Recent happenings

Seems like it's been forever since I've updated my blog.  I've only had 6 postings so far in June! And today is literally the last day in June - assuming I get this posting submitted within the next 15 minutes.  Ha ha!

Today is also my late mom's birthday.  Here's a photo of my sister, mom in the middle, and me to the right:

I'm not even sure when this photo was taken.  Most likely when we were still in college. I'm guessing that's probably when she visited us for the very first time in Arizona, in 1995 perhaps??

The reason I've haven't had a chance to update my blog recently is because of all these new projects.  I had my first commissioned mural painting!  Here's the draft. I will post about it more later on!

By the way, forgot to show the tubing that went into our wood-burning chimney.  Thankfully it's a lifetime guarantee as it cost a lot more than we wanted to deal with:

My ginger plant is finally growing in the raised garden bed!

Which also reminds me, my potato plants are actually wilting now, as well as the garlic.  

I guess I should start digging those up soon to see if there's actually anything to harvest?! Will definitely keep you posted on that!

And here's our first baby cucumber of the season:

And I actually forgot to eat it and now it' will have to go into the compost bin.  Hopefully we'll get a few more!

Oh, we forgot to put more salt into our water-softener in the garage earlier in the month (yes, been very forgetful lately!).  The salt bin was literally empty! It was no wonder that the showers didn't feel the same/as soapy as it normally would:

Thankfully with a click of a button, we were able to reset everything on the machine.  Phew... didn't need another expense!

Finally saw and heard some cicadas this month also.  It was suppose to be an epic event but thankfully, there was really nothing too much in our neighborhood.  I did spot some about 30 minutes away in another suburb:

They are not very pretty looking! And you can hear them too. Yikes!

It almost sounds like a constant alarm in the background.

Summer also means summer haircuts!  I'm so glad our old clippers conked out so I was able to purchase new clippers that are cordless.  So much easier:

Charlie likes his hair a tad longer while Graham still likes his buzzed at a #2 :-)

Still so much fishing for these boys. I believe Charlie caught a carp here:

Unfortunately, he actually needs to "take care of it" and not throw it back in the lake because it's an invasive species. I don't even want to know where it went. Poor fish!

And oh, I also started selling some plants recently at my friend's market. It's every Saturday from 9am to 12pm.  So far so good.  Here's a quick preview of what a kokedama looks like:

Anyhow, been busy working on a new business name, logo, Instagram, website,... the works!! And I also have a job interview coming up on Wednesday for an assistant golf coach position.  It's at a park district about 40 minutes away.  So yeah, it's been a really busy month!  But all good.  Really excited about all these new opportunities and challenges.  Wish me luck! :-)