I was lucky enough to be picked to tend my niece and nephew for my sister when she had a long appointment on Monday. If I can’t live in the same town as the rest of my family, then I am content to live on the way to the larger cities so that I get lots of visits from them on their way to other destinations.  I knew Gray would be easy as pie since he loves to play with his cousins and actually likes me, his Auntie Hedder. Isobel on the other hand has not been too crazy about me because, I’m NOT her mother. Which, as it turns out is a horrific crime in her little baby mind. And most of the time if you’re NOT her mother, she wants nothing to do with you, with crying, frightened looks, and lots of fierce clinging and grabbing onto her mother being the most common form of telling you how much she hates your “not mother” guts. But this appointment was going to be a long one for my sister, and she needed to be able to give all of her time and attention to her son who the appointment was for in the first place, so I pleaded with my sister to consider leaving Isobel with me too, but only if she felt Isobel would be able to handle it. Heidi thought she could. So early Monday morning I met Heidi at the door and came away with two of her little cuties, both slightly sleepy from the early hour. And guess what. Isobel didn’t hate me. In fact she actually held her little arms out to me, wanting me to pick her up and snuggle her. A lot. She had my heart melting into a pool of mushy goo all day with her simple little snuggle requests.

 And when she wasn’t being held, we locked her up in the video cabinet to keep her from getting into trouble.

 What, that’s bad? We let her out. Sometimes.

My mother-in-law arrived tonight bearing a large box filled with ripe apricots from her tree, so we immediately set about making apricot freezer jam. In one hour we ended up with 30 cups of jam, and barely any mess to clean up. I am a true freezer jam fan, it’s my favorite to make and to eat. And come September, as soon as peaches are on, you can bet I will be making peach freezer jam by the gallon. Hmmm, maybe tomorrow I will see if there are any flats of strawberries left at my local market. We are down to our last few cups of strawberry freezer jam, so now would be a good time to remedy that situation.

The fireworks marked the end of the festivities, and the last of my family has departed.

All of my kids hustled right off to bed without too much protesting. They were tired after so much fun.

We had an incredible day celebrating Gray’s birthday along with Pioneer Day.

The food was delicious, the kids were in cousin heaven, the weather was perfect for water games, there were sweet babies to snuggle and hold, and we were all able to cram in lots of talking, chatting and laughing.

Thank you to everyone that made the drive out to our house, and for all of the fun that you bring.

And a very Happy Birthday to my sweet little nephew Gray, you are such a big boy!

Yep. Stayed up until 3am talking to my teenage son. Some funny stuff, and some serious stuff too. Mostly funny though. There was a lot of laughing. Nothing like a good laugh. Especially when it comes after many quoted MST3K lines. I just enjoyed the time spent with my son. I just love him.

Stupid leaky water line. It turns out it meant they had to rip out the entire west wall of base and pantry cabinets too. So no flooring AND no cabinets on one wall. I know, my life looks so glamorous.

The fridge is on the other side of the kitchen now.

And the cabinets are stacked to the side of the dining room, right in the line of a heavy traffic pattern in our house.

And every single bit of food, dishes, cans, boxes and whatnot had to be emptied from those cabinets and stacked onto the remaining counter space I had left in both the kitchen and the laundry room. I can’t bear to show you the laundry room.

I thought I could deal. I can’t. They ripped it out last Monday, and I had my breakdown on Friday. I hate it. I can’t stand one more second of zero counter space. Maybe if we were a family that ate out a lot it wouldn’t be that big of a deal. But we’re not like that. We rarely ever eat out. So not being able to do much in my kitchen is a big problem for me. I know, I’m whining. Forgive me. I had to vent somewhere. I am sorry you had to hear that. I am hopeful this week will bring some news on what happens next. Like maybe the news that we can re-install the cabinets and start laying the new flooring? Who am I kidding. We all know that’s not even close to happening.

Recently I’ve been reading about the different uses for different types of rice. Short grain, medium grain, long grain…it’s all different.

I love Jasmine rice (long grain), it smells incredible as it cooks.

I recently bought some Calrose rice (medium grain) to try but my kitchen is in the process of being ripped apart, so that’s on hold for now.

And I have yet to find a place close by that sells sweet rice (short grain), but there is a store a few towns over that might have it, so I will have to check it out.

I know, a lot of fuss over rice, but I needed to read up on this, I needed to know more about rice. And I love that I can get all of the rice information I could ever want with just a few taps on my keyboard and a click of the mouse. Did you know that in Hawaii, Guam and other Pacific islands, Calrose rice accounts for more than 90% of the rice consumed? Thanks to the internet, I do now.

Yes, I just used the word dude. Because it fits. I watched ‘Transformers 2′ tonight. Seriously. Dude. It was awesome. No matter that it has reduced me to sounding like a 14 year old boy. I can’t help it. The movie was worth every 150 minutes of my time, and then some. Total and complete entertainment. And I’m sorry my 9 year old son is still too young to see it because he would have loved it. Sorry Noah, you will just have to wait until you’re 13. What can I say, I am one of those mean moms that adheres to the film ratings. And my children all hate me for it 

I’ve been sewing like mad in between everything else, trying to get my ‘Craft Hope’ projects finished in time to ship them. I mailed the first box Wednesday and I crammed in everything I could until it was practically bulging. There were-

16 blankets,

122 handkerchiefs,

and 109 pairs of baby socks. It ended up weighing 20 lbs. And for this I am forever thankful for Parcel Post rates.

I was able to get the rest of the blankets done that night, and I mailed my second box today with the remaining 11 blankets inside.

This one was only 9 lbs. Slacker.

I am still sewing ‘some footies from a cute and easy pattern’ I came across online using the remaining scraps of flannel I seemed to have amasses over the years. I may also sew a few hats from a ’sweet little beanie hat pattern’ I found if I have enough time that is. I am just happy to have mailed off the heavy stuff first, so now I can spend a little more time working on the smaller stuff since it won’t weigh in as much as the blankets did, and I can afford to spring for Priority and get the rest there in time for the deadline of July 25th.

Want to see the sweet projects everyone else is working on? Then stop by the ‘Craft Hope Flickr group’ .

Want to see how many items have already arrived? Then stop by ‘Craft Hope’ as the counter in the sidebar is updated with the arrival of each package.

Baked Rice

2 cups uncooked Jasmine white rice

1 onion, chopped

3 TBSP. butter

1 (10 3/4 0z).can reduced fat cream of mushroom soup

3 cups water

1 TBSP. chicken bouillon granules

1/2 tsp. salt

few dashes pepper

1 (8 oz.) can mushroom slices, drained (optional)

   Place the rice in a 2 QT. baking dish and set aside. Saute the onions in butter until translucent. Add the soup, water, bouillon, salt, pepper and mushrooms and whisk to mix well. Pour the soup mixture over top of the rice in the baking dish and mix to combine. Cover and bake @ 375 degrees F for 50 minutes. Serve hot. Enjoy!

The water damage gave us a lovely gift in the way of mold in some of the dry wall in Noah’s room. The super, duper, it’s-going-to-wreak-havoc-on-your-nervous-system-and-then-kill-you kind of mold. I know, such a thoughtful gift. The good news is that there were only two small areas affected/damamged, and the insurance came through so the removal and restoration is covered. We have had several crews in and out this week, tearing his room apart with a lot of protective measures to make sure nothing ends up dispersing throughout the house. The precautions they have to take include lots of double bagging, negative air machines, special suits, masks with a breathing apparatus, and lots more that I couldn’t see once they started in to work.

The contents of Noah’s room have been disassembled, specially cleaned and then stacked in the basement until they can be moved back into his room.

And the protective tent at his doorway, blocking access to the other two bedrooms downstairs as well.

Until this is finished I have ruled the basement family room off limits for the kids to keep them from playing with all of the plastic and such, so the little ones have made a temporary camp in the living room.

And as soon as I’m done typing this I’m confiscating the stupid video games and hiding them in the furnace room and locking the door. My kids wish I would let them turn the tv on, but I’m super mean and keep making them play outside, or read, or anything else that does not require batteries, a screen, or a plug. The nintendo time captured here was a very short lived treat. I am all for fresh air and physical expenditures of energy.

I am so glad all of this “ripping apart the room” business happened in the Summer, because I would be tearing my hair out if this was going on in the middle of the school year.