Fourth of July

I love those eyes :)  That is my big floppy summer hat. 

 A little knitting project I started last night.. 

 

Kif dog, after we got back from the beach

These are the clearance lilies I got last year that just said 'red and yellow tulip style'.. they didn't bloom last year but wow, they're knockout now :)

 At the 1000 acre lake beach with Esme this morning.  It rained on us a little but not much - we had fun.  I swam with her and she showed me how much she learned at summer camp.

 She wanted me to take a picture of the far shore because she said it was pretty

'Pysgoden bach ar y traeth'.. A little stone fish on the beach.  I saw that they did this at the Say Something in Welsh (SSIW) boot camp and tried to make one of our own.

Happy girl!
We have watermelon and I'm going to try to make onion rings.
I got my tooth under control (hope it stays that way)... we'll see if the weather is going to cooperate to go find a fireworks show tonight.



What I did for my tooth:
I called into work -which I hardly ever do.  But I was in pretty bad pain and I was sure it was becoming a fever.  Nothing is open around here until at least the day after the fourth... small town yay.

So....
I mixed up baking soda with a little peroxide, and put it on the tooth I suspected was the problem with a toothbrush.  It was hard to tell - it kept moving from my ear to my jaw to the upper tooth to a lower tooth to all the middle of my teeth where there isn't even a problem.. basically a pressure thing.. and that was why I was in so much pain.  I also was running a fever of a sort.. but eventually, that was a good thing.  After putting the 'toothpaste' mixture on the area I waited for a bit.  It HURT.  It really hurt.  It was 'knocking out a rhythm on the side of the sink with the toothbrush waiting for it to be over' hurt.  Then I rinsed it out... and rinsed it out.... and rinsed it out. 

Then I put some of the really good local honey we have in a clean dish with a spoon and dripped it onto the teeth bit by bit until it was gone.  I sat there letting that soak in and it felt a bit better.  It still hurt, but not as badly.  After the honey had all run away slowly I went and brewed a strong cup of green tea.  I sat there and drank that slowly... letting it run over that area.. until the cup was gone.  I put a little peroxide on a cotton ball and dropped a few drops in that ear canal... let it fizz and then let it drain out.  I soaked a teatowel in some almost hot water and laid it over the area underneath that ear on my neck until it cooled down. 

Then I took more ibuprofen and went and crawled in bed with a sweatshirt on.  I was sweating 'nicely'... enough to feel it.  I slept for about four hours.. got up, did it all again.  It hurt again... a lot... but felt better even quicker than last time.  Slept another four hours.  Got up and felt almost alive.  Made some chicken broth garlic(powdered) ginger(also powdered) cashew (ground up) cayenne pepper soup with some brown rice in it and drank it all. 

This morning I've only taken ibuprofen once and stuck to drinking coffee or green tea.    -- This doesn't mean I won't have to have a dentist or doctor look at it next week... but I'm not feeling pain so bad.   I was reminded of being in labor... it was almost as bad as one of my worst contractions back then.

Fourth of July at the state park

We went to the state park today and the girls got to go swimming, and then have a short picnic.  The weather was mild, so the water was COLD.. but they still had fun.  G and her mom joined us and then we walked some of the puppies on leashes out in the grass across the way.

 Pulling off the water wings - we soon changed after this as the sun was going behind clouds and it was freezing, especially while wet.

 Petting a few of the puppies.

Walking the puppies around in the park.  The girls and the pups all did very well.

bits before school starts...

It's the Fourth of July, and I have tomorrow off.  I just got home from work and we are watching Alpha and Omega with Esme.. but aren't sure if we are going to go try to view any fireworks...  I just had a discussion with Esme about which finger symbols are polite and which ones aren't... she informed me that the little finger and the thumb up in the 'y' symbol means 'rock on' and if you see rockers you do that to tell them they are cool... and I had to inform her not to do another one because she was showing me blackberry juice on that finger and it wasn't a good symbol... Now she is saying 'who is going to raise their hand up for the fireworks store - who will raise their hand up - anyone?'  She has changed so much in the past month or so... again.  Mark said in the truck the other night she 'talks and talks and talks and...' and he is wishing he had headphones on some days ;)  She has been telling a lot more stories and singing songs off the computer and wanting to reenact things off computer etc etc etc...    We had fresh corn from the garden today and Esme was scared of it so Daddy ended up eating hers... the puppies are outside wrestling and playing tug of war with the shucked husks.

I have made four dresses for Esme for school - which starts on Monday the 8th...  and four or five pairs of pants... I have some navy fabric for one more dress and would have to poke through my fabric to find another yard for more pants.  Esme had taken her blue dress out of the closet the other morning and put it on - but took it back off and hung it up again when she wanted to play mud.  She has not been so nice with the pants which she found out where I had been hiding them....

We are getting ready to head out the door to go see some fireworks...
It was a small show, but we had a good place.  Esme was hilarious with her 'I am going to go be mad in the truck with the windows closed' routine... stubborn.  'Stop making me happy.' ... 'I'm busy being mad!' etc..  She was trying to get us to 'socialize', go around and say hello to all the children and then she would take them by the hand and they would share their light toys and they would laugh HA HA HA and they would be friends.  She was quite upset that we didn't know anyone enough for that and it was dark.. so it wasn't a good time to try that.  She was sulking in the car when Mark said 'There's nothing in there except gummy bears'... then she turned on the car light, retrieved the gummy bears, and waited five minutes or so before apologizing for being mad and getting one of us to open them.  She kept saying the fireworks were too far away and we needed to go over there...  

Happy Fourth of July!

We have Fireworks! (they are legal in Tennessee, but are not in Minnesota)

Yesterday was a long day, we went to the flea market in the morning, a town trip in the afternoon and at about 8:00pm we decided to go to the Transformers movie in Murray, KY with a stop at the fireworks store while we were up there.

Tranformers was extremely fast visually, hard to see things because they were moving so fast. It was like a video game, with everything going on all over the screen at once very fast and hard to track it all. Plot-wise it wasn't too bad, but it was funny to see Ebay used as a plot device ;)


Our Pogo-face
When we were at the flea market we saw a kitten that could have been Pogo's twin. She was very small and scared of dogs, though. I'm sure Pogo is glad we left her there for someone else to adopt.


Cotton Shirting Fabrics
I also picked up some men's cotton dress shirts from one of the flea market booths. At 25 to 50 cents apiece I don't mind using them for fabric - they'll be great for toys!

Wishing you all a happy and safe Fourth of July!

'Magical Lights and Messages' 07/04/2007