Kevin Kelly is one of my heroes. He’s never led me wrong.

I continue to dominate the league board in Spanish for this week in my group. Fun. I don’t see anyone catching me tomorrow. That’s when I’ll get my award from Duolingo.

OYB!

Washed off my deck. It was loaded with pollen.

Blew off the garage and driveway.

Gorgeous day. I was hoping to ride my bike today, but my back is still tweaked.

Went to Stone Mountain to record. This police chopper kept flying over the parking lot I was in. Had to wait for him to finally shove off before recording.

After cleaning the garage, I took a bunch of toys back to Goodwill. The whole back seat was full.

Harry!

Rested my back. I feel better.

Downloaded the episode of Verbal Surgery that I recorded this morning onto my Mac.

OYB!

Gorgeous!

Cool!

Love ’em!

Deposited checks.

Adelante! Every time I reach a new level, I’m supposed to get double the amount of XP for fifteen minutes. Twice I didn’t get that perk which was worth about 2,000 points. It would have meant a personal record for me. No big deal. It’s just amazing to me how much these tournaments have made me focus on studying.

If all goes well, I’ll come out #1 on the leader board this week. That’ll be a first for me. You get a certain award from Duolingo for accomplishing that. It’s a massive war of language nerds. I’m competing against over 142 million people. I’m in the highest of ten levels of difficulty. And it still seems like I’m still just learning this language.

I have listened to nearly all of the seven Harry Potter books through twice. Each of the books takes about 25 hours to listen to. That’s nearly 350 hours of listening. It is my benchmark. The second time through I was getting WAY more of the Spanish. At nearly the end of the second go it’s even more. I’m curious as to what my experience is going to be at the end of the third go around.

Ordered the groceries this morning and picked them up in this evening.

Everly and I went to the Evergreen Hotel to enjoy their pool for an hour.

Ate at one of my new favorite places for lunch, the German Bakery.

I liked the flowers that they have at the restaurant.

I always enjoy my time with her. She’s such an angel child.

Every time I shake a bottle of Ketchup, I always think about the time in Toronto where the lid wasn’t on tight and I slung ketchup all around the side of the restaurant. It looked like a Tarentino movie set.

Beauty.

I liked this boat model.

Got my picture with Carl, the owner of the bakery. He’s a cool guy. He’s always bussing tables and asking how everyone is doing.

I get the Veggie burger and fries. She gets chicken strips. Then for the big finale, lemon squares. So good.

Love these two magnificent human beings!

Color pops.

We walked over to the QT for slushies and candy. We saw a car wreck on the way over.

Went by my office to check the mail.

Ashley got a package.

Mileage.

Getting the “Pool Bag” ready to go again means drying everything out completely. I have plastic bags that I keep the wet stuff in. I dry those out too.

Gassed up the car and checked levels.

Everly likes this song. Ashley asked what the song was that Everly kept going on about.

Picked up groceries and put them away.

How many of these did you know?

OYB!

Love my girls!

Deposited checks and entered the data into our spreadsheet.

Español!

Kathy, Everly and I went to Zoo Atlanta. It was packed with school kids.

We had a fun time and got some exercise.

While I was at the zoo, I was eating a pretzel and one of my crowns came loose. I immediately called the doc. He got me right in just a few hours later.

Español while I was waiting to go to the doctor.

He glued the crown back in place. Then showed me a problem molar that needs to be worked on soon.

There’s a decaying area under the crown right in front of the one that got loose. Needs to fix that before it leads to root canal issues. May still need to do that if all the stuff can’t be completely cleaned out.

I’ve recently gotten dental insurance so hopefully it’ll help.

Harry!

Everly enjoys playing with dolls. And biking.

Checked the mail at the office.

Beautiful day.

Watered the transplants. Most everything is thriving.

Mas!

Get more out of your desires with Verbal Surgery “Embrace the Hunger.”

Yummy.

I like this.

I’ve really been focused on Spanish lately. My brain seems to respond to the challenge of leagues.

OYB!

I dig this. Land of Enchantment.

Traffic was really bad this morning to Global Mall. Mr. Google finally took me an alternate route.

I like this one.

I’ll get my booster soon.

Such a joy to see these girls.

Her treasures.

Adelante. I’m pushing myself to do more lessons. It doesn’t take all that long. Just have to stay focused.

We enjoy fruit in the morning.

I also cook fresh corn. Wrap it in a dry washrag, put it on high for 3 minutes. Butter and salt. Hoodebaby.

I eat whatever she doesn’t finish.

Everly and I went to Lilburn City Park today. She road her bike while I walked.

The bike was too little for her. It was the one she originally learned on. Same for Penelope. I’m keeping that little one at my house.

We always take nature walks. I try to help her understand the world around her. We talk about tracking animals and food sources. Crayfish being one for raccoons.

Lots of wild flowers.

Now I have the Picture This app. It identifies all the plants I shoot. It’s a beautiful thing to have the technology.

Here was our path. We went pretty fast.

There were piles of soft wool-like seeds on the ground.

So much tiny beauty.

Animal tracks.

The colors!

These flower petals looked glossy. Everly asked me if they were fake.

Wet and dry.

Cool.

Wore her out. Little sweetheart.

I was talking to Everly about sod. Then we saw this.

Took the kids at the mission some pizza.

The kids seem like they’re basically in coast mode now. Just biding time during the Summer.

Harry!

Went by my office to check the mail.

Mas y mas.

This may be a rare chance for me to come in #1 on the leader board. That is super hard to do. Battle of the language nerds.

Español!

OYB!

Beautiful day of clearing and cloudy/colder then cleaning again. Hard to know how to dress.

My girls!

Got petrol and checked levels.

Everly likes to climb on the rocks.

Swept the deck.

Took Jessi to an appointment but the schedule didn’t work out.

Palabras.

Adelante. This week will be the first real chance for me to come in #1 on the leader board. Most of the time there is at least one hard core guy that just gets giant amounts of points each week. We’ll see.

Helped the kids.

I enjoyed hanging out with the girls today.

Happy Birthday, Kathy! Here’s to many more! We were planning on a big dinner for her but the place she wanted to go is closed on Monday. Bad luck.

OYB!

Español!

I hurt my back yesterday. This little maracas seems like the best thing to rub my back with where the muscles are damaged.

While I was cleaning out my gorilla cart yesterday, I noticed where some of the plastic coating had come loose. I cleaned the area and shot it with WD40 to try and keep it from rusting.

Jesse and I talked with my Mom for nearly three hours. Good time was had by all.

Downloaded my recording from yesterday onto my Mac.

Trying to rest and massage my back as much as possible. Got the heating pad out as well. Should be better tomorrow.

Enjoying playing Horizon Forbidden West. Watching Moon Knight.

OYB!

Español!

Beauty.

Harry! First chapter of the seventh book.

My greenroom plants.

These two I brought back from their outside experience. It was too dry for the sundews. Flytraps seemed fine, but they both needed to be kept wet, like in a bog.

Mowed the front yard. Even that is pretty hard.

The liriope is doing well.

Blew the garage and driveway. Then rolled all the cords up and put them away.

Last project was to repot the bamboo. I put the small plant back in it’s original pot. It’s really heavy.

Leaf matter to keep the soil in.

Cleaned off all my tools.

Palabras.

Got the groceries from Walmart and put them up.

Did well on Duolingo.

Pulled a muscle in my back. Working on massaging the knots out.

OYB!

Español!

Set the gear for the Pool bag to dry.

Ordered groceries.

Lubricated hinges that were squeaking.

Always learning new plants.

Mowed my back yard.

It’s pretty hard. Thick.

Good to have that job done. Time for the front yard again.

When I got done, I showered and put on Poison Ivy neutralizer, just in case. I saw a little sprig of it but not much.

Released an episode of Verbal Surgery called, “Thoughts are Spring.”

Groovy!

Downloaded the episode of Verbal Surgery that I recorded at Stone Mountain this morning called “Snake Handling.” Lots of fun stories there.

OYB!

Gorgeous! Nakuru weather.

Español!

Full Sun Moon.

My girls!

We enjoyed watching this crow try and get into an empty bag.

Deposited checks.

First day to wear my new shoes. I’ve had these exact type (New Balance 577 Walking Shoes, 9 1/2″ 4E Wide) at least five times if not more. They don’t make them any more. I had to track them down from other shoe retailers. Took about three weeks to get here. BIG difference from Amazon, which were out of this model.

Adelante!

Palabras.

Everly and I went swimming at Evergreen today. They were having a big Jewish conference. I found it very interesting.

We had a lot of fun today.

We ate at the Downwind Restaurant at PDK Airport in Chamblee. Delicious. After lunch, I told Everly that we could listen in to the tower talk to airplanes. I have an app for that. She really thought that was cool.

Went to the Village Park.

I took the lease over to Lonnie who is the manager at Azalea Place Apartments.

We went to Plaza Fiesta to have some fun on the playground.

Penelope was telling me how she liked hot Cheetos. I let her try.

I thought this little mannequin with the bald head was funny.

I spent a dollar and let them ride this little kid’s ride. I remember them riding it when they were like 4 and 2. SUCH a difference! It was hilarious.

I finished this book and started on the seventh book today.

Went by my office to check the mail.

I got some more white aquarium gravel for my St. Francis shrine.

Came home and noticed someone had tracked mud. Bahd luck.

Got it cleaned up pretty well.

We had major internet problems last night. I had finished writing my blog, and suddenly it just went off.


Español!

Beautiful day.

OYB!

Beautiful morning.

My girls!

Full Sun Moon.

Palabras.

Adelante!

Big project today as I moved all my plants back outside.

Once I got them outside, I trimmed all the dead leaves away.

Swept all the debris out of the door.

Washed all the pollen off of the deck.

Beautiful.

Vacuumed the house.

Moved the outside plants from my room outside too.

Swept my outside carpet.

I brought out my door/ramp to get things outside. Man, am I glad I figured that out.

Watered the newly transplanted Liriope.

Filled up my tap water jugs.

Cleaned out my vacuum cleaner parts.

Cleaned and refilled the hummingbird feeders.

For the second time recently, I’ve seen a murder of three or more crows find an owl and just continue to dive bomb it to drive it from their territory. It occurs to me that me having the crows all the time is an either-or proposition. I have owls or crows but not both. I prefer the crows. They’re like flying monkeys.

Sprayed fungicide on some of my plants.

Helped the kids at the mission. Most of my kids are taking the Milestone test right now. I’ve been helping them review fractions or rounding or whatever. Some just come to hang out and play.

Cleaned off the door at the mission.

Mas y mas.

I just fed my Mama raccoon this evening. So cool to have her that close. It’s a real trust thing on both of our parts. I sat on my steps and fed her for about ten minutes. I was literally inches from her. Just kept dropping her pieces of dried dog food. So cool

Later, I spread the food out in it’s normal spot for the other visitors. I’ve seen four raccoons at a time recently.

I hope to start getting pictures of her soon. It’s hard to hit it at just the right time.