bits

 bits, without the caps lock on...  still making soup and trying to get things done.  I had my check up appointment for the denture plate and they adjusted it a little - said I'm doing good to have worn them every single day, despite the pain.  

Studying Romanian, Lithuanian, Japanese and did a Spanish lesson today as that was on my to do list for Wednesdays.  I need to water the plants upstairs - as I didn't do it this week at all, so far.  We also need to get animal feeds and propane one day soon.  We will have a bit of a warm spell this week and then on Sunday it will drop to below freezing - so I have to get that washing machine pipe insulated, as well.  We normally turn the valves off when it gets that cold - but that was when they were still insulated in the wall, and during the break and repair, we pulled out all the insulation that had gotten wet.

 So, drab things but they need to be done.

 Today was an absolute mile-a-minute at work - and I could have used to have been twins, since they wanted me in the office to be present during interviews and also I needed to be on the warehouse floor readying orders - so I had to switch off as much as possible to get it all done.

Esme had a good birthday yesterday - I promised not to embarrass her or take pictures -  she had chosen a big kangaroo-pocket hoodie and asked for some game credits.  I found a Minecraft toy she had picked up at the store one time we were shopping and bought one to bring home - it is a fluffy bee, and almost a ball.  I brought her some of the cakes she likes and ice cream.  I also had gotten her an investment bond earlier last month that I had put money away for slowly - not at all big, but as an 18th-birthday something that will be for the future gift, besides the common items.  We can't 'give' her a car, as she can't drive yet!

 

My dinner: I still can't eat hard things or things that require too much 'motion' - because the jaw and gums are still healing underneath this hard plastic plate.  If I soak bread in soup or a cookie in coffee in small pieces I can eat it on the back side of a bottom tooth and the plate without 'rocking' the plate painfully, most of the time.  I am also smashing up bananas, canned peaches and mandarin oranges for fruit and fiber.

Soup :

1/2 can of pureed great northern beans with the aqua faba

 zucchini, red bell pepper

a few chunks of sweet potato

water

olive oil

spicy italian seasoning

 

served with bread, and a rice flour omelet

1 egg beaten, 1 tsp of sugar, 1/4 cup or so of rice flour (brown rice flour in this case), salt, bit of baking powder, some spice mixture, fry in butter in tamagaoyaki pan and serve with a big spoon of peanut butter 

 Mark made pork chop and garlic bread and some of the same sweet potato for him and Esme.  I really am not going to chance the pork chop - tried just a little bit of well cut up hamburger the other night and it was sticking in my throat so I gave it up.   

 Every night I am making about a 3/4 cup of whole milk with strong madras curry powder in it, heated up until it all combines well.  And I am drinking that as the last thing before bed.

The 'beaver moon' was out this morning - and it was large like a coin on the horizon, just a few inches above a field on my turn out towards work - with a little strip of cloud right across the middle of it, so it seemed like Saturn, or a closed eyelid.  It is still large in the sky tonight but it is already waning gibbous. 

 

Quests for Humans

 It's been busy weeks - on top of busy weeks.  The cold let up a little - we're getting some rain but hopefully no ice overnight.  Got the little car's heater fixed.  Mark had his birthday - I gave him some clothing and some candy that Esme and I had picked out when we got propane one day.  He watched a lot of the cartoons and movies he likes - and ordered some things for his computer that is only just now arriving.  

It doesn't feel like Christmas will be here in a few weeks.  I've only bought a few things and to be completely honest - I never even took the little tree down last year. It's still up from LAST YEAR.  But it does need to be taken down and cleaned and the lights replaced and put back up.  If I can figure out time that I have ambition that isn't used for making dinner and laundry and existing.  I've come home and just sort of collapsed on the couch for a while and not been very conversational a few times.  That isn't really my style - It's been a bit like the epitome of 'flattened'.. edging back towards human at the end enough to eat and talk.  Usually my style is to come home and eat a huge pile of food and chat way too much until I deflate from the anxiety of the day and then ease back down from the high-tension end of the slide into normal.  I've had fewer of the 'keep doing what needs doing but anxiety of single being in a single timeflow with multi-dimensional timeflow thoughts that I can't process so I stick them down in the box all day until it overflows' type of days.  But I'm not sure if this is better or not - the 'I've kept doing all that needed doing but my 'brain box' is only full of dead space - no brain, no thoughts, just 'stop' or 'go' and now that I've stopped I'm flattened' feeling is a bit worse.  I guess other people would explain that as : 'I'm tired'.  But I guess that is proof I do still have those multi-dimensional thoughts when I start to think about it... when I'm not so tired.

Today I pushed on and after work went to the bank (hard quest, it closes less than a half hour after I get out of work, about a half hour drive away from bank), feed store (also closes an hour after bank does, but only fifteen minute drive away from bank), then another store for Mark and the grocery store, and then home.  I am really glad the little car made it through all those stops.  When the mail truck was having trouble with its battery that was an ever-increasing anxiety making multiple stops without running the truck long enough to charge the battery in between.  Quests for humans, indeed... with difficulty settings.

Not to mention it gets dark so early now.  And is extremely dark and cold and sometimes icy in the mornings.  It could be worse.  I don't want it to be.  Boss was ranting to me about somebody taking days off and going to be fired for missing work - and I told her my anxiety stack is still on all the ice days of previous years and I can't say one word one way or the other about anyone else because I'm just doing my best to be there every day and anxiety about what will happen if/when the weather changes.  She tried to assure me that I can't control the weather.  Yea.  That is what worries me.

I called all of our errands and my work days 'quests for humans' the other day to Esme - as she helped us get groceries with Grandma, and propane.  I told her it feels like that sometimes, like ticking off parts on some video game quest until you get all the bits done - but then it's just done for that day, and it rolls back around the next day starting all over again.  I had a very very busy postal route the other day, but not so much I couldn't get it done.  I'm wondering what this weekend will be like - Christmas packages et al.  This is the time of year they used to call in some help.  I used to be that help, on the weekdays - but now I am at the office job during the week.  Last Saturday they said that they were surprised I finished it all without needing help, but I said I didn't know they were providing help yet, so I pushed through and got it done - by continuously telling myself during the day : 'It's not going to help to sit here and stare at it - up, onward, get it done' over and over until it got done.  Thus: the quests for humans.  There is a book I keep seeing that is close to that name but it isn't quite the same emotion.

And I feel like my hips, knees, ankles, fingers and wrists are all clicky at the moment - it could be worse, don't want it to be.  It's like my muscles are made of toothpicks bound together with lots of rubber, and the toothpicks are clicky and shifting around and hoping they don't break.  I am glad the weather has been good - hope that continues to be.  Just keep getting home from work, dinner, head to bed after a bit.  I played the game a few days (Sims 3) and it still feels like I've just wasted most of that time.  I discovered how some things work again - without going and looking things up - but still, it got nothing done in the real world.

I've sent out several copies of my Mikki Mack book to people - sold one locally, and still need to find a way to get the rest of the stack to the local gallery.  They are open later on Fridays (or, at least they used to be) so I might have to take up that 'quest for human' mentality and just push push to have that be something I want to get done so I make sure it gets done.  At the office job that is how I make things work - just push push and when I stop to breathe for a minute line up the next stack.  Same thing with the postal route.  Same thing with lots of things, it's the only way I keep the balls in the air.  I'm just still adjusting to that weird feeling of stopping and there isn't new material coming in from all sides of my brain that has nothing to do with the task at hand or minimal tangents.  It's like missing an old friend that don't hardly get any time to spend with, except the old friend is my creative side which is asleep in a chair in the corner.

Languages - lots of Japanese.  A little bit of Czech.  Not a lot else.  The Japanese on my highest Duolingo profile is actually getting into new words FINALLY.... why has it taken so long?  It really has.  And I do like the little yomu yomu app that has short conversations or stories to listen to.  The Czech language app is a bit annoying in that it is supposed to recognize your speech and there are so many things I cannot come close to pronouncing (acc. to the app) but yet I feel like I understand them and am saying them as best I can. 

bits

 

  

I got Esme a Greek drachma for her birthday, and a book 'How to Tame a Fox (and build a dog)' - 'oh, it's about the silver fox project!', she said.  I thought she might find it interesting and it is nice to have something to hand to page through instead of just relying for it to be on the internet.  The coin isn't worth much, but I told her that - to our eye - she has been growing up quite wise for her age, and that we were proud of her.  And the owl is the 'owl of Athena' the Greek goddess of wisdom.

Grandma also gave her a few coins, which she is going to look up, and a pretty card with some for 'her shark fund', which is based on a joke I had made a few years ago about her going into an antique store and coming out with a wooden duck sculpture, after saying 'Now watch, I'll find a shark or something', to which I had to draw a comic about that.

I've got a cake in the oven for her for dinner tonight, and hopefully serve with bacon and eggs and cherries.

I found a little app called 'golingo' that is speaking exercises in multiple languages.  It only recognizes about 80-90% of my spoken French - maybe room for improvement, maybe error in the system.  It only gets about 50-60% of my Welsh and it has abbreviations like 'ut wyt ti' for 'how are you' instead of 'sut dych chi'.. don't know if that is North vs. South or modern street vs book learning etc etc... anyway, it's kind of a cool addition to learn something from.  A friend tried it for Greek, and didn't like it much at all. *shrug*  

I have been studying still a lot of Japanese, a bit more Czech, and French and Spanish (on the golingo), and went and dipped back into Latvian / Lithuanian vocabulary and had not forgotten too much of that.

I had given myself such a headache yesterday, trying to cut back on coffee for other health reasons for a few days... drinking juice and water and diluted tea, but it wasn't enough as I ended up with a raging migraine and all of the other fun joint popping and earache and other inflammation that happens when I try to stop coffee.  Back to half-strength today and I have to avoid the work coffee because it is just too strong and dark, it will get me right back to square one.  

tiny bit

 Did the postal route today, mostly normal bumping along and got done about three o'clock.  I started doing some more Czech again with the Japanese, because my grammar on that always starts to invert when I stay away from it too long.  Not much else.  I'm still pretty sure I have tomorrow off, but not sure what else I'll do.  Need to finish more laundry, and clean a few areas.  I'm pretty sure Mark wants to do some more grocery shopping - I grabbed a few things that can only be gotten at the one store in the post office town, in anticipation that we would get more at the other town tomorrow.

Made tacos for dinner, or at least - a semblage of them...  also want to go have a bath with the V05 coconut stuff I like and got some of today.

I've been having some pretty odd and very realistic dreams.  One of them the other night was drawing out 52.00 from a bank just before closing time, and trying to count up what I was given, which was a large array of very non-standard coins as well as some bills.  One of the coins looked like a silver walnut shell.  I was asking the bank teller, who wanted to go home, how I was supposed to add all this up and know I had the right amount?  There were also three dollar coins and even a 2.50 coin which I thought simply had to be complete fantasy - but no, there really were some three dollar and 2.50 dollar coins back in early America - although they were gold, and the ones in my dream were silver, with a face on the front and a bird on the back though, which was accurate and probably robbed from my brain actually knowing that quarters are like that (and the other coin types were modelled onto the quarter dollar, 'quarter eagle' is the 2.50 and the 'eagle' was a ten dollar coin!)

 

I doubt Esme will read the blog, but I did buy her one specialty coin for her birthday- a real coin from a foreign country, as a sort of souvenier.  I'm hoping it will come in time, it's not expensive at all but it looked cool and I saw something about it being a modern coin but resembling 'remarkably' the ancient variety of coin from the region in an archaeology article.   As in it was kind of lost knowledge that the ancient coin had a drawing on it so very similar to what they picked for the modern coin.. but people in 2024 are still pretty amused by the similarity.  

 I know that this is more for 'I would like her to have it' than her actually wanting it - but it's something that could last compared to a new stuffed animal (she has a thousand) etc etc..and it is harder to buy for a teenager, especially when they 'don't want anything' everytime you ask.  I've gotten her 'numismatist' things a few times over the years, some just because they were cool (the Dutch coins), one (the mercury dime) for nostalgia because my grandmother had given me one as a necklace,  the pennies I had saved as a young child that were wheat backs and then one year we even gave her several rolls of 50 cent pieces and a collector book for them just to prove to her that they were indeed real and still quite available.  Her grandmother gave her a few that she had brought back from Germany and Japan as well.  So, even though she's not really interested in coin collecting, she's mildly interested in the fact that I've made her a coin collection over the years *ha*  and we put it in a nice glass display case that she keeps, along with ticket stubs and other bits like iron patches or cards etc. from places we have went over the years.

 

 

 

I happened to still have these pictures on my desktop -- The 'dimes' I got her one year for Christmas, they are from the Netherlands and were just in the 'these are cool' dish at the local pawn shop.  I had went there to get an American 'very fine' graded mercury head dime because my grandmother had given me one of those and over time it was lost, so I wanted to give her one like it and tell her the story about how that one had been made into a necklace.

I also ordered her a book I DO think she will like, that I saw in a scientific article about foxes.   And she did pick out a game on the computer that she did want, and I got that for her.

Weaving project, birthday and swimming

 

I strung up a little bag on the small frame loom last night, and since it was only plain weave, I had it done pretty quickly.  Sewed up the ends this morning and made a pouch for my pens to put into my other woven purse.

 

  

It's a tight fit in there with wallet and phone holder - but it does fit 

It was my birthday today - and we did quite a lot.  I took my pre-sunrise walk and took it slower than yesterday, staying out there to see the actual sun rise through the tiny keyhole in the woods where I finally found it.  I know of three places where I can see it at different points - all the way to the horizon, through the leaves - but it is finding them that is part of all that.  I also found the morning glories and took a picture of them.

 

Early in the morning we got groceries and a new garden hose and fittings that I've been planning in order to extend the reach in the raised beds in the garden.  A few weeks ago Esme helped me measure and our 75 foot hose wouldn't quite reach the back two beds that I've been having trouble with - needed 89 feet to make it.  So, over the next few days I will need to find time to put that on and test it all.  After we got home from that excursion I took Esme out to the swimming lake and we spent about an hour there.  There was a small school of bluegill fish that were curious at first, and at one point decided to take a taste.  Esme: One bit me!'  We fell out laughing, but were a bit wary about them after that - we'd already been swimming an hour, and both of us have sunburned quite badly in the past in relatively short amounts of time in the water.  I wore my big floppy hat - which looked ridiculous, but I think it helped.  

After we got back from that I threw all the wet and sandy things through the washer, and made myself a cake (with trying out the frozen lemon trick, so-so results), and then fell asleep for a few hours.  We made a pizza and watched one of my favorite movies 'Dark City', where the protagonist does not give in to repeated attempts to tell him who he is, he knows who he is, and it isn't that - and in the end when he has this amazing powerful gift to mold the world he could do anything with it - and he makes something beautiful, that reminds him of all the good things he wanted to be in the world but was having such a hard time finding and questing for... and it ends there, where we hope that he will continue to use his power for good, but we don't get to see.  Mark says it is a twisted flick, and he likes a lot of very twisted flicks.  He's compared it to 'Brazil' before, but I think the message is much more impactful and human in this one.

Now I work tomorrow, have two language programs to complete (did one earlier today) and fold laundry and get some more sleep.  It will be over 90 tomorrow again.

Summer Solstice 2024

 

*outside, it is still dark - and I want to sleep*

I hit the snooze button to try to slip back into dreams...

 

Get up, get up - you'll miss it - the spirit animal tugs at me, it's not my dog, she's downstairs sleeping, but it does the trick as good as any real nose

 

ten more minutes, for the 101 year old woman to tell me what I did wrong with the brown sugar, oh, she's not going to, I have to figure it out myself... 

 

 

pull myself out of bed, remember it is the day, assemble myself and heat up a cup of coffee, stagger out into the already bird-chirping sky-lightening world, long after the moment I would normally push myself out into the world on this day - which is usually before the full veil of dark lifts, when I am still uncertain of even where to put a foot down, much less my wits

 

I think about how I have 'two tries' this year, solstice, and my birthday, days following each other, to see the world as this - and I wonder if I will use both of them, if that is what this is for, comparison...

 

But I am here, moving through the world - and ready to see what it has brought me here for at this moment. And a bird passes overhead, up above the power lines above me, as I am admiring the pale blue light of sky... long before actual sunrise, before any pinkening has come to it. And as I walk, make the turns as I am using to making them - it strikes me at one moment all this sense of scale of the environment, as the colors begin to resolve themselves into pink mimosas and yellow rudbeckia - as the gray of the road and the green of the forest separates into layered and tiered colors...

 

I walk home even before true dawn, look back at the road one time to see the pink fingers coming across the sky - my alarm has not even rung yet - I step into the house and grab up some pens, sit with my dog on the porch and try to capture this - yes, I am small in the world, and it is in motion, and I am here to experience it.

Mid June

 

Nasturtiums, morning glories, hosta and lilies blooming, peppers and tomatoes coming onto their vines, green beans, harvested potatoes and all sort of greens.

 

purple potatoes from our garden

LANGUAGES: (with some synesthesia thrown in)

 A little graphics art project I did very quickly one night to remember the transformations in Finnish.  I did a good update in Finnish this month, after doing an update on Romanian last month and sort of letting that sit a bit.  I'm also touching on Japanese, and Spanish and French and throwing in a bit of this and that and so forth.   Japanese makes me feel 'my brain is actually rearranging this stuff as I hear it- and then rearranging it to produce the sentence again and I can FEEL it trying to figure it out)  Finnish is more in the 'oh, that word transforms a little in this situation, and combines this way in that - got to remember that and get the vowel marks right'... I do know there is much more in Finnish it has yet to actually present to me, but I'm almost halfway through all that DuoLingo has to offer at the same time.  It's a bit daunting how 'easy' it is and yet how 'hard' I've been told it will be.  With Japanese, both of those are up front, I feel it's hard, I know it's hard, and yet I keep understanding more in ways I did not expect to understand (it feels like a different liquid in the channels of my brain) so I keep coming back. 

 I threw in a few lessons of Chinese to see how the number systems compared, since they use some of the same symbols.  Then we watched Kill Bill series and I understood more of what they were saying in Japanese, but still, not enough.  I also found a decent program for teaching Latvian (Apsveicu!) and was trying that out but my spelling is absolutely awful and that program does require you to get it right to advance so... Ko jus teicat?  Just try to spell 'iepazities' on the fly...  still, it is hard to find resources for it at all, so I was excited to get the chance to work on it more than the children's site I had found and reading the news site when I'm in the right mind for it and remember to go check.

We renewed our library cards, and Esme got a book on electricity.  I found a book that captured my interest with the prose, hard topics but I'm pushing through it - 'Find Me', by Andre Aciman.  Not something I would have picked up having known what it was all about, but the author did weave a beautiful scene and a fast tale full of rich details, so I'm pushing through and seeing what it has to show me.  The thing that grabbed me was that on the cover it said 'by the author of Call Me By Your Name', which is an anime Esme and I saw about a boy and girl who 'meet' on a train (this story also starts, oddly, on a train), alternate 'swapping bodies in dreams' having to relate to being a different gender and different expectations from their families they don't really know - and when they figure out what is going on they 'write letters' (while they are each other, they leave each other diary entries) to one another, but then towards the end we find out that they are actually in different times, about three? years apart, and the boy ends up saving the girl's life by writing to her not to be somewhere at a certain time that he finds out is a disaster her and her family apparently died in, and she listens to him and ends up surviving, to meet him in the real future.  I'm not sure, now, if this is the same author of that anime story - I'll have to look that up after I finish the book but not before.

Esme got her glasses renewed and we pick up the new pair today.  We've been playing more board games, card games, such.  I want to get her more engaged this summer and also taking care of herself better.

 

Our cat, Lyffan, whose name means frog (not seen is her brother Loki, he was inside sprawled on a countertop near the food) sniffing the Nasturtium flowers I had picked.  Our Minion cat is thirteen years old, the black tortoiseshell, she is doing well but has dry skin issues (like her daughter Doxie had much earlier in her life) yet is still so stubborn about wanting to be outside nearly all the time I have to call her in and sometimes go pick her up bodily and bring her in to eat dinner at night. 

My brother's birthday is today.  I sent him messages.  My birthday is next week.  I ordered myself a tamagoyaki (Japanese omelet) pan I had been thinking about for a few months, and a new colander for my vegetable washing.  Mark said we might go out somewhere for a lunch or something closer to the day - although honestly I always feel like Father's Day and my birthday collide some - ever since that year when I was a kid that I was told 'you can't have a party, Father's Day is the same day as your birthday, no one will come, anyway it's summer and there isn't anybody to ask who isn't already doing something'...and I decided oh, so, nobody will come...  I did have a few little parties here and there, not saying I didn't - but I was told that because of where my birthday fell in the month it was really just going to be overlooked by most because they were busy.  And that became okay - my birthdays are for me then, to decide where I am in the Universe, and reflect, and that has been mostly what they have been all my life since with a few nice recognitions, an indulgence, like a new pan or a special sandwich here and there, but primarily 'pearls on a string' thinking back where I was last year, where I am now... 

Esme has asked a few months ago to try more salads, so we've made two that she enjoys so far.

Green lettuce, black olives, tomato, no dressing (she tried two, doesn't like it at all)

Green lettuce, black olives, mandarin oranges, sometimes with cooked chicken patty cut up and placed on top.

11th birthday at Grandpa and Grandma's house in South Carolina

I've been very late at reporting this, but earlier this month Esme and I took a serious trip - out to South Carolina, to visit my father and stepmother, Grandpa Harvey and Grandma Gale.

Esme's birthday was the fourth, and we went a little before that, to have time to visit the ocean at Myrtle Beach, something even I had never done before.  So, it was a pretty special occasion.

We flew on a plane to get to Columbia, South Carolina - changing over at Atlanta, one of the busiest airports in the United States.  It was an adventure there, too.  Esme was quite nervous about flying but she did really good (there still might be some fingerprint marks in the seat armrests on those planes, though!  kidding).

Esme got to see Mom at my 'most lost' when the rental car wouldn't start in the parking garage - but they gave us a different car and it was all good from there.  I also admit I lost the rental car in the parking lot of a Walmart we went to for groceries one time -- but we found it just as the parking lot police were about to come help us.  I also got lost a few times and had to work my way back with the Google Maps on my phone.  But I think she also saw that you don't have to panic and freak out - you can get out of these situations and learn something.

The day we went to Myrtle Beach Grandpa still wasn't feeling very well, and his oxygen tanks were low.. it was a Sunday, so I put on my brave face and Esme and I took the hour and a half drive to Myrtle Beach by ourselves, arriving just a bit after eleven in the morning.  We went to the boardwalk by the SkyWheel and then on to the ocean to gather shells.  I think we were out there up to our knees for a little over two hours ,then I made her come in, and eat something, and buy some souvenirs.. including a towel and a sweatshirt.  She really wanted a boogie board - and of course, to take it to the ocean and get completely submerged in the waves.  It was a 60 degree day at best.. with nice sunshine but a cold wind.  But armed with towel and sweatshirt I took her down to the beach again (after depositing like fifteen pounds of shells in the trunk of the car) and she rode waves for another 45 minutes.  Then it was quick put on the dry things and get to the car to make the drive home.

 on the beach near the Sky Wheel in Myrtle Beach, SC

 Collecting seashells

 

 Seashells

 Trying to push over the leaning tree at the Visitor's Center

  Boogie boarding at the beach 

 Boogie boarding at the beach

 At the Swan Lake Iris Park in Sumter, SC

 Grandpa and Grandma giggle at a toy hermit crab

on the plane with her birthday gifts

tired and headed home!

Esme and her Grandma Gale made cupcakes together and Esme and I decorated them, and then they watched the Garfield movies.  The next day, we went to the Swan Lake Iris Gardens park and Grandpa came with us to see the swans.  Esme did get a headache halfway through there - but enjoyed seeing the swans and some turtles.  We grabbed some chicken and went home, and then Esme and I got a few more things at a craft store.  Later that night she opened her 11th birthday Owl, Harry Potter books and a sand dollar silver necklace I had gotten for her to commemorate the beach.  Grandma Gale gave her a souvenir net with shells that says 'Myrtle Beach' across the top which now hangs in her bedroom on the wall.

We had a great stay at Grandpa and Grandma's house.  Esme wishes she could have gone back for another day on the beach.. but she is happy with the shells and the boogie board and souvenirs and maybe a chance to go back in a few years (during a warmer time of the year!).  Grandpa said we probably got as good of a haul of shells as we did because it was the off-season for beachcombers.  When I finally asked Esme to come get in her towel to leave a six inch long blue conch shell (almost complete) washed up right by her elbow and I told her it was the Ocean telling her to listen to her Mother and it was time to go ;)  heh.

We made all the connecting flights back (although I got off at one wrong exit on the way back to the airport, backtracked and got back on) and Daddy picked us up at the Nashville Airport for a long drive home in the pouring rain.  We were so glad to be home and to have everyone together again.

One bad thing happened while we were gone - our dog Freckles ran out into the woods, maybe looking for us because we were gone, and she has not come back.  We have to expect the worst.  She was an excellent little dog, and we miss her.  Her sister Lucy, especially, misses her.  I got a sinus infection after getting home, as well, and that took up all the rest of my vacation time trying to get human again.

Freckles

I'm putting together a 16 by 20 poster frame of some of the pictures and ephemera we collected on our trip.  I'm going to hang it in the hallway beside the crayon drawing of the beach (and oddly, a plane overhead!) that Esme had made years ago 'in case we ever went to the beach it would be like this..'

Discovery Park trip

 

The other thing Esme asked for this year was to go back to Discovery Park for her birthday.  So, we made an entire day of it and the Jones family traveled along with us.  The Japanese garden was a must-do on our list as when Esme was there with Mr. Jones and his daughter before it was something they had really liked.  I wanted to see the koi, too.

 

 

10 years old

 

We united Grandma down for eating cupcakes and opening presents.  She brought Esme a nice card and present, too.  Esme opened up the traditional potato gift and her face was priceless - but I didn't catch it on the camera.  She also received a sketchbook and animal drawing book from Mom, and a forest knife from Daddy (because she's finally old enough and has practiced this summer to our satisfaction).

She loved her Minecraft toys and a little Zoomer giraffe I picked up.
I bought her a  copy of 'What the Dinosaurs Did Last Night' by the Dinovember crew.

We made pepperoni pizza with chicken nuggets on top (and extra cheese), which was her request.
Tomorrow we have another big day planned!  We've also played a lot of Minecraft and watched her birthday movie 'Tad the Lost Explorer', which was recc. by a friend and very good.

I can hardly believe she is ten - the time has flown by.  And she is so tall, now!

Grandma has a permanent lap puppy :)

Lucy was very interested in the new toy - it makes noise, is it alive?  Is it going to get to eat cake?  Dogs eat cake, not giraffes!

10 bday cake

 We made the traditional cake :) and some cupcakes!
Esme picked out all the colors, strawberry frosting and blue and black gel decorations.
Tomorrow is the big day

Construction Projects and Chicken

We've done a lot these past few days.  Esme's bed and mattress had come (it's early birthday and something we've been wanting to do for a long time).  She loves her new room.  It was such a project putting it together!

All finished and everything is in place.

 Looking down at me like a teenager

 

 I swear I will be careful with this ladder!

Her room looks so bright and colorful, -- also, very full, but a cool room!

 

There was some swearing happening during this stage - things had to be forced into place...

 

I love this expression on Esme's face! 

Slat, Key, Scalpel, What?

And Mark bought ten pounds of chicken on special and fried it up.  He put it away in the fridge for later and Esme took some up to Grandma.

 Chicken!

 I was able to eat this with some lime juice, which is a first for me.  I've avoided chicken cooked on the bone for years and years - more than twenty.  But I had this idea that lime or orange juice is 'the opposite color' of what I don't like about the bone taste.