Sparklies for Hannah.

Today is the day that we stop and pick a sparkly out for Hannah.  Anyone who has read Rachael's blog, Tales of a Monkey, a Bit and a Bean, knows that her first daughter left them too soon.  It is today that is Hannah's Heaven Day and the reason why I share my sparkly for her.

K was at science camp this week and today was flint knapping.  She brought home the most gorgeous piece of flint with quartz crystals.

She shared it with me because she knows my love for rocks.  It is gorgeous and sparkly!  Sparklies for Hannah.

God giveth a heat advisory.

We're officially in a heat wave here in Northeast Ohio.  A heat wave for us is 3 consecutive days of 90+F.  Yesterday, my thermometer was reading 97.3 F.  I'm thinking it's just slightly toasty.

I have the house buttoned up and all of the shades down.  Thanks to no trees (not by choice), our house can get a hair toasty.  We have the air on at 76 and it seems to be keeping up just fine.

I decided to make some homemade weed killer because nothing says, "Let's kill some weeds" like a good mixture of organic weed killer and blazing sunshine.  I'm happy to say that my mixture coupled with the help of the big hot ball in the sky has killed the driveway weeds.

I'm embarrassed to say that they were kind of getting out of control.  All that rain we had before fed them like no tomorrow.

I also decided that this would be a most excellent time to wash the bed quilts.  Okay, so the humidity has been high and it has taken longer to dry t hem than what I thought it would be, but after running K's quilt through the laundry twice (thanks to some scab picking resulting in several spots of dried blood and some odd art supply that seemed to have blued the quilt,) they are both clean and the beds are re-sheeted and quarter-bouncing flat once again.  I did K's yesterday and ours today.  Our laundry line run isn't that large, so it maxes out at one per day.  No problem!  Since we have rains and storms coming for tomorrow, all of the laundry has been cleaned and is hanging.  I've found the bottom of my laundry bucket.  Shh.  Don't tell my people.  They're both at science camp today.  They'll find out soon enough.

I will not complain about the heat.  I will embrace it and use it!

Have a great day!

** Though I've posted it before, the weed killer is - 1 gallon white vinegar, 2 cups Epsom salts and 1/4 cup soap.  (I use Murphy's.)  I pour all of this into my pump sprayer and go to town.  Spray early on a hot, sunny day when you expect no rain for at least 8 hours.  It will kill the weeds, but you'll have to pull the deadness out.  It is not Round Up.  You will need to keep up on spraying every few weeks, but at least the critters at your house won't be Round Up Ready!

Tales from the Trenches: Oh Walmart pool. Oh how I detest thee.

I came home yesterday and saw that our new neighbors have subscribed to the Walmart pool movement.  You know the one.  I've referred to it here before.  The one where a blue bag of water sits on the lawn.  The one where I think to myself, "You know, growing up with a pool, you had to have a deck and a fence and locks so that kids couldn't get into it and drown."  At least on theirs, it has a cover to keep debris out.

Still, I detest the blue Walmart pool.  I detest the Walmart pool as much as I detest those blow-up holiday decorations that people pin all over their yards.  (One is one thing.  To have acreage helps.  Around here, we're not even sitting on a quarter of an acre and the houses are mostly ranches.  The blow-ups look like the Stay Puffed Marshmallow Man taking over New York City.)

Hubs and I were discussing this very bag of water the other day.  We were walking and I'm glad to say that other than the people across the street and one person around the corner, we are Walmart pool free in our neck of the woods.  Still, when you really look at it, it is an adult wading pool.  I mean, as an adult, you look pretty silly sitting in a plastic shell.  You look so much cooler sitting in a slightly higher (in this case, though there are ones that are deeper that the one that the neighbor has installed) blue saggy blop of thick plastic filled with city water.  Theirs has a filter and pump and all that.  They are serious about it.  Oy.  Hubs said that he saw them putting it up and thought of me.  I came in and asked if he could hear God audibly laughing.

As a bonus, we have the neighbor next to us who decided to install a wall of wood in his wife's flower bed, right next to our driveway.  Hubs says that's okay.  It'll provide a lovely home to the voles who have taken up residence in one of my flower beds.  Double oy.