Where I've been..

I have actually created my first acrylic album!

I know.. those of you know know me, know I've been scrapbooking for years, but I have finally created a scrapbook that I actually made for myself.. that I plan to keep... that I'm not selling..

Shocker, I know.

Well, Okay, I do have plans to duplicate it and list it for sale, But the original I'm keeping.

It's my Texas family reunion album.

I took the pictures in the evening as the sun was setting so the quality isn't the best, but I think you can get an idea.

On the front I have mounted a family picture printed on tracing paper so it's transparent. I had to spend hours on photobucket to fix the pictures so they were useable. Behind the family picture is the Texas state flag... well at least my scrapbooky version.

Here's the second set of pages. There is a lot more to the album, but my camera batteries completely died. I hate that! I was out there for a while turning the camera on and trying to snap a picture really fast before it shut off again... All the while the sun is going down.

Anyway, I'm really excited about it.

Today, in my infinate wisdom... In 102 degree heat... I decided it would be a good idea to go pick up my neices and nephews and go pick strawberries and snap peas at a U-pick farm.

It was a great place.. the directions to get there went somthing like this, " Go 8 miles and then the road you're on will turn into a new road... cross over a wooden bridge and turn right on the unmarked road.."

The little family that runs the farm were good wholesome down to earth people. The husband, ran for public office once and they would not let him put his middle name on the ballot because it "brought issues to the ballot". He said he could have sued because it really is his legal middle name that his parents gave him when he was born, but instead he went through the process of changing his name.. He dropped his first and last name so now his middle name is his ONLY name... his name is now Pro-Life. Bit unusual, but whatever floats your boat..

Really friendly guy. Stayed in the field with me almost the entire time helping me pick. U-pick usually means they are giving you a deal on price because you are providing the labor. I planned on taking pictures while we picked, but Pro-life was a bit distracting and I completely forgot!

The strawberries were so thick. I've never seen such productive plants.

It was so hot out that the kids spent most of the time relaxing in the shade of the van, eating strawberries and snap peas, and drinking all my water. In all we picked about 15 lbs of strawberries. How could I not at $1.00 per pound! If the kids weren't complaining I would have stayed longer. This Saturday, I'll be making strawberry jam.

Thanks Jessie, for referring me to the apparently Pro-life Richardson Farm. It was great!

I've been trying to do a better job of watching what I eat and getting excercise. Tonight was a bit of a slip. At young womens (church youth program) there were all sorts of brownies and cookies and chocolate... I managed to avoid it all. Then the girls made ice cream in a bag.. basically you put the ice cream ingredients in a quart size ziplock bag, then in a gallon size ziplock you add ice, rock salt, and the quart size bag of ice cream ingredients. Then you shake, shake, shake, till it freezes into ice cream.

It was such a warm day that the girls who went outside to shake, shake, shake, had their ice melt before the ice cream was frozen, and we were running out of ice. One of the girls gave up on her ice cream so I ended up taking it home.

Tonight, after I took pictures of the strawberries, I didn't have much of a choice... I had to make this:

It was so good! ((Sorry Ali.)) It is kind of healthy.. strawberries, nuts, milk.. all organic and completely free of preservatives, or additives... It shouldn't even count as cheating!

At least that's what I'm telling myself...