We arrived home from Kansas Friday evening – and I spent a couple of hours cleaning my kitchen cupboards and my kitchen. Cause that is exactly what everyone feels like doing after riding in a car for over 15 hours. No I’m not crazy – we had ants like crazy. I was not impressed. They were in my powdered sugar. And in my sugar shaker I use for my coffee. And just running all over the place like they owned it. Which they do not. We only went on vacation, we did not move out. The place was not up for grabs or open to squatters. So I evicted those ants pronto. And even though cleaning my kitchen and cupboards wasn’t really what I had in mind to do when I arrived home I am enjoying the clean and organized cupboard. This was one of the very few times I’ve ever been thankful for a small kitchen with very few cupboards. (I didn’t have to clean them all just a couple.) (I did have to clean ALL the countertops – which are even fewer than the cupboards.)
We also ended up cleaning the refrigerator. It was basically empty and Travis headed to the gas station up the street pretty quick to get milk. He thought it might be a good idea to clean out the fridge before loading it back up with stuff. So cleaning the shelf that the milk needed to sit on turned into a whole fridge cleaning. (hey when your man is willing to help you get at it right away) (we didn’t clean the door and shelves in the door so it wasn’t as big a job as sometimes.)
I will admit that I don’t remember the last time I cleaned out my whole refrigerator at one time. I’m sure it’s been years. Please don’t hate me 😀
And if the ants and all the cleaning wasn’t enough – guess what I found when I opened the microwave to heat up a frozen burrito. (don’t judge – there wasn’t much food in the house and I was hungry – frozen burritos are yummy when you are very hungry)
Anyway. I opened the microwave to find a bowl of something (I think at one point it may have been some BBQ sauce). A word from experience – never leave on vacation without checking to make sure the microwave is empty. 9 days is long enough to grow some pretty nasty stuff.
Needless to say the microwave got cleaned too – after I sprinkled a large amount of Thieves Essential Oil into it to take the smell away.
So now that I’ve caught you up on our arrival home lets take a look back at our time in Kansas.
Aftermath of July 4th. Only we set ours off on July 5th. We went to the city firework display on the 4th.
Hanging clothes on the line for my sister. And for me too. One perk of a vaca at your sister’s you can use her laundry room 😀
Miles and miles of dirt roads. And a blue sky so big you can get lost in it.
Mud houses created by young minds and hands. When it rains in Kansas the creek comes up. When the creek comes up the kids will play!
My sister’s beautiful house. Love those carriage doors, the porch that wraps around the side, the cool screen door, the boxwood, and so many more things – she deserves this and I’m so happy for her!
Cooper – no farm is complete without a dog is it?
Wheat harvest. I’d never been to Kansas during wheat harvest. It was fun to get in on a bit of it – there is something so amazing and wonderful to me seeing the grain being harvested with the big John Deere equipment. Praise God for the harvest!
Evening gloaming – the hour of dusk just before sunset. Picnic beside the fire.
Kiddos who love to pose.
The crackle and spark of firewood in the fire pit, roasted hot dogs and smores. Summertime and family.
‘Weeds’ cut by the roadside. Who needs expensive roses when the roadsides are lined with these?
This trampoline saw lots of action. Love the pool noodles covering the springs.
Surprise birthday party my sister had for me – more pics coming later. (notice I did not say soon. I am in the midst of the frantic last days of preparing for an event – I may or may not find much time to blog. Therefore I will share more pics ‘later’. I reserve the right to make ‘later’ as far in the future as I deem necessary.) 😀
On an entirely different note our makeover of our front door is coming along nicely. Not as quickly as we had hoped due to rain and the above mentioned event. My hubby added all this amazing trim – he made it all himself using the old trim boards that came out of our living room. I dearly love a DIY that uses reclaimed wood! This has all been primed and is awaiting its final coat of white paint. Then I can finally get my front door paint on my door and hang my new mailbox! I’ll post about all of that soon. (notice I said soon here – this is because I have a bit of a deadline on the door post so it will have to be soon.)
Think of me as I rush to complete all my projects for The Summer Market! A prayer for sunny weather the 25 and 26 would be a great thing too.
Jill
Sew a Fine Seam
Follow along with me here:
Sounds like a whole lot of fun. What a beautiful house your sister has! I had to laugh about your return and the kitchen and the burrito. Thanks for keeping it real!
Cecelia
I love your pictures! If it was for me, we would be living in a farm in the middle of nowhere.
Always enjoy your photos, you’ve more than made buying that camera worth it. So nice to be able to visit with family and so sweet of your sister to give you a party. Think you needed that time away to unwind. Didn’t help coming home to ants, but at least cleaning up after them accomplished getting cleaned out cupboards. I need to do that also, badly. Once in while we clean out food cupboards but haven’t really done many others except when I moved things out of bottom cupboard we took out of kitchen.
As for cleaning frig, uh I’m no angel either. Put it off and put it off. Maybe 3 to 4 times a year if that. Not my favorite job either. So cumbersome washing out the meat and veggies drawers, then there’s the door. We have a side by side we bought first time we refinanced. Were going to take trip to Mt but decided since we didn’t know how long frig we inherited with house would last thought we’d better buy new one while we had money, otherwise wouldn’t have it. Frigs are not cheap. Then the darned thing conked out on us after only a month. Home depot was supposed to give us new one or pay for food lost,they did nothing but give us run around. We paid cash for that frig and bought 4 yrs. more warranty. This was when hubs was still working. We did some kind of pump and motor replaced recently on the extra warranty. On top of that when hubs called the warranty we’d paid extra for hadn’t been registered, good thing we had paperwork handy.
Can hardly wait to see your front door. I’d love to paint ours, it’s just plain white, one of those doors with arched window on top.
I’ve been eating some pineapple, so good, I just seem to crave fruit like crazy. We bought a pineapple at Sams club when we got paid, it sat in frig til this past weekend, finally got big knife and went at it, had no idea how to cut it but winged it.
Boy would I love to have house like your sister’s but probably not when it came time to clean it. Love that big wrap around porch. Still miss porch from KY House.
Don’t work too hard, yeah right. Really glad you got to spend time with sister. When I was 8 yrs. old my Mom, grandmother and I got on train in Cleveland to go to So.Cal. to one of Gram’s brothers. Visited there with cousins, aunts, uncles, then went on car trip up to Oregon and Washington to visit more relatives I never knew I had. Couple of them had farms in Oregon and boy did I love that. Guess that’s when I got taste of being out in country, they grew strawberries as big as your fist, no kidding. Grew other things also but of course the strawberries was biggest draw for me. This was in summer of 1948. You’re thinking boy are you old. Was such a different time then, things were so different and simpler.
Happy summer days
Ahhh, yes, harvest…it has hit here eastern Washington! Hubs gets home around 10 each night and rarely makes it home for lunch any more. Wheat harvest is hitting with the second cutting of hay around here, don’t know which will get done first, but the irrigation is off on the hay so it is hollering out there. I’m so glad you had some good fun with family is Kansas before crunch time for summer market! We’ll be here waiting for you whenever you have time for another post…and pictures!!
I love the trim around your door! It is awesome! Fun to see your photos from out here. The campfire was so much fun and such a lovely evening. I like your pic of the fireworks papers. I forgot you took it! And I love the mudbank creations. Glad we got pictures! It was a fun week. Hopefully, next year we can go to the waterparks and hopefully no bad backs are bothering anybody!!!
Wow, thank you for this fun post. The photos are great.
Happy Summer
Carla
It looks like y’all had a great time in Kansas! I think it would be fun to live life on a farm like that. We’ve had ants in our house too. We just had a pesticide company out and took care of them. I know it’s bad when they start getting in your food! I love the trim your husband put up around your door. I know you’re anxious to get your door finished now. Our front door needs to be restained. It’s on my husbands “to do” list.
Prayers for blue skies and warm weather… Cheryl Ann