Halfway through July, A New Mower and An Up and Coming Artist

I can't believe we're already half-way through July! It hasn't been horribly hot (except for when we were in Texas) so it hasn't been too bad. I don't think I mentioned it when I started this blog, but its my goal to post something every day. So far, I haven't missed a day yet.

We got a call from the shop that we took our "new" riding grass-mower (what David calls it) to. Its all fixed! We just dropped it off on Monday, so we were suprised that it was done so quickly. We were a little apprehensive when we went to pick it up, as I thought he was going to call with an estimate prior to doing the work, but he didn't. So hoping the bill wouldn't be over $100, we headed over.....and the bill only came to $65!! That's with a new battery & new ignition switch. The batteries Richard had priced on the internet were $50! This one? $28! And labor? Hang on, its a doosey! $15! And a few other small things, and now our new-to-us mower is home.

This mower actually reminds me of a bit of dialogue in one of my favorite movies. Lets see if you can figure out which one. I'll tell you at the end of the post

"What a piece of junk!"

"....She may not look like much, but she's got it where it counts, kid...."

David loves to create. Whether its with crayons, markers, colored pencils, glittler, foam shapes, stuff from my scrapbooking collection, you name it, he uses it. This was a picture he was working on at VBS today and finished it at home this evening. He's supposed to be the one laying sideways. I'm not sure what exactly is going on, but he's very proud of it.

I, however, am more proud of this one. You may have to click on the picture to see it, but I love what HE wrote, WITHOUT any help. (sniff, sniff) My boy's a 1st grader! Oh, and if you couldn't tell from the picture, he's a lefty. If he doesn't make a living in the Air Force; he says he's going to fly fighter jets, he'll be an artist. I love you, little man!

Oh, and the movie? "Star Wars: A New Hope" Where Luke sees the Millenium Falcon for the first time. Here it is again:

Luke: "What a piece of junk!"

Han: "She'll make point 5 past lightspeed. She may not look like much, but she's got it where it counts, kid. I've made a lot of special modifications myself. But we're a little rushed, so if you'll just get on board, we'll get out of here."

A Better Deal Than We Thought!

We went and picked up the "new" riding lawnmower today. And the bagger. Because the guy didn't know if the bagger would actually work with the mower, he just gave it to us instead of having us give him the previously agreed on $25 for said bagger. So $100 for a riding mower and bagger worked out to be a pretty good deal.

The past couple of Sundays have been busy for us. We had the Earl White reunion 2 weeks ago, and last week, nephew Conner was back. This Sunday we're back to normal. Normal being church in the morning and Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University in the evening.

For those not familiar with Dave Ramsey, he has a talk radio show, several best selling books, and developed a 13 week class on finances called Financial Peace University. We are leading FPU at the church we're attending, with 21 families taking the class, including us. The class teaches you how to develop a budget, get out of debt, save $$, invest, save for your kids' college. Its a great class for anyone to take, even if you have no debt. I've had people in my class say, "if we only knew about this 20 years ago...." which should be a hint to the younger crowd to take FPU. We are on week 11 out of 13 weeks, after taking a 2 week break. We're on track to have about 75% of our class graduate with perfect attendance, and about 80% total. You can check out Dave and Financial Peace University at www.daveramsey.com.

The boys start VBS at a church in town tomorrow. 9 am to 3 pm. Lots of time to get lots of stuff done this week!

Upside Down Tomato Plants, Our Kitty & Our Neighbors

Last year, and even during this past winter, we would occassionally see the TV Commercial for the Topsy Turvy Tomato planter, http://www.topsygardening.com/. We were curious about how well it actually worked, but we weren't going to spend the $20 (its $9.99 now) for each hanging tomato we wanted. On one of the forums that I frequent, I found a website that tells you how to do it yourself, without having to buy the kit. http://oldfashionedliving.com/tomato2.html After reading this we decided to do it. So for the cost of 4 5 gallon buckets ($2.99 each) and 4 packs of tomatos (we planted 4 in our garden, 4 in buckets and gave the others away). So for about $25, here's our upside down tomato plants. We planted them a couple of days before the ones in our garden, but these have little tomatoes on them, while the ones in our garden do not.

This is only a couple of the baby tomatoes on this plant....

This is our roma tomato plant.

Another cute, baby tomato.

I think these are our Better Boy and Early Girl plants, but I'm not sure which is which. We also have a Roma and a Grape tomato plant, which are on the other end of our clothes line.

This is our kitty, Morgan. We adopted her last June from a vet clinic in a nearby town. She is so sweet. She will let Nathaniel pick her up and pack her around, and you'll still hear her purring. She is one of the most affectionate cats I've ever seen. She gets along well with the dogs, too.

As I mentioned in a previous post, we have some unique neighbors. They don't make a lot of noise, don't have loud parties, they never have loud shouting matches and they stay in their own space, for the most part. Oh, yes, they are cows. There are probably 15 cows, maybe 10 calves and 1 big bull named Midnight. Usually you don't keep a bull in the same pasture with calves, but this bull is very gentle. I've seen him laying down with a calf cuddled up next to him. I also saw a calf head-butt him once, and he didn't do anything but lay there. Here are some pictures of our neighbors.

This is one of the cows up on the hill behind our house.

This is one of the calves. She came up almost to the fence and stood there until I took her picture. Then she turned and wandered off.

This is the youngest calf, born in late April or early May. David and Nathaniel just missed seeing her birth. They got to see her when she was only a couple minutes old.

In other exciting news, I found a riding lawnmower for sale on Craigslist. We went and looked at it today, and although its at least 10 years old, needs a new ignition, a new seat & some carb work, we decided to buy it. The nice thing about the ad was that it was an "make me and offer" ad. So we low-balled it, offering the guy $100. And he took it! Then, he showed us the bagger that they had bought for the mower, but never used it. He said he was going to list it in a separate ad for $100, but he said that if we wanted it, we could have it for $25. So we decided to buy it, too. Richard thinks that we'll need maybe $100 in parts, if that. We looked up the bagger when we got home, and its selling online for $349.99. So I think we got a deal.

Have a great weekend!