Crazy week

This week has been a bit crazy, thus the lack of blog posts. We're going camping this weekend (like in a tent, that kind of camping) and I've been working on making sure we have everything for it. The one thing we lack is a big enough car. I've stuffed what I can in the back of the car and the rest will have to go up in the roof rack. It's amazing how much stuff you have to take for 4 people for just a few nights of camping.

The kids finished up school today. S says she's sad that she's done with kindergarten but J is happy to be finished. I'm trying to switch my brain from having free time during the day to having the kids around all the time for the next two months. I tried to take advantage of my dwindling free time this week. I went over to the Hush Puppy food truck for lunch one day and had a delicious roast beef sandwich and real hush puppies. Hush puppies are fried balls of corn bread for those that don't know. It's a southern thing that I have missed.

Looking at this makes me want more hush puppies

I also managed to get time to go in and have my nails redone. My verdict on the shellac? Excellent! I chose to do it again because it stayed on my nails in spite of me trying to do everything possible to get it to chip off. It cracked, I broke a few nails, but it didn't chip. It is pretty good stuff I have to say. I swear it's the only way I can keep polish on my nails for more than a few days.

I've just about finished my secret knitting projects that I've been working on. I have one I need to finish but it's easy so it won't take me long at all. I need to get some buttons for trim so I will work on that next week when we're back from camping. I'm still trying to decide if I'm going to take any knitting with me this weekend. I guess it depends on how much space we end up having in the cabin of the car. I know knitting doesn't take up much space but then we don't have much space left.

I will take my camera with me and get some pictures over the weekend and share them on Monday...if I survive. Camping in the backyard is looking pretty appealing right now...

Field Trip!

Today S's class went on their end of the year field trip to a provincial park and I went with her to help out. The park is on the edge of the Murray River, which looks like this:

Pretty, isn't it?

The kids traveled to the park on the school buses while parents traveled in cars. I rode with the mom of one of S's friends. We started out later than the kids but still arrived at the same time - school buses travel slower than cars I guess. :-) The first thing I noticed when we got out of the car was the mosquitoes. The park was thick with them! We all loaded up with bug spray, including the kids. We then headed down the path to the play area.

On the way we passed some large statues of storybook characters like the Goose that Laid the Golden Egg, Peter Rabbit, The Three Little Pigs, The Three Bears, and the characters from the Wizard of Oz. I meant to take pictures of them but they were in the woods and the mosquitoes were really thick in there. They weren't as bad in open areas where the wind was blowing so we tried to stay in those areas.

One thing that surprised me was the fact that the park had an old fashioned, fly-off into the air, break a bone merry-go-round. These things are hard to find these days. I remember one at the playground near where I grew up and it was fun and dangerous. We would get that thing going so fast and if you didn't hold on you'd go flying off and tumble through the grass. I actually managed to get a picture of this one without any kids on it since they were eating lunch at the time.

You spin me round!

This park was a strange mix of old equipment and new. I didn't take any pictures of the new stuff because it looks like playground stuff you can find anywhere these days. But I did take some pictures of the old things because you don't see stuff like this often.

The Fort at the Playground

The Old School Metal Slide

The Jack-o-lantern. It scared me a bit.

The kids had a blast running loose all over the park. It's surrounded by trees (thus the mosquitoes) which created a natural fence for the kids. There was also a dairy bar which sold really good ice cream. All the kids were able to get an ice cream as a treat before heading home.

The field trip was a lot of fun but I was tired when I got home. I had gone on a hike through the woods with S and her friends and some of the other parents yesterday, didn't sleep well last night, and was on my feet pretty much the whole time we were at the field trip. I am ready for bedtime already!

Shellac update: It was last Wednesday that I got my nails done with the shellac. They are still holding up better than I expected:

If you look at them from a normal distance they still look nice. But I have noticed the shine is starting to fade and if you look closely at them you can see cracks starting in the polish near the tips of my fingers. Nothing has started to chip off yet, so I'll be interested to see what happens over the next few days. My appointment to get the polish removed/new shellac applied is a week from today. We'll see if I make it to then without any chipping.

The Most Popular House

We have become The Most Popular House On The Street this week. And this is why:

Yes, we got the trampoline put together on Sunday. It only took C and I between two and three hours to get it put together. It probably would have taken less time if we had put some of the parts together the right way the first time. C did the hard part of pulling the springs into place. S was happy she got to help by retrieving springs from the box for us.

Once it was done the circus began. First one kid and then another and another showed up in our backyard. I had to start timing bounce sessions so that everyone was getting a turn. We started out with just one kid at a time but we bumped it up to two kids because it was taking a long time for everyone to get a turn even with the timer set to two minutes. Many children went home very tired yesterday evening.

Today as soon as the kids got home from school they wanted to go bounce. S's friends came over to bounce with her and then J's friend came over too. Things were going well until it was time for J's friend to go home. I was trying to get supper started and J's friend couldn't find his bike helmet. We spent a good 20 minutes running around trying to find his helmet. Finally he walked his bike home and discovered he had left his helmet there. Oops!

Things went back to being calm for a few minutes and then more kids showed up to use the trampoline while I was trying to make supper which made it tough for me to supervise them. But then C got home and he was able to keep an eye on the kids while I got the food ready.

I've already decided that the trampoline will be closed tomorrow. Both of my kids need a break from jumping and S has soccer. I want her to have energy for running around and jumping on the trampoline wears her out. I have a feeling the neighbourhood kids will be disappointed the trampoline is closed but the kids do need a break.

It was a busy day for me today. I went out and got us some camping supplies for our camping trip in a few weeks. Then I went to the fruit and veggie market and then to the grocery store. A new fruit and veggie market opened near us a few weeks ago and so far I've been impressed. Their prices are lower than the grocery store and the quality of their food is as good or even better than the grocery store. And I like supporting local small businesses.

After putting away all the groceries I had to take my car into the dealer to find out why it was making that awful rattling sound. It turned out to be loose heat shields. They ended up removing the back heat shield and adding clamps to the front one. Problem solved! The other day the tire pressure light had come on and I asked them to check that out for me. I'm glad I did because it turned out that I had a nail in my tire which they fixed after they took care of the heat shields.

Shellac update - I am incredibly impressed with the shellac. I figured my all my nails would be starting to show some wear or be chipping by now, especially after helping put the trampoline together yesterday. So far only one nail has had any problems:

The pointer finger on my right hand has a chip in the bottom. You can also see where the split in my nail has opened up. I expected it to start chipping around the split but it hasn't. My nails are starting to grow so you can see a small space at the bottom of each nail, which is expected. I am very happy with how well the shellac is holding up with all I do with my hands every day.

Thursday/Friday Recap

Yesterday was...interesting and not completely in a good way. It started out with me helping S put on a sweater and the muscles across the middle of my back seizing up. It made moving rather tough. I loaded up with pain relief and a very hot shower and it helped to loosen them up enough that I could move without wincing in pain.

I had my dentist appointment yesterday. It started out with a check-up and I got a good report! My gums around where the cursed tooth was have healed up nicely and my over-all mouth health was good. She did some scraping because I swear that even if you have the most plaque free mouth in the world they still have to do some scraping to make you feel like they are doing their job. :-) My appointment was scheduled for 90 minutes but it only ended up taking 45 minutes, so yay me!

Of course my appointment to get my night splint fitted didn't start for another 45 minutes so I plopped down in the waiting room with my book. But my dentist is awesome (I never thought I'd say that!) and he squeezed me in between two patients. I was altogether finished about the time I was suppose to be getting started.

The night splint is...interesting. It will definitely take some getting used to. I didn't sleep well last night, probably because every time I rolled over my back would hurt and it would wake me up. Then I'd be aware of the splint and it would feel weird again until I fell back to sleep. I think tonight I will take something to help me sleep because I really need a good night's sleep!

Today I ran some errands and then met C downtown for lunch. I did a lot of walking downtown today and it seems to have helped my back loosen up more. I am almost back to moving normally. I will just need to keep getting up and moving around tonight before I go to bed to keep it loose.

When the kids came home they went out to play with their friends. J got invited to spend the night at a friend's house tonight. I think he will have a good time. We'll see if the boys get any sleep tonight. We don't have anything on the schedule tomorrow so J will be able to take a nap tomorrow if he needs to.

Yesterday I finished one of my knitting projects. I finished the Song of the Seas cowl. I took a picture although it still needs to be blocked.

I was winding up some yarn for the shawl I'm working on and it was such a disaster today. What should have taken me maybe 5 minutes ended up taking me over an hour. The yarn was so tangled that I had to wind it by hand to get all the tangles out. Then once I finally got the tangles out and started to wind it up it got tangled again! I got to the point where I just cut the yarn and made two balls instead of one because it was such a disaster. The yarn is silk but it doesn't have a smooth finish so it tends to halo as you're working with it. Those halos seem to catch on each other and for tangles. I finally got it done though. After I was done with that yarn I wound up some other yarn for a new project. Lucky for everyone that yarn wound up perfectly.

Shellac nails update: Today is day 3 with my shellac nails and so far, so good. By this point with normal nail polish I'm usually starting to see some chipping but I haven't so far. The only place I'm seeing any trouble is on a nail that had started to split in a way that my nail tech couldn't fix it. She buffed it down and the shellac has been acting pretty good as a patch. Today I did catch my hair in that spot  and it has started to crack but it's because of the split, not because of the shellac. The first day I was trying to be careful but by today I was doing things like I normally would if my nails weren't painted. Here's how they look today and vs Wednesday (for comparison). So far I'm happy with them. We'll see how they continue to do!

Wednesday Nails

Friday nails

Nails, Knitting, and Soccer

Today I went and had a manicure. I usually don't get manicures because a day or two into having my nails painted the polish starts chipping off. Even polish that's suppose to last 14 days only lasts me 3 or 4 days. But this time I went with the shellac polish. I chose a fairly neutral colour so that if it should start to chip it won't show up as much.

It's a nice light grey colour and goes well with the red I chose for my toes. I just chose regular polish for my toes because they seem to do better than my fingers, probably because I'm not constantly washing my feet like I do my hands. :-)  Anyway, I will be documenting my shellac nails from now until my next appointment in two weeks to see how they hold up. I'm rough on my hands, so it will be interesting to see what happens.

I remembered today to take some pictures of my knitting projects. This is a cowl called Song of the Sea and I'm using my Sip-n-Stitch yarn for it. The pattern is suppose to look like waves, starting with small ones and then moving to medium and finally ending with large waves.

I'm also working on a shawl with some silk yarn that I got from Belfast Mini-Mills here on the island. The shawl is interesting because every other row you increase one stitch so you end up with a swirling curve. I tried to get a picture of this but it's tough because it's getting big. I like the lace sections that come in between the garter stitch sections. It ends with a lacy section and has a fancy edging. I'll get there eventually!

Last night S had her first summer soccer session. She and some of the other girls on our street are signed up although she ended up on a different team than her friends. But she has a classmate and a fellow rink rat on her team so she's happy. The people running soccer this year are so much more organized than last year. Last year all the kids got white shirts but this year each team has it's own colour shirts. Also, they only had six of the 12 teams come at a time so there seemed to a lot less chaos going on. They had two teams per field with a coach and a tween/teen assistant to help them. This allowed the coach was able to work with one team teaching them a skill while the assistant worked with the other team playing a fun game. Overall, I was very impressed with how the first practice went. I hope this continues through the rest of the summer.

Tomorrow I have not one, but two dentist appointments. One is a check-up to see how things are going now that my cursed tooth is out. The other is to see if the lab made my night splint correctly. I've been sticking to the plan that the hygienist gave me at my initial cleaning so I expect she will be happy with how my mouth is doing.  I'll find out tomorrow!