Missing bag

No more luggage coming out. My suitcase never showed up. It went on a
different vacation. I hope it meets up with me soon!!

Busy June

I did VBS at my church last week. I was the preschool director - over all the 3s, 4s and K5s - and the leaders for all those classes. About 120 kids and 40 leaders. After the 4 months of preparation to get there, last week I was just running around all day, making sure that all the adults and kids were where they needed to be and that they had everything they needed. It was exhausting!! I did have great leaders and other directors helping to make it go smoothly and be FUN!
And looking back on it, it really was a lot of fun, now that I've rested a little! And I'm still a little tired. The week went by fast AND slow! That was a weird feeling.

Then this past weekend, I was helping and attending my brother-in-law's wedding! Lots going on this June.

And the excitement continues - heading to Arizona soon!!

Mint-Tea

This is a corner of my garden. My mint plant that I planted last year, and as mint does, came back this year with a vengeance. It's actually a chocolate mint plant.


Last year, I did nothing with the mint, besides just smell it when the wind ruffled the leaves. I did cut most of it at the end of the season, with intentions of drying it, but after a few weeks - and after a snowfall, I remembered that I had left the mint outside on the porch. Oops. It was kind of gross.

So this year I decided to use the mint. I had been looking for some way to brew the leaves. And this past weekend on a trip to Ikea, I found this nifty teapot, with a mesh insert for tea leaves!! It works great.


I just clip a few stems & leaves, chop them up and in the pot they go. Then just pour hot water through the middle and brew for a while! Yum! The chocolate part of the mint doesn't really have a Hershey's chocolate taste. It just adds a little sweetness and takes away some of the bitterness. Gives it a smooth flavor!

It's amazing that I can make a refreshing drink from a plant in my yard and water. Guess that's how tea has been made for thousands of years, but I just started doing it. I grew the plant. I brewed the tea!

Weeds...and not

I was pulling weeds today and I got something that was stuck - and kind of heavy. Here is the first weed:

Then I got to another part, cutting back some weeds and monkey grass that have grown up next to the house, near the gas and cable hookups. And I was being careful....very careful. This time.
And when I saw this "weed" I got a little scared at first, but it was not connected to anything. Thanks cable guy, I think.
I was a little nervous pulling things that I didn't know I was pulling and seeing things that weren't connected anymore - because of the air conditioner unit incident a few weeks ago...

I was cleaning around the outside unit - getting rid of vines that had grown up and into the unit. Snip, snip, oops. I cut a wire. It was brown, just "hanging" around. It didn't look like it was a wire - not attached to anything. And it really looked just like the vines and weeds that I was trimming. I called the AC repair people and they told me that it was the thermostat wire. So that was good, sort of. It could have been really bad. Luckily they were able to fix it the next day, just by splicing and it was before the weather was too hot and the AC was really needed.

Purse Memories

While shopping yesterday, I saw this purse.

This purse looks exactly like the one that my mom took to Disney World when I was a little girl. I haven't seen anything like it in a long time. But I saw this and thought about Mickey Mouse ice cream on a stick. "It's a small world." And flying Dumbos.

Goals & such

I set some goals - in January. You could call them new years
resolutions, but I like to think of them more as goals to achieve.
Things that I want to do better, or more often. I had some basics like
drink more water and learn to like beans (yeah, I've never really
liked beans- but I now enjoy black beans & chili/pinto beans!)
So several goals are going ok. Some others just kind of fall apart,
mainly because I forget about them.
Ergo, a new system. A friend ran across this blog of a girl doing 2
and ONLY 2 goals a month. Seems doable. And more likely to be
remembered. I can remember to do 2 things for 30 days. And I've read
that it takes 30 days to make a habit. So I'm going to make some new
good habits.

So for May, my two are going to be
1) floss everyday
2) sit and stand with good posture - all the time!

These two things seem easy enough. And will make quite a difference.
So far so good!! Next month's goals will probably involve blogging...

Accident Prone

I'm still working on that backlog of blogs that I have had since the fall. But one blog topic just keeps adding to itself. It's the clumsy girl inside of me that keep coming out and making things interesting.

The injuries are various - sometimes I take "stuff" out with me when I fall, drop, trip, etc. Sometimes I don't. But I usually have at least one injury ongoing and healing. Never a dull moment...

This past Christmas, for example, while cooking, I had a few funny and weird incidents. The funniest was when I sprayed myself in the face with the spray butter - I didn't turn the nozzle around. So it was interesting to tell my husband WHY I needed him to hand me that towel. I burned my palm, the pot holder just having slipped a little - so that one is a little on the normal side. I broke a nail (no worries - it didn't end up in the food). And I sprained my wrist. That one showed up the next day. I couldn't figure out what I had done to hurt it when I woke up Christmas day. But it was after my all day cooking and using the cast iron (HEAVY) pan for Christmas Eve dinner. Whoops. I need to be more careful when tilting that very heavy IRON pan.

Many little injuries have happened between then and now, including the breaking of my baby toe - AGAIN. This would be the third time that particular toe has been broken. I remember vividly the first time I broke it - the day I got engaged. I quickly forgot about it that day, but remembered for several weeks afterward. I know am an expert at buddy-taping toes!

My most recent spectacular injury involved me falling on my front porch. UP the stairs. And did I fall on the wood part of the steps. Nope. I fell on the sharp brick portion of the steps. I was coming home for lunch, holding my keys in one hand and my travel coffee mug in the other. Then all of the sudden I was flat on the step and the porch. My right hand took the worst - scraping on the brick. My left hand was OK - it was protected by the mug. But my elbow on that side did hit. And my knee hit too. The first thing I did was check to see if my jeans (my favorites) had ripped. I'm used to the injuries - easier to heal than find jeans that I love! No rips. Then to try to unlock the door without bleeding on anything. Success. I limped inside, and my puppy had come to the door to see if I was OK. Sweet girl!
I doctored my hand - the worst of it. Then I checked my elbow. No tear in the shirt, but it was pretty bad. Huge bruise on the knee already coming in with a nice red knot forming too. So a limp and 2 band-aids later, I was ready to have lunch. Ouch. My boss said that it was ok for me to be back a little late - she's used to my lack of grace.

I healed quickly - maybe from the skills that I have developed of how to treat injuries and an excellent first aid kit available.

Recently, a new friend got to see me in action. I bought some cookie dough from her daughter and it was only in my hand for about 1 minute, and it jumped out, hit the floor and shattered. The plastic container shattered. I showed it to her and said that I was really klutzy. She said "no you're not!" But now she has heard about several other of my adventures and agrees that I am indeed accident prone!

And even today, as I was walking through the den, I took out a lamp with my pinky. It hurt me a little, but dented the hardwood floors in several places. But it's bound to happen with me around.