Tea With Stephanie

Lots of things have been happening and I doubt I could even remember them all so I am going to dig up a few photos to share of the last few months.

The 1st day of September we went to the local fair at the Evergreen State Fairgrounds here in Monroe. My little brother Christopher was up as well though for some odd reason I do not have a single photo of him. Weird. Well I did find a photo of him from either before or after we went to the fair that day.

So the children’s friends came with us and here are some photos of them at the fair enjoying their treat. 

Mom thought this chainsaw sculpture was really neat so wanted a photo with it

Also in the middle of September I got a giant pile of wood chips delivered.

  This is the before photo. It took over a month to get the entire thing moved! Now nearly every single bed around my house it filled with wood chips. It is helping with the weeds though lots more need to be dug up under the several inches thick wood chips. I will plan on taking some photos when it is warmer and neater outside. The wind and the cold is not making it look pretty at all.

The kids started school and like a complete space-case I totally and completely forgot first day of school photos. Alaric is in his last year of Elementary school in 5th grade and while we were unsure at the beginning of the school year if we liked his teacher we are pleased with her now. Treanna is in 7th grade and has a couple of favorite teachers again this year but otherwise has all new teachers and it really doing well.  Here is the kids with their new to them laptops that they got from Dad just in time for school to start. They have to check them in and out and the priority is for school work but so far it has worked out great.

Near the end of the month we had a day at the Camp-O-Rama for the local boy scout council. This time both Devin and I went with Alaric for the day to the beautiful Camp Brinkley.  

We stayed through the closing campfire but I think the above were two of the best photos of the day. Alaric in the second one is doing a mountain bike race with his pack and this was his second go-around after a spectacular wipe-out the first time.

Then our boy turned 11 and here are some photos from his birthday.

His special A shaped breadstick.

Him and his cake!

I think that pretty much sums up September. I do know that in the middle of the month Alaric did the scouting for food at the local Fred Meyer’s and they all managed to collect a lot for the local food bank. Plus the kids had school photos which I will remember to scan and put up sometime. The only other significant event is that we had started attending church again and have been attending since then.

I finally managed to get photos of Alaric in his webelos cub scout uniform. My mom had taken photos but I thought they were unrecoverable. However my darling husband did a good job of finding them on the SD card so here are some photos. This was from the night before scout camp at Alaric’s first wearing of his uniform. He went with my Mom to a scouting event where they had a police officer and a K9 unit do some demonstrations. It was fun.

My handsome boy all dressed up and ready to go.

Just checking out the police car.

I do not have any photos from scout camp. However Devin and Alaric had a great time and Alaric is very sure he wants to continue in scouting now.

My surprise flower that I still don’t know what it is. One stalk was pink and the other a delicate light yellow.

The front bed after I cleaned it out and moved the tree in the center from its previous place in the corner nearest the front door. It was growing sideways, it is much better looking now.

The very healthy oregano, with chives on its left. Unfortunately the basil and parsley really did not fair well. Some pretty petunias in the birdhouse box on the fence.

Our spiral of succulents. The top kettle was mothers and the rest were mine but empty.

Our extremely healthy and happy tomatoes. Seriously never had tomatoes ever do this well before. I think I have a combination of containers and sun in the right spots. You cannot quite see a really pretty planter box on the right hand side of the chairs.

This is my hanging basket out front, Mom helped choose things and planted them, they turned out VERY pretty.

My new windows 7 computer that Devin put together for me is all finished. I was even able to put it in my desk earlier today. There are a few things I will need to get used to about the new system but I think I can live with it.  Now if we could just fix my email I would be much happier. My email has been broken since January. My new computer system was originally put together in January as well. Things are just taking a long time to get completed. I know I have been busy and procrastinated a lot of things as well but I am striving to get caught up and better organized. Sometimes I regret not taking more before photos. I have been so busy doing that I have not been documenting what all we have been doing nearly enough.

We had the opportunity to purchase some strawberries recently and so purchased a rather large amount. I don’t know if I had ever seen a five gallon bucket of strawberries before. 

After we bagged it all up we had a total of 25 pint size bags for the freezer.

is finished I cannot upload photos. For some weird reason my current poor windows XP machine decided that all USB devices should stop working. My new Windows 7 box is nearly done, we just need to finish adding applications and get all my files copies over to it.

I have many photos to share especially of my garden and my dining room. My garden is very much a work in progress and makes me happier nearly every day. Today I weeded out my front garden bed and even moved a tree/bush to a better spot so it will be happier.

At the new location even! Now instead of weird long urls anyone can go to my main website and immediately get my blog which will include photos and new stuff.

It will take me a while to catch up with everything that has been happening with me in the last several months, but the quick highlights include: rearranging the house, having my mother move in with us, working for the U.S. Census Bureau for a couple of months, revamping the garden with my mother, and grounding the children for their inappropriate use of texting on their cellphones.

While problem solving earlier in the month for Treanna we found out that since she lost her little CD player (or had it taken) she has had a more difficult time getting to sleep. So we let her borrow a boombox that was sitting doing nothing. She started sleeping a bit better almost immediately. Somehow, I am still not sure exactly how, Alaric conned her into letting him borrow the boombox and turning it up loud enough they could both hear it. Thus 2 children who start sleeping better at night.

Now that we are seriously evaluating everything Devin and I realized we had a nice little stereo system in our room that was literally a dust catcher. We just hardly ever turned it on. With the rearrangements we have a far easier time getting access to music we want than the children do. So we offered it to Treanna. So she redid her bedside table to make room for this and I helped her move it into her room.

Now so far today, the first day of spring break I have hardly seen my children. For the most part they have been going back into their rooms to do things in their. For the last hour the only thing I have heard at all from the children is the muted echoes of their stereos through closed doors. Quiet, solitude and possibly a glimpse of the future.

I have been a reader of Apartment Therapy for a few years now. I came really close to participating in the Spring Cure last year but could not decide what to do so I skipped it. Well this year because of a variety of circumstances I am going to participate. Mainly because if I don’t take some before and after pictures I might forget what all things were.

In the next 2 months (hopefully less) we are going to be drastically rearranging our entire house. The back room/computer room is going to end up being gutted even more than it has been. Our bedroom is going to be trimmed and streamlined and put into that room. I am also going to be emptying out my things from the upstairs bathroom which includes finding a new place for my dressing table. The dining room is going to be tweaked as we are still unhappy with how the storage has worked out in that room. The end result should be a much more livable arrangement.

The main purpose for this is that we are making room for my mother to come and live with us. We are very excited but we know that the decision was not easy for everyone. It is for the best but there is a lot of work involved in making this happen. I am proud of how much she has been already doing.

 Of course there is much more happening in my life but a start is a start for blogging again. I will be taking some “before” photos.

I have a deadline of a few weeks to make as much happen as possible because I am taking a temporary job for about 2 months.

I had promised Devin a batch of chocolate chip cookies over the weekend. When I called to discuss what specifically he wanted we talked about various alternatives like orange chocolate chip cookies that I make. Devin suggested mint but did not know if I had a recipe. Well I have been baking enough varieties just off from the original recipe that it is not that difficult to make something up. Luckily they turned out. Here is Devin’s new chocolate chip cookie recipe.

Mint Chocolate Chip cookies

½ cup butter flavored shortening

½ cup butter

½ cup sugar

½ cup brown sugar

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 teaspoon peppermint extract

4-5 drops of green food coloring

½ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon baking soda

2 cups flour

1 ½ cups chocolate chips

Cream butter and shortening with the sugars. Add eggs one at a time and beating well after each. Add vanilla and peppermint extracts. Add in green food coloring if desired.

Mix dry ingredients together and add to the creamy mixture. Can add up to 1/4 cup more flour if needed. Stir in chocolate chips.

Using a small cookie scoop or spoon drop by spoonfuls onto parchment paper covered cookie sheets.

Bake 375 oven about 7 minutes using the small scoop, or until golden brown around edges and a bit on top.

The green tint is just not really showing up in that photo.

This past halloween was the second year that we have let the children go trick or treating. I had a few simple rules for their costumes, 1 They had to be creative and 2 They had to be cheap or homemade. This is what the end result was.

Treanna as a Jedi Knight. She originally wanted to be Shaak Ti but struggled with the time to get my help making the head part. I told her we would concentrate on the jedi part of the costume as that would be our fall back plan. Thus:

Of course you cannot see her awesome hair do (a leia-like roll around the head like a crown), or her riding style boots and other small details that make the outfit. She has her Dad’s purple lightsaber in hand and a back up hanging from her utility belt.

Alaric as the 9th Doctor from BBC’s Doctor Who television show.

Yes that is a sonic screwdriver prop. His cosutme is so dark you really cannot see how neat it turned out. He chose the typical v-neck sweater for his top and has slacks and oxford style dress shoes. The coat was the hardest to find but I did find it second-hand and he thought it was perfect (which is all the counts). I really wanted him to be the 10th Doctor but did not want to spend $70+ on a pinstripe suit!

They had fun and still have too much candy left over.