Happy Anniversary!

11 years married...whew...made it past 10.  Whodathunk?  Thanks for putting up with me, Honey!

We went out with some friends, as well as Sharon and Jerad.  Met a new friend whose family is moving to the area soon (hope we didn't scare them off!) and had an overall great time.  Btw, Beth + alcohol + camera = RUN!  Thanks, guys! ♥

Butterflies!!

Do you remember back in jr. high, or whatever grade it was, when you learned about potential energy?  It was a rather abstract concept for young minds to grasp, but something we seem to understand much better as we get older.

Well, I have a potential swarm of butterflies here.  Come, butterflies, come!

Back to Mother's Day...

I think it was on Mother's Day that this particular session of blogger procrastination began.  Of course, I have gone way beyond the scope of procrastination, I'm pretty sure a new word should be created to encompass the magnitude of putting-off that I have accomplished.  Probethination?  Procrastibethan?  Bethasstination?  Hmmm.  Not sure if those work very well.

On Mother's Day, I was having a nice ho-hum day, Kev was working and the boys were driving me crazy and we had no big plans. I just wanted a lazy day.  Then my brother called,  he had some issues going on and needed to vent and wanted to spare our mother since it was Mother's Day.  He has schizophrenia and the fact that he was able to see and empathize with how his actions might affect others and act accordingly made my heart melt.  He's really had a tough go of things, but so have many of my siblings.  I can't believe my heart is still functional, it's puddled around my feet so many times.

Then later my mom called.  I saw the caller ID and thought she'd heard from my aforementioned brother.  But instead, she was frantic and crying and breathless saying she was in the ER with Danny, her husband, and his heart had stopped and they were shocking him.  My heart about stopped at that point.  Danny had just had a questionable epsisode a week or 2 prior and was waiting on follow-up testing, but now there was no question.  He was having a heart attack.  I got to speak with the nurse who explained that he kept going into V-fib but once shocked, he was returning to a normal sinus rhythm, which was good news.  The bad news was that it wouldn't last, he'd return to V-fib and need shocked again.

So Mother's Day spiraled down into a flurry of phone calls while I tried to notify family members and do what I could to help my mom (which was basically trying to explain medical jargon), while crossing my fingers and praying that Danny would be ok.  Being in FL with them up in KY really ties my hands, not that being there would really have changed things much.  Miraculously, the long story short is that he came out of it with no major damage.  They air-lifted him to a larger hospital (after giving him a clot-dissolving medication) where the doctor was able to take him directly into the cath lab and insert a stent into the closed vessel.  He was home a few days later.

Thus I missed posting that day, which then rolled into the next and the next and voila!  It's almost a month later.

In the interim, I've been trying to make healthy 'yotes'.  That's what Owen calls yogurt, although he is getting more adept at saying the actual word :(  Fresh berries, mangoes, whatever I can throw together in the blender with some organic yogurt.  It's usually so thick that we have to water it down with milk, and I'm having issues with getting it through his sippy cup.  But we're working on it.

Can you give a girl something more than "More Roses"?

That was posted on my Facebook wall a few days ago.  I wrote the author back b/c I was thoroughly confused, and thought for sure some weird spambot had hacked her account, leaving bizarre messages that must surely have some subliminal mind control, just waiting for me to download a virus to my computer.  Srsly.  But no, she was just hinting that I needed to update my blog.  Hmmm.  How embarassed was I?  LOL...so Kelly, this is for you!

Grammy just left with both my little monkeys and boy I'm about ready to crack a bottle wine to celebrate.  As I'm typing this on June 4th, school has been out for 2 weeks today, and both boys at home all day long is pretty much pure chaos.  I'm tired.

These pics were taken on May 8 or 9, I believe.  Owen is still a little fruit maniac, and here he was totally enjoying some watermelon.  As well as taking tips from Zach on the finer points of swing set play time.  The funny thing is, as messy as Owen gets eating juicy, sticky, drippy or whatever kinds of foods, he freaks out when he's done (and sometimes before he's finished) saying "Wash hands! Wash hands! My shirt's wet!" and pulls off his clothes b/c there is NO way he's going to wear clothes that are inappropriately wet.  Bathing suit wet?  Fine.  Other clothes wet?  Hell no.

More roses!

I got a little rose plant today!  Aunt Karen and Uncle Dennis sent it as a Mother's day gift and it's so cute.  The blooms are the most gorgeous deep pink.  I hope I don't kill it.  When I called to say thanks, Karen did admit she was a bit cautious when ordering, but decided to risk it anyway :)  The poor little flower heads are bent, I think a day in a shipping box made them sad, but hopefully they'll look up at the sun again soon.  They are outside with my happy herbs and I'm going to get them some liquid seaweed.  That stuff perks everything right up.  It's like crack for plants.

May 6

Hey look, Aunt Karen!  I haven't killed THIS one off yet!

It's a running joke that I tend to kill off my plants, and granted they do have a tough existence under my watch.  She's brought me 2 oregano plants (Italian, not Greek) and both have died, as have a multitude of other herbs.  I figure they just like being in her magical garden so much that when she brings them to me, they die of homesickness.

Here's a rose that looks pretty happy.  Granted, I bought it b/c the one she gave me died.  Surprise surprise.  I guess this one is grateful it has a home aside from Lowe's.

May 5

It's teacher appreciation week :)  Each day the kids bring in some small item for the teacher, and tomorrow's thing is a 'hand made thank-you card'.  So Zach and I dug out some of my cardstock and crafty stuff.  He wrote the cutest note inside, telling her 'thanks for not giving up on me'.  I didn't know whether to laugh or cry, because he had such a tough time at the beginning of the year coming home miserable and wanting to quit going to that school, that class, anything to have a different teacher.  So I felt like HE didn't give up on HER.  But it has all ended well, she truly did push him to be a better student and didn't let him have it easy just because the thinking part wasn't a challenge for him.  And he realizes that, which is the best part of it all.  He thinks she is probably the best teacher he's had so far.

Green is the color of life

May 4...got some pics of greenery from the yard.  Not the kind of greenery that is decorative or for landscape purposes, but the kind of greenery that makes me happy inside.

My mom asked about the Elmo tree, so I took some photos of it.  Poor thing.  But it's hanging on!  You can see in the second photo the almost fatal blow it sustained when Kevin accidentally dropped a branch while trimming a palm tree above. I finally bought some more liquid seaweed fertilizer and ALL the plants love it.  Including both trees.  My poor tomatoes that I planted in January have withstood the freeze, and are finally starting to have some little fruits to show as well.  Now if I could just keep the squirrels out of them, I may actually have a couple to eat in a week or two.  I can't believe how 'old' the plants are, certainly past the time span for expected tomato production.

I bought 2 other tomato plants recently and they have already gotten as big or bigger than the initial two, and have babies as well.  It's so nice to see things growing and alive.

May 3

I guess May 1 and May 2 were in the big ol' photo dump below.  Lightroom is set up as the default for taking photos off my camera chip, and I should really change that b/c once they are in the catalog it's a pain to move/delete them.  So everything got put into my April folder, apparently, as my May folder starts with May 3.

Anywhooo...

Today I went to the little produce place and bought a big bag full of plum tomatoes and made tomato basil soup from scratch.  I've only made it from canned tomatoes before, so this was new for me.  I also made a quick loaf of artisan bread and dinner was a scrumptious bowl of soup and a grilled cheddar/smoked turkey sandwich on the fresh bread.

Cooking like this, while very rewarding, is very time consuming.  Not to mention messy, b/c I'm not an organized cook.  However, I feel like it's the best for us, and quite frankly I think a everyone would be better off if they want back to basics.  Just today I read an article about the new concerns regarding chemicals in our bodies and the cancer risks, as they aren't tested as stringently as they probably should be and people would be prudent to avoid them where possible.  Those canned tomatoes?  Cans are coated in a sort of plastic layer inside, with the same chemicals in it which are now being banned in many plastic baby bottles (http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine-archive/december-2009/food/bpa/overview/bisphenol-a-ov.htm).

So many of our conveniences that have simplified our lives and provided us so much free time are turning out to be dangerous and harmful.  "Oh, I did it that way all my life and I/my family/my kids are JUST FINE!"  Well yeah, maybe they are.  But it doesn't mean that they aren't harboring some issues that could crop up down the road, or be passed on to their kids--toxin buildup, DNA damage, etc.  Sometimes these things take so many years to surface, and by then the damage is pretty widespread.  Newborns are already being contaminated in utero, with up to 300 chemicals/contaminants being found in cord blood.

I'm tempted to run off and build a hut next to a fresh water supply source, plant my own garden and raise my own cows and chickens.  But that's not realistic...and I know I will intentionally buy, eat, and feed my kids some things that could be considered 'risky' simply because there is no feasible way that I can turn a full 180 degrees from the way society is right now, and still function.  However, I will do my best whenever I can to find the healthier, safer way to do things.   Because my boys are depending on me to keep them safe.  And as I continue to learn, I will continue to change the way I do things, that's just the nature of life.

Whew, it hasn't been quite a whole month...

I feel like that would be the kiss of death for this year on the blog LOL.  I tell you, that stupid bug/bronchits/whatever really did a number on me.  After taking so long to get some energy back, I was in a horrible rut of non-productiveness, and could barely make myself even grab the camera.

Lots of stuff has happened...Zach did Crystal's walk again this year (even donating 13.00 of his own moolah).  The kids in his class all liked his book and he was on cloud nine the day he came home after presenting it to the class.  He may even be in the running for an award with it...we are both holding our breath.

Harmony still owns my bed.

We camped out in the back yard.

We went to Melbourne Beach's Founder's Day.  Some vendor saw me walking around w/my camera and asked me to take his photo, so I did.  I also got Sharon chowing down on something tasty.

There are a ton of photos here, so be patient.  I am now trying to get back into the one-a-day, which you'll probably realize before you read this, since they will be posted above.