what's up weekly. (A trip to the Amish, some plans for the day, and SUMMER!)

It's Friday, which I have recently decided will be dubbed, "Square-Away Day."  I'm going to do a better job of getting the yard, van and house squared away for the weekend.  It's desperately needed, or by Sunday afternoon the house looks like it was hit by a dry but stinky hurricane.  I swear I do my best to keep up with things, but by Friday afternoon our lives just need a little bomp in the right direction.  So, come and welcome to Square-Away Day.  

Today I have it on my agenda to get netting up around my garden, which is looking lush and beautiful and is also not producing anything because of the gosh darn blasted chipmunks.  I have so many swear words piling up when I think about it, so I'm just going to channel that indignant energy into something productive and put up netting.  Granted, I'm wanting to do it on the cheap so it looks like it will be held up with closet rods, shower curtain rods, and perhaps an old pipe I found in the garage.  Nothing if not classy.  I'll take photos so you can shake your head in consternation at me.  But my squash blossoms will actually get to turn into squash, so I'll get the last laugh while I'm eating deep-fried zucchini.

I'm also thinking I may head to Home Depot to see just how cheaply I can source the materials for some DVD shelves.  The Book Room (Library? Conservatory?) is the next item on my To-Tackle list, and I'm just dead tired of staring at stacks of homeless DVDs.  I think I can fit them all on shelves at the back of the closet in there, provided I can actually get shelves up in there.  So I might try.  But I'm also at the end of homeschool planning and I'm dead tired of spending all our money, so we'll see.

Other items on today's agenda?  Cleaning the basement bathroom, and very separately, eating as many BLTs as I can possibly stomach.  See, last weekend I headed to the Amish with a friend, so even though my own garden is producing nothing, I have a large number of homegrown tomatoes on my counter.  I was going to make salsa with them, but I'm pretty sure they'll all get eaten before that happens.  Viva la BLT.  I also bought a bunch of jalapenos, so I may go ahead and make some jalapeno poppers, and then I will die and go to heaven, where I will sit and eat a feast of jalapeno poppers and BLTS in the face of my enemies for all eternity and it will be sweet. (Maybe some of that won't happen, but maybe it will.)

What else did I get at the Amish?  Maybe a better question is, what didn't I get at the Amish?  I got four dozen ears of corn, five pounds of blueberries, tomatoes and peppers out the wazoo, eight gallons of milk, a quart of cream, five pounds of butter, new potatoes, the best fresh onions, a gallon of maple syrup, and sundry little sundries like bulk popcorn and mustard and salsa.  Also, the World's Best Broom.  And a friend there gave me some cucumbers, but y'all know how I feel about cucumbers, so I almost count that as a loss rather than a gain, but I couldn't tell her that so I took them with a smile.

While I was gone, the kids made the most of it.  They went to the park, colored, baked cookies, and had  a grand old time on Saturday Dadurday.  When I got home, I quickly threw together Sabbath dinner (Pasta Carbonara, and it was amazing, thankyouverymuch), then after we ate I set to work processing as much of the stuff I had bought as I could, knowing I wouldn't even try to tackle it on Sunday. 

The kids helped me shuck the corn, and I got that in the freezer.  I froze the blueberries.  I made (and kind of burned) some paneer.  By the time bedtime rolled around, I was dead on my feet but very happy.

Not to brag or anything, but look how clean our patio is.  No mildew on the deck stairs, no Cat in the Hat Comes Back ring of grime on the house.  I am in love with pressure washing.

That was probably the biggest news of the week.  Other than that, we spent time with friends, Atticus had a few mowing jobs, and I tried getting ahead on a few cleaning projects that have been begging for my attention for months.  I am not even going to tell you what they were, because you would be appalled at what I had let slide.  You would say, "YOU CAN'T LET THAT GO FOR MONTHS! THAT IS SUPPOSED TO BE DONE EVERY SINGLE WEEK.  THAT IS DISGUSTING." And you would be right, but I don't want to hear it.  So I'm just going to leave you to guess.

Okay, okay, one of the jobs was vacuuming my living room rug.  I had my buddy with me for moral support.

Let's just zoom in a little on that photo and see how she felt about it...

What a great little pal and cheerleader.

Other than that, the week was uneventful.  I actually read a book or two.  I worked out.  I watched installments of Forrest Gump while walking on the treadmill.  I am still committed to not scrolling Instagram (which has been so good for me).  We had some rain, which was much needed, and very much reveled in - I let the kids have a movie and popcorn party while it stormed away outside.  As much as I love hot, hot, eversohot summer and never want it to end, I do love a cozy afternoon in every once in a while.  Evvvvvvvery once in a while.

BUT.  Not to end it on a stormy note, enjoy these SUMMER-SUMMER-SUMMER photos of us enjoying ice cream bars in celebration of finishing swimming lessons!

Oey never needs her own food.  The kids vie for the privilege of sharing theirs with her.

Long live Queen Summer!  God save the Queen!