Pictures from my walk...

I know that there are a lot of pictures here, but considering that I took over 150, I managed to weed out quite a few. ;)

This is the path that I discovered on Wednesday, and didn't have a functioning camera with me to take pictures, so I went back today.

Sand Creek *should* be running through here.

Creek bed

Creek bed

These made me smile.

Interesting way to get across the creek. Should I.....?

Like there was any question about how I would cross it...

Reminds me of two people holding each other.

Wait until you see the other side!

The other side - totally hollow and big enough for me to stand inside.

Same tree, different perspective.

Looks almost like a tree within a tree, but I'm not sure.

End of the first trail.

It's a little dry and dusty still.

I had to laugh. It might be near a small Christian college in a very small town, but the kids obviously still know how to party! And at least they recycle....

This was kind of scary.

I wasn't real happy to find this guy had made a home across the trail - but I was happier that I saw him before I walked into it. Blech.

Signs of past flooding. Hard to imagine now.

That's the path on the right - not much room for error.

It's at least a 30' foot drop, maybe more.

Tree that had been washed out at some point, roots and all. Oh, and look....water!

This just reminds me of something from some kind of Harry Potter type book.

Cute little farm.

It's a bird....

It's a bird...it's a plane....
(totally unintentional shot, by the way)

Wonder how old this is...

Why would someone cut partway through the tree, yet still leave it standing?

So anyway, that's a small sampling. I think this might be my new favorite place to walk, when I'm not going for speed. I can't wait to see what it looks like when the leaves start to change colors....

Daniel didn't have school today, and Alex got out early, so they're hanging out here watching movies. I've been making a list of everything that I have to do for the craft show tomorrow, so I suppose I should get busy with that so that I don't have to stay up all night....

Feeling icky.

Not sure why I feel so worn out right now.

Could be getting up at 5:30am to get the kids up, dressed, fed (pancakes), and off to school.

Or it could have something to do with me and Daniel running around Wichita most of the day.

Headin' to the city...

A new fabric store! *squeeeeee!*

Shopping cart fun

My lunch date

More canning jars - our actual purpose for going in the first place.

Then I drove home, only to turn around and drive to Emily's school to see her do her first Power Point presentation.

Then home again for about 10 minutes until it was time to get Alex.

Then to the carwash to vacuum out the van (gross).

Then back home again, where Alex promptly opened up the broken van door - and as I struggled to fix it (again), it slipped and smashed my hand. It actually looks worse now...hopefully it goes away soon. Stupid broken door. >:(

Supper was good. Stromboli night always goes over well.

But then there's the post-stromboli disaster...

Who knows....maybe it's a combination of everything that's making me feel like crap. But whatever it is, it needs to just hit me and get it over with so that I am a fully functional human being on Saturday for the craft show. Actually, it needs to just skip me so that I can get everything done that I need to get done *before* the craft show.

Blah.

Unplugged.

Unintentionally, I spent almost the entire day away from the computer.

And I survived. Wow.

Seriously, I got up this morning and got Alex and Daniel ready to walk Alex to school. When Daniel and I got back here, it was time to quickly balance the checkbooks and pay the bills. I had less than an hour to get that done, so I whipped through it all and got it done. Then I did something that I really hardly ever do.

I shut the computer off. As in, totally shut it down. Powered off.

The house was strangely quiet as Daniel and I ran out the door to get him to playschool. There was no familiar hum of the computer just sitting at my desk idle. It was odd.

Anyway, I dropped Daniel off at school and then literally had to force myself to go walk. I was just so. totally. not. in. the. mood. to. go. But I told myself that I'd go for "just a little bit" and then quit.

I took off toward the walking path nearby, but decided this time to go explore a little bit more. There was a bridge over the dry creek bed, and I slid down the bank toward it, crossed it, chose turning right over turning left, and off I went.

"Amazing" doesn't even begin to describe what I saw. I can't even describe it. Thick, thick woods with sunlight filtering through the tops of the trees. Enormously huge trees, one with a hollowed-out trunk that left an opening big enough for me to stand upright within its walls. Steep climbs up and down hills on a footpath that was no wider than 18" at most. Logs propped across the creekbed to offer a crossing when there is actually water running through the area.

I circled back and opted to explore the left-hand turn that I passed over earlier. The scenery became even more amazing, as the path ran right along the edge of where the creek had obviously flooded in the past, with rushing water strong enough to wash fully-grown trees right out of the ground, root balls and all. The path's edge was even washed away in places, with a 30' drop straight down into parched dryness now - until the next downpours hit.

I was stunned by everything that I saw. I attempted to take a few pictures with my phone, but of course, it wouldn't work so I have no shots of this glorious place. But you had better believe that on Friday morning - the next time that I have an opportunity to go back - I will not be walking for speed. I will make sure that I have lots and lots of batteries and a blank memory card for my real camera, because there is no way that I can convey how gorgeous it truly was.

Oh yeah, back to the whole "unplugged" thing....

By the time I got done walking I had just enough time to run home and get a shower, so I did that and then I ran (drove) back to get Daniel. I ran to the dealership where I bought the van to get the "official" name for the piece that Alex broke, since the junkyard ended up not having one (just in case you were wondering, it's the "bracket with rollers"). Then we ran to WalHell (I hate that place) to pick up a few things, and then back to the house to grab his backpack and the grocery list, and then to school to drop him off for the afternoon.

Then I went to the grocery store. $200 and a little over an hour later, I was done...

Then the gas station. $74 later...

Then home to unload groceries and get things put away.

And then it was time to go get Alex. So I drove up to the school, tossed his bike in the back of the van, and thoroughly ticked him off by not letting him ride his bike home.

Then to someone's house to pick up some movies that she was selling.

Then to my insurance agent to pay the bill for my renter's insurance.

Then to the post office to get some stamps for the few bills that I can't pay online.

Then to the city building to drop off the water bill payment.

Then to Daniel's school to get him.

Then home.

The other kids got home shortly after all of this, and I got supper started as we talked about their day and I made sure that they had the little bit of assigned homework done. Then the older 3 were back out the door for church with their stepmother, and they should be home shortly.

I didn't even turn the computer on until I sat down to write this. I hadn't even checked and moderated the comments on the blog until a little bit ago - oops!

So tonight's mission, after everyone is home and in bed, is to work on getting labels on all of the jars of everything that I made so that it is all ready to go this weekend. I really should have thought about that earlier, because there are a lot of jars to label.

Oops.

He's growing up.

I let Alex ride his bike to school today.

Ok, so it's not so much that I *let* him, but that I got tired of him begging and so I caved.

It's about 3/4 mile to his school. He can walk it, but he gets tired and wants to ride in the stroller with Daniel. So that's 100+ pounds of kid plus the weight of the stroller. If he walks, it slows us down. If he rides, it kills me - I won't lie.

So he rode. Fast. I had to keep yelling at him to slow down because I couldn't keep up with him while I was pushing Daniel. But we made it, and then Daniel and I walked home (I walked - Daniel rode).

I walked back to the school to get him this afternoon, and then ran to keep up with him most of the way home to drop off his backpack, and then kept running to keep up with him to go get Daniel and the stroller from Daniel's school.

Oh, plus another walk to Alex's school to drop off his fundraiser stuff that I forgot to take with us this morning (my fault). So by the end of the day I had close to 6 miles' worth of walking under my belt.

I'm tired. Doesn't help that I woke up at 4:38 this morning - yes, 4:38. And I was awake. I fought it. I tried to go back to sleep. Didn't work. *sigh*

So hopefully I can sleep better tonight. I have my grocery list made up so that I can go to the store tomorrow (alone!) and stock up on everything that we've run out of over the past week. The older 3 kids come home tomorrow, so we'll be back to chaos again.

A meeting Thursday night for Daniel's school, Friday night will be spent packing up for the craft show, Saturday is the show....

Too. much. going. on.

Just hoping for a successful show on Saturday. I have this one booked, and then the one at my church in November - hopefully I can get rid of lots of stuff and make some extra money!

Trick or treat bags (and sedum).

Trick or treat bags are done for the craft show on Saturday! Woohoo!

Same bags, just inside out. Or outside in - whichever you prefer.

Of course, part of the process of finishing them is to wash and dry them so that they "fuzz" properly. I made 5 in this batch, and this is the pile of fuzz that I fished out of the washer (as it was running) and out of the dryer.

I also added the bags to the Stuff That I Do page, which I see now really needs to be updated....

Parting shot....and a special shout-out to Casey at casey/artandcolour for identifying these mystery plants in my garden as "sedum". I had no idea what they were until I saw them on his blog. Go look at his blog for some fantastic pictures of all sorts of neat stuff! I officially have garden envy from reading his...

Maybe I walked a little too much today.

I'm not sure what I was thinking this morning when I got Alex and Daniel up and ready for church. For some reason, I thought that it would be cool to walk to church....knowing that after church we had the CROP Walk and then I'd have to walk back home.

But needless to say, I did it. We walked the 1.24 miles to church. OK, no biggie, although I did have to do it at a pretty good pace because we didn't get out of the house as quickly as I wanted to.

After the service, there was a BBQ so we stayed for that and had lunch. The girls met us after that so that they could go on the CROP Walk too. Jared stayed with Ex1 because he had his first Boy Scout meeting this afternoon.

Alex and Daniel pretending to take a nap after lunch.

After lunch we had some time to kill, so we went out on the church's playground and well, played.

Then we walked down the block to another church for the kickoff of the CROP Walk, which ended up being a 4.70 mile walk.

Daniel was in charge of the map from his position at the front of the stroller.

Can you spot Sarah and Alex?

Poor Sand Creek.....

Then we walked from the other church back to the house - another 1.14 miles.

Sometimes, they really do get along. :)

So that makes a total of 7.08 miles today, with a grand total of 15.81 miles in the last week. Going to see if I can beat that total this week...

Now, back to the sewing machine....