Castle in the Clouds

I was so happy to see sunshine and decent temperatures on Saturday.  Michigan has been rather cold and rainy of late, so this was a pleasant and welcome surprise.  No need for the girls to wear their winter coats or for the boys to carry umbrellas to keep their beautiful dates dry.  Thank goodness! I took too many photos.  (pssst...there's no such thing!) I also tried to grab little videos throughout the day to commemorate this milestone in my youngest boy's life.  This wasn't just another dance, after all, it was his first prom.  His first tux.  His first and very likely only...crowning! Gage and Addi were voted as the Junior class's Prince and Princess! This was so very unexpected.  By me.  By Gage.  We had even talked about who would get the crowns for their class.  We had a couple of likely candidates, neither of which were Gage and Addi.  So imagine my surprise when he walks into the house and tells me to ...

So, the youngest boy has prom on Saturday.  We've picked out his tux and his girlfriend has a beautiful baby blue gown that she's going to wear.  They are going to look amazing even if he has a black eye or two from getting his broken nose fixed.  On the bright side, he gets to take the nose splint off for prom!  The docs gave him an extra one that can be put on after the dance and Splash Village pool party. He sent me this picture after surgery.  LOL I am going to be a nervous wreck about him being in that pool with a bunch of rambunctious teens.  He needs time to heal and will have to be very careful for the next couple of weeks. Doctors even put him on weight lifting restrictions for the rest of this week (he's trying to bulk up for football, the skinny little thing).  Here's a few pre-surgery photos for your entertainment.  Add caption

The hubby is working on his man cave right now.  Over the weekend he put up a few more tongue-n-groove panels on the basement walls and framed in a doorway. He's almost done with that part of the project.  He's a got few more panels to put up before the drop ceiling is installed by a professional, which we hope will be done before summer arrives. Once the ceiling is done, we'll get the floor painted, buy some furniture, and install a flatscreen TV.  With any luck, everything will be ready for use by the end of August.  Just in time for football season! Woot!  Woot!  I will be able to watch my shows upstairs in the living room while Ken entertains in the basement.  Something I've been looking forward to for several years now. Someday, though, I want to have my very own reading nook to retreat to whenever the mood strikes me, which I suspect would be often.  The plan here is to remodel my youngest boy's room when it becomes available.  ...

It was a good reading month!  I read a total of nine books.  I managed to cross three off my List Challenges " Krista's Books to Read in 2018 " list: The Waterless Sea by Kate Constable The Tenth Power by Kate Constable Replay by Ken Grimwood I put that list together on a whim one day, selecting books from my already existing TBR.  The motivation for creating the list was to help me power my way through my overgrown and out-of-control TBR piles.  I selected titles from both my physical TBR piles and my Kindle shelves.  So far this year (remember, it's only March!), I've already read 7 of the 35.  Not bad, if I say so myself, which I do. The Waterless Sea and The Tenth Power completed the Chanters of Tremaris trilogy.  The books continued the adventures of Calwyn and her companions.  In the first book, The Singer of All Songs , Calwyn, an ice chanter capable of controlling and manifesting ice, discovers a strange man has penetrate...

I thought I'd do a quick overview of March 2018... It's been an interesting month.  Most notably, the oldest child is looking for a part-time job so that he can go back to college.  He's not 100% sure of what he wants to go to school for, but I think he's seriously considering going into graphic design or media studies.  He's leaning in this direction because the degree would tie into his personal goals, which he's not too keen to share as he's afraid of nay-sayers. Ken has been meticulously researching tractors for the last couple of months.  Our current lawn mower is in pretty rough shape and likely won't survive another summer.  If he gets the machine he's been ogling, it would not only allow him to mow the several acres of lawn on the property, but it also let him transport things in the front loader and use a box blade to drag the driveway.  We have so many potholes right now and need more stonecrete in front of the barn. I went scrapbooki...