The Sound of Silence

They all are leaving me....
Joel took the girls camping for the weekend. They are going to have so much fun! They are also going to miss me, and I them. But it's good for them. It will be wonderful for them to have one on one time with their dad and he with them. I'm so glad Joel decided to take them.

Josh is leaving me tonight to spend the weekend with a friend's family at their cabin. I'm glad he has this friend. He is a good kid and comes from a good family. They will have a lot of fun. It sounds like the grandparents have set up a similar situation as I would like to do for our kids. After the kids grew up they made each of their bedrooms up for their families, so they can come stay, and leave their stuff there, and nobody else uses the room. They, of course, are lucky to have lake-front property, so that makes a big draw. But they go up there often and spend weekends with cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents. Just like I want!

Jacob has to work the whole weekend, so he's not going to keep me company either :( booo. I have to teach this Sunday so I at least will be getting out of the house to church. I also am picking up a desk I found on Craigslist for one of the girls' rooms. Hopefully I get some more calls back from sellers on Craigslist too, I've got my eyes on another desk and a baker's rack for outdoor plants and also some fencing for a pasture. Cereal for dinner, maybe a show on hulu and reading. That's about all I have in the plans. I hope the quiet doesn't drive me nuts!

Lessons Learned

Sometimes the mistakes we make are hard to live with. Sometimes they are hard to accept and we'd like to blame others for our misfortune. Sometimes we just have to deal with it and move on and consider it a lesson learned. That is what we are facing today.

We signed a purchase agreement with a buyer, who is a mobile home dealer. We lost a lot of money on that house, but we couldn't go on any longer with the way things were. We were getting deeper and deeper into the hole and missing payments to our debtors. So the good news is that we will have enough to pay off all our credit cards and also have enough for Jake's mission. The bad news is that we won't have anything left over to splurge on several things we have on our list, such as a wood burning furnace to help save on propane heating costs, electricity to the garage, or a motorcycle for Joel to use for commuting to work and save on gas money, etc. But paying off our creditors frees up money for us to save for those things on our list. So we may not get them all now, but we have the ability to save for them, so that is good.

I'm thankful that we had the option to sell to a dealer, at least that's better than sitting on a house we can't get sold and paying thousands in lot rent and house insurance and getting deeper and deeper into late payments to our creditors. Hopefully there hasn't been too much damage done to our credit scores in the last couple of months that we can't recover from them in the next year or two.

Garden 2012: FAIL

Oh my, goodness me! We are a bunch of silly city slickers, and our garden showed it!
We were so anxious to plant a garden this year. I blame the beautiful warm weather that came early in the spring. We didn't plow in any composting or special dirt for our garden. We just tilled and planted, and boy was that a big mistake! I am learning better ways now, and hope that next years garden will show it!
On my agenda this fall:
1) Mark off territory to be used for the garden.
2) Kill everything in that area, using weed killer and fire.
3) Begin a compost pile near garden to be used in two springs from now.
4) Put down cow manure.
5) Till, till, till.
6) Till in compost next spring.
7) Use a tarp for unused spots in the garden to keep weeds down. Click here for why.  My friend Amy does this and her garden is AMAZING and very weed resistant.

So, now we have learned a little more about what NOT to do when planting a garden.
I almost wish I had a picture for you, to show you how pathetic our garden looked this week, but really, I'm so ashamed of it, I don't want  any evidence of how bad it was. Just trust me, it was a complete failure and not worth taking a picture of.

Pie Day!

Tomorrow is Braham Pie Day. If you are curious, check it out by clicking this! My mother-in-law is coming up for it. We are excited to check it out. I hope that in the future I can get involved volunteering for it. 

I'm trying really hard to be brave and strong... this isn't easy.
I've had to part with some of my most cherished cameras and accessories this month to pay our bills. This has been harder than I thought it would be. I know, it's just stuff, stuff that can be replaced... but actually that stuff wasn't easy to get in the first place, and it's not like it can just be replaced whenever.  It was an important part of my life, an outlet for my creativity where I felt like I had more control than I do with my drawing or painting.

I keep telling myself it's worth it. And I know it is. I love it here so much. Our family is so happy here. Every day my children say in their family prayers how thankful they are to have this "wonderful home to live in". I know it's kind of materialistic, and that things that really don't matter are houses and we could find happiness anywhere, but this home has the possibilities of legacy. This is a place my children can bring their families to for days at a time. It's a place where my grandchildren will be excited to come to and stay for weekends or even weeks and they will love it here. It's a place that will gather my family together for generations. That's what is the most important about it, to me. And that is worth more than a million cameras.

Woo Hoo!

My triage team got the best score (90%) in a mock scenario of an accident with several victims. Woot! That's good because it was really hard to get three women with busy lives together to do it!  And I got the best score in the class for two of the three final exams. Not tooting my horn, but I'm really pleased because I always feel like I'm not doing good enough or learning everything I am supposed to. I'm glad it's something I can use in the future to help someone if I'm needed, and hopefully I don't screw it up!

Okay

I had some diagnostic stuff done this month, and I'm glad I did. I got initiated into the 40 and up women's club and had a mammogram done, that came back clear. I also had a tube down my throat to discover why I'm having pain in my abdomen and why food gets stuck, etc. I posted about that before this post. I'm back on my happy pills so I'm feeling more relaxed.

We are still trying to sell our other house. It's getting discouraging for me. It's been on the market for almost a year now and things in our home are getting so tight I'm having to sell off some of my most prized photography things. This makes me feel really sad. I'm glad I have my medications to help me through this, or I'd be a complete wreck.  Especially since I'm having a shooting bug again, and I haven't had it in so long, I never thought it would come back.Today I sold one of my favorite lenses. It was hard to let go of it but I have so many bills going unpaid now, there's really no other option at this point.

I know it was the right thing to do to move our family here. I know this is where we need to be. I just don't know what lesson I'm supposed to get from all the trouble and problems we are having selling our other house. If giving up my photography helps us stay here, then I guess that's what I have to do. I just wish it wasn't so painful. Didn't someone once say, "no pain, no gain"? Maybe that's what I have to go through to earn the peace and joy I feel here.

I have another showing on Saturday. Maybe this will be the buyer we've been needing! I hope!

Diagnosis: Hiatal Hernia

Finally some answers to some of my medical issues. Monday I went to a GI specialist and had an upper GI scan done. They found out I have a hiatal hernia. This means the top of my stomach is pushed through the diaphragm and is interfering with normal digestion and flow of food.  He said that for some reason my stomach is higher than normal. (I can take a wild guess why! two 8+ and one 9+ pound babies, maybe?) I have to learn to eat several small meals a day and to limit water with meals. I also have to learn to avoid foods that cause high acid in the stomach. I'm trying to learn more about it and how to take care of myself better.



I've dealt a lot in the last couple of years with chronic fatigue. As I've been looking up the hernia symptoms and such I've come across a lot of people mentioning fatigue as their symptoms, but non of the mentions seem to be on medical websites. So it doesn't look like it's substantiated, but I wonder if that's why I am so tired all the time, along with the depression. No doubt depression causes it too.I've brought up the fatigue with my doctor, but she didn't seem to be concerned about it. But it's bad enough to be troubling to me.

It sucks when you don't feel good on the inside, and people can't see how you really feel. People expect you to always be the same, but it's hard. There are days I feel like being out and about, and then there are days that I feel tired, I feel exhausted, I don't feel like being around people, I don't feel like being friendly and conversationally fun. I have aches and pains that don't make sense. I have poor mind clarity.

 I remember seeing a commercial once a long time ago, and I wish they played it now, because I think everyone can use the reminder. It was about depression and if only people could see the "bruises" we have on the inside, then they'd be more understanding.

I'm back on my happy pills, plus some new ones, that are supposed to help the migraines. So far I'm doing better than I was last week. The kids are happier with me too. I think I'd be feeling even better if the heat we are having right now wasn't so oppressive.

Around the Yard

Mom, this one is for you :)

A while ago I told my mom that I was starting to collect pictures from around our place so that I could share our home with her. I finally have some time to put a few up.

This is my pathetic little scarecrow that you see when you come down our driveway. You can see the driveway behind him. Right now it's just a dirt drive, and probably always will be. The scarecrow doesn't like to keep his hat on. He's done a fair job keeping the deer from the garden so far as we can tell from the footprints. 

When you get to the door, my little boys will greet you. But don't worry, they now have shock collars on to keep them from jumping on you.  Duke is the bigger dog, he's the puppy the kids got at Christmas, he's so soft and cuddly. Buddy is the smaller dog, and he's very protective of the house.

 This is "Pier Pon" our garden gnome. He lights up at night to welcome you too! The family gave me this little guy for Mother's Day. I have another garden gnome that is 3" tall, and Jaeden named him "Je Ponche".  Our place has lots  and lots of frogs and toads, so it's fitting that "Pier Pon" has one on his shoulder. This guy below climbed up the back deck to sit on my stairs.

 Next to the garage is an older apple tree. It has lots of apples on it! We didn't think we would get many this year because of the early blossoms and colder weather, we didn't think there had been bees out to pollinate them. But happily there were! And we still are getting lots of big fat fuzzy bees all around the yard each day. I hope they are finding my tomato plants!

 In the back yard, under the deck there is a little nest. When we moved in we took down several nests, so this is a new one, and this little bird in the next two pictures is one of the parents of the tiny little babies that are in the nest now.

I want to point out, that my favorite camera, my Canon 5D is a 12.8 mpx, and the above shot is a cropped image from the picture below :)

 The other morning I was lucky enough to look out the kitchen window and see this little guy poking his head out from the woods and then walk along the mowed section before returning to the woods..


 On the North side of the house we have cemented in a couple of clotheslines that used to belong to Joel's parents. They are heavy duty and solid, not like you find at the hardware stores now days. As soon as they were up some Eastern Starlings decided to set up house inside the holes. As far back as I can remember birds nested inside these while they were at my mother-in-law's house.

 I decided to play with some new flowers this year. I can't even remember what these are called.

 On the North and South sides of the house, the land slopes a lot, so that at the front of the house you only see the upstairs level, but at the back of the house you see both the upstairs and the basement. On the north side they have put up lumber to grade some of the slope. But there are so many gophers and moles the ground is full of holes and this spring when we got heavy rain the sand started washing away, and some of my poor hastas were lost to the cave ins.

 This is Jake with the Buick Electra he bought. He's so cute, he asked me to take his pictures out in the field with it. Next time he wants pictures of him with it while he is wearing his suit. Although, he did show it at the Back to 50's street rod show, and made several changes to it before he left. It now has two black skulls painted on the hood, skull heads as door lock knobs, and a revolver chamber for his shifter knob. These pictures were taken in the field on the south side of the house. .

 

You can probably see that we have a large infestation of  these babies...

For those of you that don't know, these are milkweed. When we found out we had milkweed I was a little hopeful that we would see lots of butterflies. However, we haven't so much and so the excitement has worn off, and been tarnished from finding out that they are poisonous to animals. Huh. So, now, my plans for that being an alternate grazing field for horses is diminished. Also, I had been thinking about getting fainting goats to keep the field clear until we do get horses, but they can't eat them either!

We also have these weeds that make big puffy things to blow!

 There are lots of weird wood fixtures around the yard.

 This building is at the North end of the property, by the farmer's field. He, by the way, is growing corn this year. Last year was soybean. I liked playing with shooting different angles of this tipping greenhouse type structure.

 

 Another weird wood thing in the yard.

 

I love this old time knob on one of the shed doors. So cute!

 

 There are also lots of places around the property with stacked up dirt (maybe a gopher city?) or wood that they were going to burn? We aren't sure, but we will have to work next year on getting it cleared out. We have other projects for this year.  

 The house also has several moose decor on it. This is a bell that Joel gave me for Christmas.

 The house came with several of these moose lights on it. The house decor, when it was staged, was "backwoods" kind of themed. I loved it, and plan to eventually move all our stuff over to that kind of style of decor.

 This cute little planter shelf sits outside of our window. It has little moose cut out of it.

 This is a bush that we have in the flower garden that I'm not sure what it is. We thought it was dead and were going to dig it out, but before we got to it, it had developed leaves and these pretty pink flowers on it. If you know what it is, let me know!

 This is a flowering tree that is at the edge of the woods, I was wondering what it is too. It's not a buckthorn, although it reminds me of it, but it doesn't have the thorns on the end of the branches.

This next tree ended up being a mock plum tree (I suspected it was, but Joel wouldn't believe me). It has a disease called black knot. We have to trim some more branches from it and spray it. Black knot is a fungus.

 I just had to ad this because I liked it. This is looking East over the trees between the house and the rail road tracks.

This is a shot into the field on the south side of the house. I took it from the driveway while I was waiting for Jake to pull his car into it. The arch in the middle of the field was what caught my interest. It turned out to be a raspberry plant, and I got a surprise when I zoomed in!  Can you tell why this is the last of my cameras and lenses to be sold?

When I get a chance I have more pictures to play with. Hope you enjoyed seeing some more of the yard!

Still Hurts

It's still hard to think about Roger and not cry. I wonder how long it will be before I don't choke up every time I think of him being gone.

He was a really good man. So nice and friendly to everyone. So patient. So super patient. I felt so bad that his body was giving so much trouble at the end of his life.

He spent a lot of time with our family, coming to the kids games, family trips to the apple orchard or the Audubon Center for maple syruping, helping Joel with projects around our house, or just hanging out on his deck while we visited.

I have a couple of memories I love to think about. One is when Joel and I were first married we bought a little house 5 blocks from my in-laws. Roger worked on the other side of the neighborhood at the golf course. In the winters when he couldn't golf, he would play cards at the golf course. I thought this was cute. Many times during the summer, when we grew a garden, I would glance out my windows and find Roger in my garden having a tomato. Just like an apple.

One year his school had a reunion. I'm thinking this might have been their 40th . That night he stopped by the house late in the evening. I greeted him at the door and told him Joel was already gone off to work. He knew. He stopped by to visit with me and tell me about his reunion before he went home. I'm still puzzled by this visit, but really enjoyed that he stopped to talk to me and tell me about it. I enjoyed the times we spent with him.

He's left a big hole in all our hearts. I'm so glad my kids were old enough that maybe most of them will remember him when they grow up.