4th of July

David, Marquee, Craig (dressed that way on purpose) and Cody

Hello and goodbye 4th of July weekend 2014! The weekends fly by even if you don't work, who would have thunk it?

Cody and Marquee and their friends Craig and David came and spent the weekend with us. It's always fun having guests over. I particularly enjoy looking down at the lake and seeing my kids floating away a Summer afternoon. It's the kind of backyard that every grandparent should have... a place to fish and swim and boat and pick blackberries. We had fireworks at dusk last night and grilled out burgers and hot dogs for supper. The "kids" (who are all in their twenties) hung out down in the Whine Cellar with me last night until I finally had to give them the boot around midnight with a "if you want me to cook breakfast in the morning you're going to have to let me get some sleep!"  Days like that are a reward for hanging in there through the rough days... and lately there are way more rough days than good ones.

I got up this morning and made Cody's favorite breakfast - "cookhouse eggs". I got the recipe from a book we got years and years ago by saving up points from cigarette packs (not mine, of course!). You cube potatoes and put them on to boil while cooking a package of bacon in an iron skillet. Maybe you could use another kind of skillet, but I wouldn't. Once the bacon is done and the potatoes are a little soft but not crumbling or mushy you take the bacon out of the skillet and put the potatoes in it to crisp. Once the potatoes are crisp/brown you crack a few eggs over the whole deal and stick it under the broiler until the eggs are at your desired level of doneness (is that a word?). Crumble the bacon and put it over the potatoes and eggs with some shredded cheese. My kids have always loved this but it's a real labor intensive meal - what with the peeling potatoes and waiting for all the bacon to cook and all that. It takes way longer than I can stand to stand but SO worth it! Bacon frying is the one alarm clock that never fails to wake my kids, even now.

I didn't sleep well last night. At some point last night I discovered a tick on my shoulder and I was really freaked out by it. All the symptoms of diseases that ticks can cause are the kind of things that I already deal with on a weekly if not daily basis. There are two places on my arm/shoulder that are red and warm to the touch and my right arm is bothering me but it's too early to have developed any tick-borne disease already so it's more'n'likely just fibromyalgia - which has been flaring up pretty badly over the past week or so anyways.

I am *almost* finished with my cross stitch project and ordered a new one yesterday from overstock.com. The next one is a sampler with a family tree that goes back a couple of generations and I'm really excited about doing it. I found a few other projects that I'd like to do but I know myself well enough to know that if I feel obligated to do it I'll lose the enjoyment of it. For that reason I'm not stocking up on projects because I don't want to feel like there's a backlog.

Anyways. Cross stitch, Big Brother, same stuff going on as the last time I checked in with y'all. Lack of content means I need to toss in a lot of pictures. Hope you enjoy and I hope your 4th was everything you hoped! Love and hugs, y'all!

Mama and Daddy keeping "the spark" in their marriage... 

And... oops! It's gone. 

Little Trouble Kitty taking my granddoggie Sammy for a walk....

 

 

And... that's all folks!