I'm not a streetwalker.

While I am not a streetwalker, I do often walk the streets...with my dogs, not trolling for Johns. This past weekend, I was a street dancer (although I didn't dance). Solomon (small town next door) had a band and several streets for something cleverly named the Solomon Street Dance. :) Drunken debauchery and revelry ensues. I forgot my big camera, but I tried to take a picture of the crowd with my phone... probably difficult to see.




Oh, in other news, today I have gained a year. Catching up to you Mike!

How is this possible?

There is nearly 6 feet of DNA crammed into every cell of the human body. Can anyone explain... 6 feet is 6 feet?

Me weakness is beans

I do love beans. Green beans, or bean beans. I LOVE black beans. Last week I realized there was none of this black gold in the house and I whined about it daily. Chili has to have beans in my opinion. Most of you know, I've lost a little weight this year. Nothing terribly drastic, but still... until.... Mom and dad recently bought fritos and bean dip. Now for the past 6 months, I've been avoiding almost everything sweet - rarely eating cookies, chocolate, delicious birthday cake. I've turned down samples of free homemade fudge. Twice. Today however I ate nearly half a can of bean dip. I'm disgusting. I blame Mom. She thinks my weight loss is bordering on drastic... and knew that given the time she could find my weakness. She is a brilliant opponent.

Speaking of opponent - we've sawed down tens of trees in the war against birds. Originally I was standing up for the trees, but then my dad noted what a blow this would be against my enemies. I was then less passionate about saving the trees and realized that it really was the circle of life for these particular trees to make it to a burn pile.

Birds

Several of you know - birds and I - we're just not compatible. I've killed a couple - mostly vehicular birdslaughter. They've stolen my food. Mostly chicken, but I was also verbally threatened over french fries. Well, yesterday, one stepped over the line and pooped on me.

THIS MEANS WAR!

Float trip!

This is a ridiculously fun way to spend a weekend: Start by camping. I really love tent camping, I sleep better (which is strange), I wake up earlier and excited to do something out of the ordinary and fire is literally hypnotizing. Once the tent is up and the fire is built all I want to do is stare. And maybe roast a marshmallow. Step 2, rent a canoe and float lazily down a river. We (I was in a boat with Leon's daughter, Carley) got stuck on gravel a couple times and were floating backwards a couple of times, but mostly we faced the right direction and only had to get out and push the boat a couple of times. :) People were standing on the bank with huge water guns spraying us as we floated by and everyone was so nice. We floated about 8 miles. We passed a cover band playing awesome music, and we saw this huge boulder. And people were jumping off of it. Now I'm afraid of heights, but I really try to push it, because so many fun things are taller than me! And when's the next time I'll be floating down the Elk River... in a year if things go according to my plan! So I jumped. Over and over again. It was really great! I don't know if a picture was taken of this or not - most of the pictures of the weekend were taken using disposable cameras, because I didn't want to drop my good camera in the drink. So as soon as I get those developed, I will scan and upload. Anyway, the floating continues. As we get to the end, Carley and I realized we were a little disappointed that we didn't tip... so.... we tipped purposely. It was so funny, but the canoe was so full of water we just had to hold on to it and float the rest of the way, because we'da sunk it if we could've even gotten in. All in all, the 8 miles took about 3 hours. Leon's kids and I were still pretty amped, so we got Leon to drive us back to the Boulder and we jumped off it and a bridge and just free floated back down. That was to me... definitely, a highlight. I'm covered in bruises, because some of the river is a little shallow and moves too quickly for you to avoid the bigger rocks, but it was awesome. I'm sorry I don't have pictures now... or even better words to describe how great the weekend was. All I know is I came back exhausted and happy and wishing I could do it again. If I ever get a boat, I will name it "Float Trip". When I get a boat.

In other news, Vixie is now completely blind. It's really sad...but it's also kinda funny sometimes. This morning she couldn't figure out where the door was from the dog yard. She was about a foot north of it barking at a brick wall and picking up her front paws begging for me to open the door. Which was open about a foot south. I really do feel sorry for her - 1st diabetes, now completely blind. But she will adapt...and I guess the rest of us will too.

Happy 4th of July!

Well, I'm leaving here in about an hour and already it's been a great day! I saw Mr. Potsworthy chasing something and looking deeper, I found a giant frog. I saved the frog from an untimely death and Potsy from what I would guess to be some gross breakfast. See below (foot for perspective only - I am not a foot model).





Have a great 4th and talk to ya on Sunday!

Tomorrow!

The 4th of July has always been one of my favorite holidays. I used to get so excited about the fireworks I would throw up. Literally. This year, I'm going on a float trip! Leon and I are going to pick up his kids from their mom's house to spend the rest of the summer with him, and then we are going camping and then Saturday, we are going to float down a river in Missouri! I'm so jazzed. I'm not going to bring my digital camera, but I'm gonna get one of those waterproof disposables and then scan the pictures in and post them here!!!

Homemade Jelly

I tried to make homemade Mulberry Jelly yesterday. We have mulberry trees in the park and when the birds eat them and then drop their bombs, they are a very offensive purple. So I tried to pick the berries (succeeded here) and boil them (also success) and make jelly (failure). I think I failed for a couple of reasons, but the main one is that the recipe called for 4 pounds of Mulberries. I had a little less that a pound. The result: some sort of disgusting mulberry jelly candy thing. Gross.