One Little Word

At this point in my journey with the word THRIVE, the goals aren’t too far away.   Nothing too dramatic.

Little changes in behavior everyday to create habits.

The process with Ali Edwards’ workshop is always fun.  I love pictures.  I love playing with paper and paint.  I love making pretty stuff!  And it keeps my word and my goals at the front of my thoughts.  You can find out more about her workshop here: http://aliedwards.com/projects/one-little-word

I’ve been staying with my theme this year.  My word is THRIVE and the image that immediately comes to mind is green and growing stuff:  trees and leaves and flowers.  So I’m sticking with that throughout the book this year.  Also typing instead of handwriting, and keeping it clean and simple. 

Looking at the things I’m still working on, they may be things that just require daily commitment.  At this point, the remaining goals might not be things that I can attain and then relax.  They may be things that I have to invest in everyday.  And in that case, I’m doing ok!

Ten on Tuesday (better late than never…)

Topic this time is:  10 Things I Did Last Week.

1.  Worked on my Cozy Memory Blanket.  This blanket is made from left-over scraps of sock yarn.  And you pick up stitches every time you start a new square, which I love.  (means no sewing together!)

It’s supposed to be cold and cloudy again today and I plan to sit and knit and drink coffee part of the afternoon, working on this cute little blanket!

2.  Baked my Daddy a carrot cake for his 81st birthday!  I keep tweaking my recipe.  He had requested more icing, but this time, there was too much.  I really think one recipe of icing will be enough, now that I know how to make it!  The main factor for perfect icing (that wasn’t in the recipe) is that all the ingredients be room temperature!  Live and learn.  This cake recipe is so good:  carrots, coconut, walnuts, pineapple, lots of cinnamon.  Perfect!  Next time I’m going to figure out how to put some kind of colorful decoration on top – not sure what, but it needs to be orange.

Here’s the recipe, if you love carrot cake too:  http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Carrot-Cake-2/Detail.aspx?event8=1&prop24=SR_Thumb&e11=carrot%20cake&e8=Quick%20Search&event10=1&e7=Home%20Page&soid=sr_results_p1i1

3.  Very little book schooling happened last week, since we were in Colorado most of the week and had obligations to attend to.  We’ll catch up though.  I’m planning on extending the year a little before we break for summer.

There was lots of unschool learning, however!

4.  There was Mama Dove watching.  There were no babies yet when we returned home from Colorado.  I haven’t checked in a couple days but it’s got to be getting close!

5.  Took our girls to a long overdue doggy spa visit!  It was fun.  Mama came with me this time and we went shopping, picked up barbeque for dinner.  Fun day.

Our girls are always so happy when it’s over and they’re home again.   tootsie-pop is very high maintenance these days, but once I get her home, take her out, make her lunch, offer her water, she’s a happy little camper and loves to take a long nap.   A doggy spa day is very tiring for our little lady.

She’ll be 17 on June 3rd.  Already planning a special birthday dinner for our little tootsie!

Boo-berry is  always happy to get back home too, but it isn’t about being tired and needing to rest for her.  She wants to get home to eat and play!  She got her super short summertime hair cut this time!

6.  On Thursday, we went to Big Elk Meadows.  (first time in a long time.)  We stopped by to see a friend’s cabin and get inspiration for our own!

7.  Checked out the new Mirror Lake Dam.  With its completion, we now have a lake for the community’s water supply.  We have a much safer spillway for Spring runoff season and our main entrance to the community is open again!

8.  Finally had a successful  perc test for our new drainfield site!  Now our engineers are designing the system.  Step one for rebuilding!

9.  Tried out a new restaurant in Estes Park.  (new for me anyway.)  It was delicious and fun!  I love when new places are so good that you can’t wait to go back!

10.  I threw my back out early Friday morning. 

With all the stretches and exercises I do for my back, I thought I was guaranteeing that this wouldn’t happen again.  No such luck. 

After consulting with a physical therapist yesterday, he thinks with the weight loss, I need to change up the exercises and increase my strength.  (the extra weight may have been stabilizing everything and now that it’s gone…) So we’ll be working on that for a few weeks.  For now, I’m still in the tentative stage of recovery, taking pain meds and steroids, doing dry needling to help break up the pain cycle and very soon, I’m hoping to start the strengthening stuff.

The diet has been half-assed since the “back event” happened, out of necessity.  And the exercise ain’t happening yet…  I’ll get it back together soon, though.

I threw my back out in Colorado, at my Mom and Dad’s house.  I was so thankful to have a bed that goes up and down!  I wish everyone with back troubles could have one.  AND…  Mama taught Dood how to make perfect cheese toast.  So she spoiled me at her house and then when we got home, Dood took care of me!  Thank you, Mama and Will!

I am EXACTLY Where I Want to Be

I signed up for an accountability workshop online for the month of May.  The first assignment was to write down where you want to be 3 years from now.  That’s when I realized – I’m there.

Sure, I have some fine tuning that takes constant effort:  eating healthier and exercising (both of which have been put on hold since I threw my back out on Friday.  With a debilitating injury like this, you eat what your family fixes for you and exercising without a physical therapist is OUT OF THE QUESTION.)

Another big thing in three years is having our little cabin in Big Elk Meadows built!  I’m going to write a letter to the board to see if they’ll let us park our camper up there while we’re building.  That would be so much fun! (I’m currently trying to keep Scott excited about dormers.  They’re expensive, but to me, SO WORTH IT!)  The picture below is just an image I found online, looking for ideas.

Our second assignment in the workshop was to come up with 10 goals to make our dream future happen.  I couldn’t come up with 10.  I didn’t need 10.  That should make it an easier process.  And I think it will be, once I get my back healthy again and can participate more.

Along the same line of thought,  is considering where I am now.

I get sad sometimes that I don’t have little ones anymore.  I loved having babies/toddlers.  I wished that my boys hadn’t grown up so fast.  But, if I’m completely honest, I love the phase they’re in now too.

I have a lot more time to devote to my stuff because they are very independent these days.  I’m still so thankful that we homeschool.  That time spent together five days a week, is so precious to me!

I’m well into figuring out next school year’s plan and getting so excited about it already!

I’m the mom of two teenagers…  two big, strong, young men.  I still can’t believe it sometimes.  I didn’t believe Scott when he told me they’d be taller than me by 12 or 13.  They were.

I know the milestones from here on out are going to be tough for me because they’re big ones:  driving, high school, maybe a girlfriend, maybe a job, then graduating and considering college.  Holy Shit!

The reason I know I’ll be fine?  Scott.  He’ll handle it with ease.  And he’ll pull me right along by his side. 

Happy Thirteenth, Scotty!

We had difficulty building our little family.  I had to use fertility medication to conceive both our boys. 

The doctors told us the odds were not in our favor and it was a miracle when I got pregnant the first time.  After a very scary emergency c-section with Will,  it was good to get home and soak up every magical moment of being a new parent.

Things didn’t move along very peacefully though.  The first two months of Will’s life I had severe post partum depression, during which, I woke every morning and literally considered abandoning my family and running away.  To say it was terrible is a HUGE, HUGE understatement.

But at two months, the depression broke.  I started feeling better. I was finally able to enjoy the baby that I had wanted for so, so long!  We were having fun and I was a new mom in Heaven with my beautiful, little Gerber baby!

And then, when Will was 4 months old, the doctors called:

“Tina,  your FSH is increasing rapidly.  If you want any more children, you must do it now.”

“I have a four-month-old baby!  Are you serious?”

 

All I could think was that I wanted my son to have a brother!

 

My body knew what I was asking of it this time!  It remembered. Two months later we were pregnant!

When you take fertility medication, they keep a very close eye on you.  We knew this, so we weren’t surprised when they brought us in for an early ultrasound. 

When the exam was done and we were told everything looked perfect, the doctors also told us that they were looking for TRIPLETS!  I had released THREE VIABLE EGGS!

There was, however, only one baby!  Our baby Scotty!  Our Bee!  (For those of you who don’t know – Scotty got his nickname from Will, who couldn’t say the word “baby” yet. Will was so excited about the baby, he couldn’t stop talking about the “bee”.)

Happy Birthday, Bee!  We love you so very much!

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Sewing and Knitting and Cooking

I’ve been making time for crafts lately!  It’s been so much fun.  I need to remember that one of my One Little Word goals this year is to ditch the TO DO List and make FUN the priority once in a while! (sometimes that is really hard for me…)

1.  I finally made patches for this silly, little blanket.  This was a store-bought blanket, nothing special.  But I remember it being in my house when I was in the 2nd grade and I remember thinking it was old then…  When I found it at my folks’ house a couple years ago, it was faded so much you couldn’t tell it was pink anymore and it had several big holes in it.  I dyed in pink again and last week, I made pretty patches and sewed them over the holes. 

I’m getting comfortable with my sewing machine again, after another lesson from a sweet friend.  Thank you, sweet friend!  So I went back and zig-zagged around the edges of the patches to give them a little more staying power.  Now I can actually use the blanket and not worry about it falling apart. 

However, I think I’m going to just display it in the pretty blanket cabinet in our room at Mama and Daddy’s Ft. Collins house.

2.  I’ve been revamping this quilted wallet that my mother-in-law made for me.  I used it a lot when she first gave it to me.  I love it.  But it got really dirty inside, from the coins and then the Velcro died…  Now it’s had a very thorough washing (or three) and I had to rip out the Velcro closure.  Still trying to decide what I want to put back…

3.  I actually made something with my sewing machine that turned out pretty!  It was mostly independent work.  My friend/instructor showed me how to do it and then I did it! 

The inside is pretty too!  Still can’t believe I did it!

4.  I bound off my weather scarf FINALLY!  (I cheated, though.  Each color represents the high temperature of each day in 2013.  I stopped in August because the scarf was already 9 feet long…)

I’ve been making a REAL effort to eat more veggies, which involves more cooking.  Squash and mushrooms are on tap for tomorrow!  I might get the boys to help and that can be their unschooly task for tomorrow…  I cooked stewed tomatoes and okra a couple days last week.  It’s so good, especially over a little bit of rice!  YUM!

 

I’ve had to also promise myself to drink good plain ol’ water since I discovered that I love sweet tea…  One GIANT glass of water per day.  And all the tea I want.  (It’s decaf)

I’m getting pretty excited about getting started on our little cabin soon!  We have a date with the safety engineers coming up in a couple weeks and hopefully that’ll be the end of the “studies” and the beginning of the real work!  Still look at our neighbor’s perfect, little cabin and dream of having one that cute and homey!  My hope is that we’ll have an enclosed structure by the end of the year.  Maybe nothing going on inside much, but we could take our camping gear up there and rough it!  Sounds like Heaven to me.

Long as we have a generator and a Keurig!

What’s up, Buttercup?

I was so bummed yesterday when I re-read the sweet corn seed packet…  I could have sworn it said to plant them two weeks BEFORE the average last frost.  Nope.  Two weeks AFTER the average last frost.  That means 2 or 3 more weeks. 

Thinking that it was time to get started, the boys and I ran out and bought a ton of manure to mix into the garden beds. 

We got that done today.  The boys got to use the tiller this year!   

It’s Sunday, Family Day, so I own the boys all day!  They’re going to get lots of fresh air and sunshine today!

We’re going to Colorado in a couple weeks to catch up on Colorado errands and we’re going to buy the rest of this year’s garden plants while there!  I get so silly excited about this every year!

We decided to go ahead and plant in my Three Sisters plot again this year, even though we weren’t able to build the hail shelter over it.  I’m taking the chance again…  I’ll be planting three rows of sweet corn and six-eight Crookneck squash and one Zucchini there.  This plot is 8’ x 16’.

Why did I never think to put squash in a tomato cage?  That might just cure my powdery mildew problem and I can get twice as many plants in the same space!  I’m very excited!

The big box will be full of Early Girl tomatoes!

And the small box will also be summer squash of some kind. (room for four, with cages.) We’ll have sweet basil in one barrel.

I was so excited to see that our chocolate mint from last year is coming up again!  I’ve never had it survive the winter and come back before…  And now that I drink iced tea, it’ll be great to have mint for my tea.  (We LOVED homemade mint ice cream too – it doesn’t taste like the same food as the store-bought version and if you like mint, you owe it yourself to make it!)

I have three more barrels.  I need to decide what else I want to grow…  I may have pansies coming back in two of them, but there aren’t very many, if that’s even what they are…

We’ve had enough rain this spring that we haven’t had to turn on the sprinklers yet and the lawn looks very happy!

Making sure the bird feeder and the bird bath stay full this time of year.  We all love birding!

 

It’s been so refreshing to be outdoors again – really, really good!  Makes me feel like I’m THRIVING!  And now?  It’s supposed to rain buckets the next seven days…  Sigh…