contest and complete my other scrapping project in time.

Mathilde stopped by my blog last night so I naturally went to her blog to go leave some love and check it out. Even with my non-French speaking skills I was able to figure out that she had the most beautiful free kit available!!! Go check it out at her blog!! Its a huge collab kit from Soval, Joey, Penny57, Scoubidoo and Cjournet13. If you follow the link to this kit there is also an opportunity for 4 more free kits designed by Joey!!