Another year down

There were some beautiful big red hibiscus blooming to wish me a happy birthday today! :) Tim made an amazing dinner for me. Mashed potatoes and gravy, pork chops on the grill, perfectly cooked rolls, and some steamed veggies. It was delicious. Kaylise came home for dinner and spent a few hours before heading back because she has work tomorrow. It was a very nice day with lots of texts from friends and family. I'm very blessed to have such great people in my life.

Tyler made me some yummy strawberry muffins for a light snack after church to tide me over until dinner time.

I had a frozen strawberry cheesecake for dessert!

 

steam bending

Tim decided to try his hand at steam bending with some wood he wants to make spatulas out of but wanted a little curve to the handle. He built a small box and a contraption to get steam to it. It kind of worked for him but not as well as he was hoping. It wasn't getting as much steam inside as he was hoping and his wood kept cracking at the bend. But he had fun trying something new and learning from it.

 

Frog

There was this cute little frog at my job this morning. I kept having to dodge him while I was putting plastic on the sidewalk so I didn’t step on it. It had fun markings and color. He was pretty active though so it was hard to get a good picture. 

 

I'm back

 I'm sure I missed a lot of fun memories but I at least captured a few of them from the last month and a half! Hopefully I can stay a little more caught up again. It's nice to be back up to current events! My memory isn't that great anymore so if I don't write about it soon and don't have a picture then it's not likely to get remembered for very long.

Orchids and flowers

I went to the store looking for some filters for my hose and came away with orchids instead!! :) They were so pretty and on sale and they didn't have the filters I needed so I couldn't walk away empty handed. :) I facetimed with Tim to help me choose some because he's been wanting some for a while. I got a couple mini ones and one big one. I'm excited for the new additions and hope I can keep them alive and get them to rebloom. That's been a trick for us. Our friends had a bunch at their house that have rebloomed several times for them so it motivated me to try again.

One of my new verbena is perking back up and getting new flowers. I'm glad I haven't clear killed everything. Actually several things are doing ok. They aren't flowering anymore but they are still alive and looking better after recovering from lack of water and then traveling across the country.

My little patch of plumbago is spreading and doing well. I love the blue flowers. I have them in several spots in the yard but they seem to like this spot the best. They are the fullest and spreading the most here.

 

New car

We have been looking for a car off and on for the last couple of weeks. We need another one for when Tim goes back to work. He's looked online a few times and last week before we went out of town we went to a dealership to test drive a car only to realize that he forgot to select the location and the one he was wanting to drive was actually at their Georgia location. Lol. So we didn't drive anything that day. This week he's looked off and on while I've been at work. Yesterday he found one he was interested in and set up an appointment to test drive it today. After our kayak adventure we both sat down and started looking at options to see if there was anything else appealing anywhere. They texted to confirm that he was coming in and he asked if we could come earlier. So we took Bumpy Bill/Leaky Larry/Shaky Sean/Green Bean... and went to the dealership. It was a hot ride but we made it. :) Only to find out that the car we had an appointment for was sold yesterday and the salesperson they assigned us to wasn't even working today! There was another very kind salesperson though and he helped us look at what other options he had available. We found something similar to what we had been looking at but when he brought it up for a test drive it smelled so strong of smoke I couldn't even last 10 seconds in the car. I was coughing and struggling to breathe. It was bad. So I got right back out and we went back to his desk and looked some more. We found another one that was a little newer (2023) and just under 12,000 miles that was right at the edge of our price range. We decided to give it a try just to see how we liked the feel of the Nissan Rogue. We ended up liking it enough that we got an assessment for a trade in and we bought the car. I jokingly texted Bransen that I was sorry we didn't let him say goodbye to his car before we left the house! He said it was fine. We were both super impressed with the salesperson. He was not pushy and was very pleasant to work with. We are both happy to have that settled and not have to worry about selling or buying a car anymore.

 

Hope mills lake

Bransen wanted to go kayaking today so we got up early and went to Hope Mills Lake. We went close to 5 miles round trip. It was a fun little adventure. My shoulders are definitely going to be sore tomorrow though! They are not used to rowing that much. It was a pretty little paddle trip though and the weather wasn't too terribly hot yet. It was plenty warm but the shade and cool breeze helped a lot.

My cannas (well actually nearly everything) are much smaller this year. It just hasn't rained nearly as much and it shows. But my striped canna was not so stripey last year and I was kinda sad but they are looking better this year just short.

 

On a whim

Our old tv was really struggling to connect to anything to let us watch things. So on a whim we went and bought one on sale for the 4th. We had to trim our stand down so it would still sit below the countertop. Bransen has been using it as his computer monitor hooked to his laptop to play games!

And Tyler's been using the old one as his desktop monitor! They've been having fun playing games on giant screens! We've watched a couple shows too. :) The joys of summer. Relax, watch shows, play games, hang out with friends.

 

cartoon eyes

Bransen realized the mustang didn't have very good a/c so he did some research and we bought a repair kit to refill the system. He tried it once and then went to visit Kaylise and it didn't really work. But he did a little more research and wondered if he just didn't do enough the first time. So he tried again and it is much better now. Being a dark car and it's just hot here we needed another sunshade. I saw this one on amazon and couldn't resist. It makes me smile every time I see it!

 

another milestone

It's official. Tyler now has his learner's permit. It's crazy to think no more drivers ed for my kids. It's funny we were going to try to get his permit last week right after he finished his driving portion of the class. Except he realized it said on the paperwork that you had to be at least 15 so we had to cancel our appointment and reschedule for this week! Haha It all worked out though and he can officially drive with us now.

15 great years

He didn't care if he had candles or not, unless I was taking a picture then he didn't want it to be just him and the cake. Haha.

So we gave him some candles. and he blew most of them out and clapped the last one out.

We gave him a few things that he asked for. He doesn't usually have many things he wants so it's tricky. He likes puzzles but doesn't take the time to put them together so I told him I would buy anymore until he's actually put the ones together from last year and Christmas!! 

He wanted a weighted blanket that supposedly has cooling beads in it.

Some books and some chocolate covered pretzels.

I had work this morning and then made him a cake this after. He also had friend over for a while. They've started a fun project together. Then we went to team tonight and came home for dinner, cake, gifts, and a movie before bed! So thankful for each of my kids and love their individual personalities. Tyler is a fun kid. Full of fun facts and random information, loves to read, spend time with friends, loves horses and animals in general. Happy Birthday buddy. I can't believe it's already been 15 years!

Flowers and follow up

I was so excited when I came home and my African violets are blooming. They are so pretty and have lots of flowers on them now. My spider plant on top is getting really big too. My other hanging pots are also doing well.

This is my new pot with flowers I brought home. Unfortunately on Father's Day in Utah I forgot about them and the next morning a lot of them were pretty scorched and sad. They are still struggling a little but starting to come back out of it. I'm hoping being repotted and watched over a little better now I can bring them back to life.

I went to my follow up with the hematologist today. They did labs first, and then I waited for an hour for the appointment. While I was getting my labs drawn, there was another person in there as well and she was talking to her nurse. She had similar issues as me she has tried, baby iron and liquid iron and all sorts of iron. Her G.I. doctor told her that she would just have to periodically have IV infusions the rest of her life. I was not very excited to hear this news. My iron levels came back in the normal range, which was nice. When I got to end to see the doctor, though she was hoping that they would’ve been higher after having my infusions. She asked about the procedure that I had last week and I told her it was normal and that they told me to do the pill camera. She said to do that and come back in six months. She also verified that if they didn’t find anything that I could possibly have to just do infusions when/if my levels get low again. I'm not super thrilled with that info but who knows what the future really holds. It will be a few weeks before I know anything else. I have to get an appointment with radiology to do a scan to make sure my intestines are big enough that the camera won't get stuck. After I get that done then I have to schedule for the camera pill. I'm dragging my feet a bit but will get it done.