Lessons learned - no V-neck shirt when shooting, and don't wear your "Sunday Bra" if you do wear a V-neck shirt.  ("Sunday Bra" being the one you wear when the 'good' bras are in the laundry, and you don't plan ongoing anywhere...it tends to sag and gap.....)  I had changed into a loose cotton shirt, not really thinking about the neckline, to go shooting on Sunday - 95 degrees in the shade - and managed to catch hot brass down my top.  There I am, trying to get the hot brass off my skin while holding a loaded gun.   Thank goodness there was no one videoing it.....

AJ and I went for a hike Monday morning up to Whiskeytown Falls.  It was beautiful, and already getting hot when we got there around 9:45.  It was nice and cool at the falls, but we didn't dare stop moving - the mosquitoes were eating AJ alive.  (I got a few bite, but he collected a whole lot more.)

The flowers along the trail are blooming like crazy, and the butterflies were everywhere. 

The creek isn't super high, which I kind of expected after our wet winter, but it is definitely full.

Some of the flowers growing on the bank....

  
The falls themselves seemed fuller - and gorgeous as always.

The wild lilacs are in full bloom.

I took the shot below, and when I was playing with it at home, I noticed.....

There is a bug on the other side - cute!!!

Almost done!!!!  I spent the last three weeks prepping for a garage sale - two weekends were trips up to Susanville to bring things down, and the weeks in between going through things and pricing them.  Joe and Jeff made the trip up with me the last trip - Joe brought the mule trailer to haul in - and Dave met up with us, and we loaded everything from the storage unit and the house.  Then this last Saturday, it was time for The Big Event!  The neighborhood garage sale was on!  I started at 6:30 a.m. and finished at 4:30.....a long, hot day!  But, in the end, I have a lot less to haul off.  I have had two trailer loads of stuff to the dump, and probably two trailer loads to go to donations left.  Then.....back up to finish the house - the garage and out buildings still need to be cleaned out.....

We have hard, spiky things on the couch to keep the dogs off of them.  So what does Luna do?  She moves a pillow over so she isn't sitting on it.......

Book club is tomorrow - at my house.  I am so not prepared for it. Remember where I said I have spent the last 3 weeks prepping for a garage sale?  That means I have not been keeping up with the house and yard like I should have been.  Both were a disaster on Sunday, so I've spent the time since the garage sale trying to get control of the house....so far, I think I'm losing.  

I did manage to get bookmarks done.  The book this month is "The Shack" by William P Young, so the bookmarks are....wait for it.....shacks!   More like cabins, but....it's the closest I could come up with.  

I changed out the covers on the couches in the computer room - the ones that are supposed to keep the cat hair off......and it was evidently a personal challenge to someone. 

I took my lunch break yesterday down at Turtle Bay Arboretum. The weather was in the low 80's, with sunshine.....perfect!  This flower (I have no idea what it is....) was right by my park bench...

And this one covered a whole hillside....

What a week!  It was going pretty nicely, and then.......

Wednesday night, I made tilapia for dinner - not my favorite fish, but I wanted something different for dinner.  Alli had her normal dinner before we ate, and as she often does, she came back in to see what we were having.  She pulled up her chair and sat down by me, asking for some of my dinner.  I gave her a couple of bites of rice, and then a bite of my fish.  She doesn't usually eat fish, but she liked the first bite, but she did chew it for a bit, as if she was trying to decide if she liked it or not.  The second bite, she chewed on, and then spit out.  She picked up the bite again before I could get it, and chewed on it some more.  Then she got mad at me.....and I mean really mad at me!

She was hitting, spitting and screaming, so I sent her to her room to try to calm her down.  She then proceeded to start vomiting.....and then her face turned red......and then her face started swelling......

We spent the rest of the evening at the ER......Poor baby!  She definitely has an allergy to fish!  They were able to get it under control pretty quickly, thank goodness!

Friday was her birthday, and it was pretty calm - she had stayed home from school on Thursday, and was pretty tired by the time she got home from school on Friday - she went to be at 7:30 - she didn't even stay up long enough for me to get the ice cream out for her birthday!

I showed you pictures of the flowers I planted....here's the photo again....

And here's what happens when the automatic drip doesn't work..... 

I may be able to save some of them - most bounced back, but I think there's a few plants that were just too far gone.....

And I planted petunias in pots for the pool area, but before I could get them moved out there (I was working on them Wednesday evening....) I had some help.....

I finished my project for my quilt club last weekend!  This next three months I'll be making a Christmas Tree Skirt through the club.  I still need to finish the last project from the club, the snowman wall hanging - I have the top done, but now it needs to be quilted, and then embellished.  Maybe I'll get around to that before Christmas????

Here's the tree skirt so far....not too exciting, I know, but I'm happy with my work on it!  Most of the corners match up, etc.  The finished project is very pretty.

And.....I've started my garden!!!  Before I could start, I needed to get rid for my artichoke plant.  I had no idea when I planted it how big they got!  This one was taking up one whole garden bed.  It went to a good home though - Margene added it to her garden! 

I got some eggplants, peppers, and tomatoes plants last weekend, and got them in....

The tomatoes in one bed.

The eggplants and peppers went in with my existing spinach and lettuce plants.

And then I added some flowers to the last bed.  I have room for more, too!!!

I've missed my flowers since we re-landscaped the yard and I lost my garden area that I had them in.