August 2008

 August 1st - First hot day in a while: high 90/low 69: Took a bunch of pictures of the garden so that you can see how it is coming along.

This picture below is a little closer to see the first box. The tomatoes are really starting to rise up. And we are getting some peppers - Finally!

August 2nd - hi 87/low 64 for a Saturday. Sasha spent most of the day at the pool. After work, I did the same. It was a beautiful day.

August 3rd - hi 83/low 64 - excellent day for a hike. Sasha and I went to Shenandoah National Park.

I decided, since we took a bunch of pictures, to make the part below into a table, with pictures on one side and explanations on the other. Hopefully it will read well, but especially will load quickly.

Picture	Explanation
	Sasha along Skyline Drive
	This is the wall that the CCC put up back in the 1930's and you can see the "mountains" of the east.
	Here is Sasha at the waterfall that we hiked to, I call it The Intrepid Explorer.
	A picture of us at the cascading waterfall. By cascading, I mean that the water is not really separated from the rocks, it flows over the rocks. Very similar to the falls in Prince William Forest Park.
	We check out the visitor center at Shenandoah and found the VC host spot. It looks great, again, very similar to Prince William.

August 4th: Monday Back to Work: hi 84/low 65:

August 5th: Tuesday hi 81/low 64: Berry Picking day at Marker Miller: I got a quart of raspberries with a few blackberries. The raspberries, although delicate, are extremely tasty and I can't wait to put them on our breakfast oatmeal tomorrow. We will go through this quart pretty quickly, so I need to get back here soon to get a larger amount and then can dry them for winter.

August 6th: Wednesday hi 90/low 70: Laundry day and it is getting humid/hot: Working today in the afternoon, but I did the laundry in the morning, but instead of putting most of the stuff in the dryer, I put only the quick drying stuff in the dryer and the shirts and jeans on the line we have behind the camper. I like the smell of the clothes when they are hung out to dry in the breeze, and it was breezy enough that I could do it. The clothes dried quickly, and I had them down by evening, after work.

This week, Sasha is working longer hours so that he can take off on Friday as a comp day rather than a holiday. So he is staying at his parents' house until Thursday night when we leave to go up to NJ.

August 7th: Thursday hi 87/low 64: My "Friday" before the weekend.  I'm working through the week to take off on the weekend as we are headed up to NJ. My girlfriend is getting married in a month, and so there is a bridal shower this weekend. We are also going up to celebrate my cousin's and my uncle's birthdays and to see the family. We have not been up to the Jersey shore for a while, need to go up and see everyone.

Sasha and I decided that going up tonight after my work was not such a good idea, so we will go up tomorrow morning real early.

August 8th: Friday hi 80/low 61: Did not leave as early as we thought we would, as the alarm did not go off. My natural instinct got us up at about 5:30 AM (we were planning to leave at 4 AM HA don't think so!) and so we were able to leave about 6:15 AM on a summer Friday morning. But we hit absolutely NO traffic, I think because of the way we went. Going into Pennsylvania is a great way to go, even if you have to drive a little more, you get to see the area and the beauty of rural Pennsylvania, and the traffic is minimal.

Happy Birthday to Stephen Miles and today is the start of the Olympics! So we had a theme for Stephen's birthday. Got to see almost all of the family, our NJ family, so that was great. Saw the opening of the Olympics - very impressive no matter what you may think of China. I doubt Sasha and I will watch much of the games, as we do not have a TV in the camper, so unless it is on YouTube or recorded somehow, I doubt we will see anything.

We had a fun party - all of the Miles kids and Lawrence kids played well together, plus there was cake and ice cream, fabulous dinner and I took no pictures. Boo Hoo.

August 9th: Saturday hi 81/low 53: Still in NJ, today going to shower for Mary Beth Dunn, one of my friends from high school. One of the organizers of her shower sent out Evites - electronic invitations, to the shower. Unfortunately, I do not think many people look at those anymore. I had almost thrown it out, because I did not know the organizer. But thankfully I did not, as it was for Mary Beth's shower.

Darlene Kiss hosted the event at her house. I have known Darlene since 3rd grade, when my family moved to her street. She and her husband made their backyard a fun place, with a pool that has a slide and a couple of waterfalls. Hopefully another friend of mine, Amy Metroka, will send me a couple of pictures so that I can put it up here.  Amy takes such great pictures - she took pictures for Sasha's parent's 50th Wedding Anniversary - they were so awesome. She also took the portraits of my family - twice!

The shower went well, and Amy and I got to catch up on each others lives. I was able to see Mary Beth and talk to her a bit too, as well as Darlene. All in all, a great time, even with only about 10 guests. I then went back to my Aunt and Uncles' house and we had dinner of the great food the night before.

August 10th: Sunday hi 79/low 61: Back to work at 2 pm, we left NJ at 8:30 am. The kiddies were still asleep, so I said my good-byes in their dreams. Went back through the Pennsylvania countryside and got home with time to spare.

August 11th: Monday hi 74/low 55: Back to work for Sasha and me, grocery shopping for me as we did not have very much in the way of fruit and lettuce. The garden just does not give out enough lettuce, so we have to buy some of it and then supplement with stuff from the garden. But we have enough cucs for a while. I took out some of the squash and zucchini plants as they are getting way too much rain, and the fruit is just rotting. No good with that.

August 12th: Tuesday hi 79/low 59: OK - this is just crazy weather. I am worried that my tomatoes and peppers are not getting enough heat for them to ripen. I was told that last year in this area it was really, really hot! So what is the deal - it is not hot, we are getting tons of rain and the fruits of zucchini and squash are rotting on the vine. I am going to put in salad greens, radishes, and carrots instead. At least we will have those until the frost occurs.

I will put up some pictures as soon as I can.

August 13th: Wednesday hi 85/low 55, Day off

August 14th: Thursday: hi 85/low 59, Day off

August 15th: Friday: Rain in the morning, hi 81/low 59

August 16th: Saturday: hi 82/low 55: The "I'm sorry, so sorry" incident. OK, what happened was that Sasha had gotten a card for his birthday last month, and as it was a cool card, I put it up on the wall. It was cool because it played music when the card was opened up.

So I was at work this morning and when Sasha gets up, he starts surfing the web and all of a sudden, he starts hearing "I'm sorry, so sorry" in a small whispery voice. He is like, what in the world is that? He turns off the radio/iPod, completely unplugs it, and yet he still hears it. He reboots the computer, thinking that there is a virus in the computer and thinks he has fixed it, when (while the computer was off!) he hears it again "I'm Sorry, So Sorry" and so thinks - what evil is this that a computer virus could work while the computer was off? So once the computer is back up he runs a complete virus scan.

He finally comes up to the office with his bad news. And so I tell him, the So Sorry music is coming from his birthday card! He was sitting right next to it and did not realize. As we had the fan on, the card kept opening and closing and so he kept hearing it. Good laughter for the day.

August 17th: Sunday: hi 89/low 55: Lazy days by the pool

August 18th: Monday: hi 87/low 59: Happy Birthday to Uncle Joe! Back to work for Sasha and I, at least the weather is nice.

August 19th: Tuesday: hi 91/low 61: Our one hot day for the past couple of weeks. This is my "Friday", I will have off the next couple of days.

August 20th: Wednesday: hi 82/low 58: Perfect day for playing in the garden, and berry/peach picking.

August 21st: Thursday: Went into Sterling with Sasha to go to Costco, Wegman's, and to go to the book club meeting. I also called up almost all of the junk mail companies to get them to stop sending us junk mail. Now if this really does happen, I will be amazed. I also opted out using a website called www.OptOutPrescreen.com. 

Seeing the club members was great, we talked a little about the book but mostly about ourselves and our members. I'm sorry that I did not get to see Deb, I hope she is feeling better.

August 22nd: Friday: hi xx/low yy: Work Day.

August 23rd: Saturday: Boyds Bears: I was supposed to work this day but instead went to Boyds Bears with one of the ladies from work and a couple of her friends. I hadn't been there since it first opened and I wanted to see the changes. But what I did not know was that it was also a tie-in with Longaberger baskets. So there were baskets everywhere! It was interesting. After I had checked out the entire area, I met the gals for lunch and then went with a couple of them through the store again, sort of seeing it through their eyes.

I can say that the economy is not dead here, there were so many women buying so many baskets and other trinkets that it just amazed me. I thought that I could get a couple of bears for a wedding that I was going to, but quite honestly, the bride and groom do not need $25 a bear dolls, they probably would be happier with the money. So I did not get them. When Sasha and I had gone to Boyd's Bears at its opening, we had gotten these cute 2" bears with shirts that read "Best Friends Forever" & "True Love" that were a couple of buck each. I no longer saw the small bears, and nothing there was a couple of bucks. NOR was anything there Made in USA! OMG - BOYD's BEARS is not made in the USA - it is made in CHINA like everything else. That thought totally disgusted me. This place was not a factory, but just a store. A store with Chinese products.

August 24th: Sunday: Work day: hi 91/low 61: Although it seemed like it was warmer than that. Worked from 8-7 as Sasha got to enjoy the pool. Good for him!

August 25th: Monday: Work Day: hi 87/low 68: Went and picked peaches, lots of them and plan on drying them out at the Batals.

August 26th: Tuesday: hi 77/low 82: Work Day - my Friday: We are gearing up for the Labor Day Weekend, I wrote the Weekend Welcome, with a couple of things to do in the area, and a couple of trolley rides here at the campground.

August 27th: Wednesday: hi 73/low 62: Rain: At Batals:  Well, first I went over to get the mail, the library and Aldi's to pick up stuff for going to the Batal's (Sasha's Sister's family) as we were watching the kids this week and weekend. Unfortunately, even though I brought my bathing suit, there was no possibility of swimming as it was cool and rainy. Oh well! It rained but Sasha used the motorcycle, seems he missed the rain.  We watched the Democratic Convention and saw the VP-elect Biden and his son speak.

August 28th: Thursday: hi 70/low 61: At Batals and had the Parents come over to dinner. It was raining most of the day, and so Sasha used my car to get to work today. I was reading a very interesting website: Listening to Katrina. I read all the way through the website. And considering that there is another hurricane headed that way, this makes it even more interesting to read.

Sasha's parents came over in the evening and we had a nice dinner with all of the kids present, and us. After dinner we watched the Democratic Convention and Obama's speech. It was very well done. 

August 29th: Friday: slightly raining: At Batals then work: I had to get to work by 2 pm, but I cut it a little too close. I had gone with Kristina to get her medicine as she had a slight sore throat. She wanted to be better as she was staying over her friends house the next evening. Sleepovers are important with best friends, but you have to be healthy to stay over. So I made sure she took the right amount of medicine, and understood what the correct amount was, and then headed off.

August 30th: Saturday: hi 83/low 64: At Work: Worked in the morning, we had a great crowd come in the night before. After work, read a bit and had a nice dinner of tomato salad and veggies from the garden. Thankfully the rain here had helped the garden, giving it lots of water and so the cucs and other veggies were still coming along OK. But next year I am definitely going to do small tomatoes, not these big ones, they just take way too long. 

August 31st: Sunday, is like a regular day, At Work: hi 84/low 62: We had lots of people come into the store today as we had a sale. Afterwards, I came home and watched Paycheck, and interesting movie.

You will also see a bunch of books and herbal books that will be on this page and the next, since I have grown some herbs (basil, chives, and marigolds) so I wanted to get an idea of some of the properties of herbs. I think of it as a great learning skill.

Expenses: August can we do the same as July? Nope 'fraid not, bought lots of provisions and Farmers Market type of stuff, plus we seemed to eat out more this month. Don't really know why, there it is.

Some of the expenses are higher this month than last month, because I bought more at farmer's markets and pick your own farms. I did this because we eat lots of dried fruit in the winter and so I am deferring the cost. So I buy peaches for $0.89 a pound now, dry them and three pounds of peaches equals approximately one pound dried. As last year's cost for dried peaches was $4.09 at Trader Joes, I figure I am saving a bit for the winter.

We did go out a bunch for lunch and dinner. We will have to cut back a little on that.

I actually bought some clothes at a thrift store for the wedding I am going to in September. Now if I could only get some shoes! Will have to start looking.

We bought extra gas for Sasha's motorcycle, so the total gas amount for the car and the motorcycle was $281.25 this month vs $289.44 - so that is pretty much a wash.

The biggest expense it seems was the dentist bill. We have used up all of the money for the FSA this year, we did not put enough into it, because of the dentist. Although we want to get healthy, getting screwed on tooth care really bites the big one! So we will have to put more money into the FSA next year.

We had a few birthdays and other parties that we went to this month, so that is the gifts section. Next month is also a busy one for birthdays and weddings, plus we will be doing some traveling. We have decided against bringing the Truck Camper with us to NJ, as the diesel prices will certainly be higher this month, with hurricane season upon us. 

Check out Next Month: September, a couple of birthdays, More Peach picking and the start of the apple season! and cooler weather of course we are already getting that!