{ Fourth of July Weekend in Review }

Hi everyone.  How was your 4th of July weekend, did you have a lot of fun, visit family, stay home, have barbecues?

We had a really good weekend, though it's thrown me completely off because I've been walking around all day, thinking it was Monday.  Nevermind that, at least we know we only have 2 more days before the weekend right?

We cleaned, we watched TV, we did yard work, the kids learned how to ride the mower and had a blast on it,  I read, I crocheted, we ate amazing food and sat through some intense thunderstorms.

But let me show you our weekend....

I spent some time cleaning up my Kindle, and also downloading the books I need to review in the coming months.  

The next review on the list is for this book called Monticello.  It is quite good, I'm enjoying it and I think you all will too.

Started Part 7 of the Atlanticus.

Started my herbs, they've been sitting around waiting for me and I've been putting it off, but finally got them going last week and within a few days this is where we're are.

That's basil above and rosemary below.

Dinner on Saturday night was a family favorite and pure comfort food.  Fried Chicken with Milk Gravy and Garlic Mashed Potatoes.  So good.

Monday::::

The kids both want to get some money for chores.  Jasmine is waiting to move to Arkansas and so has not pursued a job or college around here.  But she wants some spending money by doing chores around the house and so on.

Nicholas on the other hand, wants pocket money for games, of course.  So we've been telling them both that we could use a hand with the mowing, since there's 3 acres around here.  We finally got them on the riding mower and Curt went through all the safety procedures, showed them exactly what to do, and rode a bit with them at first and so on.

They picked up on it pretty quickly and then had a blast riding around the property.  The whole time the blades were disengaged (just saying).

Seeing Nicholas on the mower made me so happy.  If you have teenagers, you know that they will spend most of their lives in their bedrooms, don't want to do any kind of outside activity and show no interest in yard work.

But he was having so much fun out there, he must have spent about an hour just driving around and around, driving by and waving and just enjoying the fresh air.

He has grown so much.  I look at him and am shocked at how quickly he has grown up.  A couple of you often ask me for photos of Nicholas because it's been a while since I've been able to get photo in.  He is 14, he is 6 feet tall already, he is shy, he is quiet, he is withdrawn, he doesn't like big crowds or big get togethers.  He has the sweetest of hearts, he is extremely smart and shocks me with the knowledge he possesses at times.

It's just such a pleasure watching him grow.

The whole time we are outside, Marley is too.  He loves being outdoors, but he's very good about staying right there at the edge of the driveway.  He will not go any further than that no matter how far we walk away from him.  I'm thankful for that because Lola used to bolt hahah

Tuesday::::

I was up pretty early and went straight into the kitchen to start cooking and baking.   The menu comprised of Deviled Eggs, Cheddar and Bacon Burgers, Smoked Sausages, Hawaiian Barbecue Chicken, Classic Potato Salad, BLT Pasta Salad, Red, White and Blueberry Pie and Star Spangled Slab Pie.

The minute I learned how to make boiled eggs in my electric pressure cooker, I never looked back.  I can't tell you how incredibly easy and perfect these eggs come out every time.  I told my husband that I need another pressure cooker, because I love mine so much and it's amazing when it comes to preparing meals for a group of people.

I will have the recipe up for the pie below, some time this afternoon.  It was delicious.

Here's the Red, White and Blueberry Pie.  If you love white chocolate and cheesecake, you will LOVE this pie.  The recipe is already on the blog.

It doesn't matter if there's only 2 of us or 20 of us, I always go all out, I try very hard to make the whole meal enjoyable and special.  I also like to decorate and set the table nicely and really make the best of the day.

I went through about 2 years, after moving here to the Texas, that I had become quite complacent and bored I guess.  The kids are much older and obviously not as excited for certain holidays as they used to be and I took that as meaning that there was no need to celebrate, decorate, go all out and so on as we had always done before.

But I've since changed my mind on that, I feel that NOW is the time to really have fun and celebrate, because too soon they'll be grown up and out of the house and I don't want to sit and think that I should have done this or done that.

So I decorated a bit, set everything up outside.  It was a beautiful warm day, and we enjoyed chatting, catching up, some music and delicious food.

It was great having these two beautiful ladies over as well.  On the left is Auntie Val who is my sister in law's mom, and on the right is Auntie Olga (Val's sister and Hayley's Aunt).  They are the ones that are visiting from South Africa.   I love spending time with them, they are adorable and sweet and funny.

The family all left around 8pm, they actually headed to Base for the Freedom Fest Fireworks display, but we opted out.  After 22 years of attending the festivities every year, we are kind of over it and would much rather stay home.

The picture above, I took from my back yard into the distance.  We had fireworks going off all around us, so we weren't really missing much by not going to base, and besides, I got bit something fierce by the mosquitoes out there, just in the time

Besides, I had a barbecue to clean up, a pile of dishes in the sink and really wanted to get some rest.

While moving our big exercise machine the other day, I hurt my back.  It was totally my fault, because I tried to move it on my own and I know better.  But just the trying to pull it around, did it.  I didn't feel anything the first day, but after being on my feet all day long yesterday, by nighttime I started getting a really sore back.

Usually it's my lower back that aches, but this one is higher than that, almost between my lower back and upper back, right in the lower area of my back and, oh my gosh, it hurts something fierce.  It almost feels like it's bruised, I can't even touch the area.

Wednesday::::

After the severe storms we had in the middle of the night, we woke up to a beautiful sunrise.  Just look at that.  Breathtaking.

The grass was sparkling with tons of little rain drops still hanging on to each blade of grass.

I just love bringing in the outside into my home, and using it as decorations.  These are from my Crepe Myrtles, I have tons of these trees all around the property.  Have you ever smelled the Crepe Myrtle?  They smell so good.

But most of my day today has been sitting on the couch, trying not to exacerbate my back ache, and basically facing this mess of a blanket.

So here's what happened.  Below is a picture of my Atlanticus 3 rows into Part 7.  I was feeling so good about it and pretty confident.  Pretty cocky too, because a few rows back I had noticed that my stitch count was off by a stitch or two, but not wanting to frog it and rip everything off to find the bad row, I kept thinking that I could make it work, a stitch here, or a stitch there.  No big deal.

Ummmm, HUGE deal.  By the time I got to the 4th row of Part 7, things were off, and I mean really off, where I could not ignore.

So I started the process of ripping row by row, counting the stitches, and ripping to the next, counting more stitches and ripping back yet again, until I found the culprit.....all the way on row 55 of Part 6.  I wanted to cry.

Just look at the mess of yarn.

But, I just told myself it's this or scrap the project, and I'm NOT doing that.  So I am painstakingly redoing it, all of Part 6 and Part 7.  It will take me a while but I'm hoping to get it done and finished by Monday when Part 8 comes out.

Oh my friends.  This just reminded me that sometimes we think we have it all figured out in life, and all it takes is a stupid little mistake in the past, to derail everything in the future.  But just like the crochet blanket, even if you can't go back in real life and redo things, usually you can fix the problem and move forward in the right direction.

The key to it all?  Staying calm, reminding ourselves it's for a good cause and the rewards at the end will make it all better :)

That's what I'm telling myself as I sit here crocheting the same 10 rows over again.

Well, this post has been a huge jumble and ramble, so I hope I haven't lost any of you along the way.  I'm off to get dinner figured out, I was going to just do barbecue leftovers for dinner because I have so many of those, but I am a bit over the grilled food as hubby and I had some for lunch as well.

So I think I'm going to take the leftover chicken, and do a quick Chicken Alfredo for dinner.

Have a wonderful rest of Wednesday, I'll be back in the morning with a Slow Cooking or Cooking Thursday :)