as you can see, not a lot of progress. but! most of the 19 tons (ACUAL NUMBER) of supplies have been moved from my driveway to the work site, and that is a very considerable accomplishment (also my car can make it into the garage now). friends dropped by throughout the day to help shovel or wheelbarrow and i really appreciated the help. you can see a trench now that will eventually form the outer wall; the next step is to level that out and start prepping for the first course (layer)!

It’s not because we haven’t had much to blog about. We’ve just been busy. Here are some highlights from the last couple of weeks:

July 3rd, we hiked the Ape Caves with our friends the Marths, Olsons and Rafers:

Then we went to Christi and Michael’s to have dinner before the fireworks on the 4th of July:

July 5th, it was about 90 degrees outside, so we decided it was the perfect time to hike Mt. Si. Somehow, we were able to convince Katherine to join us! After consuming great amounts of water, we made it:

All in all, we’ve been enjoying the beautiful weather and just enjoying the outdoors together.

Originally published at Oatmeal for Breakfast. You can comment here or there.

the ingredients for the retaining wall arrived today! here they are. um, i don't know if you can tell from this photo but there are kind of a lot of them. like... i think it might take a good chunk of the day just to get them from my driveway to the backyard. it's funny--i did all the math to compute the material requirements of the project but it was all just numbers until today when 27 tons of rock and concrete showed up.

I’m loving this story called Wikihistory, by Desmond Warzel. It’s a hilarious and clever tale, told entirely through posts on a forum called, “International Association of Time Travelers”. 

It’s also short, so go enjoy it now!

okay, it is pretty surprising that someone thinks a hummer is a compact vehicle, but i think it is even more surprising that someone is using one to commute to their software job. i mean... maybe their only road into work is hardscrabble and dry brush, i don't really know.

My friend Sonja was recently driving down I90, stopped at a rest stop, and overheard a hilarious conversation, which she graciously allowed me to share: 

Stopped at the rest area I overheard a conversation between a dad and
his 14ish old son. The son was whining that his dad didn’t let him
bring his computer and how he wouldn’t be able to play WoW and his
guild had a raid plan and how they really needed him to succeed.   (In
a very whiny voice)

The dad responded with “we’re going to introduce you to a whole new
world – the world of family. ”

The kid comes back with , in a super whiny voice, “but everyone will
level up WITHOUT me. “

We got a great laugh out of that. I feel for the kid and the parents. 

The kids that have it the best are the ones whose parents play too. Not because they get to play more, but because they aren’t hassled about when they do play, their playtime is supervised, they learn how to behave, and they see it modeled how you can play an MMORPG and still lead a normal life. With, you know, a world of family.

I don’t know if everyone has a church cookbook, but I strongly recommend them. Along with recipes for coffee to serve 250 people, there are some gems that cannot be found in your standard Betty Crocker or Joy of Cooking.

A couple of months ago, Jonathan and I had a delightful potluck supper at the Sammamish Grange, which included, among many other things, a freshly baked rhubarb pie. I never really enjoyed rhubarb as a child, but this was amazing! I kept thinking about the delicious tartness of the rhubarb and the sweetness of the crust and thought we needed some rhubarb at our house too. Yes, rhubarb  is sold in the store, but I’m cheap and I know that people around here also grow it in their yard. One quick phone call to my Momma and I had a grocery sack of rhubarb in my refrigerator.  Last week, I was missing my friend April dearly. April makes the best bars in the whole wide world. I was looking through the 125th Anniversary of First Lutheran Church of Ogema, WI cookbook (which my mom snagged from my Aunt Dottie) and found a recipe for Rhubarb Dream Dessert Bars. Perfect!

Here is the recipe:

2 c. flour
8-10 T confectioner’s sugar
1 c. margarine (I use butter because margarine freaks me out, but this is really up to you)
1.5 c. sugar
1/2 c. flour
1/2 t salt
4 eggs, beaten
4 c. diced rhubarb

Mix the flour, confectioner’s sugar and margarine together like a pie crust. Save about one cup for the topping. Pat the rest into a 9×13″ pan and bake at 350 for 10 minutes. Mix together the sugar, flour, salt and eggs. Stir in the rhubarb and spread over the crust. Sprinkle on the topping and bake for an additional 35 minutes.
(Big thanks to Victoria Nelson and Rhonda Cummings for submitting this to the church cookbook!)

Here’s the final result:

  I liked them so much I just took another batch out of the oven. If you happen to work with Jonathan, there’s a good chance this could be your breakfast in the morning.

Three cheers for the church cookbook. It may not be as hip or fashionable out here where we’re all connected to each other through the internet, but sometimes what you need is a recipe from Victoria Nelson and Rhonda Cummings.

Originally published at Oatmeal for Breakfast. You can comment here or there.

I know at least a dozen people who read this blog either here or at its mirror at Livejournal, who would probably LOVE to have this t-shirt. I have it, and it is indeed a great shirt.

A quick plug for Threadless: I’ve been buying their shirts for myself, friends, and family, for the last three or four years, and they are consistently high quality and wear very well. They also get a lot of positive attention, and it’s fun when you run into someone wearing a design you recognize and you ask them, “Threadless?”, and they say, “Yeah!”, and then you spend ten minutes verbally comparing your t-shirt collection. GOOD TIMES.

WARNING: Like tattoos (says the girl planning her left-arm sleeve right now)….once you have one Threadless tee, it’s hard not to keep buying them…..

this is the big shared whiteboard by the kitchen. lately someone has taken to choosing one of the five vowels at random and erasing every instance of that vowel on the whiteboard, presumably with their indx fngr and a slly grn; this is the first time they have left a calling card--they are getting a little slppy! it is not me, i promise. the whole thing is a bit surreal and reminds me of the book "the wonderful o" by james thurber, which you must go read quickly if you haven't yet.

Mamiya 645 Super, Acros, IIRC this was the 150/3.5C

this weekend is the big retaining wall project of doooooom! so i mad the first of many home depot runs. i bought a soil tamper, a drilling hammer and chisel for cutting stones and blocks to size, some spray paint for marking dig lines, a shovel for making trenches, a torpedo level because i can get a little ocd about making things level, landscape fabric for lining the inside of the wall, and lots more. and i learned to my great delight that i am not going to need a city permit or utility line markers. retaining wall, you are about to get built whether you like it or not!