Schools out and the madness has begun.......

Cripes! I haven't posted for well over a week! School let out for the summer on the 12th.......that's when things get crazy here and everyday seems like Saturday because I don't have to get up and find my cattle prod to get the kids up, pack lunches, and drive to the bus stop all while I'm still half asleep. WAHOOOO!

Last year I got the kids to "clean" a rug for me outside. I guess I forgot what happened because on Monday I got them to clean the rug that lives in the kitchen. This time the rug actually got clean...........but geez Louise look at the kids!!! And they wonder why I drink.........

Of course, while I was rinsing the rug I thought it a great opportunity for some mischief of my own so they both got sprayed with the hose. I do have a slightly evil side ;)

Alex and Katie are earning a little money this summer working for me. Katie is making little lavender sachets for me to put in with my BMH orders so everthing smells nice and Alex (my paper folding genius) is making various size boxes out of greeting cards for me to package jewelry and stitch markers in. The boxes are really cool and the ones he makes out of vintage cards are awesome...........need to find some more vintage greeting cards. Eric and I helped them make a raised garden bed and they've planted marigolds, watermelon, and one lone purple bellflower. They are suppose to keep it watered, weeded, and mulched. Anyone want to wager it turns into a "wild life refuge" before the end of the summer with knee high weeds? Katie is now taking every seed from the apples we have and is determined to get one to sprout and grow a little tree this summer........so far she's had 3 sprout but fiddled with them so much in her excitement she broke them. Alex has discovered Pandora (the free radio on the internet) and is absolutely fascinated with the songs that play when he punches in Irish Drinking Songs. That's my boy! They are pretty funny and are some of my favorites to listen to when I spin. There is a song called The Gates by DaVinci's Notebook that is fabulously funny....listen to it if you can find it, those with a hateful computer will love it. Oh! Katie has started making soap.........I love making soap!! We made some soap for the guys and we're experimenting with different essential oils and herbs that I have. I'm sure we look like mad scientists (or the witches from MacBeth) stirring our bubbling pots with bottles and bags of herbs all over the counters. George is going outside alot more now and is eating paths through the flower beds..........he ate my lone Calendula flower and then to add salt to the wound he did a huge poop on the living room carpet. Hmmm, anyone got a good recipe for turtle soup? Kidding.........unless he starts eating my roses.

I got my new business cards last week and am thrilled with them!! It was time to get seperate cards for the two Etsy shops. I designed the whole thing with the help of 1/2 a bottle of Tylenol, a stiff drink, and alot of foul language. The pictures were a pain in the butt!! It's kind of like having kids though, you forget about the pain in time...... Eric got another load of pocket watches for ebay. I do mean a LOAD......they filled up a Priority shoe box. There are watches tick tocking all over the place and I'm waiting for something to explode and my twitch wants to keep time with them. The good news is they don't have the chiming alarms..........that's where I would have to draw the line. I'm about as looney as I can handle right now and that would push me into a prescription required zone. Well, I've got batts to make, tons of sewing to keep procrastinating over, pictures to take, jewelry to list, yarn to spin, mysteries of the universe to ponder, and spiders that keep crawling across my desk to kill..........I hate spiders in the house.