Thursday, June 28, 2012

Junk



There's nothing more to say on this post other than don't go to the grocery store when hungry!

Friday, June 22, 2012

30 Years of Selling Drugs!

Happy 30th anniversary to the Ash Grove Pharmacy! 

My parents bought the pharmacy 30 years ago in June 1982 when they were only 31 years old! My sister was 7 years old, and I was 3 1/2 years old at that time. I don't remember much about when they purchased the pharmacy, but certainly do remember spending countless hours there after school, on weekends, and during the summer while growing up. My Dad caught up on work, my Mom displayed gifts in the front windows, and Stephanie and I played. We roller skated through the store, went shopping and took turns ringing each other up on the cash register, played library in the book section, and played house in the baby section. 

We lived in Springfield at the time they bought the pharmacy so my Dad had to commute to work. If I remember correctly, some mornings we had to take my Dad to work which meant getting up really early. They made those mornings special, though, by stopping by a donut shop on the way and letting us pick out donuts!  

The picture below is of the front page of The Commonwealth newspaper - Ash Grove's weekly newspaper. It has a very nice article about the 30th anniversary and some good quotes from my Dad. I wish you could read it!

Congratulations on thirty years of selling drugs, Mom and Dad!

Thursday, June 21, 2012

Giving Gardening a Second Try

Last year Ross and I put in a raised 4'x4' garden. Neither of us has gardended before, so it was a first for both of us. We planted cucumbers, peppers, green beans, strawberries, and a raspberry plant. As you can read from this Garden Update Post, we didn't do that great of a job on our garden last year! Unfortunately, we did not harvest anything from the garden. This year we decided to start a little earlier and give the garden a little more TLC than the previous year.

In March we planted lettuce and potatoes and noticed that our raspberry and strawberry plants from last year seemed to be coming back to life again. Here's where we're at now: 

The raspberry plant has really taken off, although we don't have any raspberries yet. We've done a little research and have found that we have a plant that will produce later this summer, or it might take another year before producing.

The strawberry plant has spread a bit. We have a few blooms that need to ripen a little more before eating.

Our lettuce did great! It was so much fun to watch it grow from a little seed into lettuce in my salad! We will definitely be planting lettuce next year!

Our potatoes did great, too! We planted new potatoes and have enjoyed eating them.

Potatoes before.

Potatoes after....yummy!

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Friends

Sunday evening we had dinner with some of our closest friends to celebrate a 30th birthday. This group is my "core group" of friends and I've known them for seven years now. They are the best of friends and I'm so happy to have found them.

When I was in high school, I had a lot of friends and was considered one of the "popular" ones. My group of girlfriends (who I'm so happy to be friends with still today) and I did everything together and made so many memories while growing up. Some of our memories involve doing things we really shouldn't have been doing (I still don't know how we didn't get caught doing them), but nevertheless, we survived and had a great time growing up together! 

After high school my girlfriends and I stayed in touch, but as time went on and our life situations changed, we didn't spend as much time together like before. We grew apart, changed, found new friends. I went through a period of time where I didn't have any friends. But I did have my Mom! She's always been there to be my friend and I had so much fun hanging out with her during that time and getting to know her as an adult.

I remember when I first met and started hanging out with this "core group" that I referred to above. I met them at the church I was going to at the time through a women's softball team I organized one summer. One Sunday after church they invited me to lunch and I surprised myself by saying that I'd go along. I never went out to eat after church. I just liked to go home and do my own thing. I still remember that lunch and think it's the best thing I ever did! I got to know these friends a little more and had a great time. They started inviting me to hang out with them and I had the absolute best time. It was so nice to be accepted and have a group of friends again! In fact, after hanging out one day I remember calling my Mom and saying, "Mom, I have friends...and they like me!" Oh it was the best feeling ever! Ever since then, this has been the group of friends that I hang out with the majority of the time.

As the years have passed, the life situations of this group have changed, too. In the past seven years, we have welcomed six babies (with one on the way), three spouses, and one boyfriend (who will hopefully become a spouse within the next year) into our group. The changes have made our hangout times fewer and sometimes far between, but I love the fact that we do still get together. It's funny to look back over the years and see how things have changed. Seven years ago I remember hanging out in my apartment one night until about 1am when everyone went home. Today 7:30-8pm has become the new 1am for those with kids, and those without 9pm is the new 1am...we're all too tired to stay up any later! I can't wait to see what the next seven years bring this group and the next seven after that.

My in-laws have had a great group of friends for the past 30+ years and have experienced several stages of life together during those years...baby and toddler stage, adolescence stage, teenage stage, college stage, marriages, and now grandbabies. I think that span of friendship is so neat and I am excited to share all of those things with my group of friends.

And on another note, just last night I texted my high school girlfriends about getting together sometime soon to catch up. I love that we still get together and are in each others lives. The saying is so true:  Make new friends, but keep the old. One is silver, the other is gold!


Monday, June 4, 2012

My New Favorite Place

Here's a picture of my new favorite place in our house, the deck in our backyard:


I love how we have the deck set up! I have hanging flower pots, humming bird feeders (that have yet to feed a hummingbird), a table and chairs, and the best part - the hanging lights! I've always thought it would be fun to have lights like this and love that we now have them! Although I haven't sat out on the deck as much as I would like to, I've enjoyed the little time that I have an plan to do it more often.