Lake Huron Evening

Yesterday we took a trip to Lake Huron. We attempted to visit a Lumberman's Monument and interpretive nature center outside of Oscoda, Michigan, but the directions and maps I printed were useless and wrong. Also, our GPS died. So we drove several hours from home, then in a big lost loop around the former Wurtsmith AirForce Base (at least, I'm pretty sure it's just a former base now) and saw no helpful signs or anything, and decided just to head to the beach. Oscoda actually has a quite nice city beach, and we played there for several hours, before heading home at dusk and getting home verrrry late.

Here's just a few pix of the splashing, leaping, digging, burying, and swimming that took place:

When we returned home I found different maps and directions for the Oscoda attractions we'd intended to see, placing them in an entirely different place than the first website had, so we'll try that again another time. It turns out it was the perfect day for the beach anyway. Note to self: Next time leave a little earlier, it's a long drive.

As a bonus picture, here's me at the beach, with my 26 week belly:

Samantha

My eldest daughter, Iliacat, was in a local play, a production by a neat group of homeschooled young ladies. It was a back-yard production for which they practiced all summer and did nearly everything themselves, with very little adult help. She did a wonderful job in the lead role, Samantha (from the American Girls books), and I'm very proud of her.

Here she is -- on the left, in red -- with "GrandMary" and "Aunt Cornelia"

And here is is, again, teaching Nellie to do some math:

We had a lovely evening, and she not only did very well but had a lot of fun.

Down to the Finish Line but not yet across...

Our house is nearly done.

Nearly.

It has been nearly done for a few days now, so that, in itself, is getting frustrating. I guess when the colleges start back up, College Pro Painters are short staffed, and the staff they have are tired of working ...

but we trust it will, eventually, get done. After all, we have the rest of their money. :)

But it's "done enough" that I can show you. I like it. My neighbor just stopped by and said he liked it. As did the neighbors across the street. The others haven't said, but that's okay, it's my house and I like it blue. It's very, very blue. A deep but bold denim. I'm glad we didn't go with the more gray. I'm sure it would've been nice. But this makes me happy. Or will when it's all done.

* oh, I was going to show these as before-and-after but forgot. Oh well. The before are back here somewhere, maybe back in April or May when we were first thinking of painting and before the windows were replaced? But just imagine it yuck camel snot brown, then ooh and ahh over the improvement.

Moon Rocks

The Grand Lunar fixed my CAPTCHA issue this morning! He's so smart!

The Grand Lunar ROCKS!

Whooooo!

Thanks, babe!

You may all proceed to comment. :-D

Pardon me, was I missing?

Apparently I haven't been blogging. You may have noticed this. I did not. Because of the blogging in my head thing, I guess.

Where have I been? Busy with things. I got the bedroom painted and one coat of trim on done in there.

And then ... The Grand Lunar got sick. He's had a bad sore throat -- so bad he couldn't eat much and couldn't even drink much. He went to the doctor because, honestly, who has sore throats that bad that last more than a day or two? But the doctor said it was "just a cold" -- slim consolation when it won't go away. Although now, a full week-plus later, it seems to be getting a little better.

But the doctor also said his blood pressure was too high. We've been skirting that issue, made some half-hearted (or short lived) efforts in the past, but mostly living in denial. Apparently blood pressure doesn't respond well to denial. Go figure. So we've gone back again to the healthy eating, focusing on some exercise, and reading about health and stuff. In addition to Dr. McDougall's "The McDougall Program for a Healthy Heart", I've been reading a book called "The Salt Solution" which I found at our local library when they didn't have another book I wanted. I also requesitioned one that I might buy if I like it, not specifically for hypertension but reportedly containing good McDougall-like heart healthy recipes, "Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease" by Caldwell B. Esselstyn. The good news is that hypertension - in nearly all cases - can be controlled by diet and exercise and lifestyle choices. The harder news is that our tastes and habits need to change. But the benefits are more than just lower blood pressure, but also moving towards a healthy body weight, protection against heart disease, stroke, osteoporosis, kidney disease, and more.

So this "just a cold" has, in some ways, blown into a much bigger thing, but I think it'll be good, in the long run, getting us back on track.

In other news, our house is being painted. At the very end of the CollegePro season, so they're a little short staffed. I'm trying not to be nervous that they'll all quit and go back to school leaving things half done. But so far the change is nice. Here's a sneak preview of the house when they had just started a section on the front. Note, too, my lovely hibiscus in bloom.

I could actually show you more -- they finished the first coat on the front of the house today -- but I want to wait until they're done with the white trim and both coats of blue.

Whatcha think?

I like it.

**note** apparently my captchas have gone missing. The Grand Lunar is going to upgrade my blog software ... stay tuned and feel free to email me in the meantime ...

Toothless Tobi-Wan

Tobi-Wan lost his very first tooth yesterday. It wasn't shoved out earlier because the big tooth chose to come in behind it instead of under it. If we did the 'tooth fairy thing' he might have to save his quarters (or are they dollars, now?) for the orthodonist.

He also got to go to his first ball game. Which was rained out.

But he got to keep his toothless smile. Cute, isn't he!

Is it worth the time, is it worth the price ...

Whew, I got the 2nd coat of paint done in the bedroom. It makes for a long day, when painting more or less takes all day.I did take a little nap during the "paint drying" phase.

Deep thought: Starting a 2nd coat is like knitting the 2nd sock. It needs to be done, but it's much less exciting, starting over for the 2nd round.

Painting is kind of a mixed bag for me. I don't mind painting, but it is a lot of effort. I find myself trapped between really wanting it done WELL and not having the time and patience to be as careful as I guess I should be. Especially when working in an almost 70 year old room that's been badly done before. It's hard to be meticulous about not having drips when you're painting over 68 years of other people's drips, blurbs, and bad plaster patches.

I do like the thrill of the change, as well as the money saving and proud feeling of having done it myself.

But sometimes when I look at the places I blorped an uneven edge along the ceiling, after trying hard to be careful, much less when I'm nursing an aching back and have worked hard all day with furniture still to haul back in, I can certainly see the appeal of hiring the job out.

So I'm glad I'm doing the bedroom, I think it will be a very nice change. Will it inspire me to ditch the ugly pink hallway with yellow feathered glaze? Or tackle scraping down the obnoxious wall borders and wall paper in other parts of the house? You'll have to wait and see.

Coming up tomorrow (or Friday) ... finishing the room by painting the trim.

THEN you can see pix.

sun spots through the screen on blue

I'm painting our bedroom

This morning the sun was coming through the window and screen and making funky dappled screen-patterned spots on the can of paint. It was very difficult to get a good picture of, but this one gives you the impression, without the amazingly-cool factor.

you might be trying to guess what color the bedroom will be, based on this picture. Good luck. You really can't tell. I mean, it's blue, sure, but not really a good picture of the shade of blue.

Turns out I'm pretty much a L00zR at painting neat tidy edges. Tape is tedious and usually disappointing, where it leaked under here or pulls something off there. But boy did I not do a stellar job with the "good brush, pay attention, be careful" approach. I'm guessing it's the "pay attention" part I failed.

And Then We Went to the Pool

Yesterday I was insane, and after a busy morning in the hot sun at the spray park, I took everyone to the pool.

Last Tuesday was pool day, but it got rained out, so I said we'd go Wednesday. But then last Wednesday through this Wednesday we were busy with the Window Guys, and I didn't want to pack up for the pool when we'd be gone when they were leaving.

So yesterday was the first day we could really go to the pool since last week's missed days. I haven't been much of a "pool mom" in the past - something about watching many children who aren't confident swimmers, plus the whole swimsuit modesty issue - I've usually tried to avoid it.

Anyway, we went, with Moogie and Poppie's help, and had a good time, despite it being quite crowded. We only dissolved into tears of exhaustion a few times, and I won't say which one(s) of us.

In a rare show of dial-up-friendliness, I've smallified the pool pix but each is a link to the full size one.

Oh, and for the record? Yesterday's pool hair was AWFUL. So much for my theories that pool hair is good hair.

Big Kids, Buzz and I, and Eminoodle walking in flippers:

Gark practicing his floating face, Gark splashing down the slide, Iliacat playing with Buzz:

Sputnik braving the Mushroom, Sputnik Swimming, Tobi-Wan braving the shroom:

Poppie giving a swimming lesson, Moogie serving snacks to tired kids, Iliacat going down the slide:

That, plus my bizarre sunburn where I obviously applied my sunscreen erratically, is all the news from the pool. For now. Until we brave it again.

Northern Flicker?

Wouldn't you know we'd spot an unknown bird when my bird-wise parents are out of town, driving, and can't be called?

Tobi-wan spotted this - said it looked like "a big woodpecker with an arrow pointing down on the back of it's head" - I didn't get a good picture of the front, but it had a VERY clear D-shaped black patch (like a D pointing down, flat side up) on the chest, just below the throat. I don't remember any markings near the eye, and I thought it was more black-and-white speckled than black-and-brown, but my picture seems to tell me otherwise. They sat on our stump for a while, two of them, until a black squirrel scared them off.

As far as other identifying notes, I would've called them 'starling sized' - a little bigger than a robin, maybe. They weren't upright on trees, so they had less of that 'upright woodpecker' feel to them. But mostly that's all I had time to notice, the clear red chevron on the back, speckled back and front, and the clear black D-patch on the chest.

Here's the only good picture I got. Not bad for from a distance, through a window ...

Here's two pix I found online (not my images) that seem to confirm the identification, although neither seem quite like what I saw overall ...

the D-patch: from this site:

And the red chevron on the back of the head from this site:

What do you think? Northern Flicker?