A little post removal and plowing over the garden plot . . .

The horse that needs a haircut. K- needs one too, but not quite this bad!

The weekend was packed, as usual. Thursday and Friday were the "going through Grandma's belongings" days. We had to skip the Wegman exhibit on Friday, due to K-'s poor behavior the night before. Don't worry, we've rescheduled that for this Thursday. Saturday, though, took us to Amish Country.

I have to admit that Amish Country on a Saturday is not my favorite. I like Amish Country during the week when everyone else has to work and we only have to share the joint with the bus tours that don't typically go where we do anyhow. I had a plan, though. MIL got here at 9 AM sharp, so we headed out. Thanks to my heavier foot, we got to where we needed to be at about 10:10 AM. We did the bulk food store first, because we found that if you wait to do it later on, on Saturday, you miss out on lots. We spent over an hour there where I once again shocked my MIL by spending $67.00 (it was my grocery shopping for the week), then we went on to the restaurant for lunch. Again, we've found that hitting them before 11:30 AM promises that we won't have to stand in the line that can wrap around the building. After eating, we shot out to our vegetable stand. It's off the beaten path, so it wasn't overly crowded. I did, however, miss getting the very last box of cherry tomatoes for K-. So sad. I did get a lot for my money, though. For 1 pound of green beans, 2 patty pan squash (for mom), 4 giant candy sweet onions, 1 crookneck squash and 2 green peppers, it was only $5.00. Can we yell a big ole YUM?! We flew by the bakery and the pack of cookies that I bought with the 50% off coupon from the Entertainment book (thanks, Laurie) are all gone. After that, we went back-tracking to the places we flew past on the way to the vegetable stand. This took us past the shed place. That is a story all by itself. My vegetable basket. I was so excited about my onions that K- took a picture of me holding one.

Making an extremely long story short, we have been gifted a storage shed. The local places were checked out, then as a shot in the dark, we decided to cruise by an Amish shed place. Turns out that shed is better built, of better materials, includes the floor, roofing shingles, paint of your choosing, door hardware, delivery and on-site installation for less than the one at Lowe's would have been. The shed is completely built ahead of time, then hauled in pre-assembled. Even the painting is done before it gets here. There's a trick, though. We need a 10' clearance to get the shed into the backyard. Our gate opens 8'. Hubs needs to remove one of the posts that was firmly cemented into the ground 6 years ago and take out several sections of fence to get it in. He does need to make a level pad of limestone for the shed to sit on, which isn't a problem. The funny thing is that to get the shed where it needs to go, we need to completely pull my garden out, fence and all. That isn't going to be that big of a deal. Sadly, the weather has been so chilly this summer that the beans (which were planted late May) are just now flowering. I did want to plant peas, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Oh, in the spring or late next summer. We do need to completely move the garden plot up one full plot, so maybe that'll give me more sunshine anyhow!

So, we're thankful. I'm going today to the doctor to have the cholesterol checked and to discuss the pesky tendon issue that I'm having in my left underarm. Either hauling K-'s bike up and down the basement steps is causing a bit of a tweaky tendon, or the Lipitor is goofing with muscles and tendons. Let's hope it is just the bike that will soon be stowed away in the shed. That's my thought, but I'd still like to have him take a look at the inflammation just to confirm. If it is the Lipitor, we'll just switch to something else and all will be well.

Smiles in my day:
- Going to see Grandma at the rehab place and finding her making her way to the dining hall. She was in a wheel chair, sca-doodling herself down the hall. I told her that I wasn't being unfeeling or mean, but she was there for rehab and I was going to make her get herself there. I walked along and talked to her, though.
- We finished reading the Horton Hears a Who Pop-Up (a side note for libraries, pop-up books are not good loaners) tonight. K- was asleep by 9 PM. No fits. No crying. No hard time. No rolling across the floor. It also helps that the more distressed she gets, the lower my voice goes. This week, I've been practicing the "more you make me mad, the lower my whisper will be" and it is working.
- The fresh caramel candy that I had. Coblentz Chocolate Factory is just divine. I do admit that we skipped chocolate covered coffee beans this time. We've decided to reserve those for the anniversary trip. Too many give a very giant belly ache and are generally a bit digestively unsettling.
- Leland stopped crying when my sister handed him off to me. It's good to know that I didn't lose my touch. (Though K- was not a particularly fussy baby. Now the eye teeth were a completely different year and a half cutting story, but a very good baby otherwise.)
- Hubs had a good day for the butterfly count. We've been having rather torrential rains, and it had rained overnight. When he left this morning, he was quite concerned that this wouldn't be a good count day. It all worked out, though.

Have a great day!