takin' it easy

My sister and her kids left this morning after being here at the farm for a week. It was lots of fun, especially for my girls who now have better tan lines and more poison ivy and bug bites creeping up their legs and elbows than they've had all summer.

Just in the time she was here two litters of kittens were born, five frogs were caught, a minnow and small blue gill came to live in our fish tank (which need to be returned to the pond), marshmallows were roasted, a craft was completed, round bales were climbed in (more leg scratches), and new fast friends came to be.

It was fun, but it was definitely a lot more action than we're used to around here. My sister's kids are movers and shakers! So today we're takin' it easy. After hanging out in the lobby of the car dealership for an hour and a half this morning, waiting for an oil change, we came home to a quick lunch, long naps for all and now, a-hem, a movie and some popcorn. Why not? We're laying low, avoiding the oppressive heat outside and re-adjusting to our life minus our cousins.

And I'm full of {un}productive things like making myself a new flickr icon and getting lost looking at the very first pictures I ever uploaded to my flickr account. This picture is me when I was little (that's obvious)...I'm guessing I might be five years old, sitting on the back steps of the farm where I grew up. This was always one of my mom's favorite pictures because she said the goose and I were both smiling. I'm trying to remember how I ever had the courage to be holding the goose because I distinctly remember carrying around a ping-pong-shooting gun to "shoot" the nasty geese that would come at me, necks down, wings spread, hissing.  The gun was also for the rooster (ironically named, "Friendly") that treed me in the lilacs behind the back porch.

In the same way my husband gets sad watching old video of the girls when they were younger, it's killing me to look back at some of these old flickr shots.  This one. and this. Not to mention this or this or this!
So don't do it folks, don't dare go back and look at those old photos. Unless you want a serious dose of nostalgia over days gone by.

Alright, enough. I need to pull myself together and get something accomplished---at least get dinner put together. We're packing a picnic and heading to a bluegrass concert in the park tonight. I can't wait. We're bluegrass lovers around here. And I'm hoping this humidity will break in time. The sky looks dark and promising.

I'll be back later in the week after I dry my eyes and pull away from page 35 and 36 in my flickr account. The swallow mobile is almost completed except for some balancing issues and new curtains are in order for the girls room thanks to some on-sale fabric at IKEA.

Happy Wednesday!