Peachy Keen Weekend

Saturday, we got up early -- well, early for a Saturday -- and drove over to Ruston for the Louisiana Peach Festival.   Ruston is only about 70 miles away and is a nice, little college town.  In fact, Callie and Jordan lived there a while right after they were married.  And while I've visited several times and even got my master's degree from La Tech, I'd never been to the Peach Festival.

It was hot and really crowded, but a nice way to spend the morning.  There was an antique/vintage car show

craft booths


(how about these dawgs???)


and of course there were peaches.


I brought home a cute little birdhouse, while the boys brought home "bullet" pocketknives.


We had some yummy peach ice cream

and bought a gift box full of giant peaches to share.

And there were rides and such.  Am I the only one that thinks a "sinking Titanic slide" for kids is kind of poor taste?!?!?

Before we left, Tyler rode the gyroscope ride that was down by the railyard.


On the way home, (while Tyler slept in the back seat) I talked Ron into stopping at an exit to let e pick some wildflowers I'd seen on the way over there.  He even helped me pick them! ;-)  I added them to a few sunflowers I picked up at the grocery store for a pretty arrangement.

After a quick clean-up of the house, I started supper.
Ron was grilling steaks, so I fixed smashed red-hots (with rosemary from my herb garden)


grilled squash (tossed in olive oil and light seasoning)

and green beans to the plates.

We got busy eating, so I forgot to take pictures of our completed dinner.  You'll have to take my word

After dinner, we played the card game Revolution.    Even Emmi got into the action at the table.

Maybe she was good luck, because I played better than I ever have keeping the seat of King or Queen most of the night.   All in all, it was a "peachy keen weekend"!

Favors Put to Good Use

After working for a few hours this morning, I stopped to pick up a few new plants for the yard.  Along with the begonias, lantana and marigolds, I picked up a few new herbs.  I love herbs!  I love how they look, how they smell.  In fact, I love to rub the leaves between my fingers releasing the aroma.  I'd like to say that I use them regularly in the kitchen, but that hasn't been the case for most of them up until this point---I DO use basil often, but I'm hoping to use some of the others since I'm beginning to cook more.

Once the herbs were situated in their respective planters, I added the plant markers that we gave as favors at Maegan's shower.  




I had several blank ones left over, so I added some additional herb names to them.  




If we ever get around to making the vegetable garden, I will definitely need to make some more!

Outdoor Spaces

Valine and I have observed that through the years, our interests have changed dramatically (of course) and can be evidenced through the purchases on our "antique-ing"  trips to Roundtop and to Canton.  In the early years, we had just discovered our love of this past-time and crafting had become trendy.   Enter Phase one:  Country-themed clothes and jewelry.  Rather than just offering junk and antiques, Canton was filled with crafty booths.  We spent our time and a little money on painted t-shirt dresses and chunky wooden teacher-y jewelry and classroom organization things.  During this period, our girls were young and we often found cute things for them, too--clothes and wooden things to paint for their bedrooms or even doll clothes. (Luckily, there aren't any photos of these stylish purchases)

Eventually, we moved into the second phase:  Things for our house.  By this time,  country-themed items had become a thing of the past (fortunately) and besides, it had become not nearly as fun to but clothes for ourselves.   Our girls were still fun to "dress", but they had their own ideas of what was stylish and things from the flea market generally would not make the cut.   We bought baskets and quilts and all kinds of knick-knacks to fill up our shelves.

We've now moved to phase three:   Things for the garden.   While we still enjoy enjoy finding a treasure or two for inside the house, we all (Valine, Pam, Sandy and Pam included) seem to be searching for things for our garden more now.  Is it because the clothes don't fit?  And our houses are full?   I'm not sure, but I do know that I love looking through gardening magazines and stores for inspirational ideas.

I've pinned all kinds of things onto my Pinterest boards related to the outdoors and gardening and Ron and I have really been enjoying working outdoors together.   I have a list a mile long of projects that I want to complete, but have to keep reminding myself to "pace myself"---I certainly don't want to burn Ron out with my lengthy "honey-do" list!

Last night, Tyler helped Ron get the final bags of gravel poured onto the fire pit area and I added a few decorative touches.  First up, a simple outdoor tic-tac-toe game board.  I bought 9 square pavers and simply buried them in the gravel. I bought a bag of rocks at Dollar Tree and painted X's and O's to use as markers.  

I'm keeping my eyes open for just the right container for the stones.

I used some of the table decorations from our wedding, the tree slices, as stepping stones scattered throughout the area.  I still had some plain slices left over, so I heated up the wood-burning tool and turned Tyler loose on one.

I sprayed each one with matte finish clear Krylon before placing them in the gravel.

I know they won't last forever, but they are kind of fun to enjoy right now.


Before we went inside last night, I talked Ron into pulling apart the last of the boards of a pallet we had laying around.  We'd used it to make the signs for our wedding, but it only had a few boards left.   I tried to do it myself, but pallets are ridiculously hard to pull apart---especially without tearing them up.   I recently pinned this and wanted to make one for the back of the storage building.

Source: keepcalmanddecorate.blogspot.com via Linda on Pinterest

This morning, I laid out 4 remaining pieces and cut the one broken one into 2 pieces and screwed the boards to it.

I made a quick trip to Hobby Lobby (well, NO trip to Hobby Lobby is quick for me, but that's another story) to pick up wooden letters.
A little side note---On the way home, I decided to run through McDonald's and texted Tyler to see if he wanted anything.  He was quite excited and gave me his order--Cinnamon Rolls and a Mocha Frappe.  I pulled up to the drive-thru, placed my order and then waited in line.  I began noticing that the aroma coming from Burger King (which is right next door to McDonald's) smelled so good--it was making me hungry.  That's when I looked up to see the McDonald's next door---I actually was in line at Burger King by mistake. I really think I am losing it---oh well!!

At home, I spray painted the letters red and then added dabs of turquoise and brown acrylic paint

before gluing them to the pallet boards.


Now, I just need to hang it and all the other goodies we've collected for that back wall.

Oh, and Ron and Tyler were able to install our kayak hangers last night!  Nice!

By the way:

A Free Saturday

It seems that we have been so busy the last few months.  Free days have been hard to come by, so when we planned to enjoy our freedom this past Saturday!  After checking our calendars several times to be sure we weren't dreaming, we made plans to take the Kayaks out after Ron went for a ride.  While he was gone, I got busy cleaning and re-organizing our bathroom until I realized that I'd left my phone out on the deck.  I went out to retrieve it since I wanted to be sure he could reach me in case of emergency. Unfortunately, that meant also retrieving the text from Rachel asking where we were.   We had been scheduled to work at the food pantry that morning, something that we both really enjoy.  But, for whatever reason, I never put it in my calendar and that was a mistake.    Sorry Rachel!!

Feeling guilty, but knowing there was no way to back up and "do it over", we went ahead with our original plans.  We grabbed one of newest favorite lunches, the Poppyseed salad at Panera's

and then headed out to Bickham Dickson Park with the kayaks.

We lathered up with sunscreen---with Ron clowning around to pretend he's really buff show how buff he really is  :-)


and gathered his fishing tackle,


while I took a few pictures.




Then we set our boats in.  It was great!!!   (and hot)  


I don't have a fishing license yet, so I left that to Ron.

Besides, I'm not sure I could actually land a fish without tipping over, if one were to bite.   I brought my little point-and-shoot with me in a waterproof case, so I enjoyed taking pictures of the lily pads

the water lilies,


the dragon flies

and of course, of Ron.




Ron got a few bites, but nothing to amount to anything---the undergrowth was just too dense.

But we enjoyed paddling around the lake and discovering that it is WAY bigger than we thought.


I wish we had thought to clock the mileage with our phone GPS, but all we know is that by the time we got back to shore, our shoulders and backs were tired and sore!  


Amazingly, I'm not that sore today.  The only thing that really bothers me is my wrist---it's a little swollen and achy, but otherwise good.  So glad we went----needed to get a head start on using these things before Tyler gets here!