Never have I given a dog a bath, until now. Luckily she was a perfect angel and I had a great helper who jumped in to help.
Pretending like we know what we are doing.
Ayla picked out the fruity dog shampoo.
Nala did a really great job, she wasn’t pleased, but she stood still and let us soap her up.
Final rinse…
Turns out we have a self-drying dog!
Done!
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
Didion’s husband, the writer John Gregory Dunne, died of a heart attack, just after they had returned from the hospital where their only child, Quintana, was lying in a coma. This book is a memoir of Dunne’s death, Quintana’s illness, and Didion’s efforts to make sense of a time when nothing made sense. -from the New Yorker editorial review
This book is a memoir, written from a deeply personal and real place, and the brilliance of Joan Didion’s writing is undeniable. Unfortunately/fortunately I could find no personal connection to the story of grief and loss so I truly felt like I was on the outside looking in, knowing full well from the beginning that I would not form an attachment.
#26 Get A New Pet – Any Kind
We weren’t looking to get a dog, we were actually all set to get a snake, but we had a friend who needed a new home for her dog, and long story short, now we now have a new member of the family!
Meet Nala…
She’s a 6-year old Beagle, and we love her so much.
She’s our baby.
If you come near her, she’ll drop and roll over, just in case you wanted to rub her belly.
I was following her around the backyard with the camera and all she wanted was a little privacy.
I am not a fan of Renee Zellweger, but the Harry Connick Jr. factor was enough to get me to watch this one. It was very cute, and entertaining enough. I enjoyed it.
#16 Go Letterboxing Again
We did finally go letterboxing again, and we went with friends this time. It was a very warm day, but it was a really nice activity to do all together. Then we all went for burgers after!
Letterboxing is a very inexpensive activity that you can do with your family just about anywhere and anytime! It does take a bit of prep work as you need to find the sites you want to visit first and map out your drive. Letterboxing North America is a great place to start, or you can just google “letterboxing” for more sites.
The concept is simple. Everyone has their own notepad, stamp, ink pad and pen. But that’s all you need! We have put together a letterboxing bag with different colored inks and markers and I made a big deal of going to the craft store before our first time and letting the kids pick out their own stamps.
The letterboxing community has hidden all over the world small boxes for you to find. It’s like a treasure hunt! You have to follow the clues to find the boxes. In the box you should find a stamp and a notepad.
Everyone who comes to the site stamps their stamp in the notepad and signs their name (or nickname) so that the person who left the box has a wonderful record of everyone who has found their box. Then, one takes the stamp from the box and stamps it in their own notebook with a note or story about where they found it. You can end up with a wonderful notepad of memories.
This is a great activity to continue when you go on vacation or travel to visit relatives in other parts of the country or the world. It’s a wonderful way to spend quality time with family and friends too.
Ok, now I’ve convinced myself, I want to go again…
Here are some pics from our last outing where we ended up in a couple of different local cemeteries that were very old. The most interesting thing the children noticed is that so many of the names we saw on the tombstones were now the names of local elementary schools.
(Of course I forgot my camera that day, so I just got a few pics with my phone. Apologies.)
Reading the engravings on the tombstones. Some of them were so old you could no longer read the writing.
Just hanging out in the cemetery. You know, like always. What?! This is totally normal.
Looking for the next clue…
Shinedown: Sound of Madness
On a whim I looked up what concerts were playing in my area one week. I didn’t know this group so I pulled them up on iTunes and really liked their sound. I didn’t go to the concert, but I did get the CD. I kind of think of them as Godsmack-lite. (My music world is pretty limited, so that’s just my take.) Good CD to listen to in the car.
10,001 Ways To LIve Large on a Small Budget by the Writers of Wise Bread
Very, very basic. If you don’t have a clue about where to start cutting costs, then this book might help you. I am always looking for new, innovative ways to get more while spending less, and this book was not helpful to me at all. Pretty disappointing as I had high hopes for it.
If you want great advice, check out my favorite financial blog Get Rich Slowly.
The Surrogates by Robert Venditti & Brett Wedele
This is the graphic novel the movie is based on and it is awesome. If you like techno-science-fiction, you’ll like this one. I cannot wait to see the movie!
= Lots of pictures of “the prairie”, her friends doing silly poses for the camera and the REALLY BIG spider one dad caught in his hat. Yikes!
Johnson Grass
Ayla in front of her cabin
The Prairie
Spider!!!!!
The rest of them are posted on flickr.
LOVED IT. It has taken me awhile to warm up to Jason Statham, but I’m beginning to see the appeal.
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