A Week of Blessings

First off, humbled am I by my photography skills, but thankfully I don't have a great camera to use and I don't have time to really worry about light and angle and stuff, so I can live with they are better than the old overexposed/polaroid pics that were taken when I was little.  My family has evolved, if ever so slightly.  :)

 This is the view (screen and all) out my bedroom window.  There are what is either honeysuckle or columbine to the left of a lilac bush.  I am so thankful as I was going all crazy this spring prepping beds that I didn't hack those down.  Could've sworn they were weeds, but I should have learned by now the former owner took her flowers seriously.  On the side of the house, desperate to make another place for salad stuff to grow, I hacked down an ugly bush (I feel pretty confident it want have some kind of amazing blooms later and besides it is growing back with a vengeance) and then these plants with interesting leaves (which I was sure were weeds but The Husband had said he liked) I only destroyed 1 of.  Turns out the saved one has these beautiful pinkish lavendar flowers that are coned shape.  Woopsie! but at least I didn't take them both out.

I will say this yard is A LOT OF WORK for not being anywhere near an acre...or a half acre.  I have grand visions impossible dreams of the children weeding with me side by side for a few minutes every morning, just so we can make and keep this baby looking stellar.  Oh well, if they fail me, I at least won't fail myself.

In the productive type of gardening, The Husband and I were able to get a ton of free strawberry plants, so I've turned right in front of my bedroom window into a strawberry patch.  Woot!  It's strawberries versus some kind of aggressive perennial flower plants, but with my trusty sidekicks, the strawberries shall prevail.  Judy Moody is growing a cabbage for some Bonnie Plants 3rd grader contest to be entered by September.  Obi Wan insisted on a pumpkin patch, so we have 2 and I hope he will have desires to tend to them and help us take the squash bugs and eggs off to kill them and save the plants.  I planted fabulous tomatoes and peppers and for my dear Judy I saw peppercini plants and had to get those to see if we can raise enough to pickle.  She is a lover of them, if ever I saw one.  Also got cukes, pickling cukes, and zucchini and watermelon.  I shant bore you with all the seeds I planted, but I am SO EXCITED.  From end of May through October, my gardening life is a little piece of heavenly peace and something where I can have physical evidence I'm doing a good job.  You don't get that with much other stuff as a mom/wife, so gardening has become more and more wonderful and important to me with each passing year.  

Going back a ways, in April we got A FENCE!!!  I was worried neighbors would be mad or our yard would feel even smaller, but we've gotten lots of compliments, AND it made our yard feel larger.  I think maybe I had built in a 20 foot zone from the street to my kids so that they didn't get hit, and now that we are fenced safety for mom and freedom for kids in our backyard.

Now, for my miracles of the week:

Keep in mind that we all have our darkest trials and brightest days and that we can't realistically compare our experiences to other peoples' because this week I had the neatest experience over what many might consider a stupid thing.

Last week we had visitors, and it was fabulous but I didn't think about much else.  So this week, Judy Moody had Achievement day for girls, and I had specifically said the Sunday before to her leaders that I would be there early with my key to let them get in and get set up.  Cool, right?  Wrong.  The day of the activity came and I woke up realizing, "I don't have my key!"  I had no idea where it was, assumed I had just laid it some miscellaneous place in the house, so since I had until that evening, I was tearing through everything, thinking of ANY possibilities.  And I am a worrier, so I worried about if they would have to re-key the building, the shame of everyone getting a new key because I COULDN"T be responsible.  Did I mention I have a guilt complex the size of Texas?  I prayed, I pleaded (yes, I realize it was just a key), and I almost got to bargaining.  Have you ever tried to bargain with God?  I have, and the bummer is I let my side of the bargain down 9/10 times, so I try to avoid that now.  Then at least I'm honest.  I texted to ask to borrow a key, so at least the girls would be taken care of.  Well, that night after I unlocked the door, I thought I'd take a peak in the nursery and see if I just laid it there when we set up last time, it fell down, and maybe was miraculously not found by anyone.  I told the leader my plan, and she said she had found a key last time.  Behold!  My faith waxed and waned throughout the day and I thought I would have to walk my personal hall of shame and make the church get re-keyed, but right then, after me the mostly non hugger felt compelled to hug this fine leader who had kept the key and had no idea it was mine, I was filled with giddy joy.  It was rotten spending the day worrying and beating myself up, and though He made me wait ALL DAY, the Lord gave me what I asked for.  It was a righteous desire, silly but righteous, and just because of how earnest and concerned I felt, it helped me know he does care about me, silly, forgetful, basket case, worry wart me.  And I really need to remember that, every day, even if my mind is so full of who knows what that I can't hear Him, he is there waiting to bless me.  I love my Father in Heaven, and that I have a chance to be a good steward and less careless with the key I am entrusted with.

Now, my other "big to me" blessing of the week:

See those little fellers up there?  They don't look like much, but they are 2 of my 8 pepper plants.  Here in TV, once the snow melts off Schafer Butte by the ski resort, it is "safe" to plant your summer flowers and vegetables.  Well, eager Anna Banana, impulsive and irrational (yes we are talking about the same person) at times, was wanting so much to have all the beautiful flowers that the previous had, and so I went and spent $100 bucks in mid April and planted away all day.  It was so unseasonably warm, and then as I covered the last roots with dirt and a neighbor came to compliment me, I realized that NO ONE ELSE had planted and that the me who has been gardening here for 12 years knew that I should not be planting these frost sensitive plants.  Still, I had no inclination to dig them back up, so in our well kept neighborhood, every night after dark, I would tromp out with mason jars, sheets, broom sticks, 1 x 4s, bags of fertilizer and cover up all the plants.  It was so tedious and I had to do it all by myself which was really ridiculously hard on windy nights, BUT I only lost a few of the plants which was a small price to pay for my less than genius choice. 

 Then, it officially warmed up, the snow was melted off Schafer, but with our VIG (very important guests) here, I didn't feel it would be right to disappear as I planted on Mothers' Day weekend, because that is normally when it's okay to plant.  Still, last weekend, only 1 week "late", I spent a blissful few hours playing in the dirt and got all the things in.  I was so bummed because I had to go to work at that point and hadn't planted seeds, but over the next few days, I got EVERYTHING planted that I wanted to.  JUBILATION!  I am so simply pleased.  It is a bummer that my husband doesn't agree.  BUT THEN

THEN

THEN....

this last Tuesday night, a frost warning.  What the?  Not fair.  Again, I couldn't very well dig them all up, and as I am using the already created beds, the plants are spread ALL OVER THE YARD.  No easy task to cover them all, and I was quite sick of it after my early flower planting debacle, so I took my chances.  And my gamble paid off just this once.  I think that God new my heart and that this was really important to me, and that from my silly mistake in April I had paid plenty.  I followed the rules this time, and when I went out to check the plants it A. didn't feel too cold and B. they looked fine.  I figured the frost warning wasn't as severe as they had said it would be.  Then at church today, come to find out that lots of people lost their plants.  I don't know if my backyard is blessed with a heat pocket or what, but not 1 of my plants had any sort of problem.  I am happy to simply consider it a small miracle to me from Heavenly Father.  He truly gives us what we need when we need it and lets us learn lessons along the way from some of our mistakes at least.  So there you have it-dos miracles that made my week great.  NOW my challenge is to live this coming week to actually be worthy of those blessings because I need to pay a little more attention for sure.

I'm THAT Blogger

I think the difference is I don't have regular readers, but I hate it when I am following a blog and they never post and never post and now I am THAT person.  I suppose it is okay if blogging dropped from a great idea at the top of my New Year's goals to bottom of the barrel of my life (it's a deep, deep barrel).  In the name of recording a bit, here goes:

Currently, we have grandparents here (Husband's Dad and Step Mom) and they are in all out grand kid spoiling mode.  Oh, if only grand kids were less greedy and more grateful.  We haven't seen them for 2.5 years, since my SIL's wedding, so it is fun to show them how the kids have grown, especially The Hulk, who they have never seen in person.  He is quite the charmer, in his violent little way.

The Hulk likes to do something really naughty then instantly turn on cute and innocent in hopes of saving his misbehaved little self from discipline.  He is SO cuddly when he isn't violent-that hasn't changed.  He is saying a ton of words and busting out sentences, and deep in my heart I am hoping that he won't have a speech delay...please, just 1 of them.  I am thankful that I have had 4 healthy kids, but 1 of them not needing speech therapy and being able to have meaningful conversation with people besides me as a toddler would be quite a treat.

The Quiet Man gets to go to an inclusion preschool this fall.  He is not picking up his speech quickly enough.  Ironically, he is the first kid who his speech therapist has had who can make every individual sound without any problems, but then resorts to gibberish as soon as you engage him in conversation.  What does that mean?  I don't know.  His therapist says she wouldn't be surprised if he just started talking crystal clear one day, but I doubt that would happen.  I have great faith that preschool where he has 4 teachers/aides interacting with him and working on sounds and no mommylator (mom who translates) to help him out will help him grow and grow.

Obi Wan (is that my smarty pants name, hoopsie) is officially GT (that's what the people in the know call gifted and talented kids), and though everyone gets bored of a bragger, I can't believe that out of my average self came a kid who is super smart.  It cracks me up, and suddenly so many things that he's done and said through the years make sense.  He is just functioning on a different plane than the rest of us.  I feel guilty (mom guilt, bleh) because I want to stimulate his mind enough so that he can grow, but that mind can soak in a lot of information.  I need to learn more and strike a balance between encouraging him to learn and teaching him that he doesn't need to act like a know it all in all situations.  Sometimes, he is just cute about it, and then I don't mind.  He keeps reading and reading, and he informed me yesterday that he didn't like his brand new curtains his grandma made for him so much but that he could live with them but they were boring.  I just had to leave the room.  I already tell myself I'm not good enough.  It stings when the kids join in the beatings.

Judy Moody is still getting that sense of humor.  Explaining the birds and bees to her last fall has brought on a lot of questions, a lot of moments where my innards were squirming uncomfortably on the inside as I tried to calmly and clearly and concisely answer her odd questions.  I am trying to avoid the freaking out and yelling who put you up to this that my mom did.  Another thing I have to have faith on is that we have done the right thing and that being open but age appropriate won't bite me in the butt later on.  I want her to know the "LOVE" is a beautiful, natural but meant for specific times with a specific person.  The questions he comes up with, though!  Who thinks of that stuff when they're 9.  I thought of stuff like that when I was a teenager or already married.  Life is full of YIKES moments.

The Husband and I are training up to first a 5K.  I AM SO HAPPY because he thought he could never run due to a sore knee, but lo and behold with appropriate training he is rocking and has actually increased my speed.  Our hope is a 10K or half marathon in October but that is a serious amount of mileage for my busy, tired, chocolate and ice cream loving soul.  We will see.

I just got a job opportunity in my same field which I would need to do in addition to my current job.  I kind of think it's too crazy and kind of want to try it because what if it led to something that allowed me better hours with my family.  It's one of those things where you ask if it's the Lord making something fall into your lap or a temptation to lure you away from what's important, etc.  IDK, IDK, IDK.

But warm weather is good and fun family in town is great, and I love life.