The Lady at Her Finest

I have returned home from the trip to NYC I took with my church's (Trinity United Methodist) youth choir. We did all sorts of cool stuff--sang at missions, local churches, and toured the city. The first few days were wonderful. 75 degree weather, sun--it was awesome. Then it joined the ranks of Alabama, hitting 90+ degree temps.

I have to be honest, I was really worried about how it would work out with 90 teenagers. But luckily, no one got lost/hurt/..... anything else.  I took this while walking the perimeter of the Statue of Liberty, with the summer sun in the background.

The common disease of summer boredom is encroaching upon me...in May we're all like "Yea! We can sit at home and do nothing all day!" And now we are sitting on the couch passing time by drawing faces on our lesser-liked teachers in the yearbook. I try to avoid that by filling my summer with activities and things... church youth functions, mission trips, beach trips, that sort of thing. We are heading to Gulf Shores, AL this weekend for our annual "Mom's-side-of-the-family-beach-trip". My grandfather rents a big house and we all stay for a week.

Well, I hope all of your summers are going well. You know it literally just dawned on me that adults with most jobs have to work over the summer. Alas, it is something to do.

-Rip

It's so hot...

that even ever-so-valiant Reese Cup gave up. Last time we met up with RC on LOAA, (a friend just introduced me to that acronym for Lens of an Amateur!) she was freezing her poor little (yet absent...) tail off and was making an active attempt to get in the house. Now, I think she threw in the towel.

It probably looks and sounds like that we dont care for our cats and that they're always outside. But be assured, RC has plenty of time inside... after she has done her business. Some day I will try and get our other feline--clover. Anyhow, yesterday, she had good reason to quit. We were on the downhill slide to 100 degrees!! If there was one thing that drove me straight out of Alabama, it would be the summers.

Well, this is my last blog post until I head off the New York with my church group. I am going to prepare one post for sometime next week, so we'll see how I do with pre-posting.

My dad and I have been playing tennis most mornings lately, around 9-10, and we can hardly stay out there 45 minutes before we are worn out from simply the heat! It's especially hot for just the beginning of June. If June is this way, kill me before July.

Soap making went well the other day. Rather than melting some glycerin bars, coloring and re molding them, I actually made it from scratch. All it involves is Lye, Distilled Water, and Olive Oil. Click here to see the recipe. We didnt want 20lbs of soap, so despite the instructions, I scaled it down quite a bit, just to make a few pounds. Email me if you would like my smaller version, as it turned out fine, contrary to what the site says. Currently, the cut-up soap bars are sitting on some wax paper curing for two weeks.

Wish me luck traveling to NY with a group of 50 people.
-RL

Down the Line

I need to make some serious changes to this blog template. I recently began experimenting with the tab under the template thing that allows you to pick out your own colors.... and, as you can see, not all of them turn out well! I pulled up my blog just a few minutes ago, and realized the atrocity of color combinations that covered the page.

Summer has begun!! It is so nice to know (for the first few days, at least) that you have no where to be at 8 am, no homework to turn in the next day that you dont understand, and no clubs that are putting you on probation because you didnt get up at the crack of dawn that morning to attend their meeting. (I'm not kidding...) This weekend, we are having all kinds of people over, but for the most part, we arent doing anything major the first week.... then, after that, its go go go go! until we realize that its the end of July, and that we have to go to the school to get ready for the next year. I am leaving for NY on our annual Trinity UMC Youth Choir Tour on June 4, so I will try my hand at "pre-posting" as I am calling.

Sigh.... its always the last part of the post before I actually tell you about the photo I'm posting. This is another one from Pepper Place. These lines adorned with clothes pins and price displays are all around!

Walking along, we passed an empty booth....

Ah. That explains it!

-Rip

Perfect Spot....

This little girl had a great setup under her family's table. A few more degrees, and I might have just gone under there and introduced myself...

-Rip

2 More Days....

Seasons: Fruits of Summer

Well, last Sunday's Seasons didnt happen. Sorry about that..... I was viewing my blog, just, for the sake of viewing my blog, and realized that a Sunday had passed since the last Seasons post. Oh well.

Yesterday was my very first visit to Pepper Place downtown B'ham! I have had many opportunities to visit before..... I guess my bed was just too comfy. If you know me at all, you know I am not an early riser. But now, I see what I have been missing! All different sorts of people, with all their different sorts of stuff. I love strawberries, and these nice plump red ones, ripe just in time for summer, had nice perky leaves. I made an attempt to grow strawberries in my little garden last year-- I ended up with one about the size of a dime, and about 5 that some pesky creature had taken a nice bite out of. And they dont even eat the whole thing! Its like they take a little nibble of your strawberry--just enough to ruin it--and then move on to the next one. Anyhow, it miraculously survived the winter with all of its frost and cold (with ZERO care or water other than rain) and produced the same thing this spring. I suppose thats just something I'll leave to the farmers...

I have many other neat shots from Pepper Place I'll be sharing with you soon.

We have THREE! 3! III! TRES! TROIS! days of school left. Oh, I am so ready. I actually hate summer, as in, the season. But, the fact that school is let out makes it a little bit better. It seems like last week that I was shooting the melting frost.

-Rip