The George Family Journal

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Whats been going on lately?

Aah summer, much has been going on lately, sorta kinda. If its not 90F and stinking hot and dry, its 90F and raining an inch a day. Its been very wet so far this summer.

Alexander came out of his cast and is doing well, he bear crawls more than he walks right now, but I’m sure he’ll revert to upright at some point in his life. His birthday party went quite well, joy is still working on the video footage of that so I’ll get that to upload at some point… yeah we are quite behind on the video footage I think.

June has been a busy month, Alexanders cast removal, his birthday, Joys birthday, our anniversary and a family wedding this coming weekend.

Things were kinda hectic this past week so we didnt do much for our anniversary. This is what I got for Joy;

Its a hand made stone vase, I didnt think it would show up in time for the anniversary as it takes several weeks for it to be made, but it did, and all were happy with the result.

Joy in turn, got me that awesome chicken coop which I’m still doing the final touches on, plus she signed us both up for the motorcycle safety course, its a three day intensive course that at the end of it, if you pass, gives you your motorcycle license.

Last night we transitioned Alexander to a big boy bed, we got a full size (twin I think Joy calls it, I call it a single bed), and stuffed him in there under the covers. We actually bought bunks and the one in the photo is the top bunk since it still has rails to stop him from getting out. (We decided, even if the new baby is a girl, they will still share a room for the first 5 or so years and it will be good for them, well it remains to be seen if he will sleep through the baby crying in his room or not, when it arrives….)

The other day was also his first taste of nutella, that chocolaty spread that just seems to go everywhere

Alexanders new saying is “down chochoo” which means he wants to go to the basement and play with his birthday present

I’ll have more birthday pics when Joy is done with the video footage.

Vegetable garden wise, my peas all died a horrid death :( sigh… The strawberries are doing really well and my tomatoes currently have 30+ toms on the branches, but I dont know how many will survive the heat or the birds and insects. But I am looking forward to being able to pick a home grown tomato and eat it like an apple!

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Slack!

Yes we have been extremely slack… so here is an update in no specific order.

(Lots of pics and more info below)

Some time back, Joy and her friend Katie entered into a half marathon down at Virginia Beach. It was a bitterly cold weekend for a race but there were still over 10000 people turned up for the race. they both finished (bonus!).

Alexander had a great easter egg hunt, run by the local pentecostal church, they hid hundereds of eggs around in a field and let about 100 kids loose. Alexander scored about 10 plastic eggs with little things inside them and kept saying “more more more”. Not that he ate any of the contents he just wanted the plastic eggs to play with.

Joy has also been teaching Alexander how to mow the lawn and start working on some chores.

His other chores are feeding Gwyn each morning and night, so he toddles off to the big bucket where her food is kept, gets a margarine container full of it and fills her bowl, only he thinks she needs multiple scoops to be happy.

The chickens have been doing great, 4 brown eggs a day, we have been giving some away each week and still have loads to spare, its so much fun. We are thinking of going from 4 hends (roughly 20 eggs a week) to 8 hens (so 40! wooo) with a new coop.

The weather is finally starting to turn and warm up, spring is indeed here. The veggie patch this year has been left to do its own thing, the plan is to pile all the chicken coop straw onto the compost heap and mix it all into the veg patch so next year we have a super fertile patch to sow. That leaves me with planting in containers for this year, so its only a small planting. We have about 24 pea plants, about 12 tomato plants, 5 bell peppers and about 5 or 6 strawberry plants.

Sunday, July 20, 2008

Busy, Busy, Busy

Well, I’ve been making an outline of my writing goals since I got back from Oz.  I’ve got lots I’d like to do in a short amount of time. 

My adult fiction book, MADE FOR WALKING, is coming along, although I fixed a major character hole and now am going to have to redo quite a bit of work from the beginning.  I’ll save that for the second draft, though.  First draft is slated to be done at the end of September.

14,367 / 100,000 (14.4%)

My young adult book, GEMMA UP-OVER, has started off strong and I hope to finish a first draft by the end of August.  I’ve got a query letter started and am really excited about how the story is shaping up.

1,499 / 60,000 (2.5%)

On another front, I’ve been asked to teach a writing workshop in Lexington.  I don’t get paid, of course, and I have to take a 1/2 day on my very first day of work, but I’m thrilled to do it.  I’ll be teaching a writing workshop to foster kids! 

I’m reworking my writing website so it’s going to be down for awhile, but I’m hoping to make it much better/cooler/more hip so it’s worth the wait.  I’ve finished the basic workings on a website I designed for some friends:  Bath County Farmers Market runs every Saturday from 8:00-12:00.  It’s a wonderful little farmers market and I was proud to make them a website. 

I have one more website in the works for some family friends.  I’m hoping to incorporate some new programming that I’m learning right now from a Really Thick Book of how-to.  It would be great if I could really get into this and make it kind of a side-venture.  But, it sure is addicting and time-wasting!

Anyway, just a little ramble.