Story A Day

The last week has been a whirlwind with lots of exciting events!  I’ll leave you in suspense for now because my brain is too tired to write anymore…more to come! 

Our dear friend Steph is preparing for a journey to her first year at the monastery at CSB.  The journey will involve biking from her hometown in Montana to the monastery in Minnesota, with her family, in just a few short weeks – amazing!  To wish her well on her journey we shared a picnic tonight by the Mississippi River, the same river that those Benedictine sisters paddled up so many years ago.  Here are some photos of our enjoyable evening…

Tim and I spent the evening at the Saint Anthony Community Theater showing of Fiddler on the Roof, directed by our good friend Dana. It was great! We even had second row seats! I’m always amazed at the shows she brings together – nice work Dana! Much of the rest of my day was spent reading for grad school classes, so my sleepy eyes need rest…

Success for Sarah today – her house successfully closed!  She was excited and I was happy for her to be out now, since I think the townhome market might keep getting worse for a while yet.   It’s amazing how many news stories I am hearing about the new wave in the credit world – that  it should be harder to get credit – what a concept!  Only give people credit they can afford!  Wow, what an idea!  It’s really sad that the downturn in the housing market is resulting in large part from people owning homes that could not afford them in the first place – people who trusted what lenders told them they could “afford” and are now losing their homes.  Sad.  I can only hope that we will learn our lesson from this round and in the future people will only be granted to amount of debt they can realistically pay back.  But for now I’ll get off my soapbox and just say – congrats Sarah!!

I was just thinking this morning that my plants might be a bit thirsty.  Thankfully, the clouds took care of that for me!  No need to water today as we got dowsed with a  good load of rain.  The even better news is that our gutter works again!  After removing compost in process from the downspout last weekend we no longer have a waterfall outside the bedroom window.  Now if the cool temperatures would just stick around for a little while that’d be great!

One of my newly planted natives is blooming!  Yipee!  I forgot to take a photo of it when I was outside today so I got one off of Google so you can see what the flower looks like.  I’m excited that some of the new plants are blooming! 

Tim and I have returned from a weekend away in the Brainerd Lakes area.  Before heading up to our lodge we went to our niece’s baptism in LP.  She’s getting so big!  Then we spent a couple nights at a lodge on Trout Lake, one of the northern-most lakes of the Whitefish chain.  We had a great time relaxing, watching sunsets, kayaking, playing board games and enjoying the absence of to-do lists (especially home improvement to-do lists!).  We did learn that the area we visited is biased toward the motorized boaters, but we managed to find a place to go kayaking.  The first photo below is the view from our lodge.  The little kid fishing was quite excited to show off what he caught!  The second photo is of our kayaking excursion.  We had a great time!

…off the home-improvement to do list.  Today we finally got the last bit of landscaping border done on the side of our house.  We did a bunch of landscaping last summer, but for some reason left this last stretch unfinished.  So, now it’s done!  Doesn’t look too exciting yet because the plants are just TINY, but wait until next year! (I hope)…

I did my homework outside today and sure enough – I didn’t get drowsy! I suppose those chirping birds and the cool breeze helped The good news is that I got my homework done! And even with a little time left to dig a trench for one of our last remaining areas of landscaping border – pictures to come when it’s done!

I have this problem. Often when I sit down to do my homework I fall asleep reading. I thought that my new glasses would help, since I thought perhaps the eye strain was the cause. Apparently not, I think I’ve just surrendered to the fact that I am a drowsy reader. It just means it takes me longer to get my homework done! It happens even when I am really interested in what I am reading, I think I just get so relaxed when I read that if I am in a comfy position (which I usually am) I fall asleep!  Maybe I need to find a really uncomfortable chair to read in or maybe tomorrow I’ll try reading outside, sometimes the additional stimulation of the breeze and outdoor noises keeps me more alert. Hopefully the weather is nice again!