My pumpkin runneth over

No one will ever accuse me of being a "Type A" gardener.  Of course they would never accuse me of being a "Type A" anything, except for the constant need to be doing something.   

My tomato cages are bent, falling over, full of weeds and way too close together.  I am shocked by how many tomato plants came back after the @#^$ ground squirrels did their thing, but they are there and quite full of tomatoes.   I think there might be a little blight going on but we will survive.

This is just one hole out of a hundred.  Maybe there will be a few less, now that EB has had some success behind the scope.

One should read up on some things before you decide to just throw one a plant in the garden.  Looks like we will have a pumpkin bounty.  This one is already a foot long.

There are probably 10 more on this one vine.  One vine that has turned into a plant that is about 20 feet wide, 10 feet deep and 4 feet tall.  Who knew.  It has taken over the beans, which is fine.  I think I have eaten my fair share of beans so today I froze a couple of packages.

There are quite a few that are just a couple of inches.  Hopefully the bees have done their job and we will have enough pumpkins to fill our porch with jack-o-lanterns.

P.S. Things seem to be moving along on our house, just a couple more steps to go.  The inspection is complete and they are only asking for $1500 to make necessary repairs.  I am good with that. 

Keep us in your prayers!

We have an offer

We have an offer and they have accepted our counter offer, unfortunately the inspector they are using is known to ruin many a deal.  It is an old house, it has lots of quirks.  Please say a little prayer that all goes well or at least the things he identifies can be fixed for less than $4000.00  That is our threshold for not having to pay money on a house we don't own.  

It is hard to believe that I can be excited about selling the house we have had for 15 years for $23,000 less than we bought it for, but I am.  I sat down yesterday and figured out what it cost us to actually be in that house, including the interest, loss on the house, improvements etc and it really came to about $1400 a month.  You could say geez that is a lot of money to lose on a house, but all I have to do is think of all the wonderful people I would not have met and called my dearest friends if I had not lived in that house.  We had great times there and we miss our friends a lot.  But we have moved on and dammit I want to be done with the house.

B ended up winning his baseball game Thursday so we have another game today and I have to say it is sticky and yicky outside.  It was a very long 8 miles this morning.  Thank goodness for the EB who is now the WB (water boy).  He saved my life again.

Appliance repair man is coming back this am, so hopefully we will have an oven that works.  A really expensive oven that works.

Much better.

85 and zero humidty.  My kind of summer night.  Last night of baseball too.  Yeah.  The puppies would be excited too if they understood anything besides food and belly scratching.  They have been in the kennel way to much lately. 

Saturday, EB has tickets to the Twins vs. Tigers game.  He is taking the children, I think I may go see Larry Crowne.  Bad reviews or not.  Of course, that is after I run ten miles, have the oven fixed, do the laundry, clean the house, weed the garden, water the flowers......  You know the everyday stuff. 

Can I really blog from my phone?

So I will probably post more often, but they may be less coherent.  I am not sure that is possible, but we shall see.

We are sitting in the sauna. The boys clearly could not care if we win or not.  I say, lose on purpose so we don't have to play two more nights this week.  At least our team's back is to the sun while we are on the bench.  Z is pitching so I need to pay attention.  Ooh that was painful.

I ran on the treadmill when I got home, showered and then came here, now I need another shower.

When did companies stop standing by their products?

I am so completely frustrated and ready to give up my favorite brands.

About 3 weeks ago the buttons on my Kenmore oven stopped working.  First it was the bake button, next it was the pre-heat button, then the convection bake oven and lastly the convection roast.  This is the oven we have had for less than 2 years.  Yes less than 2 years.  I called Sears and spoke to someone from another country, who of course, didn't speak English as their first language.  I work with a lot of non-native english speaking individuals who I have no trouble understanding, but over the phone it is much more difficult.  Anyway they told me it was going to be $129 for just the service call.  I still had one button that worked so I said pass, but then I really can't bake a cake on convection roast.  So I called again, same situation over again.  I said I wanted my oven fixed, she put me down for the microwave.  That was after a 10 minute conversation.  Then I had to call back to fix the appointment.  That took another 15 minutes while they tried to sell me a million things they tried to sell me when I made the original appointment.  I said, "I really just want to fix the appointment, not anything else, just fix my appointment."

So the service man gets here yesterday, he was here for about 15 minutes and there was a lot of talk, no real action and he says okay that will be $500,  and I'll order the parts and come back next week.  Come back next week, are you fricking kidding me.  I took 1/2 a day of PTO, I am not taking another 1/2 day of PTO, do you know how valuable PTO is.  I said all of that except the fricking part. I should have said, "yeah this is the same thing I told the people on the phone, so you could have had the parts and fixed it right now".  He then said he could come back on a Saturday in a couple of weeks.  Oh yeah.  $500 for an oven that cost about $800 and is less than two years old.

I am so mad.  BTW, when we built our house we bought $4000 worth of Kenmore appliances.  Can't return them, what do you do.  So now I will not be shopping at Sears, which means I can't shop at Land's End.  Do you know how much I love Land's End.

Okay on to other really great news.  It is going to be around 95-100 for the next 7-10 days.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY AMERICA!

THANK YOU TO ALL THE MEN AND WOMEN WHO KEEP US FREE!

Seems like it should have been a much more productive weekend than it was.  I have no idea where the time has gone and now I just realized all the kids are out of the pool and I should be helping EB work on the edging at the front of the house.  

BE RIGHT BACK.

Okay, a day later, but back none the less.

I am just going to have to do a list.....

Movie reviews are overrated.

Cars was better than they said.

Looking forward to Larry Crowne, in spite of the reviews.

Fireworks are underrated.

We had at least 7 fireworks shows in our subdivision alone.

Our dogs do not like fireworks, therefore sleep was overrated this weekend as well.

Training is going well.

EB is now WB, the Water Boy.

Signed up for a couple more races.

Yard work is never ending.

A super duper zippy lawnmower will take out a $200 light pole in no time flat.

Bought 300 ft. of weed block and 220 feet of edging.

In hopes of not taking out any parts of the house.

WB does not like hostas.

They are cheap and good filler for around the house.

We'll be having this conversation again.

Wasabi peas are a little overwhelming if you stick 6 in your mouth at once.

Berry mania mmmmmm.......

Almond and chocolate pound cake with cream cheese, whipped topping and berries.  Lots of berries.

Thankful for the swimming pool.

Sunscreen should be free.

Friends coming to see family. but staying with us.  Can't wait.  We'll have lots of good breakfasts.

Painted a cookie jar that we have had for ten years, still in the box.  (Amy you should finish your pig.)

There are pumpkins on the vine.

Tomatoes too.

Green beans should be plentiful.

There are 6 less ground squirrels in the back yard.

The scar will heal WB.

Casey Anthony, not what I expected.  Thank goodness the final judgment is not up to humans.

Ellie and Toffee make me laugh all the time.

Nice to finally have summer weather.

Happy Birthday to my big sister.