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- Happy August (where is the summer going?!)
- We harvested our very first garden veggie this week!! (Cue all the confetti!) After starting my tomato plants from seeds back in the spring – we finally got a BEAUTIFUL, red, ripe tomato this week! We have tons more growing, but this was our first red one and talk about a celebration as we watched it slowly grow and turn from green to red. We ate it with joy.
I actually started three different plants from seeds back in the spring – tomatoes, peppers, and zucchini. Everything sprouted and grew marvelously – until we went on vacation and I left my sister in charge of watering my plants and she forgot about the peppers. They didn’t survive the 10+ days without water, so I lost them first (I did send a few pepper plants over to my parent’s garden though and they are still flurrishing!)
My zucchini plants were doing amazing – I had several small zucchinis growing (they made it to be about 4″ long) when my plants got obliterated by squash bugs. I didn’t even realize that that’s what killed them – I just thought it was a lack of water or too much sun or something. But then this week, I finally gave in and trashed the (very dead) plants, and in doing so I noticed all the bugs covering the plants. I was heartbroken because of all the veggies I had attempted to grow this summer, I was looking forward to the zucchini the most (I love zucchini!)
Oh well, I guess one out of three isn’t the worst odds – we’ll definitely try again next year with a better strategy in place! - Wednesday evening was the annual Norwin Community Picnic hosted by our Norwin Chamber of Commerce. They hold this picnic every year, and even though it’s gone through some drastic changes since the pandemic, the Chamber has still kept it going. It’s always such a fun evening to gather together and hang out with family and friends. And of course, the cherry on top is watching my Dad emcee the grand prize drawing, where they give away around 90-100 prizes, donated by the community, every year.
- On Thursday, we took my Mom, two of my sisters, and my nephew Leo to Kennywood! We spent the afternoon eating ice cream and riding rides – it was so much fun! Leander ended the evening by getting completely soaked at the base of the Pittsburgh Plunge (which my children loving call “The Big Splash”) – it was hilarious!
- Speaking of Leander – I got him a Luigi “accessory” kit and let him open it this week. Needless to say, he’s been wearing the green hat (which is too big) and the suspenders non-stop. Dare I say, it’s even cuter than two weeks ago when he was obsessed with the Mario hat from his Mario costume!
- All photos from my insanely crazy months of June & July have been edited and delivered!
Which means that now, I have to start all of the “clean up” and “back end” stuff – cleaning off my desktop of all the files I just dump there when I’m busy, double (and triple) checking that everything has been backed up multiple times, editing personal photos that have gotten lost by the way-side, editing family films (I haven’t put together an Adventuring Abbeys vlog since our Williamsburg trip in May!), and simply having time to relax again!
(Plus, gearing up and prepping for the fall photography season, getting back to brainstorming XscreamThrills ideas with Derrick – the lists just never end – they just shift.)
But simply being completely caught up with my business stuff is amazing. It’s proof that my systems and processes work and if I do the work to keep up with them, things do not become overwhelming and I can continually deliver an amazing (consistent) experience to my brides and grooms!
