Some complaining and lots of pictures from my garden.

Even though it was rainy as all get out today - damp, gross and cloudy, I still pulled out the MMM card (Mean Mother Moment) and forced everyone outside for 30 minutes, during which time C soaked herself thoroughly and acquired suspicious dirt marks around her mouth, and S learned how to use the dandelion puller.



Dandelion puller extraordinaire.

Proof that I do wear shoes and am not just a crazy hippy.

My hostas are growing at a furious pace.

It's been a rougher-than-usual week, and I'm a firm believer in the power of fresh air.  Fortunately, no one is physically sick right now, but so many many things have been going on around here recently that I just feel overwhelmed.

Today, for example, has brought with it the challenge of a difficult conversation.  My very worst kind of conversation - one that is going to result in someone being disappointed in me.  Whenever these come up, and they do with some frequency because I'm a sensitive person, I've always tended to leap before I look in terms of talking.  I freak out.  I panic.  I am overwhelmed with the smallest thing on my plate.  I forget to make meals.  I cry a lot.  I fall to pieces.  I think we can all agree that God knew what he was doing when he didn't make me a fighter pilot.  But today, before the conversation occurred, I happened to read Jen's piece on handling that kind of crazy and making a good decision.  And as I made my way down her list it occured to me that nope, I hadn't prayed about it.  So I did right then.  And nope, I hadn't spoken to my husband about this stressor, and so I immediately called him at work and quickly gave him the low-down.  I felt better just doing those things, and I also felt that, although my decision was going to remain the same, I was now not spiraling out of control.

Of course, then I promptly lost the opportunity to actually HAVE said conversation, which means I have to wait until tomorrow, which gives me an entire evening to worry.

The list of things around the house that are going to require money to fix is growing.  Way too fast.  It's like broken stuff is sprouting as quickly as the weeds on my lawn.  Remember the "phone situation"?  Several months ago one of our cordless phones bit the dust, but we kept it around because the answering machine part still worked.  Then the second phone started dying, but the call display on that one still worked so we kept it as well.  Then the answering machine died.  Then the caller display died and I had to drag out the 'don't use it until we really have to' corded phone.  Yeah - we're still using that.  Our stroller woes are also still not resolved.  We have four strollers - all of which are steadily becoming unusable for a variety of reasons that are all too boring even for me to type out.  Add a stroller to the list.  We had to buy C a new carseat because she outgrew her bucket seat.  One of the blinds on our bedroom windows has broken, and the other one isn't far behind; I'd like to switch to curtains anyway, but now we can add two curtain rods to the list.  It goes on and on ad nauseum.

The cats.  The cats are still passing a bit of blood.  I've tried switching them to soft food, which seemed to make a little bit of difference, but not enough.  We've dewormed them twice, just in case it was that - it isn't.  Our next step is to switch to a digestive health type food and hope that helps.  I'd also like to start adding a hairball medication to their regime.  I can't even handle the thought that they will need to visit a vet - we can't afford a vet.  They seem to be eating and drinking, playing and using the litter box fine.  They aren't crying or acting at all strange or losing weight...so I'm telling myself that they have something mild like a scratch, because if it's anything more than that, well, there's almost nothing we can do about it.

Left to right:  lettuce, spinach, kale, brussels sprouts

Left to right:  beets, kale.

Our computer is reaching the end of its life as well.  Bits of it keep malfunctioning and we keep patching it up.  The monitor died about six months ago and we bought a refurbished one, and now that one is dying as well.  The mouse died, and a friend gave me another to replace it, and that one is now reaching the end of its life.  We have already replaced the dvd player, which S broke, and then had a friend of ours clean up the hard drive to make the old machine faster.  I think we've done what we can - our next step is probably saving everything to a thumb drive and wiping the hard drive clean, reloading the programs we use, and seeing if that will last us another couple of years.

TWO major kitchen appliances (for me, at least) are starting to go awry - the bread machine and the slow cooker.  Now, the bread machine I could take or leave, but the slow cooker...I can't live without the slow cooker.  So far the dial has snapped off the front (you can still turn it on, it just takes a lot more determination) and the actual cooker portion, not the ceramic insert, is starting to look worn.  There are stains inside I can't clean anymore, the handles are getting loose, that sort of thing.  I hope we have a little while left with it.


Technically the first meal made with garden ingredients - sprinkled chives.

The list goes on and on and on.  It's a season of life, I know, but it's a really crummy season.