do you have a carbon monoxide detector?

thankfully, we do.

and it saved my life yesterday.

while canning more spaghetti sauce, i got busy with my aunt on the phone...  chatting in detail and at great lengths.  i was stretched out on the couch, chatting away... while the canning pots on the gas range heated up.  or so i thought.

i heard an alarm.  thought it was our smoke detector.  didn't smell smoke, and continued chatting, thinking it was probably our battery dying out.  it continued to beep.

after a significant amount of time... i couldn't take the beeping and discovered it was our carbon monoxide detector, screaming relentlessly to me.  and warning me to get fresh air.

did that.

and probably explains the faint headache i acquired.

i sure would of been mad, if i died on my birthday. 

smile, wink, nod.

zoey!

look who's getting a new puppy!

cartwheels and back flips!

we are!

4:00 sunday, found us at our breeder's, choosing and meeting our new lhasa apso!

it was a super tough decision.  i mean seriously... how can one be any cuter then the other?

the determining factor, was the one little female, who kept crawling and loving on my son, tommie.

if i had a mansion and a wheel barrow full of money... they'd all be mine!

we named her:  zoey

she'll be coming home at the end of october.

she needs to be with her mom until 9 weeks of age.

i love her.

waiting for me all along........



  today, while working at a farmer's market in the thumb of michigan..., hold up your right hand, palm facing you... and look at the very center tip of your thumb.  that's exactly where i was, today. 

  while there, i was talking to a lovely lady who was telling me about this "just absolutely wonderful book!" she went on an on... picture her little arms flying with details about it... and her sister, nodding, feverishly in agreement... inserting comments like, "it's really good or you should read it!!"  both shuffled away.... reiterating, "the Guernsey literary and the potato peel society!" 

i was being kind enough... promised that i'd try to get my hands on it... and honestly thought, there is no way, i'll remember a title like that~

i didn't think about the conversation again. 
at all.

4 hours later, en route home, i decided to stop off at this pathetic little thrift shop,  which never, ever has anything, remotely exciting.  well, unless you count old hair curlers, house dresses, and bullet-proof polyester pull-on kelly green dress slacks and donated hospital socks, that God only knows the story behind those!

after vowing never to stop at the dive again, i found myself clicking the lock on my car twice not once and sauntered inside.

betcha know where this story is going, right?

between a stack of reader's digest hardcovers, with no jacket covers, there it was. 
waiting for me. 
smiling at me.

the Guernsey literary  and potato peel society. 
in paperback.
.55 cents. 

i smiled.

it rode home next to me, in the passenger's seat.

coincidence?  i think not.

smile, wink, nod.

i found a really good deal on sky lanterns!

so, i stocked up.

we've launched a couple of these beauties!

and, beautiful, they are!

hot pink and vibrant orange!

very soon, we'll be having a homeschool teen night in our backyard... and i plan to launch, another. 

don't you think the kids will love it?

me, too!

wink.

look who came to visit!

just like clockwork, every september.... we have a family of sandhill cranes who take up residence in our backyard!  they'll be here until the end of october!

they've arrived two weeks and one day earlier, then last year.  i wonder if they're just happy to be back in our yard or do they know we're in for an early winter?

which by the way... it's woolly bear mania, at our home.

such a spectacular sight...  sandhill crane's in flight!

have you ever heard the sound a sandhill crane makes?  distinct, that's for sure. 

click here:  sand hill crane voice!

*************

today, i was able to preserve 4 pints of raspberry-honey jam!

beeee-bopping home, happily!

well now, what do you think my answer was, when a family friend called and told me to "come and pick her pears?"

a resounding.... yes!

beeee-bopping home happily, with 10 gallons of those little gems... i prepared and canned them.

we like light syrup the best.

this was an all day project.

but one things for sure, i know we will be satisfied, once the snow flies and we pop off the lid!

i appreciate this blessing!

what sort of things have you been blessed with lately?

friday, found me saying... "okay, sure... i'll come over and pick wild grapes to make jelly," to my friend, melanie.

first of all and most importantly... welch's jelly has nothing on us, self-sustaining chicks!

even if it was the hottest day of the year... we trudged  down the dirt road  (me in my wellington's... because i'm afraid of snakes and in my mind, i think wellie's protect me better!!), dove in the thick bramble and picked.

i of course, wasn't as brave and adventurous as melanie... i sort of kind of stayed on the dirt road and she would toss the wild vines to me... and i gingerly plucked them.

it was a beautiful way to spend a friday.

thanks be to god, for good friends and natural resources~

smile, wink, nod.

p.s.  no pictures of the jelly... it was still being processed, when i left.