be AUDacious

'cause that's what life does

I thought, with summer quickly approaching (the last day of school is Monday!), that it would be nice to do a quick check-in on some of the long-term projects going on around here. Once school ends, my work schedule will change too. Because the work I do involves high schools, there's not much for me to do (other than prep for the upcoming year) during the summer months. As a result, my work week decreases from 5 days in the office to just 3 a week. Of course, I'm responsible for still checking in via email during those two off days, but being able to do that from home makes such a difference in all the things I'm able to complete.

Our garden is coming along. We've had a good bit of a struggle with it. We got everything planted about a month ago, and then it proceeded to rain for two weeks straight. We lost all our carrots, spinach, most of our cucumbers, and most of my sunflowers. Luckily, we had enough seeds left over to go back in and plant more beans and onions. Everything seems to have fared nicely -- we recently got another bout of rain and everything just shot up over the weekend. I'm excited to watch it grow; I know that not everything will go perfectly, especially since this is our first year, but it's a process that I'm just enjoying as it happens.

My knitting has fallen to the wayside for the last month, as has the embroidery. I haven't given up on them; it's just a matter of finding a little spare time to work on them. What I'd like to do is ride up to campus with the girls on my off days and sit and knit or embroider while they play on the quad. There's so much great open space to run and play in, and the bike rides will be nice exercise too.

Speaking of exercise, Chris and I have fallen off the wagon. However, we just did some rearranging in our bedroom and made some room for the weight bench. Now that my thyroid meds are closer to the appropriate levels, I'll finally be able to see some results. Plus, we'll have some built-in exercise time in the evenings while Cass is at JV soccer practice.

I'm making good progress on my reading list too. I set an informal goal to read 96 books for 2009; I'm sitting at 48 right now, with two in progress. I'm hoping to have time to do some more formal-type reviews on the blog; we'll see how that goes.

I've been toying with the idea of making a list of things we want to do this summer with Chris and the girls; Erika does this with her family and I think it's a fantastic idea. What about you -- what's on your summer to-do list?

my hands are sore

I started working on the garden plot yesterday. I haven't gotten my hands on a tiller yet, so I decided to get out there in the backyard with a hoe and shovel and get started. I'm just too impatient at this point. Of course, I only cleared a section about 4' x 2' -- which is only about 1/10th of what needs clearing. I know, I know...I sound like a total glutton for punishment. But it was such a nice afternoon and the girls came out to help me too. Well, Cami actually spent most of her time transplanting the worms from one spot to another, and Cass kept identifying their anterior and posterior ends (she recently had to dissect a worm in her 6th grade science class -- apparently, she had to do all the work because it made her lab partner sick). It was just nice to be outside, working on something that I'm excited about, that is going to be so good for our family -- those thoughts were what kept me going. Though I need some gardening gloves -- and a wheelbarrow. A wheelbarrow would be nice. We have a couple of low spots that we filled in with dirt last year, so we took the grass that we dug up and covered the dirt piles -- hopefully that'll help fill in the bare spots. (And yes, I am going to try to get my hands on a tiller! *lol*)

In other news, it's time for the weekly Book Fair at {we are} storytellers. That means it's Artist's Choice -- 2 products on sale for 45% for 24 hours. Here are my offerings:

Round Birdie font

Rockabilly kit

Just a reminder that you've got until Friday to send in your application for my CT call. Also, I want to encourage you to take a chance on my "Defining {you}" journaling class. It contains 80 journaling prompts -- that's 80 different topics for scrapbook pages, or you could use them to put together some fantastic mini-albums -- plus a handful of templates and some great information on using characterization to write about the people who are important to you. The best part is that this is one of those projects that you can dip into whenever you have some free time. Once you print out and bind the prompts together, just grab one any time you sit down to scrap a page. It's a great way to get inspired and capture the personalities of your loved ones. I know money is tight, but this is $10.00 that is worth spending. It's a tool you'll easily get months of use out of.