T Stands for 4 Days of Craziness

   Hi everyone. Happy new week to you. And hello to everyone who stops by Bleubeard's and Elizabeth's blog this week for T day.

   I have to tell you that I am exhausted today. The past weekend was  fun 😊 but very busy. It's always that way over the July 4th weekend as it's the big family holiday in my husband's family.  Plus, there was a deck to build at my mother-in-law's house, so before the holiday we took a couple of  trips up to the lake to bring up the lumber and tools that were going to be needed since my husband was the one in charge of the project.

  Not that going to the lake for 4 days straight is a bad thing, especially in the summer. 😉 ❤ Especially when it's hot.  

   And I also want to mention that if I haven't been by your blog for a few days, my time has been pretty filled up for the last few days. I'm working on catching up, but I wouldn't be surprised if I still missed a few people. 😟 I apologize if it was you.

  For T day this week let me share a few photos from the last 4 days of craziness. Warning, this is a bit of a long post.

   I'll start with  the deck project. This was the guys big July 4th project. They'd started planning this back when they put in the  dock a few weeks back. The deck  frame was still in good shape, but it needed to be lifted up, leveled and then new deck boards  screwed down. 

   Below are the 4 guys at work. Starting at the guy in the blue shirt at the right who is my husband, going clockwise is then my husband's sister's husband, one of their son-in-laws, and also my son-in-law.  The sister-in-law's other son-in-law refused to  help, and that wasn't the smartest move since it not only disappointed everyone, but didn't make anyone, especially the guys, really happy with him.  

    Most of the deck was finished on the 4th, but a little bit needed to be finished on the 5th. However, enough of the dock was completed so you can see my daughter explaining something to her aunt. Also in the photo is my son-in-law and  then smiling at me, my husband.

   The young guys were gone the night of July 4th, but my husband and his brother-in-law finished off the dock on Sunday the fifth.

   This finished dock photo was taken by my husband, and ha ha, I just noticed you can see me off on the other end of deck with a book in hand reading.

     For those of you who are not excited by construction, here are some other views.  I'll start with some photos for those of you who like sky views. The sun through the clouds was beautiful at one point.

    I can't forget the dogs either. On the 4th, Maddie went for a swim and then found the most central location on the dock to relax all day. I'm sure this was part of her plan because it required everyone going by her to stop and give her a pat.

    The construction and all the commotion was making Pete a little bit nervous so he was my shadow all day on  the 4th.

   The niece's little one (Jack, he's 1 1/2) was fascinated by bubbles.  At one point it was also a fun photo play time for me.

   And Jack wasn't the only little one during the day. Mama Merganser and her 5 little ones came by. But I had seen 6 on another day. Then, after a few minutes, we heard a little peep-peep-peep as number 6 came quickly paddling along.

    I'm glad she didn't lose one of her babies. 👍Also speaking of birds, a couple of loons came in pretty close to shore on Sunday afternoon when the lake was much quieter.

   We didn't do much exciting for food. Just hot dogs and hamburgers.  For dessert my husband and I picked up this huge tray of cupcakes at Sam's Club (it's closer than Costco). Luckily there were enough people tempted to eat them that we only brought home a couple.

  I can''t forget my drink photos either.   Here's the 2 nieces with little Jack. Mom's in the blue hat, and his aunt in the green one.  Auntie Ally is holding a drink also, but I'm not sure what she was drinking. 

   I remembered to snap one photo of my drink also. This was actually on the 5th when we went back up so the 2 guys could finish the deck, and we all could do some cleaning up. During the summer weeks are assigned to each of the siblings, my husband and his 2 sisters. One of his sisters wasn't around on the fourth (which was actually nice because she's rather difficult for various reasons), but this is her week to use the house so we definitely needed to clean up after the construction and people traipsing through the house.

   I think that covers the gist of the 4 days before and during the holiday weekend so I'll wish everyone a happy T day and week ahead.

T Stands for Celebrating and Hanging it Up

     Hi everyone. Happy new week to you. And also I want to say hello to everyone who stops by for T Day at  Bleubeard's and Elizabeth's blog . This is T day's 12th year celebration! 🎉🥳🎂 More about that at the end of this post.

   Last week was a busy week, but one thing I'm  celebrating is some new or rearranged garden decorations. This past spring I bought this ceramic moon for my garden at Costco, and it finally got put up  this past Saturday. 😀 I had a  metal sun hanging on my husband's workshop behind my garden, however, the sun was copper colored, and it didn't really show up very well against the dark wood. I think the moon looks great on the workshop's dark wall.

   And now the sun has been moved onto the end of the house where it shows up great and is much more visible.

    You can see where the sun was hitting it because it looks shiny. It actually is all that shiny finish, but depending on the light, it doesn't always look shiny. This photo also makes me think it's time for the house to get stained again. Oh boy. I suppose all this will have to wait until the hubby retires. 😏 Either that or we'll have to get someone come and do it for us. 

     But those weren't the only things that I finally got put up.  I bought this wind chime last fall at an end of the season sale. The bottom is glass, and it's heavy. I finally remembered to get a heavy-duty hook for it so it could go up in my screen porch.

And also, one of my bird houses fell down when the rope that was holding it broke. 

    When I bought the hook, I also got some new rope to hang it. I did a terrible job lining up all the string, but by the time I did this job the mosquitoes were horrible, and I think I got 5 bites while doing it. I was standing on a step-ladder so I couldn't swat the bugs and hang the birdhouse. 😏 In frustration and a rush to get away from hordes, I just quickly wrapped the string and then picked up the ladder and headed inside. Maybe one of these days I'll go back and fix the string. 

    For my T day drink this week I have some photos from our family July 4th celebration. Since it was a celebration,  I have  party food and drinks. 👍 And since today is the 12th year of T Stands for Tuesday, let the party begin.

    You can't have a birthday party without cake. Would you like a piece of lemon sheet cake with lemon frosting? 

     One of the nieces saw this idea on Instagram to make a Snacklebox. You take a fishing tackle box and instead of putting fishing lures and hooks in it you fill it with snacks.  You also need lots of finger food at a party too.

     I'd never had one of these pink and white candies before. They are called Squashies, and I liked them. The niece had tried  them on a trip to Scotland, and when she found them locally she decided to add them to the box. I think I ate half of them because I really liked them. 😏 (And so much for healthy eating-grin.)

In this photo you can see the candy coordinated with my drink cup. Hee-hee. And yes, it does look like an eraser, doesn't it?

   For the party we have festive party cups.  Pick a color and fill it with your drink of choice. 😀

   I hope you have a super T day and week ahead.

   PS- my ATC's are in the mail for those of you who I am swapping with! ❤

T Stands for a Crazy Week

      Hi everyone. Happy new week.  It's once again T day over at Bleubeard's and Elizabeth's blog so also a hello to everyone stopping by with their drink post.

     As I write this I am giving a loud relaxing sigh. The hubby is back to work today after taking last week off.  Ha-ha I need a vacation from his vacation. 😏 It was a great week, but it would have been a little more relaxing if he'd planned on taking this week off more than 2 days before the week began. I had several scheduled appointments plus my lake job, and it was too late to change anything when he decided to take the time off.  Needless to say,  it was a very busy week. But he/we had a great week off, and we did have a lot of fun in between those scheduled appointments. 😀

      For T today I have some photos from our July 4th. We were up at my mother-in-law's home with just a few members of the family. I'll start with the food.

     We had a small crowd this year (only 6 of us), and the brother-in-law the chef made Detroit style pizzas. The cheeseburger pizza (the round one) tasted just like a cheeseburger complete with mayo, lettuce and tomatoes and pickles. It might sound unusual, but  it was delicious.  ❤ I made biscuits and brought fixings for some patriotic shortcakes.

     Before dinner everyone got some swimming in, including Maddie and Pete. Pete was happy my husband put the swim raft into place because he loves to swim out to it with me while I'm swimming my laps. I don't climb up on it, but Pete does. Then  he jumps in (rather ungracefully) and swims back to shore. 

Maddie has to wear a harness this year so if she steps off the dock we can easily retrieve her.Since she is   now blind, once in the water she starts swimming (which doesn’t bother her since being wet is how she’d chose to spend her life) , but she can't see how to get out. But she is always up for a little attention.

And after my swim, I had a cold beer and relaxed until dinner. This is my ticket to T this week.

After dinner we had a fire pit down on the dock, made s'mores, watched the evening come in, and then saw some of the fireworks that were going on downtown. 

The view would be (of course) better downtown, but at least there's no parking or traffic hassles when we watch them from  the dock.

Then it was time to go home and go to bed. I hope those of  you celebrated the holiday you had a lovely day.

And to everyone, have a great T day and week ahead. 

T Stands for a Rainy Holiday Weekend

 Hi everyone. Happy Monday night or Tuesday. It's time again for T day,  the first T day of July.

The long holiday weekend here in New Hampshire was not particulary bright or sunny (except this Monday afternoon when the sun finally came out). In fact we had over 4 inches of rain. It might have been needed for the environment, but it was not what anyone wanted for the Independence Day holiday weekend. 

The good thing was my husband was not the party planner (think of Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh, that's him) because if he was we would have sat home. One of my sister-in-law's however got the party started. She and her family went to my mother-in-law's home, and when she called and my husband said we were  staying home, my daughter and I looked at him and said "We are? That's not what we had planned." I think my husband was shocked, but off my husband and I went, as well as my daughter and her beau to my MIL's house.

We had a fun day of food, drinks, games and good conversation, rain or no rain.

This is a terrible photo of my MIL, but you can see all the 20 somethings having food and drinks. You can also see my sister-in-law's husband, who is a professional chef. For lunch he made some home made pizza as well as meatballs wrapped in bacon. One of my nieces brought salads, and I brought several racks of ribs. (Which makes me wonder why my husband thought I was making so many ribs?)

Here's my ticket to T. For drinks one of the nieces was making an assortment of margaritas. This one is fresh strawberry, and I also had one that was  strawberry mango.  After that I switched back to Diet Coke.

I am linking up to  Bleubeard and Elizabeth's blog for T this week.

My 87 year old MIL isn't doing all that well. There is nothing specifically wrong with her except she has gotten so fragile and weak. (That in itself a is a long story.) She also has gotten very deaf. She  has been living winters with my SIL in Maine and comes back to her house for the summer for several years now, but this year she can't really be left to manage on her own.  Since her move back, the family has  been bringing her food, getting her trash and taking her to the grocery store. This might be the last summer she can stay at her house. 

It is sad because it was only  6 years ago she was riding the jet ski with my husband. 

This was one reason it was important to have a get together on the holiday. 

The sun never really came out, but most of us did manage to get down on the dock. (Not my MIL, she had a margarita and then went to take a nap.) I was the only one brave enough to swim, and Pete and I did several laps back and forth between the dock and swim raft. I can't seem to get in for a swim alone if he is around. Maddie also went for her mini swims, but Maddie loves to be wet. She will go swimming even when most of the lake is still ice and there is a patch of open water on the shore. My sister-in-law and her family have 3 dogs between them, none of who will swim, which they think is a tragedy. 

The day ended with this cake I made. The reason there is an 8 candle on it is that we say the Fourth of July is Maddie's birthday.  Not that we know exactly when she was born, and not that she knows what a birthday is either.  But yes we were all silly enough to sing happy birthday to her.

I made a lemon scented marble cake. I made the marbling with red and blue gel food coloring. The colors are intense enough that when I marbled it there ended up with a bit of purple. It didn't matter, and the cake tasted great so what's a little mixing?

That's all for me today.

Hope everyone had a nice weekend and have a great T day.

Thanks for visiting.