Happily, it didn't fall off the truck.

Backing it in.

Oops. He completely forgot about the low hanging wires. Thankfully, he was going slow and Hubs was able to stop him before he ripped the phone line clean off the house. Even if he had, our neighbor is an SBC guy, so he could have fixed it lickety split.

Coming through.

Backing up to the beautiful, very level pad that Hubs created specifically for the shed.

Getting ready to lower it into place.

Oh look! There it is, along with Hubs planting grass around the perimeter.

The patio area before. (When the weather was better, the grass was just cut and the flowers were flourishing a bit more than they did this year.)

Voila! After. We'll be having my in-law's over on Saturday night to celebrate my father-in-law's birthday. We'll be cooking hot dogs over the fire pit and making s'mores as a birthday treat.

But don't worry. I promise that I helped with the patio. Just look at the overly flattering photo that my daughter dearest took of my backside. I must teach her about angles, but her photography style for a 5 year old isn't bad. Her fingers aren't in the way, she is pretty good at centering and isn't real wobbly when taking photos.

Argh:
K- has officially shot 1 pair of shoes. I swear that they would have been $30.00, but I paid $5.00 or so for them on the Toys R Us clearance rack. They were "Not Me" Skecheresque shoes in black. She wore them only for school for one week and blew out a strap. I'm going to see if my seamstress friend, Laurie, can put her cobbler hat on and give them a tweak. Funny thing is that K- is not hard on shoes. Thankfully, I do have a pair of light up $40.00 Skechers that I bought at Toys R Us on the clearance for $7.00. Though they are sized 1/2 size larger than the ones that just blew out, they appear to be the same size. Here's to hoping that they last longer. Poor K-. She ended up walking home barefoot! (No, she didn't mind at all.)

Smiles in my day:
- K- making a "book" for her teacher and writing "sentences." The sentences are a bunch of squiggles, but she's got the idea.
- Hubs working so blasted hard today. Actually, he has been all week, but today he worked non-stop from 7 AM until well after sunset (he came in around 9 PM or so.) He reset the driveway RR ties (which is why the gravel was all out of sorts in the shed pictures), reinstalled the cemented post and put the sections of fence back up, planted grass around the shed and a variety of places throughout the yard, mowed the yard and probably more but I'm too tired to remember them. So Hubs, thank you!
- K- being excited about the Garden Fair.
- I got some lovely deals at the grocery today.
- Tacos, Spanish Rice, chips and queso for dinner. Yum. K- was happy, too.
- K- telling me that I was the "best mommy" because I bought her Shrek soup for lunch. Is that the secret to parenting? Shrek soup? Hey, if it works!

Have a wonderful weekend! We'll be enjoying the extra time off together. See you on Tuesday.

Fun things that we love.

Something my mom always read to me. Amelia Bedelia. K- just loves the stories. Since we are doing the 100 Book Challenge for school, Amelia Bedelia will be a big part of that. Mr. Mouth. A childhood favorite of Hubs. A thrift find of 90 cents. The Tomy Game of Snafu. Hubs found it and was very impressed. He had one as a kid. Yet another 90 cent find. School House Rocks. We love them all, but right now our favorite is:

We don't care that Pluto has been demoted. The song is kind of catchy. I bet that you'll be singing it in your head later on. Don't worry. You can thank us later. :)

Of course, we have many other favorites, but these are high on our list right now. I just felt the need to share. (Interplanet Janet, she's a galaxy girl, A solar system Ms. from a future world, She travels like a rocket with her comet team, And there's never been a planet Janet hasn't seen, No, there's never been a planet Janet hasn't seen.)

An odd thing, but worth the mention:
K-'s school does a Garden Fair. Apparently, on Friday I must send her with something that she helped grow in the garden. (Boy, we'd be out of luck if we didn't garden!) It reminds me of my days in 4-H. So, I have my tomatoes that we have growing near the steps. I'll let her pick one, we'll plunk it on a plate and schlep it to school. You'd better bet that on the entry slip I will be adding "Heirloom, Non-GMO, Organically Grown Arkansas Traveler Pink Tomato" to the generic description of "tomato." I mean, how can I expect a Kindergartner to remember such detail? :)!!!

Smiles in my day:
- Hubs spent all day removing the fence post and moving 2 tons of gravel in preparation for the shed tomorrow (eeek!) in the EARLY AM. Yes, I will take pictures. Right now Hubs tells me that I'm worse than a Japanese tourist with my camera, so I thought if I took pictures of him I was liable to be shooed out of the backyard with the shovel.
- Though K-'s walk to school was a bit rough this AM, she admitted later that her reason for the goesies-backseies was that she wanted to trade her yellow object for class homework today for another yellow object. Now instead of using her words, she was doing the drop and flop. We've discussed using our words, and PRAISE JESUS we've had the best bedtime tonight in about a week. Let's hope that will translate over to tomorrow's readying for school and walking.
- K-'s first papers came home from school. Though her first paper wasn't done correctly, she got the hang of it and the second day she did as she was supposed to. She learned to pay close attention to the details of what she is doing. I praised her for doing so well on the second run around, though the first paper wasn't too bad.
- Hubs is treating himself to a fishing day on Friday. He's been on vacation all week and has hardly had a vacation. Boyfriend needs some down time.

Unless it falls off the truck on the way, and with our luck this is a distinct possibility, we'll have shed pictures tomorrow. I know, I know. Y'all are on the edge of your seats for this one. As a bonus, I should add the pictures of our new patio space that I promised you about a month ago. Oh, such posting plans. Such plans!

Have a great day!

Works for Me Wednesday: Clear Sectioned Fishing Tackle Boxes

We're a theme week on WFMW. For me, clear sectioned fishing tackle boxes are a great thing. They make thinner ones and thicker ones. We have both. Back in November, I posted about using the fishing tackle boxes for Polly Pockets. Though little girl o' mine has been slacking on putting all of her Polly's in their proper creature homes, here is what I did with them. I also use them to organize all of the glass beads that I have. I could see using them for all sorts of things! They work for us!

Hmm:
- Hubs got nailed by a yellow jacket today. He said that it flew right into him. So that is me on Sunday, him today and please o' please don't have K- get stung. It hurts!
- The new stadium that they are building a street away is near completion. They were working on the sound system-- again-- and they were using applause tracks with whistling and everything. It was hilarious as it sounded as loud as a crowd could do. When they do the music, the glass in the gallery chatters because it is so loud.
- If I recall correctly, the stadium has the capacity of 80,000, but they have parking for 30,000 people who will most certainly do what they need to do to skip parking fees. That leaves the gallery that I work for having a parking heart attack. Let me not fail to mention the huge game scheduled for the day after Thanksgiving, which is the biggest shopping day at the gallery. Oh, help the heart attacks now.

Smiles in my day:
- Hubs moved so much earth today to level the yard out for ye ole shed that is arriving at 7 AM on Thursday morning. I really want to take pictures, but gentlemen who built the shed and are delivering it are Amish and I don't want to offend.
- K- brought Touch Me Nots back from her walk with Grandpa. She wanted to pop them with me.
- K- galloped the 8 blocks to school on her hobby horse (unicorn.) The day before she brought her Disney Princess CD player to play us music all the way there. She surrenders her toy at the door, as she knows that she cannot take it to class. What toy will it be tomorrow?

Tales from the Trenches: Non-traditional Carpentry

I haven't looked in on Ivey for a while, but popped in from the Lots of Scotts blog roll. Ivey's mom was talking about her daughter's blindness, facial deformity and introducing her to others. I felt it such a great post that I decided to pass it on to all of you this week. Read it here.

Smiles in my day:
- Hubs pushed K-'s bike up to school to surprise her. She's been wanting to ride her bike back home, but we wanted to wait until week #2.
- K- survived school lunch, though decided that she isn't too keen on chicken patties for tomorrow. I'll be packing her a lunch, because "Mommy, you make a good lunch!"
- Hubs has been working so hard to ready the yard for the shed coming on Thursday morning at about 7 AM. Did I mention that the shed comes pre-built and is being brought in from Amish Country, about an hour and a half away?

A Yug Kind of Weekend.

It got no better. On Saturday, I made an additional $1.25. The weekend grand total comes to $2.25. And yes, Janeen, other than swinging by Children's Orchard to see what they will take, the Goodwill drop up the street will be the recipients of my stuff. It is far too much work. Yowza. I'm tired.

I woke up this AM with a migraine in my eyeball. It felt as if someone stabbed me in the eye with a knife and was twirling it around. We didn't do AM church, but I had a Leadership Meeting this evening, K- begged to go with me and we went to that. Of course, she was tired and hungry so she did the drop and flop in the hallway. Nice. Hubs suggested that she have no evening activities scheduled other than being at home and decompressing before bed. For whatever it is worth, I checked in on her at 8:15 PM and she was sound asleep. Exhaustion makes her a complete and utter pile. She's going to be bummin' because Festival Choir practice is due to start up on 9/13 and baby girl is going to be left home with her dad. So sorry Charlie!

K- has been a bit of a pill today anyhow. I swear that if I hear the word NO one more time that I'm going to spit. She's lost TV, Barbies, because I keep finding Polly parts strewn throughout the house, she must work to earn them back. I'm talking labor here. She must realize that Mommy and Daddy (Santa, too) pay a freakin' lot for those Pollys, they don't grow on trees and she needs to take good care of them.

In the afternoon, Hubs and K- dropped me off to see my grandmother (because with K- being a pistol, I wouldn't take her into the nursing home) and though I never text, I did text Hubs to tell him to come back in a half hour. Grandma was okay, but not altogether with it so a half hour was good.

While out, Hubs and K- were checking out swingset parts and whatnot at the Lowe's down the street. When they came back, Hubs reported that his figures showed that it would be cheaper to build a kit. Fine with me. This is his baby and as long as it will support my butt on the swing, I don't mind how he goes about it. For the record, I think that he has decided on (surprise, surprise) the Amish built swingset that is actually cut and bundled down in Holmes County, Ohio. Again, all good. The Hedstrom set that we paid $100.00 for has seen its last day. It needs to go.

So, because K- pulled herself around and we were driving past our favorite homemade ice cream stand, I decided to swing in. Mind you, it was 61 F, but that's okay. The ice cream was wonderful. On our way back to the car, we cut through the tall grass thingies (I have no idea what they are called.) They were spaced pretty well apart, so we didn't fell like we were totally destroying anything, though Hubs was joking about the "KEEP OFF THE GRASS!" signs we always see when we are out walking. Without thought, I brushed my hand and got jabbed by something. The something? A bee still on my hand. So, I flicked it off, told Hubs who asked what got me. I pointed and he told me it was a Yellow Jacket. Glad that I didn't have to remove a stinger, I went to the ice cream window and they fixed me up with ice. K- was concerned. "Mommy, are you okay? Does it hurt?" Yes to both. I didn't lie, but I absolutely told her that it hurt. I did tell her, "Did I jump around?" No. "Did I scream?" No. "Did I roll around on the ground?" No. "See, it wasn't that bad." For about 10 minutes, it did hurt, then swelled a little, but right now you can only see the entry point. That's good since my grandfather died of multiple bee stings/being diabetic and having been dumb and signed himself out of the hospital. I had been previously stung by honey bees and wasps. I was concerned about the Yellow Jacket, but apparently they are okay, too. What surprised me most? Hubs said, "If it makes you feel any better, I killed it." Why? "So it wouldn't sting anyone else." Hubs is a conservationist through and through. Okay, when Smudge ended up infested with fleas and our front door casing was being eaten away by carpenter ants, we didn't take the invasive critters, but he doesn't kill anything ever. Even K- will take spiders out. I was just shocked. The bee was in his creature home. I told K- that it only stung me because I made it mad. My sister's house had Yellow Jackets all over. They kept landing on me and didn't sting me once. I go to get ice cream, innocently walk past some tall grass and WHAM! Pow in the handie. Ouch.

I'm sorry. It's a rambling kind of day.

So tomorrow starts us back on the week of school. K- will be getting the school lunch, so no packing to be done. I did find that the Fiber One Toaster Pastry (AKA Poop Tarts in our house) were a little too fibrous for young K-. She was needing to leave class to take care of business and when such a duty is handled, K- is involved for quite sometime. I told her that she can have a poop tart MWF. The other days, we must choose something else for breakfast.

Something funny. I told K- on Friday night that, "Good news! Since you don't have school tomorrow, we can sleep in! Hooray!" So, Saturday morning at 6:57 AM, I have two green eyeballs staring at me, "Mommy! Get up!" Huh? I had to work my tail off to get her out of bed and moving this week. The day she doesn't have to get up and get going, she is up and out early. Later I asked why? "Because I could watch my kid shows!" She gets no TV on the AM of school. To do so would only cause her more issues with getting out the door. Apparently, I won't need to set the alarm on Saturday morning at all.

Smiles in my weekend:
- The $132.00 check from our mortgage holder for the overage in Escrow. Unfortunately, there is probably an overage because the tax base was set for our home before the value dropped because of the recession. However, Hubs just bought a new DVD/VCR recordable thingy combo and the check paid for most of it.
- While making next to nothing at the garage sale, I was able to make a bunch of bracelets that I can sell at the gallery for something. A consignment check of $40.00 - 60.00 each month helps.
- The M & M ice cream was great.

Have a wonderful week! I'm hoping to be back on track for my M-F posting now.