u-pick strawberries!

Well, I gotta say, our first full day of summer break was a complete success.

And fun!

There's a peach orchard just a couple miles down the road from us,

and this year they have strawberries available.

And we just happen to LOOOVE strawberries.

So I loaded up the troops and we went berry-pickin.

Thank goodness for the large, raised rows.

They confined my all-over-the-place little man quite nicely.

The berries added up quickly.

And as far as I know, no one consumed any while we went along.

I said, as far as I know.

It was a beautiful day.

Slightly cool.

Slightly warm.

Just perrrrfect.

It was as if I completely forgot that they would actually weigh our boxes of berries in the end...

and that I would have to pay for them.

I call this photo,

Two cute girls in a berry patch.

(I'm very creative with my words.)

And I call this one,

Silly berry-pickers.

This one,

Holy smokes, we just picked $27 worth of strawberries,

what the heck are we going to do with all these?

Oh, I know.

We'll eat much of them on the three-minute ride back home.

Well, that was sure fun.
And delicious!

summer break!

School's out, school's out!!

Yesterday was Macy and Eli's LAST day of school for 2013.

Hooray for them!!!

Eli is now an official 8th grader!

Macy is now an official SENIOR in high school.

Wow!

(Nick's last day was last week...he is now free from all pesky high school classes...forever!)

(More on him later.)

So now the wild summer vacation begins.

I am eager to see how long it takes before I lose my mind.

But I'll try to hold off as long as I can.

It is my deepest desire to take loads of pictures and enjoy every moment.

Yes, that's it!

So, we'll start with Mr. Isaiah Jack-Jack.

The little man is nothing without his cowboy boots.

Even though I'm pretty sure they're way too small for him now.

But he doesn't care about such petty things!

And Eli loves his cowboy boots, too.

These two boys have really embraced life in America quite well, I must say.

They've been with us for TWO years now!

My goodness, hard to believe.

Lucy, the matriarch of the Chinese clan.

These two, I tell ya.

Many hoops will be shot in this driveway this summer!

Much loving will be given to this dog, Zeke.

Ohhhhh, how he loves rolling around in the fabulous grassssss.

It's the best EVERrrrrr.

The entire Chinese clan.

Really, they're super cute.

So that's that.

Let the summer craziness officially begin!

shiny-glittery-organized people

It is my deepest heart's desire to be one of those 

super-powered-clean-as-a-whistle-glittery-slick-and-shiny

 organized people.

One of those people who can't walk by a stack of papers

without frantically filing them in their rightful place, right away.

The kind of person who has their tupperware sorted by color, shape, and size...

and never lets it change from that state.  Ever.

Plain and simply, they glow, angelically. 

Well, I'm not sure I'll ever get to that level of organization, this side of eternity.

But I reallllly want to.

But I won't, I'm sure.

But I try.

I classify myself as sort of a, lazy unmotivated perfectionist.

However, one thing I am pretty obsessed with keeping neat, tidy and organized

(besides my freezer of beef),

is my grain and seeds.

Oh, you too?

I have small amounts stocked in my kitchen,

ready for me to pulverize them into something wonderful!

It's all beautifully displayed in glass jars.

And that, my friends, makes my heart so very happy.

Here's a pic just after I topped everything off...

They stay all cozily nestled on my kitchen island shelves.

And believe it or not, I go through this stash pretty darn fast.

As for the bigger bulk of my grain,

I keep it down in the storage room in our cool/dry basement.

(Yes, that's wheat gluten you see to the left.  I am NOT anti-gluten, as is the trend.)

(Maybe we'll talk about that one day soon.)

That's really fun, right?

(I need to get our more, clearly.)

Now, if only I could work my way through the stacks of papers on my desk,

get my laundry put away, straighten up our schoolroom, and keep my toenails polished.

HELP WANTED:

Shiny-glittery-organized person wanted for the above job description.

Pay rate: Copious amounts of granola and unlimited words of affirmation.

Thank you for this much-needed therapy session.

homemade roller skates

When Isaiah is left alone with his imagination,

I never know just what he'll come up with.

Sometimes it's messy.

Sometimes it's hilarious.

Always, it's creative.

And here's what he thought up the other day.

Roller skates.

Made out of building blogs.

(Am I the only one here seeing a budding engineer?)

Take a look: 

Then it was time to try them out.

Deep breath, everyone.

Wait for it...

The inevitable is about to....

....happen!

Oh my.

That was good.

Thankfully, he's agile, too.

So he caught himself before his skinny little butt hit the floor.

Lesson learned,

turn off the TV and let your kids create the most crazy things!

And always, ALWAYS, have your camera ready to go.

bulk bovine

Guess what this is!

That's right.

It's a side of beef.

Lori bought a side of beef!

(for the second time in the last year.)

(We're mid-westerners, we likes our beef.)

I loooooove having a whole half-a-cow in my freezer.

It's the best thing ever.

And now if I could just get someone to deliver fresh veggies to me regularly,

my world would be a peaceful place.

Here's what I've learned about making THE very most of

buying bovine in bulk.

1.  Talk extensively with your butcher about the cuts you want.

(If he/she isn't willing to let you custom-order, find another butcher.)

This is the very best way to make sure you will

love every single bite.

(For example:  We don't like roast so much, so I have most of the them made into stew meat.)

(And by WE, I mean, seven of us like roast, K-Man does not.)

(No bitterness here.)

2.  Make sure nothing gets lost in your freezer, by keeping an inventory.

As I was loading all the meat into my freezer,

I jotted down on a list every single package.

Then I put it all back into the paper bags they came in, and numbered them.

(Plastic tubs would have been better.)

Then I typed up the list.

And then I put it in a file folder, just above my freezer.

This way, I can easily find the cuts I want,

AND mark off what I use.

That, my friends, is my fun-filled post for you on this fine Monday.

Go ahead and reread it if you want.

It's riveting, I know.

You are soooo welcome.

Beef, it's what's for dinner!

gun show

My littlest man,

Isaiah Jack Dong Ji.

He is small in stature and giant in personality.

Boy, is he ever!

And he has made it his mission to grow up to be big and strong.

Here's a pictorial of his workout the other night:

Good heavens!!

Look at those ribs.  My gracious, people.  Please know that this kid

eats ALL THE TIME.  He eats and eats and EATS.

I even give him extra healthy fats at every chance I get.

Maybe one of these days it will all

catch up and we'll end up with a well-padded boy.

He is one funny little man.

And I think his guns are massive, don't you?

dysfunctional feline

Is it wrong for one to pray that a fellow gal would be barren?

You know, because you know she's just not ready to have babies,

yet, you know she's "active"?

Is that so wrong?

Wait, before you start thinking I'm twisted, and the friends I run with are twisted,

I'm not talking about any of my human gal-pals.

I'm talking about our cat.

We got two cute little kitties last spring and now they're grown up,

doing grown-up things.

We kept intending to get Daisy fixed.

But, you know...it was number 478 on my to-do list. 

And as of right now, I'm only on #17.

So every time I saw her outside, I just prayed that she wouldn't get pregnant.

Somehow it made perfect sense to me at the time,

but as I'm writing it out,

it seems a bit dysfunctional and delusional.

(I'll bring that up with my therapist at my next session.)

So, to get to the point of this post,

God did not intervene with this law of nature that He put into place, as it turned out.

And we now have a litter of kittens!

Daisy's nestled all nicely way under out front porch with her sweet fur-ball babies.

We have to get low to the ground with a flashlight to take a looksy.

Oh, and that's Dino taking a look, too.

He's the father.

And the brother.

Dysfunctional.

My next giveaway!

Free kittens!

Everyone who has ever commented on my blog in the past

will be entered!

You don't have to do a thing.

You're welcome!

(Just kidding about that last part.)

(Maybe.)




*My apologies for any feathers I ruffled over this post.
I do have every intention to get Daisy fixed after she has weaned her
sweet kittens.  This is just life in the country, folks.