Busy Weekend Ahead

We lost our buyer. But it's OK. We'll keep on, keeping on. Lucky for us they weren't in our house when they decided to split. That is such a curious thing to me. One minute they think they want to make a huge purchase together and the next minute they are taking a break from their relationship. Maybe they knew they needed big changes, but weren't sure which extreme end of it.

We are in the countdown to summer break! I'm excited. However I have a class that starts before my kids are done with school, and that's no fun. It's a CPR/First Aid class. I picked up my supplies for my summer classes and Joel was flipping through my book for this class. There are a lot of gross pictures in it, and I am not looking forward to the class. There's a reason I'm not going into nursing! I hope none of the kids in my class lose their fingers or have a broken arm with the bone poking out while I'm in charge! Eeek!

It has been raining here a crazy amount this last week, and we have more on the way. Our rain gauge said we got almost 4 inches of rain on Wednesday and Thursday. Some of our plants are growing so much! It's exciting to see them all come up. Although, I am still waiting for my Elephant Ear to grow, I'm excited to see how it turns out. I plan to spend all of tomorrow and Monday working in the yard on various things. I haven't forgotten about the pictures I took last week that I promised to post for you, Mom! I will get to those too!

Today I learned that our beautiful plum tree, which is about 10 feet tall, has a disease called "black knot". I have to treat it this weekend by cutting off branches that are affected, and burn them, then I have to treat the tree with a spray. I hope it works, because we were super excited to see fruit growing on a tree we thought was an imposter "mock" plum tree.  Our apple tree has a lot of fruit growing on it, and we are excited to see that too! We didn't see any bees out when the trees were in blossom and we got super cold after the blossoms too, so we thought it would be a bad year for fruit. Happy it's not! I think it might be a Golden Delicious tree.

The kids are also bugging us to get the pool up. We have some friends who are moving and sold us their pool and trampoline. So I might try to get that up too, we will see if we have time. I could have used it a few days ago when it was super hot!

Update

We might have a buyer! I advertised, on Saturday, our home as a possible contract for deed and right away got a call from this couple who were very excited about our home. I was so scared we were going to have to advertise and advertise to get some decent interest. But these people said they had to make a decision by Friday and could I show them the house on Monday? So when I met with them Monday they were in love with it. And what's even more amazing... the huge puddle in the road, the screaming neighbor, and the kids running up and down in the puddle did not deter them one bit! They even wanted to give me $1,000 in earnest money that night!  I was floored, thinking, "how is this possible?" So, I am cautiously optimistic. I really want it to be true and to be a good fit for all of us! I hope, hope, hope this works out. We really could use the financial relief. But, sometimes I have been excited about something, and then something bad happens and I feel so rotten. They want to put down 10%, which is awesome! They also are talking about paying it off as soon as they can so they can have some financial freedom too.

Jake is on his own now. We have the car he's been using, back in our hands again. He bought himself a car and insurance. He's done with his associates degree.  He's still living at grandma's and says he wants to go on his mission after this summer. Letting him be a grown up is the hardest thing I've ever had to do. Even harder than the 18 hours of labor I had giving birth.  Harder than the 18 years of raising him. Often my heart aches for when he was a little boy and still here. Every evening he would  help me make dinner, and it was so nice to talk and chat during this time. Just me and him. Now I don't know where he is, where he's going, who he's hanging out with, what are they doing, when will he be home? Has he eaten anything healthy today? Does he have gas? And to top it all off... I know his car doesn't have a good seat belt that he will use regularly :( this scares the daylights out of me. It's so hard to stand in my spot and know I've done all I can and I just have to worry about me and the rest of the kids I'm raising, and let go of them in their own time too.

Tonight I got out with my camera for a little while and hope to soon give you a small tour of some things going on around the property this month. Unfortunately I had put my camera away before the dogs noticed a group of deer in the field behind the house, and had chased them off by the time I got it back out. Bummer.

The house has been very warm the last few days, and it's been very tempting to turn the air conditioning on, but I've resisted, mostly because we can't turn it on until we have it serviced by the company that repaired it last fall while we were waiting for closing. I'm thinking of naming the property Breezy Acres because we always seem to have a breeze going on here, and that was helpful in keeping the house a little cooler. I'm taking suggestions if you have one, for names. Some I've thought of are Wood Wind Acres (because I've been amazed at how loud the wind in the woods are since we moved here, it's a sound I'm not used to), Windy Acres... and a few more.

May 11, 2012

My garden is all planted now, yippie! I can't wait to watch the plants grow. Tonight we are having corn on the cob and the kids were commenting that they can't wait until they are eating OUR corn on the cob, and how they think ours will be so much better. I'm sure it will, especially since tonight's corn is probably from last season, ha!

I also have a lot of herbs growing in pots on my porch, so that they are easy to get to when I'm cooking. I love cooking with fresh herbs!

I'm done with school for the semester now! YIPPIE! I haven't heard my grade for one class yet, but I know I got an A in Art, and B's in Children's Literature and Math. I'm happy I did that well, it was a really hard semester for me and I struggled a lot with my Math and also in getting all my homework done while working at my job. A lot of things at home didn't get done. I didn't like that, and as a result, I'm burned out. Also I have been dragging my feet registering and applying for financial aid for the coming year. I don't want to go this summer, but while I registered for Minnesota State Moorhead, they told me the program requires some summer classes. This really bums me out. I've done classes for the last 3 summers and don't want to any more.

I hope my mom gets her card before Mother's Day.  I hope you have a wonderful day Mom! Love you!

May Day ~ 2012

I finally found some time to put up some more pictures of the things me and my family have been up to.
First off, my art....
This is a charcoal rendition of an image our teacher gave us of a table with a very big spread of foods. I chose to focus on the fruit basket in the image. We had to cover our paper with charcoal until it was black, then take it home and erase in the image. This is what I got....

The next big project he gave us was a graphite photorealism drawing. We had to bring in several pictures to choose from, I brought in a few of my own images. I decided I liked the image from one of our maple syruping outings we do every year, because I wanted something I could frame later, and also it is relevant to our family. This is kind of the finished project. In the picture I cropped out the 2 inches of white border I have around the image. Also this photograph of it is darker than the original...

We also dug up a very large area of sod to make a garden. Unfortunatly the job ended up being a lot harder than we expected, so although we cut sod 2x bigger than we removed, it is still a rather large area we have made for planting.  The kids have been a huge help, especially this little country girl! She's not afraid to get in there with us and work hard!

And this guy was laying in any cool spot he cound find, including our freshly plowed rows. Can you see that he's earned two stars from Joy, on his rabies tag? One gold, one silver. Good Duke.





This is two images put together to show you the part we did get cleared off for planing. Behind Joel is another spot not quite as big that we haven't gotten all up. Might have to wait until next year to get the rest. I'm pooped with moving sod! I think if you click on this it will get bigger.



Here's Joel working hard on his mower pulling his plow. He's so cute!

We got a lot of the garden seeds planted last weekend, and have some plants started indoors that I will wait a bit on before I put them out. But a big chunk of hard work is out of the way, yay!



April 25, 2012

I can't figure out how to get the date to show on my posts. I have the settings in posts to post it, but for some reason, they aren't! Sometimes technology can be frustrating. For now I think I will title my posts the date I make them.

Most of today was great. The weather was gorgeous. I am starting to feel myself again. I worked on a pencil drawing at the park on Rum River while I waited for the kids. After we came home I worked on clearing sod off the garden plot. We have been moving it to the deep ruts in the driveway to fill them in. So far it's working great. Joel started it last week. I love driving around the property on our little tractor, wheeeee! I tried to start the charcoal in the grill for some pork chops I have been marinading, but when I checked on it later it wasn't lit. I tried to have Josh make German Pancakes so I could shower, but he had a hard time mixing the batter, so they didn't turn out so good. But we did have strawberry revel ice cream for dessert so it's all good again.

Tomorrow Joyanna is in a play that the first grade is putting on. The play is called "Go Fish". She will be a seahorse and even has a line! I made her a costume. I'm excited to see their play. Unfortunately I will be stinky like the grill and the onion rings I had planned on cooking tonight. I will have to sit between my in-laws and husband so that someone will sit by me.

I'm excited for the weekend. I will be done with my job and can focus my attention on my home, schoolwork, garden and children. Too bad Joel will be working too much to enjoy it with us. He will be working a lot of overtime hours in the coming weeks. But that is good for our family right now. We need it.

 This weekend we are also invited to dinner at another family's home. They have a few kids, and a boy Josh's age, they told us that they'd been praying for a family with their son's age to move in. The dad is our new veterinarian and in the bishopric and the mom is amazingly talented artist, teacher and pianist! I'm looking forward to getting to know their family better. 

In the meantime I am very much enjoying seeing all of the baby animals around the countryside. We have a neighbor that has five little paint foals, born in the last couple of weeks, and they are so little and so super cute! It reminds me of when I was a kid, watching the neighborhood for all the new little baby horses. I can't wait until we can have our own! But that is a way down the road, far in the future. But I'm so glad I have neighbors that are having them :)

Tender Mercies

Last night Jake called to ask his dad to bring him another book in the series of Tennis Shoes Among the Nephites. Josh has been reading it now too, and he told me that he also is reading it. This was a blessing to me because it let me know that he isn't spending all his free time hanging out with friends and wasting time. <3 I'm so thankful to know this.

Also last night I talked to my doctor's office and they called me in another month of happy pills. I'm so relieved. I don't ever want to go back to how I felt before.

I haven't cried (for no reason) for over a year. You see, I've had some happy pills that have made me very relaxed and unemotional, and it's been heaven. Really heaven. I haven't wished for horrible things to happen to me. I haven't crazily hated someone from some minuscule thing they've done. I haven't been judgemental of anyone. It's been so nice.

But now I'm out of my happy pills, and my doctor is over 60 miles away, and she only gave me one month supply the last time I called, and the bill for my last visit went to collections because I didn't have money to pay for it. I just got it paid, 10 months late.

It's been a week, and I'm emotional. Actually I was very emotional Sunday during sacrament, more than the usual testimony meeting emotional. I needed tissues. I haven't needed tissues in sacrament for a long time. A year maybe.

Today I sat in the cafeteria at school and across the room was a young man that reminded me of Jacob. I feel like crying. I miss that kid so much. I feel so out of touch with him. I hate that. He'd been my sidekick, my partner in crime, my best friend (besides Joel) for 18 years.  I feel like I'm missing a limb.  I worry that he won't go on his mission. I worry that he doesn't want to and he just says he does because he knows we want him to. I keep checking with him, asking him if he wants to go. He says he does. But he's very slow doing anything to get ready for it. He isn't saving much. He isn't getting his records transferred to the singles ward. He isn't going to temple prep classes, or making arrangements with his job so he can stay three hours at church. He has been annoyed when I ask him about getting his patriarchal blessing saying he will do it before his mission.

 All of this is making me emotional, and I don't know if it's because of my lack of happy pills or because I'm really concerned about him. Either way, this is the first time I've felt like having a good cry in over a year.

Good for my soul

Today Joel and I walked around the property and planned for our future. We decided where we will dig up for a garden on Saturday. I have started our plants and they are growing beautifully! Some will have to be directly sewn, but many that will take near 100 days to mature were put into growing pots a couple of weeks ago. We decided where the future corral and shelter for the horses and hay will go. We decided where we will be planting the fruit trees that we picked up. We also decided where to put the pool :)  Tonight he is going to his mom's to pick up my clotheslines poles. I can't wait to have some crisp clothes and sheets dried by the sun and the wind! While we were out we listened to a woodpecker peck at something metal. We finally found the silly little bird sitting on one of the rail road lights, just pecking away to his heart's content! I think he might have brain damage, ha! I saw my neighbor yesterday plowing the fields. It was fun to watch the tractor plowing back and forth and raising and dropping his spades. This Friday and Saturday I have to work in the flower beds and move a bunch of hostas and lilies. I love where we live! I feel so happy here. It's good for my soul.


I was going to put in my notice this week to quit my job, but then Joel told me to wait while he makes some changes at work. We figured that we've been losing money with my new job. I need to quit, but it's so hard for me. I really love this job! I love the people I work with! I love the experiences I'm getting. But the reason for the job at this time was to hang onto this house and keep us going in our dream, and if that's not happening I have to make hard choices. I will know more next week on what I have to do.
 

Some stuff from lately

It's freezing down here in the basement so I am going to post these quick and then get back upstairs to warmth!

A few weeks ago we woke up to a beautiful hoar frost. I was able to get some fun pictures. While I was out there a train went by the property behind us and I couldn't resist a train shot. I actually love living next to the train tracks.

If you want to see them better, I belive you can click on them.

This is my conte crayon drawing of a still life that our teacher set up. I have never used conte crayons before, so this was a fun treat! We only had four colors to use (black, white, brown and a light orangish color), and it was a challenge to portray the still life using only those four colors, especially since the cloth in the back was actually a hot pink!

I took this while leaving the church one night, luckily I had my camera with me for a shot!

Now I need to go upstairs and thaw out!