Out of desperation comes ideas...

Since Bryan is on his sabbatical there are various people filling in at church. The series that they are doing is "Jesus" Part of it is the fact that there are myths out there that people believe as truth. One thing that I do at church is stage set. The idea I had for this one was two large paintings (I'm thinking 4'x8) So the guys said they would prep the stuff and and have it on stage. This was 4 weeks ago. So I walked on stage to do the first painting which was to be a fancy "Myth". It had been a hard day and I was tired and when I walked on the stage and saw what they had prepped for me, I just burst out crying. Then I thought "I just need to make this work" So I set to work recreating the design I had done for a 4x8 which was now an 8'x12'! I had to get a ladder and scaffold to even paint the thing. Well, 4 weeks later and the set is done. It was a progressive painting. Week 1 was "Myth" with the other one being just black. Week 2 - was shading on Myth and a spatter of stars on Truth (before which I taped off the word truth) Then Week 3- I messed myth up and made the beginning of a sunrise for truth. Week 4 - this week - I painted a sun rising and peeled off the letters. Whew. Done.

He relaxes this way...

Confession:

Remember the vegetable garden that I rototilled my shoulder to death on and then only planted 6 plants in? Well, I have officially declared it and myself a failure. I am however growing an amazing patch of musk thistle...worthy of a fine from the county extension agent, should they find out...so I blog about it...
Well, yesterday I changed my tactics with the garden and it is going to become a perennial garden. This is a great time to start it because the stores all have the perennials on huge clearance and I can plant a lot for a little $ and I like looking at the flowers much more than the weeds and bad vegetables. Not that veggies are bad!! Just mine are seriously ugly and I can buy them at a market or store. With any luck someday I will have a large stretch of beautiful flowers that I can see from the kitchen and deck. So failure at the vegetable garden, fingers crossed on the perennial garden.

Busy sabbatical ...

That is an oxymoron. But so far we have spent a weekend in Walnut, IA, (all the girls came with us it was so fun) attempted to go on a motorcycle trip (it died and we had to be rescued on Father's Day by our friends, Doug and Kathy), did some catfishing without success, Bryan slaved away on the pond retaining wall that got destroyed in a storm, and we are currently in St. Joseph, MO because we were supposed to go to Kansas City for 3 days but that fell through so we decided to come down here and bum around and shop antique stores.

T.V.-4

T.V.-3

Trumpet vine - 2

I risked my life to get this picture. There are 5 swallows in our backyard that are obsessed with attacking me (not Bryan or the dogs) just me. Of course the humors Bryan tremendously.
We also went on a motorcycle ride around the countryside.

Trumpet vine-

5 years ago I planted two trumpet vines to grow over the arbor. When I bought them the guy says "in 3 years you won't even believe you have an arbor these will be so big." ok, still waiting...let's just say they've taken a little more time then he anticipated. The worst part is that they grow all over wild and bloom like crazy. Well, 5 years later I have potential blooms so I am tracking the progress.

Garage sale-

Nothing says "garage sale" like watching your girls walk the entertainment center across the street.
I must say we had a perfect day for it. Unfortunately, we didn't sell as much as we wanted but...we had fun hanging out all day together.

Bike ride

The other night we took our bikes over to Homestead trail. It was a perfect evening and a wonderful ride.

Sprinkler ballet-