Getting our skin back

Our house is getting it's skin back on. It looks so different, I'm not sure if we got used to it without it's skin or the different color scheme. It's doesn't look like our house anymore, it should look really sharp when it's all done. I'm loving the red windows!

Another cool spring night

brings beautiful sunsets.

Okay I cannot tell a lie.... I did not take this picture tonight. How could I the sun didn't shine all day? I took it Wednesday night but we are watching a movie tonight and I cannot photoshop or take pictures right now. It's called NEXT, go rent it!

Rock Flea Market

So the neighbors are picking rocks in the field next to us. They used some fancy equipment to "windrow" (John says this about fieldwork all the time, I haven't a clue what it means but I think it sounds fun) the rocks and then used these two tractors to buzz along picking them up. They laid in the fields in rows just tempting me to go shopping for new character rocks for my flower gardens. It was a Rock Flea Market in my own backyard and there was no admission. I bugged and bugged John to take me to the Flea Market so I could shop for rocks... well he finally did and I was so disappointed. There are lots of new rocks but lots of dirt, cornstalks and weeds to go with them. It will take a couple of years to wash them off and make tempting rock piles that I can't stay away from. My sister Sharon would take all of them dirt and all, she can't grow rocks where she lives so her last visit she went by my brother Wally at the rock pit and bought, yes paid money, for 20 ton of rocks. Sharon wanna come to the Rock Flea Market??

By tonight the flea market is all packed up, and the rock piles are huge. Our whole family loves rocks, we can go to a rock pile and take hours picking out just the right rocks and then take hours placing them in just the perfect spot in the garden. My brother Wally has the perfect job that we all want.... he is Fred Flintstone and works in the rock quarry, he has been known to scope out a rock with character and move it aside so it doesn't get hurt. Crazy Emmerichs we are!!

Last of the Tulips

The tulips will be gone soon so I took probably the last picture I can for this year. They really lasted a long time, I'm sure the cool weather had a lot to do with that. I took a walk around the flower beds tonight, there's a few new flowers blooming.... that means..... lots more flower pics to come.

I tried a new photoshop technique on this one. The tulip is huge, check it out.

Here it is SOOC

Dishes

I'm really tired of Self Portrait Tuesday, I have run out of ideas along time ago.... So today I get home late, eat leftovers, throw in a load of laundry, change clothes, and do dishes. Anybody else feel like they do dishes 35 times a day? There weren't that many since Adam is the only one who eats breakfast (1 bowl and a spoon), and then the container from John's lunch and the 2-3 dishes they used to eat leftovers for supper. Why do I feel like I have to wash them, but of course whenever I do leave them someone is bound to stop in! Here's a shot of the water frozen in mid-stream. If I can't think of anything else about myself to take a picture of I might as well use Tuesday's to practice my skills, as long as a glimpse of me is there.

Memorial Day Project

So it's Memorial Day, the end to a long weekend, a day to relax.... not here. It's a free day to finish projects, get work done, clean the garage, plant flowers, clean up the yard, do laundry and have a drink at the neighbors. We got so much work done, why can't we have a 3 day weekend once a month in the summer?

Here is a project John helped me with, I love it but I couldn't hang it outside since it's gonna freeze again tonight. We'll get summer soon, I hope.

Monkeys

Here's a couple of monkeys trying to get a couple of dead branches out of the tree. They jumped and jumped until Adam backed the truck over there, then Jesse decided to climb the tree to help Adam from the other side and then..... we thought of the camera. The dead branch is already out of the tree, Adam is getting back into the truck and Jesse is climbing down but I like the picture anyway.

Happy 5th Birthday Ellyn

It's Elly's birthday today, she is 5.

I didn't want her to turn 4 last year and she did anyway and now once again I didn't want her to turn 5 but she did. I tease her all the time about staying 4 just for Grawma, she has to think about it but then says "No Grawma I'm gonna be 5, that's what comes after your done with the 4". I beg her to stay 4 and she gets mad and says "Grawma after I'm done with the 5 then I'll turn 6, then 7, then....." Okay, okay El I get it. There's no talking her into staying little, not even for her Grawma. Here she is blowing out her candles.

Happy 5th Birthday Ellyn, we all love you more than you will ever know.

Elly's surprise

I treated Elly to a early birthday surprise today. I met her at the beauty shop and started with a haircut, she got about 4" cut off, lots of spiral curls and to top it off.... silver sparkles. That was her Mommy's treat. Next it was Grawma's surprise, she got her toenails painted and 3 flowers with gem stones in the centers. She thought she was a princess, and she is!! Aren't these the cutest toes you ever did see?

Great!!

I was warned many times this could happen during our project but now that it has I am so lost. I did continue to take my pictures so you'll have to read and get caught back up. Posts may be short and sweet with having to do them during my lunch. Hopefully it finds it's way back up on the house today and the service guy comes to re-align it really soon.

I told Adam that the carpenter "M" knocked it off the house and his eyes got huge, I should have took a picture of that. I know "M" didn't want to take it off and he feels bad enough so I won't blame him here in public. :)

Rotten

Nothing exciting today just rotten windows. Think these needed to be replaced?

So much fun

I found a new way to use sidewalk chalk and it's so much fun. I never really liked sidewalk chalk but I bought it for Miss L to play with. We drew on the porch, L laid down and I drew around her, she got bored and so did I... chalk hasn't been touched again. It draws so light, the colors are not bright, and it feels yucky to me. Well let me tell you a secret.... if you put the chalk in a bucket of water for about 1-2 minutes and then draw with it, it's like paint, it goes on smooth and the colors are fabulous. I didn't have Miss L here when I tried this little trick so I wrote my wonderful husband a little note right in front of the garage door. It was so much fun I could have painted a mural on the porch. Take a look at the colors and go outside and try this yourself, sidewalk chalk will never be the same again.

Yep that me tonight adding a few finishing touches in my winter coat.... :(

This little trick would have come in handy about 2 years ago when my niece and I drew a 10'x6' flag on the driveway, climbed a ladder and took pictures of the kids on top of it pretending they drew it. We used up a lot of red and white chalk with no WOW factor.

So "S" you ready to do it again??

Photo Magic

I'm learning how to make a bad photo turn into something worth calling home about. I took a picture of the forest floor and it's pretty washed out because of the sun, time of day and taken through the windshield.

This is the photo SOOC (straight out of camera) why would she put this on her POTD for others to see, you ask?

Because this is the same photo after I did some photoshop magic.

Excuse me while I call home!!

Amazing Couds

Today's clouds were amazing, it reminds me of a day in the life of a child when they lay down on the grass looking up at the clouds playing the game.... make animals out of their shape, whoever could see the most won. We used to do this but I'm sure kids now would look at me kinda funny to think we could spend hours playing this. This reminds me of a story I have to tell you that will help you to understand what we did while growing up.... remember there were 11 kids so we had to find our own fun. We would grab our sleeping bags and pillow, everyone would line up in the ditch right next to the highway to spend the evening playing and then to sleep there overnight, no tents, no camper, no lights.... just kids snuggled in their sleeping bags. It usually took us awhile to fall asleep since we would watch the traffic go by waving like crazy to see how many people would could get to wave back at us. Then when we got tired we all lined up (between the neighbors, cousins and us there were probably 10-12 kids) in our bags and slept there till morning. Can you imagine now if you were driving by on a busy highway and there were kids sleeping in the ditch... what would you do? If only I had a picture of that... mom and dad just got used to us doing that, they didn't even think twice when coming home from work after bar closing and the house was empty because we were all spending the night in the ditch.

Here is a picture I took today right through the windshield. I was just testing my camera for something else and I loved the look I got. The picture I took of the clouds that I was going to use for the POTD was blah... No kids in the ditch but I think I see a camel in the clouds!

Trash to Vase

This morning John and I worked like crazy taking almost everything out of the house except heavy furniture. He tore off all the trim around the windows upstairs and downstairs while I boxed everything up and cleaned. It looks really empty in the house but the new windows will start going next next week.

In the summertime on Saturday mornings I wander the gardens for flowers to bring in the house for my fresh flower fix. Right now it's all about the tulips, I never get tired of their bright colors. Here's what you can do with a old porch light.... remove the electrical wires, set a glass of water under it and place your flowers through the opening. I gave this photo a dark nighttime look and I really like the drama it gives.

Since I had so much fun playing with these photos I just had to show off 2 more of my favorites. Hope you don't mind?

Funky Planter

Isn't this the cutest planter ever. I bought it at the Farmer's Market last Saturday, in the fall I can switch it over to for my black dress. :) Yes I know I could have done this but the purse was just perfect and it was done already. I'm a working girl!!

Right now it's too chilly at night so it's in the garage just waiting for warm days and sunshine. The girls who sold this had lots of purses, gravey boats, cups, bowls.... anything that was pretty and they found cheap at garage sales and thrift stores they put dirt in it and a plant. Now those are my kind of girls. Junk Monkeys Rule

Dance Photo's

Tonight I took pictures for a friend's daughter who is in ballet. Those girls are so darn cute and I love taking pictures of their feet. I'm not sure if the mom likes my feet pictures but I get plenty of the other ones for her. I took 96 pictures in 30 minutes.

And one more of those cute pointed toes, pink legs and frilly pink skirts... such a girly, girl look.

I love it!!

50mm Lens

Such a nice evening we had. No wind!! We sat by the fire pit with a drink in our hand, why do we have to work in the morning?? This is one of my favorite things to do as a couple during the summer evenings.

I tried out my 50mm lens that I have had for over a year now. It's main purpose is for the depth of field. The focus is on the closest thing to the lens and then blurs the rest of the image making the focus object appear as them most important. I will give you two of my favorites. The 1st one is a lilac not even close to blooming yet. You can see the fuzz on the stems.

2nd picture is Mrs. Moon Lungwort. Pink and blue flowers with a spotted green leaf.

New Magazines

Who doesn't like a new magazine to read? Except when it's suppose to be nice outside and you have no time to curl up in your favorite chair to read them. Well today I got a new magazine that I ordered from a little grand-nephew, all I could do was curl up and read it... dang weather!! It may be signs of spring everywhere but it's too dang cold outside to enjoy it, so I might as well read about it.

My favorite magazine reading chair is from an old man's house that was covered in years of filth. My sister and I pulled that old thing out of the house they were going to torch, and my sister-in-law recovered it for me. The fabric I got at a garage sale for cheap, the chair was free and then I found the footstool at another garage sale for about 2 bucks. The day we pulled this chair out of that house we had 3 pick-up loads of stuff. John was not impressed with all the junk I brought home and we thought we were being good.... it could have easily been 4 truckloads. I even tore the trim boards off the doorways, the screen door off the front entrance and the jars out of the pantry. That day was so much fun, to bad the house is gone now or as John says "good thing it's gone".

Grandpa's Girl

I am okay, sorry to worry you. It was a very busy week but I did take pictures everyday just no time to post. I did catch them up tonight so don't forget to take a look below and find out what was happening to take up all my nights.

It doesn't happen very often but when it does there is no separating them. Elly decided she was Grandpa's girl on Saturday night, she couldn't wait to get home from the hunting shack to snuggle with him. She was sleeping in his arms in about 5 minutes. Tonight was a continuation of Saturday, she didn't have anything to do with me. She did eat supper with me and this is the look that I got, even with a Brownie bribe.

And this is what Grandpa got. He took a nap and she clung to him. Shan had to stall for about 20 minutes until she got enough Grandpa time and he got a long enough power nap.

And of course Grandpa eats that all up.

Here's one more since I made you wait so long for an update. She looks so sad!

Happy Mother's Day

Today is Mother's Day, I'm still not used to not having the kids here but I'm getting better. Lynn was on her way back to Oregon today, Shan was sick all weekend so El stayed with us Saturday night so she picked her up Sunday morning, and Adam is 17 and why would he want to be with his mother?? John and I filled the day up with un-decorating, lunch at Sport's Page, drinks at Deer Trail, and a visit with his mom and dad. It was a good day and someday I'll get used to my kids growing up : )

I struggled with my POTD today.... I even asked John to help me, he had no ideas so this is the best I could do. A picture that represents us.... A wedding picture with John and I surrounded by our 3 children, our new son-in-law, pictures of Elly, flowers to represent my mother, the vase given to my from John's moms and the name that makes us family.

Happy Mother's Day

Lookin' like a shack

Today the siding was all tore off the house. It's official 15 years later we're back to living in a Typar shack.

In 1993 I begged John to side the house, we had lived for about 4 years with no siding. It didn't really bother me too much until Shannon came home from school with a picture that she had drawn. Their assignment was to draw a picture of their house. She drew a beautiful house with the attached garage, it looked just like our house and then she wrote all over it, the teacher asked her what she was doing and she said "that's how my house looks, there is words all over it." That was enough for me, the siding needed to go on. Now here I am again living in a Typar house, let's just hope Elly doesn't have to draw her Grawma's house at school.

Elly is having a hard time adjusting to the remolding of the house. She doesn't like it when things change. The day she found all the trim tore off her windows in her bedroom she cried the entire time she was here and cried halfway home until she finally told Shan that she didn't want Grandpa to tear her room apart.

Today we drove in the yard and she gasps for air, covers her eyes and says "Grawma I'm not gonna look.... the skin is missing from your house." Later she sees these pictures and knows it was Adam and Uncle "E" who did it. She is so mad at them for tearing off the skin. We drive out to the shack and there is Uncle "E" and she yells "E your busted, I seen the pictures of you tearing the skin off Grandpa's house"

Guy's Decorations

While "J" and I were decorating for the wedding the guys were here tearing the shingles off the garage. They were decorating my porch.... I'm not so sure we'll ever have a request for this, full maybe.

This masterpiece includes lots of Miller bottles, Adam's Gatorade and "M's" Mt. Dew. These are the items needed for each break.

Popcorn

The bride wanted a popcorn buffet. It was the neatest thing ever, we've done candy buffets but this popcorn was by far the coolest. There were 8 different kinds of popcorn and we made sure we tested all eight. My favorite was Buffalo Wing with Blue' Cheese.

Decorating

My sister-in-law and I spent many hours on our first day of decorating. We both love to do it and most of the time we are thinking the same thing, finish each others ideas, and the real scary thing is we both see items (mostly junk) used in not-normal ways. Our husbands are always crabbing about what rotten ole' piece of junk we brought home or the rusty piece of metal that we think can be made into a decoration. We could spend all day going to garage sales. I can't post most of the decoration pictures here but a few of them aren't going to give our secrets away.

If the bride wants it we can do it!

Here is one of the new ideas we had, isn't it cute?

Tulips

It's really hard trying to think of what to post on Self Portrait Tuesdays. I'm not that interesting to fill up every week of the year so these SPTuesdays might get kinda boring and you all can skip checking this blog on Wednesday mornings. But in case you just wanna peek here is what I got for you today.

It's time for the tulips to start blooming, it always reminds me of the spring I had my foot (feet) surgery and I was home from work watching the flowers bloom. Something else I had to watch was the weeds grow and not be able to get out there to pull them. I enjoy pulling weeds, that may sound crazy but I do. So this nice spring day when I couldn't walk very well and had to put my feet up or they would hurt like crazy I decided to slowly work myself outside and slide myself all over the flower beds on my butt pulling weeds, trying to avoid sitting on the bright tulips that remind us summer is right around the corner.

I think it's time...

to replace the shingles.

This is what I see out my bedroom window. In photos they look kinda interesting, lots of texture which helps pull you into the photo. That's all they are good for is a good photo, by tomorrow they will be gone.

and just so you can see how bad they really are, here is a full view. They are only 14 years old, shouldn't they last longer than that?

Sisters

My sister Sharon was home this weekend we don't get to see her very often but when we do there is plenty of fun. We decided since all 5 of the girls were together we would get a picture taken..... well easier said then done. I set up my camera on the tripod to avoid shake, attached the flash to avoid shadows and we appointed Lynn the photographer. All set up for a nice picture, yeah right! My sister Gayle cannot take a serious picture ever, and if she does her eyes are closed. We were all laughing to the point of tears and we still don't have a picture. Gayle claims she was the middle child (only number 1 and number 11 aren't middle children). Here we are for the POTD, if you want the normal picture of us, well as normal as we could, I'll be posting that on the Hemmer Happenings in the next few days.

Right top - Sharon

Left top - Starla

Center - Gayle

Right bottom - DiAnn

Left bottom - Connie

And those two older sisters whom I thought were being so good behind us.... pictures show us differently.

Sisters are so much fun!

Do we all look alike? DiAnn, Gayle and I all have our head tilted the same way, our mouths are the same, look at DiAnn and my hands... the same.

Adam's Confirmation

After 11 years the day is finally here.... no more Wednesday night CCD classes. Adam's confirmation is today. Lynn is his confirmation sponsor. I have been getting ready for the after party by making Hot Beefs, potato salad, teddy Graham dip, lots of extras and per Adam's request instead of a cake "Cream Cheese Crescent Bars".

As John and I are on our way to the church it starts to sink in.... my baby is getting older. It was just yesterday we had his 1st Communion, I held back the tears but I'm not so sure the time will slow down, tears are right around the corner. (Look how tall he is compared to Lynn)

We had a good party afterwards, the house was full so the guys moved to the garage. The food was eaten, drinks were made and lots of laughter. While Adam opened his cards Starla remembered when Adam got a check for his 1st communion from Gayle. It was a Jeff Gordon check and he wanted to rip it up. Now as he's older he still does not like Jeff Gordon but he wouldn't think of tearing it up.

I couldn't believe this....

Today is my birthday, I had a very good day as far as birthday stuff goes. My day started with a note taped to the office door wishing me a happy birthday, another note on my desk with an ice cold bottle of Mt. Dew, about 50 e-mails wishing me a happy birthday, a beautiful pink flowered plant, a bowl of peanut M&M's and Dove chocolates, a dozen voice mails wishing me a happy birthday, cards sent through the mail, a present left on my windshield, flowers delivered, lunch and lots of laughter with my sisters and then just like the credit card commercial everything stopped the sweet music went haywire...... I cannot believe what I saw, I cannot believe that they are still around after 3 years, I cannot believe how terrible they look, I cannot believe someone actually looks at them and wonders.... "where can I put them this year", I can't believe how many people seen them before me, I just can't believe it. So who did this to me? My sister who was a few minutes late to lunch? my co-workers? my sister-in-law? my friends? my own father? worse yet my daughters? I don't know how did this but just in case your reading this.... now I have them and your not getting them back. (I know there are about 50 more out there but I have 2 of them).

I had to play with this picture in Photoshop to make them not look as bad as I see them or I would have never posted them. They still look bad, for real I really do not like this picture of me, and to top that off they look like floating heads in the lawn, how creepy is that?

Now in case you don't know the story about these floating heads here is the short version. 3 years ago my lovely husband asked me to out for supper (note: It's April 23rd) on a Friday night

John - Wanna go for supper at Pot Belly
Connie - Sure lets call Ed and Jeannie
John - (calls) they can't go they are going somewhere with their friends
Connie - Okay then do you still wanna go?
John - Can't we just go the two of us?
Connie - Really?? Okay I guess

John, Adam and I go to Pot Belly to eat a variety basket. There is no one we know there so we eat, drink and talk just the three of us. We finish eating...
John - I'm gonna have another beer
Connie - Why? there is no one here we know, we are talking amongst ourselves and we can do that at home, don't you have beer at home?
John - Okay (disappointment)

We leave the Pot Belly and John drive so slow to town, takes the wrong lane at the stop light so we have to drive around the block. We drive through town and he asked if I want to go see Starla and Brad, he has to ask Brad something.... sure but I do have stuff to do at home so we can't be long. Okay he says.

We get to Brad and Starla's and Brad is the only one home. I asked where Starla is and Brad tells me this story of how things at her work are so bad that they are in a meeting. John has a couple beers there and asks again if he can have another one? Since Starla is not there it's like I could be at home getting stuff done so no can we please just go home? Okay he says.

We leave and drive every gall dang country road home driving 45 mph.... then we stop for gas. Then we finally are on A and we drive by my sister DiAnn's house and my brother Randy is there and it's his birthday.
Connie - Let's stop and wish Randy a Happy Birthday
John - says nothing and drives into the bar parking lot across the street
Connie - WHAT are you DOING?
John - Stopping for a beer
Connie - $^*(^#@%%#$@@ I can't believe we can F&(*(&^% drive 10 mph on every back road there is between here and Medford and we can't F&**^%$ stop and wish my brother a happy birthday
John - Gets out of the truck and says nothing
Connie - gets out of the truck slams the door and continues to yell the same things as above
John - walks to the door
Adam - walks to the door
Connie - walks to the door (as John opens it and stands back) and I say AIN'T YOU GOT ANY F&*%&*& BEER AT HOME? as the door opens up and everyone is holding my face on a stick in-front of theirs and yells SURPRISE!!
Connie - Turns around and walks back towards the truck

These faces were the highlight of the party and I was so surprised and embarrassed since everyone seen me yelling at John and knew I was not happy. It was a very fun party but there were about 75 faces there and I still need to get back about 50 of them.

Have a happy May Day....