Mosquitoes

I had a question about the mosquitoes so I will answer about them here. Sometimes they are not so bad and some times they are horrible and vicious. Mostly when it is hot they are not too bad, when it is windy they leave us alone as well. You just learn to live with them. They are the worst in remote outdoors, like when camping in a remote location, especially around a lake or pond, they are horrible!!!! Alaska.com mentions a blurb about mosquitoes and you can also read about mosquitoes here as well. Mosquitoes are joked with being our state bird, not really our state bird is the willow ptarmigan. This year has not been a bad mosquito year so far, but then again, I had three bites on my arm this past week, they are finallly healing! Well, I am calling it a night early tonight, I want to have a productive day tomorrow, Mt. Washmore is overtaking the laundry area and I did not have a lot of laundry time today. Tomorrow I will be home and I only have one errand to run quickly before the revival service tomorrow night. Yeah and yahoo for being home all day! I love being home.

May the Lord find us faithful.

What a busyw two weeks we have before us

I am a little overwhelmed!!! This past weekend was spent with my husband working on his truck Thursday and Friday, putting in a new starter, transmission, and two new batteries. Then on Monday, he had to replace the alternator (under warrenty, so that did not add to the very expensive work done the previous days). Then Sunday we began a week long revival at church, then on Friday we have grandparents coming for a week (which we will spend traveling around Alaska with them). Whew, my to do list is long. Then, I go over to check in on my friend PlainJane, I should not have done that, she has this wonderful schedule posted(trial, at least that is reassuring), she gets up at 4:30!! I now think she is the greatest. One of my goals is to get up earlier, but I have a tough time waking up in the morning, no matter what time I go to bed, no joke, I can go to be at 9:00 and still have a tough time waking up at 8:00 the next morning. Also, in summer we go to bed much later as we have all this daylight and things to do as well. And, I have a rough time with the blessings going to be early when they have only seen dad a couple of hours, so we stay up later in the summer and sleep a litte later in the summer as well. Which makes sense to a degree.

My posting will be hit or miss for a while, but I will post it all when I can, enjoy your summer! We had cooler weather and it rained all day yesterday(that is a praise, we really want to avoid a smokey summer!)

May the Lord find us faithful.

Just for the record

In case you are reading this later, right now my temperature sticker say it is 79 degrees, we are roasting.

Yahoo!!!!!

May the Lord find us faithful.

I am playing "catch up", here goes....

First, I finally spent my Christmas money and bought this grain mill

 to make this...... Pretty good for a first try.

Now, spring has sprung, it was about 75 degrees today and a warm time was had by all!! In an effort to lose weight (only me, the blessings do not need to lose weight) and view nature, the blessings and I have been walking every evening after dinner and dishes. We live near an old gravel pit so we usually walk through there and the blessings climb the gravel piles and run across the top jumping from pile to pile.

  

The sky is so blue today, it is just amazing. I am not sure why blessing #2 has on that jacket, I think the mosquitoes were bothering her before we left, they are vicious when the sun goes behind the clouds, even if for a minute!

This dirty, scraggley haired little blessing(#3) is holding a rock in her hands that she called her chicken rock. I forgot to get the story when we got home, but that one is going to be written down for sure!

Lastly for tonight

This nest has been here for years, some years it is home to bald eagles and other years hawks. I think this year it is a hawk, I tried to get a picture of the bird flying but it would not cooperate!

I took some flora and fauna pictures but they did not download. If I can find them, maybe my next post can be a What is this plant or tree? How well do you know your Alaska greenery? But for now, I am off for a long soak in the tub, I do not do that often enough. (I do shower daily) I just do not endulge in the full blown tub full of water soak. So, I am off. As always....

May the Lord find us faithful.

Warm weather

This blog has been replaced by warm, sunny weather and outside projects and swing sitting! Hope you all are having nice weather as well.

May the Lord find us faithful.

No joke

Jenn posted about googling your name and the word needs, this is what I got......

1.Melissa needs to board the blob ship that is hovering overhead

2.Melissa Needs at least 10 hours of sleep a day

3.melissa needs to take a break,

4. needs a break, but in the work groove.

5.Melissa Needs Maintenance Manuals

Here were my top 5 cut and pasted from google. I agree with numbers 2,3 and 4. Now, I am out for my evening walk. I have been doing fairly well with daily walking about 5 days a week. I do not know how far I am walking, we just walk until we have walked enough.

May the Lord find us faithful.

Our weekend

I did not take any pictures this weekend, I found myself wanting my camera a few times even though our weekend was fairly uneventful. Friday, I had forgotten a scheduled meeting with a friend, so I left early for that and was home by noon.  I made lunch and took a nap. My sweetheart worked on his truck all afternoon, then he and blessing #1 went up to sit at the bear stand. The girls and I did a little van interior cleaning and had dinner and some tv time. Early to bed to read for me.

Saturday: We slept in as the men did not get home until 2 am! I went to our church to watch a wedding via webcast. Our pastor's son was married in Pennsylvania and our pastor was unable to fly all that way due to his health issues at this time. He is improving but slowly. So, we were able to watch via webcast. That was neat. No dressing up and we could talk if it deemed necessary! And it was. It was a wonderful wedding and they are honeymooning some where that was kept secret, but it was warm and tropical!!! Then, I came home and cooked dinner, took a long walk, ironed, bathed girls and that was that day.

Sunday: Church, dinner, a little playing in the flower bed and swinging with my sweetie. Then back to church, a trip to Wal-Mart then home and snack and bed.
Not an exciting weekend, but full and not hectic.

May the Lord find us faithul.

Around

Things here are well. I have spent a couple of afternoons sitting on my swing, I will post a picture of me swinging when someone takes one! First, I have to do my outside cleaning (clearing) and decorating ( flowers etc.) Then a picture will be available for viewing.

Now, I just finished reading Sense and Sensibility, which I enjoyed greatly. BUT, I have been reading through Louisa M. Alcott books and just started Jo's Boys just a couple of days ago. There is so much to glean from an Alcott book that it amazes me. It constantly gets me thinking and urges me to read other good books that she often mentions in her books. I plan on going back through little women and listing all those books for my own reference, a great jumping off place in my own study. Also, I felt the same way when I read her Rose series (Eight Cousins and Rose in Bloom). She also gives wonderful glimpses into the every day lives of that day. The everyday things they did and that had to be done. Forgive me for my excitement as I am reading these books for the first time and as Anne Shirley would say (Oh, what I missed). So now I am catching up!!!!!

May the Lord find us faithful.

Monday

I will one swinging girl this summer.......

I am giving up this,

For this........

My wonderful husband bought me this swing for Mother's Day. I am thrilled. I have always loved porch swings but since I do not have a porch, that was not "doable". Then, it dawned on me that I could get one of these. I sat out here after it was together and read a few chapters of  Sense and Sensibility.

 Everyone helped with the assembly, the dog even watched.

The wooden structures are two entry platforms and stair bases. My husband came home with them, some one was clearing out some stuff, he thinks they might work for a new front entrance at our church, so they are in a holding pattern in our yard until there is  decision.

The dog is trying to get her training dummy, used to train retrievers to fetch, etc. Which this this thing. She obviously wanted to fetch and was not wanting to wait until the swing was assembled.

My iris are coming up, we still have not greened up, plus it rained all weekend and it was windy as well. Today was sunny and warm but windy as could be, which is unusual for here. I said "global winding" as you can see here with the laundry on the clothes line, very windy.

I am very thankful for my clothes line, it is my first real clothes line and I love it, I can hang a few loads out on the line at one time. I love line dried clothes.

May the Lord find us faithul.

 

Happy Mother's Day to you all

Only One Mother

Hundreds of stars in the pretty sky,
Hundreds of shells on the shore together,
Hundreds of birds that go singing by,
Hundreds of lambs in the sunny weather.

Hundreds of dewdrops to greet the dawn,
Hundreds of bees in the purple clover,
Hundreds of butterflies on the lawn,
But only one mother the world wide over. George Cooper

May the Lord find us faithful.

Getting our hands dirty

Yesterday we planted seeds to keep inside and give them a head start

 This is the Teaching tank, in it we planted some carrots so we can watch them grow and a pumpkin and tomato seed as well.

 We also planeted some broccoli, pumpkin, green beans, sunflowers, and tomatoes to get them started sooner.

         

One blessing said, "This is more fun than just playing!" I liked that one!

And then today we went to the Institute of Arctic Biology Research Greenhouse at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.  We saw some interesting tropical plants that they study and keep data on but the most interesting were the carnivorous plants seen here:

This one is commonly called cobra lily

                    

                                                                                                                   This is the famous venus flytrap

This one is an Alaskan carnivorous plant, it is very small and red, grows in boggy areas:

Well, that was our past two days with plants and seeds, Oh, yeah, they transplanted marigolds as well,

                     

There, that was our day!! All done, we came home with take and bake pizza and are watching Seven Brides for Seven Brothers

May the Lord find us faithful.

Our walk and what I have been waiting for

This afternoon the blessings and I went for a walk, I need to walk daily for exercise but do not make it every day, we walked to the mail box, which is a trek. Then made the loop back toward home and decided to go see if the pond was ice free yet (it is ice free close to shore but still has some ice in the middle). The pond is the product of an old gravel pit so there is a lot of high mounds of gravel piled up, the blessings had a blast climbing the rock piles and walking from pile to pile. The also had fun coming down! I wish I would have taken the camera, while I was standing there that is all I could think! Then we headed home and found a moose head laying off the road, yuck is all I can say, I did not want to take a picture of that. Then we headed home and finally planted some seeds tomato, beans, pumpkin, broccoli and sunflowers to germinate and start inside and direct planted spinach, peas, and some wildflower seeds, after we worked the bed a little. We will buy a few things from the green house but we will see what these will do, I have some pictures I will try to post tomorrow or Saturday.

Now, for the waiting for part. My son just came in excited about seeing the first snowshoe hare  or herethis spring, and wanted to journal it in his nature journal. I am thrilled about this and wondered if something like this would ever happen. I think some times I try to do things before they are ready. They will get there if I stand back and let it happen instead of making it happen. In fact, he got his journal only as no one else wanted to journal this, but all the journals were eventually asked for and journaled in!!! Yahoo!!

I use  this field guide most as it has our Alaska items specifically, but I also have Handbook of Nature Study by Anna Botsford Comstock as well.

Winter coat

Summer coat:

 Have you explored God's wonderful creation today?

May the Lord find us faithul.

Update

Here is quick update on my sister, she is home and sounds good.They took her thyroid out, it was toxic. She also had a goiter that was growing internally instead of externally and they removed that as well. I just spoke with her and she is feeling much better. She has a couple of weeks before she can go back to work, she seemed bored all ready!

I have been quiet here at the blog, I have significantly cut down on my computer time, I am trying to find a balance on what is good and what is taking too much time. So, if I am quiet, I am enjoying a good book, or watching my blessings play outside... the important things.

May the Lord find us faithful.

Monday, Monday

We officially begin our summer schedule this week; which is Monday: errands and music lessons, Tuesday-Thursday school (mornings only), Friday: Normal, Dad's off so we are off. Not a major change but the blessings think it is wonderful to have Monday off as well as Friday. I decided to school through the summer in the fall, we just need to keep going, plus I plan on doing some fun stuff that being outside affords, and I need the schedule for my personal accountablity. Of course, we will have quite a few weeks off as we have three groups of company coming up this summer.

I have not mentioned our Pastor in a while, he is still on the road of recovery, but as I said before he has a long road ahead of him. He did ask for company last night after church. He was sitting outside next to his outdoor fire place and his son grilled hotdogs and he was able to visit with church members as they filtered over after the service. I was in a meeting so the family went over first, I just popped over to say hello before we left. My son said Pastor  was planning on attending church next Sunday....my husband told him he would carry his outdoor lounge chair over!!!

No more headaches for blessing #2 and her scrapes are healing niecly, she did not ask for them to be wrapped yesterday, which is amazing.

May the Lord find us faithful.

 

Interesting

 

When I saw this I was a little amazed, then I read the description, it is definitely me, don't you think so Pa-Pa, you have know me the longest.

 

You are most like: Black
You are bold with a dark side. You make clear lines wherever you go, though you color outside of the lines. Many people may just see the surface of you and think you are merely plain, but you have a lot of depth to you as well.
Take this quiz: Which Crayola Box of 8 Color Are You?
Visit Toys For Your Blog.com for more blog quizzes

 

May the Lord find us faithful.

My blessing #2

Thank you for praying for my daughter, she is doing well, her headache went away and she seems to be doing well. So, I have it noted but I believe it was just a headache.

Not much else in my head tonight so I will go...

May the Lord find us faithful.

Please pray for my sister

My sister is having surgery next Tuesday 5/8 to have her thyroid removed. She has really struggled with health issues the past few months or so. She is only in her mid 20's to top it all off. So, please pray for her.

Also, since I am asking, could you pray for blessing #2, she had a horrible  headache last night ( first one ever), she scraped her arm up and she had a rash on her arm this week as well, so she has had a rough week. Thank you all,

May the Lord find us faithful.

Freebie

Go on over to Knowledge quest maps  for their Jamestown Quad pack free resources.

May the Lord find us faithful.

 

Customer service and printables

First, check out the free printable paper toys link at the top of this page. I plan on some of these for afternoon free time for the blessings. I think they will enjoy them.

Now, have you seemed to notice how horrible customer service has gotten? I have had two customer service nightmare  phone calls today, what is wrong with these companies and businesses? I have worked retail and customer service jobs, we were always taught manners and being curtious.  Without customers there would be no business. I appreciate good service and gave it when I worked retail jobs.

I try to stay out of the stores as much as possible. But we have had some things that have needed to be taken care of recently and I had to do some shopping and make some phone calls.

I am not going any farther than that as it would be complaining but I will say that I am taking to writing letters for both horrible and wonderful service. Those people who do their job well should be recognized. It's time for slackers to be start being useful instead of just taking up space and being a warm body.

May the Lord find us faithful.

You know you live in Alaska when....

You know you live in Alaska when.... your children come to your bedroom in the morning and it is daylight but they still ask if it is time to get up!!!!

The blessings and I all stayed up too late, they woke up at their normal times so they are all a little sleepy headed this morning. I had two blessings ask me if it was time to get up this morning. I thought that was just too funny. Check out my sunrise/sunset times on the weather sticker on the right side to see how much sunlight we have a day. I have not been keeping up but I will check after I post this.

May the Lord find us faithful.