Remember the 'Old Days'?

I love old things.  I love old ways.  I think I was born in the wrong generation, but I make the most of it.  I stopped by a garage sale that had an entire set of brand new dishes that I loved.  Of course, they were old.

I noticed this box first:

When I opened to box to see the dishes, they had a sweet old timey charm about them:

 They were a dollar a box - how could I leave them?  

I brought them home, wondering how Steve would react to more 'stuff'.  When he came in and saw them, he actually liked them as well.  As it turned out, one box had been opened and resealed.  As we were unpacking them, we had a blast looking at the newspaper ads:

And the best one yet!  A new Volkswagen for only $1710!!

 

Little stuffs makes me smile!

My dishes are in my china cabinet looking at me every day.  Yes, I love them, and I don't know why - and the papers made he happy too.

Remember the old days?  Do you smile thinking of them?

Happy Mother's Day!

How many times in our lives do we hear it?  How many people say to tell your moma or loved one that you love them and cherish them?  I wonder if I did it enough, and I wonder if she knew.  I loved moma, but we were both very strong willed - maybe me more so than her, but I loved her.  As most parents do, moma made a lot of mistakes, but she loved us unconditionally.  

A lot of things happened in my early childhood that I did not (and still do not) understand, but it turned me away from my mom early on.  I thought I was being pushed off when actually she didn't have the money take care of me.  My grandparents raised me for the most part for the first eight years of my life, so naturally I became close to them.  It hurt moma, but I had no concept of what I was doing.  Looking back, I wish I had, but so many things we going on in my life that I didn't understand and moma wasn't going to hurt me more, so she kept quiet.

There were times when she was so happy that I loved being with her.  She loved us and she tried, but she had so many things going on in her life, so many hurts and so much anger, that we all got mixed up.  Things got ugly, I got hurt, I raised those stinking walls around me to protect myself and she tried to tear them down physically;  it went from bad to worse.  Teen years were tough.  Life was tough - on her and on me.  But we made it.  And we survived and came to love each other very much.  I think she knew that - I often wish I had made it more abundantly clear, but she knew.  

I would love to share a few of my favorite pictures of my mom.  As with most moms, she was nearly always behind the camera, but we have a few great pictures of her.

Moma loved cherry reds and pinks:

She loved Coca Cola:

And mom loved all 4 of us kids:

Our mom was adopted.  Before we lost her, Liz and I made it a mission to find her natural family.  It was pretty darned amazing when we set our minds to it, we actually did it in one single day!  

Here she is with her natural Aunt and cousin.  Her mom had passed away years before we found them.  I think you can see in her picture she was happy to have finally met some blood relatives!

 My favorite picture of mom is the one below of her looking at me:

What a special moment; one most of us can relate to.  A first child and the look of amazement that you created her.  Me and mom - probably one of our first pictures together.

I am so glad I finally came around and tried to understand what all happened.  I am also glad I let myself forgive things that went on in our lives and moved on.  We came to laugh together, to cry, to hug and to cherish each other so much... life became good for us.  We had our own private jokes we laughed about.

I loved my mom and she knew it, Thank God.  I miss her.  Some days I feel like an orphan now, but I know she loved me and I know I will see her again someday, and then I can tell her how much I appreciated every thing she did for me.

We are going to Steve's mom's for Mother's Day - she is the only mom we have left.

Hug your mom's if you still have 'em and let 'em know how special they are in your life.  You have heard it before, but do it today.

Tomorrow may never come.

Hug a mom - even if it is not yours.  And if you are a mom have a Happy Mother's Day!  You are amazing!  You created a wonderful life to share with the world.  You.  Only a mom and God can do that. What can be more special than becoming a mom?  Being a mom!

Happy Mother's Day!

Steve's Mole

Steve has been chasing a mole (or ten) around the yard since we moved here.  He has put poison out trying to get the darned things, but it hasn't worked.  Well, he went out and re-added poison to some new tracks, taking care to get it in every one of them. 

The mole told him what he thought of that idea:

Complete with poison.

Nuff said.  

I am still laughing.

Steve is not.

Gardening and Birding

What have I been doing you ask?  Gardening!  Oh and mowing!  4 acres to keep mowed keeps us busy!  Having a garden this big has taken a huge amount of my time - but I am not complaining, in fact, I love it!  Take a look at it:

Doesn't it look great?

Steve, Megan and I spend a lot of time out there, and we have some more veggies to add so our supply keeps coming in all summer, but we cannot wait to reap the results of our labor.  It is so nice working here early in the morning.  It is still cool and comfortable so I go out and tweek/water it early every day.  I bought timers so I am not wasting so much water.  Steve is going to drill a water well so we can water from it and not pay the municipal district for our water.  We will still drink their water though!

The straw is working great.  There were a few seeds in it, but I just shuffle the straw and break the roots and it seems to be working fine.  It is definitely keeping the moisture in.  I water once a week right now.  I am sure that will change as the summer comes in, but the straw will definitely keep it down to a minimum. 

Steve made trellis' for the tomatoes to be tied to yesterday.  Now our 'maters can stand up straight!  So far, I have (all) baby 'mators, acorn squash, cucumbers, cabbages, onions, radishes, summer squash and 'tators.  How fun to see them grow!  Gotta love God's little seeds.

Do you see these little bitty trees?  LOL...

This is TEN trees from the Arbor Day society that we paid $10 for.  The last two are cypress trees and we got them free from a fair downtown.  Anyway, we planted a couple in the ground and the rest we planted in pots:

They seem to be doing good in the green house.  We want them to grow up a bit so we can see them when we mow.  All of them but the cypress trees are flowering trees.  Our yard will be so darned pretty!

I have orchids again!  I love them.  They sit in my kitchen window and smile at me every day... or maybe I have that backwards, I smile at them.  They make me smile!

We also have roses!  In Louisiana, I have not been able to keep them alive and pretty.  So far, here they are doing great.  So far.  We shall see.  This was supposed to be a Tropicana rose, but it isn't.  I have no idea what it is, but it has a very strong rose scent and I still love it.  I must get a Tropicana though!  In my rose gardens I need a World Peace Rose, a Peace Rose, a Tropicana, and a Mr Lincoln.  Gotta work on that, but I am so thrilled with how our gardens are thriving!

And we have birds!  Oh looky at the birds!

 

They set outside of our dining room window and munch all day long.  Today I had a special visit from a indigo bunting!   See the little blue guy up there?  I hope he sticks around, but he is bashful.  The goldfinches are not.  

What has been going on in my life in the last couple of weeks?  Of course, Steve's surgery was 2.5 weeks ago and he is doing terrific!  He is working on strengthening now, but overall his progress is amazing!  How did I expect anything less?

I also created a little excitement this week... not by choice.  I had been taking some antibiotics for another round of diverticulitis.  I had just taken another pill about 30 minutes before, and I was sitting in the recliner feeling weird.  I sat up and realized my tongue and throat were swelling closed!  I told Steve I needed to go to the ER and we hauled last to one.  Reality hit that we needed to know exactly what to do out here in the boondocks if such a thing happens again.  I did make it, thankfully and the hospital reacted quickly and reversed the effects.  Thank God!  I have since found out who to call and how to get help right away.  I have also called the ambulance service and air med service to join their services.  Wow, what a scare!  Anaphylaxis is not cool. So glad to be here to write this!

I also want to say, even though we love our place, we miss our friends and Louisiana tremendously.  Living close to family doesn't seem to change things.  I seldom see any of my family and honestly could live in ten buck two and see them as much.  I miss being able to chat about anything with a friend that cares.  I miss hearing about her kids and how they are doing.  I miss seeing Ms. Dottie.  I miss being with Steph and Punkin', getting together with everyone and having great times together.  I haven't forgotten you and I hope you haven't forgotten us.  I hope you come to see us and guess what?  We will be in Louisiana the 26th or so of May.  I can't wait to see you!  I will make time.  'Cause I loves ya!

And now you are caught up to another round of our story.  Some days I think it doesn't pay to write, but I enjoy it so much and I do go back and read on the blog occasionally.  Oh the fun of reading where we have been!  I hope you enjoy it as well.

And I miss you.  Each and every one of my friends; stateside and overseas friends.   I miss you.

*sniff*

We Have Straw!

And hopefully we are not going to grow straw since our intent was to use it as mulch as many of the garden books say to do!  I have visions of having it sprout up everywhere, but I have been assured that it won't do it.  We.  Will.  See.

Count me not convinced.

So after 13 bails of straw, this is what our garden looks like now:

Beans, cucumber (against the fence), mator, eggplant and pepper side:

Yes, everything is still little bitty, but it is there - I promise!

Okra, Corn, squash, radishes, onions... blah, blah, blah...
 

Closer view of mators and peppers on the right, and if you look real close, you can see onions growing on the bottom left corner:
 

Megan getting the dirt out from under her fingernails.  Yes, she worked!

This is Steve today NOT WORKING right?
 

*sigh*

And him getting caught:
 

Here is Chelsea, who is not keeping her daddy held down like she needs to do:
 

And this is her playing dead when I fussed her for not holding daddy down:
 

I also found some monster mouse practicing playing dead (he learned it from Chelsea) in a full sized lawn chair.  I bet the Monkey cat has gained 10 lbs since he moved here!  He is HUGE!  If you think of it  this way:  a typical sized butt supposed to sit there...

And a picture of Steve, not favoring the arm he has (not) been using nor using healing waters for the pain in his arm and knees:
 

That was what we accomplished yesterday and today.   Lots and lots of straw.

And of course 7+ hours of therapy.  

Tomorrow we have the melon patch to put straw on...

And that straw had better not be growing... 

We Are Trucking RIght Along...

So I guess I will catch you up just a bit.  Steve is doing super!  (Did we expect any less?)  He even has a doggy to hold him down when he is resting:

She sure didn't like him being broken! 

When he first had the surgery his arm looked like this:

We were allowed to take off the bandages and this is all he had:

Talk about over dramatic and over kill!

He got a very special package from Punkin' the other day that had some goodies in it:

But the best part was that it had some pretty drawings in it to cheer him up!

Yes, there is a pink dolphin there!  Did you know Singapore had pink dolphins?  Punkin' loved them when she was in Singapore and always draws a pink one.  I love it!

 And here are the other notes Punkin' sent:

How can you not get better seeing these?  Oh, and we figure the chocolate is great for healing, right?

He sits in his chair for 6 hours every single day.  He has nearly caught up on all the shows we had recorded on DVR - I think he may have to resort to watching soaps, Dr Phil and Rachel Ray soon... lol... 

 

Yes, as you can tell, he is happy.  NOT!  But this is what the chair does:

Well, the stupid video will not load!  Oh well, it is slow as grass growing and boring as h-e-double toothpicks!

I am busy mowing, watering, weeding, and spraying for weeds and insects.  Funny those things don't stop when you have something else going on... 

But life is good, we are healthy and happy and he is healing.  What more can we ask?

My Hubby... Poor Thing...

I am not used to seeing my honey broken.  :-(  

Actually, he is doing very well after surgery.  They shaved off some bone, made room for the tendon it was mashing and removed some spurs.  Praise God there were no torn tendons!  Over all he is doing great (few pain meds), staying awake (fighting anesthesia) and keeping me in line!  Check him out:

Before surgery:

After surgery:

If you noticed he is in some weird contraption, you are right.  He has a Physical Therapy chair to work out in 2 hours a day - 3 times a day -  for a total of SIX hours every day in that baby!  He has to increase rotation and elevation 5 degrees every day.  So far he is doing great.  

He HATES being one armed and seemingly needy, however, when Megan went to bed early last night (she was tired), he came and put up food for me.  *sigh*  He won't sit still or even act like he had surgery for even one day.  Thank you, love, for always being you.

I have to say thanks to everyone who has supported me during all this worrisome time.  It has been a challenge and I appreciate the phone calls and few minutes time you could spare for us.  We are so blessed to have people in our lives who love us and are there when we need them.  

I am off to clean... some little doggy has way too much black hair that seems to be shedding.  She seems to feel the need to hold her daddy down and I have to keep hair off of him, the blankets and the floor.  

And take care of him.  When he lets me.

Oh and PS:  The mushroom my friend has in her yard is an elegant stink horn!
Thanks Steph for finding the answer for me!  WHOOT!

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