Veteran's day Camping trip

It was a camping trip full of surprizes



for example, my blog's refusal to upload pictures in the order they are provieded...


The wind was cold, but the day was beautiful
The dog ended up breaking both his retractable leash and his halti ( more irritating than surprizing)


This is the finnished grub box. I am very proud of it. Love boy did all of the hard work of sanding smooth the rough joints from my less than accurate carpentry. but, it heald everything, and worked rather well I think.
There were ripe beautiful blackberries all around our camp. Miss M was a regular little bear in a berry patch.

And, as predicted, it rained (rather hard, friday night) but Loverboy was well prepared, and our comfort was not compromised in the least.

Current projects

1) i am buiding ( with the help of melissa and Ken and loverboy) a grub box ( kamping Kitchen)
this has multiple goals:

• finish it for camping this weekend
• it should be functional
• I want to sand and seal it so it won't warp or absorb water
• I kind of want to eventually decopague/paint it with images of camping. THe wood looks nice so i want some of that to show through. Decorative grub box?

2) i need to paint the lawn nativity set that i cut out last year so i can set it up this year.
now you know so you can bug me to see how these projects are going

What I am reading

Strangers on the train in the morning ask me what i am reading. It is a little strange. But I really like the books i am reading ( in general). It is a good opening for conversation, 'cause i will almost always talk about it.

I have been on a historical fiction kick lately. It started with a random book from a used bookstore that caught my eye. Lots of good things start that way. The Sunne in Splendor http://www.sharonkaypenman.com/sunne.htm by Sharon Penman was excelent. I then serched out several others by her. . All excelent. These were all clearly well reserched Hiistorical Epic Sagas. I cried and fell in love with the charactors. They are long. She included notes about resources and things she changed for story purposes. Her more recent stuff had less apeal for me. It was a much shorter format and much more fiction (mystery) in a historical setting. Still interesting and a decent read, but it didn't have the same grip for me that her older works did.
So i went looking for more...I have been through several authors at this point (can't remember them all). Right now I am enjoying Margret George, but I must say, I havent caught myself sobbing over the fate of a charactor yet. Decent, hard to put down, but not the shout it to all friends and family and own several coppies so I can share them kind of book. (last one of those for me ( prior to Sunne) was Tad Williams Otherland series. I think we had 3 copies of the first bookin that series)

Loverboy's camping trip

Loverboy and his brothers went camping. Here are pictures. Everything i am going to write is second hand information as Miss M and I had our own busy weekend at home. Hopefully we can camp next weekend with daddy.

So, aparently there was no one near the camp area ( as it is November and it was supposed to rain, and apparently this was a remote, primitive camp).

Hiking was the activity of the day(s).

As a result, the dog had the unprecidented luxury of a significant amount of time off the lead. Apparently, he can catch more than just moles from my dad's back yard. Loverboy said he returned to them periodically with smallish birds that he had caught and then proceded to eat, and at least one squirrl. ewwwww. no more doggy kisses.

Holoween

Holoween was fun. I wanted to post some pictures. not much else to say. Can you guess what i was?

Here are Miss M and the adorable A at Arden Mall's Trick or Treat street. It was a chalange in a number of ways. Miss M suffered through the stress of having to talk to numerous strangers. And, she was thirsty. The crowds reminded me of Disneyland before fast passes with no ropes or mazes. The kids working retail that were passing out the candy did a great job of trying to interact with their trick or treating public ( that is a cute costume... look it's Jack Sparrow... and what are you?) but the public was just interested in grabbing as much candy as possible and shoving on tho the next stash. Adorable A did a great job, and had the best spirits of any of us. A's mom and dad took the girls to Chuck-e-cheese after. More people . More noise. More crowds. I couldn't handel it. Thank you to her... better her than me.

Ok. I admit it, I am a wimp.
I also dressed up at work. Latex from 7:30am-7:30 pm.