Around Here This Week

So around here this week.....

I'm living life on the AC vents. Yes, I am, and praying for fall. I'm not sure even fresh tomato sandwiches are worth this.

Summer things are blooming, and varying shades of pink seem to be pretty prevalent in my yard. I'm a big fan of perennial flowers. I mean, plant once and it comes back year after year? Yes, please. I planted 2 hollyhocks last year. This one didn't bloom at all last summer and I wondered if it would even come back this year. But it's gorgeous. Love the double bloom varieties of hollyhocks. I know there's a lot of nostalgia for the single types. My mother tells stories of making little doll skirts from them, but I'm liking the frilliness of the doubles.

This one did bloom last year and it's such an interesting color, and I love the light coming through the petal in this shot.

One disadvantage of the double bloom varieties is that the blossoms seem to be very heavy for the plants once they really get going. Note to self, these need to be staked next year so the weight of the flowers doesn't pull the plant over. The shorter flower there is the hydrangea I planted last year as well. It's coming along.

This is something call Monarda and is supposed to attract butterflies. It's kind of going crazy this year and I get a kick out of the sort of wild, fireworks-looking flowers.

And the Phlox is hitting its stride as well.

Besides wandering around my yard, enjoying the benefits of having worked like a dog to get it ready for the wedding, we are sliding into that canning season. I have documented fully my love/hate relationship with canning and preserving. Yes, it's a good thing and yes, it benefits my family and yes, I am glad I do it.....after it's over, but I admit freely that I have to really gear myself up to get started on it. One of our local stores had strawberries on sale this week, so we did some freezer jam.

The garden is revving up. The trouble with having a downsized family is that when that happens it's really hard to keep up. Even with Evan's family taking half the harvest, I can probably supply the ward with zucchini. Some of it, like the green beans, I can freeze for winter, but there is only so much zucchini I can shred for future zucchini bread or zucchini cupcakes or zucchini bars or zucchini bread (again!...but different).

Sent to me from my kids this week.....well, OK this isn't from one of my kids, but I'm documenting that my sister broke her wrist and had to have surgery. She is recovering well, but this is her left wrist and, like me, she's left-handed. She's also a piano teacher, so it's a little problematic. She broke her other arm several years ago and her husband tells us she is now the Woman of Steel, as her arms now contain 4 plates and a total of 34 screws. 

NOW from my kids this week, Eric's wife sent me some pictures of their kidlets from the 4th.

Everyone had a flag on their means of conveyance.

But this one.....<3.

And Levi is pretty happy as well. 

Not a picture from my married daughter, but I went into our walk-in cooler where my husband hangs the dead things when he gets them. He lets them age a little before he butchers them. TMI?? Anyway, we had stored the flowers for the wedding there because, well, there weren't any dead things so it was a convenient place. This is how my daughter's bouquet looked yesterday. Yes, it helps to have a cooler, but I'm telling you....Canyon Floral does good work. That's almost 2 weeks this has lasted and looked really good. I'll be sad when it starts to wilt. 

Big news, by the time you read this, there will be a new little grandbaby. Evan's wife will be induced on what will be yesterday (I'm typing this on Thursday) and we will be excited to see what flavor it is, since they have chosen not to know ahead of time. 

I will leave you with a little video. You know that my family enjoys and participates in musical things. My boys enjoy singing together, but are rarely all in the same place at the same time. As a surprise for their dad on the wedding weekend, I asked them to sing for him. There wasn't much time for clandestine rehearsal, but it was a very tender moment for me and their dad. Not sure why the video is sideways. My DIL filmed it and turned the camera horizontally and when I look at it on my phone it's fine, but when I uploaded it to youtube.....well.....yeah. So if you just listen and ignore the orientation of the picture, this is how my boys sound together. Eric sings high tenor, Marc sings lead, Collin and Evan are on baritone and Bryce is the bass.

 

 

 

 

 

Comments

[Rachelle]

I'm so glad we got Brightly Beams on video!!! That was such a special moment!

[Andrea]

All the flowers in this post are beautiful!
That song!! Wowzers. One of my favorite songs and your boys sing amazingly. Hits the heart.

[JulieP]

Wow. Just wow. So beautiful.

[pam]

Beautiful! Love to hear them sing.
Your sisters arm looks terrible😢

[AP man]

Nice ones, Ma! I think we went sharp on the unison verse. Needs more practice. Blend was nice, though!

[Elisa]

I'm so glad you shared the video with all of us! Eric may be right about imperfections in the 'performance', but I think all present really felt the spirit so strongly that made it just perfect in my memory.

and I love all the other updates as well! :)