Friday the 27th...of April. Guess what that means.

When I moved to the mountains where my father already lived, he told me to never plant before May 1st up here because frosty mornings are far too common past the recommended planting date for the region.  Every year, Dad's advice has proven to be correct and even his warning that there may be freezes well into May.  We have seen it snow and freeze on occasion in that warm month, but for the most part, I can go ahead and plant on May 1st and avoid any frost damage.

Well, today is Friday, April 27th, and though we have just had a few cold nights I am going to go ahead and get my poor tomatoes, squashes, and cucumbers into the ground this weekend, weather permitting.  They have been growing in our breakfast room window all year and are beyond scrawny, ready to stretch their legs in a nice warm bed of deep, enriched mountain soil.

A couple of summers ago I planted parsnip seeds everywhere and completely forgot about them until I was digging a new terrace and path in the garden the following spring.  I kept coming across bushy weeds with enormous white taproots.  Being a Florida girl and new to gardening, I was still learning what indigenous plants grow in this region, so was dumbfounded and kept tossing the roots and greens to the chickens.  They eat everything that grows around here, so I just crossed my fingers that they weren't toxic plants.  Suddenly, when one of the roots broke off in the ground and I sat holding the other end I realized I was smelling parsnips.  Dummy.  Dummy, dummy, dummy.  I salvaged what I could and dug the rest and learned a great lesson that day.  If you let parsnips overwinter, they grow rapidly in the spring once the ground warms up.

I tried this trick with carrots in the fall and just look what I was able to bring into the house in the spring!

I haven't needed to buy carrots for weeks!  They just stayed in the ground until I needed more and would go dig them.  The last batch is in the refrigerator now.  We even use the greens in salads and soups.

So with the addition of my warm weather crops that I will plant this weekend I will have yellow and zucchini squashes, russet potatoes, lettuces, kale, radishes, carrots, two kinds of tomatoes, cucumbers, beans, sugar snap peas, onions, garlic, parsley, basil, thyme, and bell peppers in the ground.  My broccoli is staggering along, so I'm not sure if we will have broccoli to harvest this year.

A flock of new chicks, Americanas to go with our mixed batch of beautiful birds, are growing by leaps and bounds and will be released to the outdoors a few weeks after the garden seedlings.   They lay greenish blue eggs and I can't wait to see them!  What an egg bucket we will have in the fridge filled with duck, bantam, "Easter eggs", and the brown ones we get from the other girls.  The brown eggs we dye every Easter turn out beautifully in rich, dark, earthy tones so I wonder what will happen when we try to dye green eggs.  I will have to serve my green eggs with ham, on occasion, that's for sure!

Our dyed brown chicken eggs (larger eggs in the photo).  Aren't the little dyed bantam's so cute?!

The chicks are all feathered out now and have teen aged chicken "squawks" mixed in with their "peeps".  I wish I had taken pictures of them when they were fuzzy and small.

Happy warm season everyone!

Does anyone else have this problem?

What's the point in having an energy efficient washer and dryer and making my own Earth friendly detergent if my front load dryer does this?!!

Anything with a spaghetti strap or drawstring gets ruined in my Frigidaire Gallery Series dryer by becoming hooked on the edge of the lint screen handle and then getting twisted around for 45 min. until it finally breaks off and it drives me bonkers! 

Psht!  "Gallery Series"...What the heck is that supposed to mean, anyway?  The dryer is pretty to look at?  Well, it ain't pretty, the things that come out of that dryer in shreds!

Okay.  My little rant is over and I feel much better.  Guess I'll invest in a few of those lingerie bags and TRY to remember to put things with strings in them before washing.  But I know exactly what will happen.  The dadgum drawstrings on the lingerie bags will suffer the same fate.

Going back to my folding and stain removing now and contemplating becoming even more eco friendly by hanging my clothes to dry on a rope in the backyard.  I guess it would be the lesser of two evils to deal with, bird droppings and more stain removing as opposed to recycling useless articles of clothing.

Sweet, cluttered mess!

It really is the little things in life for me these days, that make my world go 'round.  I prided myself on noticing them before my husband's heart attack, but now they are bigger, louder, sweeter smelling, more beautiful.  His face, for one thing.  It's silly, but I can't keep my hands off of it.  He looks vibrant and healthy and, since he's shaved his beard, smooth and young.

Hearing him giggling with the boys, or even talking with them, makes my day.  We've had so much time with him while he has been recovering that it's hard just to let him go to work in the morning.  During any absences that have dotted the years we've been together, we've missed each other, but now it's just sweeter and more fun to sit cracking each other up or sappily holding hands just for the feel of it.

My kids act like nothing at all happened, but for moments when we talk about things related to his recovery.  I've realized that I have men, not boys, for children, and they amaze me.

My older son and I were down in my husband's basement lab the other day, clearing a desk to bring upstairs to the new office we are setting up for him in the bay window area of our living room.  We started looking around and saw a picture of the boys when they were about 5 and 3 posing for the camera on the front porch of our old house.  He had attached it through the picture and molded plastic cover with a huge screw into the wall over his desk.  So sweet that he had hung it and absolutely adorable, the manner in which he'd mounted it.  So typical of him.  Then we noticed a model submarine bracketed to the wall above that, a reminder of his days as a submariner, and a little American flag, it's end stuck into one of the holes in the peg board that was also hung over the desk. 

We found a stack of his diplomas-- high school, Bachelor's, and Master's-- and an elegant marble desk name plate and pen set that his sister had given him for his first college graduation.  My son, who is now fourteen, said it was so cute, how his dad had displayed everything.  I agreed and my heart was bursting with love for the man.

It was then that I noticed that the hot water heater insulating cover that we had purchased years ago in an attempt to save energy was carefully wrapped and duct taped around the unit that stands in the corner of the lab.  He must have applied it not too long before the heart attack, as not even the most faint amount of dust seemed to have soiled it.  I wondered when he'd taken the time or even found it, he had been so busy through the fall and winter.

I looked around again and was so moved to be standing in the center of my husband's things, bookshelves heavily weighted with tomes and paperbacks on subjects such as computer programming, astrophysics, and mathematics, the soldering station he'd carefully set up for himself for electronic repair, and the cluttered, piles of organized mess that made up the rest of the room.  My son said that, to us, it looked like the room needed some straightening, but he guessed that his father knew where everything was and that each item had been placed intentionally.

It was one of the sweetest moments and then it hit me.  If my husband hadn't survived the day of his heart attack we would have been down there cleaning up his lab at some point and looking at my sons' father through the things he loved and displayed in his little lab.  How awful that would have been!  Immediately, I wanted to grab that desk and haul it upstairs so I could see his face kiss it all over, but then the basement door opened and there he was, smiling and asking, "Whatcha doin?"

Like all the other times in a week that my husbands face is a real gift to me, this moment was just as special, only more poignant.  I am grateful beyond measure to see that sweet smile of his every time he flashes it my way...and very, very lucky to be his girl.

From light to dark and back again.

While waiting at the pharmacy for Hubby's dynamite (nitroglycerin) I remembered that we needed band aids for his artery puncture where the heart cath.was inserted.  He jokingly asked for Snoopy band aids.  They had them!  I had to get them.  When I brought them back to where he was sitting we realized that Snoopy even had the same shirt on as my husband, only his says, "Joe Cool" and my husband's says, "Let me drop everything I'm doing to work on your problem." Too funny!  He loves this shirt because it's exactly what goes on at work but he's too polite to wear it to work.  It was appropriate to wear to the pharmacy to pick up the medication he can take to save his life the next time he has a heart attack at work.  :S

It's almost comical how positively I was thinking in my last two posts.  This is just not like me.  I try really hard.  I work on staying upbeat every day but I trust nothing and, really, no one.  I always feel, however, that when things are going well, I will have to pay for it in some way.  "Something's gotta go wrong 'cause I'm feelin' way too damn good.", one of my favorite lines from a Nickleback song.  This mentality leaves me feeling more cynical as time goes by but I am learning inch by inch to not be so fearful.

So, I was feeling really good and excited about life and welcoming spring with open arms.  My husband was having one of the best weeks of his life.  Then he had a heart attack.  BUT I'm not feeling very cynical at all two weeks later.  Thank goodness!  It's a new life.  That was the worst day of mine so far, but it feels so great to still have a husband that I can't even begin to think that we've been dealt a crappy hand.  The fear is even beginning to subside and it feels wonderful to just be together after such a scare.  We both feel as if we've aged ten years in the last fortnight but we are ready for a lifetime together after realizing that we were pretty close to not being allowed to have it.

I'd had the most relaxing morning-- breakfast, yoga, a little housework, and making laundry detergent.  It's so silly but laundry detergent making is my zen activity, running my fingers through the powders to mix them while enjoying the refreshing scent of the ingredients.  I had actually left my yoga DVD playing, the soothing theme song repeating, as I mixed my ingredients. 

Earlier that morning I had kissed my husband goodbye and told him I loved him as I do every day.  He came back in a moment later, having forgotten something, and as is my habit I made sure to give him another I love you.  I never let him leave the house without telling him because I literally think  every time that he could get into a car accident on the way to work or home.  I've gotten into arguments with people before, as to whether or not this is a healthy attitude to have and have determined that it absolutely is.  It makes me appreciate every day with him and every opportunity to show him my love, "just in case".  Later that day I was very glad I had given him that extra I love you.

Laundry detergent was made and scooped into the large container I use to store it in, then the phone rang.  I never answer the phone, avoid talking on the phone, and usually never even hear it ring.  I heard it this time and went directly to it.  I missed the call but a message was left a second later.  It was the doctor at my husband's medical clinic.  I listened three times to make sure she had addressed me and not him in the message.  

When I was sure that I was the one who was to return her call, I imagined and was certain, that she would say that my husband had come in with chest pains.  I don't know how, but I knew that was what she was going to say.  I guess I always worried without fully realizing it that this was going to happen one day and I almost wasn't surprised, yet was completely shocked and shaken to my core, if that makes any sense, when that is exactly what she told me when we were connected.

My husband had experienced a sudden headache then tightness in his chest and jaw pain while sitting at his desk at work.  Because of the way he was ignored by the ER staff at our local hospital when he was doubled over with a gallbladder attack a couple of years ago, he refused to call 911 or go to the ER when he suspected that he was in trouble.  Instead, he drove to the one medical doctor in town that he trusted.  I found out all of this later and wasn't surprised one bit. This is the absolute WRONG thing to do, but I figured that because he was ignored the last time at the ER that his decision to go to her clinic instead may have just saved his life.  She told me that she had already called him an ambulance and that he was conscious and speaking and that I could meet him at the ER.

I don't remember much after that but standing in front of my open closet doors telling myself repeatedly that I had to get dressed.  I was in my yoga clothes and bare feet.  I had already told the boys very quickly what was happening and that they needed to get ready to go ASAP, but then I stood there frozen ordering myself to "grab a t-shirt and go".  I don't own any and for some reason I thought I specifically needed a t-shirt so that confused me even more.  I was finally able to yank things down and get my body to move.  It's so surreal to remember it now, like the story of the idiot lady a teacher told us about in elementary school who gets a knock at the door and opens it to find a stranger telling her her house is on fire which sends her searching for the vacuum cleaner, or was it a coffee pot? The funny thing is, hours later I looked down at my feet in a hospital waiting room to realize I had donned my still muddy gardening shoes before racing to the ER, rather than street shoes.  ???

At the ER they let us right in.  The doctor met me and led me and my children down the corridor saying, "They are still working on him."  I said, "WORKING on him?!"  I was picturing my husband out cold, flat-lining, defibrillators...Nightmare.  He calmed me by saying that he was doing okay, they were just getting him ready to go to the big hospital.  By now we were in the room with my husband and I saw him wide awake and looking at me, apologetically, from a stretcher.  I wanted to go to him but the doctor was explaining everything to me and I was trying so hard to focus on his words because I knew they must be important, but at the same time I was slinking toward the foot of the bed to reach through the jumble of people working busily around my husband so I could just reach his toes.  I hung on to them while the doctor informed me that his condition was fluctuating and that he had been in bad shape when they got to him at the clinic and in the ambulance ride over, but that he seemed to be stabilizing a bit for the time being.

From the doctor I heard, "There is already heart damage.  Ordinarily we would airlift him to Mission, but as you can see we have bad weather today."

My heart just fell.  I hadn't even noticed that it was pouring outside.  I want him airlifted.  The boys and I had taken a field trip to meet the crew of the mountain airlift unit and to see how state-of-the-art their helicopter is.  I knew from that day that if you are having a heart attack, you want to be flown in MAMA to Mission Hospital in Asheville.  An hour and a half road trip is a fraction of that flying across the mountains in MAMA.  I think, heart damage, bad weather, hour and a half trip by ambulance.  It's one of the saddest moments of my life.  I want him in MAMA! 

I was allowed to go talk to him for a second while they prepped him for the heart catheterization he would have when he reached the hospital in Asheville.  He told me that it was the same feeling as the "attack" he had the week before when he thought it was a combination of being overheated in the shower and the acid reflux that he deals with every day.  It was a heart attack, they've told him.  So this was number two and there is heart damage and he has to survive the long ride to Mission?  This glass-is-half-empty girl could not comprehend how this situation could be any worse, or how it could possibly have a happy ending.

We told him we loved him and they took him out.  A paramedic gave me strict instructions not to try to follow them, that they would be going too fast in the ambulance with police escort.  He told me to take my time in the stormy weather.  I didn't know how I was going to get us over there but we headed out after saying a prayer in our car and driving to the clinic where my husband had left our more reliable vehicle.  I knew that I would feel safer in it but hated to take the extra time to switch cars. 

Halfway to Asheville, because I remembered that the night before my husband and I had, out of the blue, discussed living wills and I took it as some kind of sign, because that's the kind of spaz I am, I decided that he didn't have much chance of making it.  It had been too long and I worried that he just couldn't survive this.  I remember when he was having complications after his gallbladder surgery and they took him away to look for a pulmonary embolism.  I was scared to death because his blood oxygen levels were dangerously low and they needed to find out why.  He wasn't afraid or worried.  He was totally at peace and okay if worse came to worst.  I remembered this while trying to get to Mission and felt at peace that if he didn't make it he would be fine with it.  I knew he was calm and feeling just fine. 

I asked my grandmother and friend William to meet him if he had to go.  Then I just asked God for peace and to drive us the rest of the way.  I wasn't thinking clearly and it seemed like we would never get there.  I don't remember anything else until we were on the interstate and I was saying out loud, "I'm on the interstate?!!  Are we on the interstate?"  We were.  Then I remember nothing until we were two exits away from the one we needed to take.  I don't know who drove me there.  I don't remember doing it.  I'll take it as answered prayer even if the numbness was my own body's coping mechanism in a time of crisis.  I don't recall merging at any point, or even other vehicles on the road, I was only aware of the relentless rain.

We reached the hospital, went into the ER entrance, assuming he'd come that way, and gave a girl at the nurse's station his name.  She had no record of him coming in. 

I was really trying to keep my composure at this point while she looked through "four systems" for any evidence that he had come to the hospital.  She asked me several times if I could have beaten the ambulance there.  I told her there was no way.  Needless to say, I was weak in the knees and thought that it could only be bad that he hadn't made it into the hospital.  I was thinking of his condition deteriorating and them having to slow or stop the ambulance on the way, or of a possible accident in the rain.  Then I finally decided that she had no record of him because he didn't make it and he had been taken to the morgue.  It's sick to be so negative, but I didn't know what else to think and she COULD NOT find him. 

After several phone calls and giving his name, all the while typing away on her keyboard and looking confused, I heard her say, "chaplain?" to the person she was speaking to on the phone.  I really almost sat right on the floor at that point.  Why would she be talking about chaplains if we weren't about to be pulled aside to get the worst news of our lives? 

She hung up the phone and told me that they were sending us a chaplain.  When she saw how scared I was she said that the reason they were sending a chaplain is because they could get me to where he was the fastest.  I thought, yes, to the morgue.  I didn't know that he was okay and had no reason to believe that my world wasn't about to crumble.  She directed us to a corner with chairs to wait and I pulled out my phone to beg for prayers from my Facebook friends and family. I had already called my mom, soon after heading to Asheville, to ask her to meet me at Mission.  She didn't get my message so was not there and I have never felt so alone. 

The chaplain came and I was waiting for the roof to drop on my head when she started leading us down the hall.  I ask her point blank if my husband was alright.  She seemed surprised that I didn't know and assured me that he was there and okay, up on the cardiac floor.  She was not sure of his condition, however, because she was not the chaplain of that floor, another one would be assigned to us. 

Oh happy day!  I didn't really care what happened at that point, my faith was restored a bit and I thanked God, then brace myself for what the day would bring.  But I really do think they need to work on their system a bit.  Jeesh!

Our assigned chaplain was amazing.  "They are here to take care of him, I am here to take care of you.", he told us.

My husband was having a heart catheterization to see what was going on.  He was actually behind the double doors across the hall from the family waiting room they had opened for us, so close, and the chaplain would keep us updated on his progress.  Before I could even think about where we would stay overnight, assuming the boys and I would have a long haul ahead of us and would be camping on the very chairs we were sitting in, the chaplain told us of the Rathbun Center, a kind of Ronald McDonald house for family members of critical patients to stay in.   He had already made a reservation for us.  He prayed with us, gave us a brochure with instructions for checking into our room and, not thirty minutes later, it was ALL OVER. 

I couldn't believe it when we got the news and the surgeon came in to show us before and after images of my husband's arteries and heart.  An artery is so obviously closed off in the before picture, looking as if it is clamped shut from the outside.  His heart is literally dying at that point, I am told.  Then, in the after photo, an arrow points to the opened section of artery where a stent has been placed. 

I asked him, "Is this the end of something or the beginning?" 

He confidently looked me in the eyes and said, "This is the end of something.  You will have to be the kind of family who spends weekends hiking and bike riding to keep him active and he should have a long, healthy life."

I could feel the ground below my feet again.  So grateful for the best case, worst case scenario!  I could have been hearing such terrible news but it was terrific!  Yes, he had a heart attack, but because he did, this was the beginning of a new life for my husband. 

Very serious was this "boy" from Harvard we had been hearing about for the last hour and were now speaking to, who must have been but didn't look a day over seventeen.  The kid who had just used my husband as a guinea pig to do the cath. through the arm rather than the leg as part of the study he was heading, was now grinning just a little at the corners of his mouth and saying, "He told me he's going to make a game after me and call it Artery Blasters."

I said, "He does make games and apps.   Did he tell you that?" 

So nice to laugh about something for a moment and so adorable of my husband in his delirious state, feeling funked up on sedatives, to say something like that.  He doesn't remember it at all of course, but is now determined to keep his word. 

We were able to see him as they wheeled him out from behind those double doors where the procedure was performed to across the hall to the ICU.  There was some debate as to whether or not he should even be put into ICU to recover, he was doing so well and was no longer considered an "emergency" patient, but the admitting doctor won, arguing that because of the manner in which he reached the hospital, he needed extra care so my husband was moved to the Intensive Care Unit, we were told, for one to four days.  Fortunately, the local ER doctor was wrong and the cardiologist at Mission could see no permanent heart damage, but tests the following morning would be performed to determine that for certain. 

No damage. NONE.  My husband was discharged the next afternoon directly from the ICU which I have never heard of or imagined happening.

AND it was our son's birthday.  I remember last year pining for lost years as he turned from ten to eleven but under the circumstances all we could do on this birthday was celebrate.  We will celebrate both my son's and my husband's life every year after this.  The little guy's birthday plans were completely wrecked, but after a crazy day fraught with one headache after another we made it back to our little town and home. 

I was able to get a tiny cake made from a portion of a packaged cake mix just in time for him to blow out his candle and make a wish before the clock struck midnight and his official birthday ended.  Undeterred and just happy to have his daddy, he told us that he would like to move his birthday to the following weekend.  We readily consented but couldn't stand the thought of him waiting so long so gave him half of his presents, anyway.  What a sweetheart! 

So now our life begins again and we are back in the light.  I was so nervous the first couple of days.  I kept wondering why they heck they would allow my husband, who had just had a heart attack, to come home and recover under my care.  I am not qualified for this at all, and, as it turns out, I am not a very good "nurse".  I forget to take his blood pressure before giving him his medicine and sometimes, those first few days, I would sneak out to the living room for chocolate when he couldn't have any. 

Then there was my big panic attack/melt-down, complete with hyperventilation, my first that didn't occur in a drug-induced state (Demerol on day two following an appendectomy.  Last dose I ever took.).  Obviously it was a delayed reaction from the whole incident that had my "patient" trying to make me feel better at 3 a.m.  That's just wrong.  Especially when I am supposed to help him keep his stress level down.  But the problem is when you're "patient" is your best friend and the love of your life and you suddenly fear that you will wake up every day not knowing if your time together has run out.  It was just a little too much for a minute there, but fortunately a temporary state of mind...I hope.  Things seem much sunnier these days and I am determined to keep my outlook bright and hopeful for both our sakes.

Things are looking brighter and brighter.  I wouldn't even look back at that day after the meltdown, knowing I had to just bulldoze through it without "looking around", until tonight when we went out for dinner and my husband and I ended up talking about the day he had his heart attack, the whole time we were at the restaurant.  It's like we felt safe to finally talk about it because we were outside of our home. 

He told me his play by play recollections of the incident and I finally told him all of the story from our side.  With our kids giggling away about this and that in the booth across from us, we both got watery-eyed at different points and ended up clinging to each other while we talked.   

We are in the midst of celebrating 20 years as a couple and are determined that there will be decades and decades left to grow old together.  I almost can't wait to see how strong he will be in a year and to totally feel like this is behind us.  And to help him, I will learn, once and for all, how to be a glass-is- half-full kind of person.  It's my renewed mission in life because never ever ever has anything turned out as badly as I am certain that it will looking ahead with fear and dread.  I've got to get that into my head and remember it the next time I'm wimping out over something.

Do anything you can to control the amount of stress in your life.  My husband's heart disease is being blamed on stress and genetics.  One of those he can influence. 

And if you love someone, hug them tight.  You really never know what can happen.

It's spring thyme!

How appropriate is it that my window garden herbs have just reached maturity the first week of spring?  I am hoping to transplant a majority of them to the garden when the danger of frosty nights has passed, but I am so happy that I finally have a place to grow them year 'round indoors.  Thanks to our new favorite room in the house, the breakfast room, which we still call the lesson room 9 out of 10 times, there is plenty of sunny window space for my herbs and seed sprouts.

Lots of fresh basil means lots of fresh pesto!

The summer squash and zucchini surprised me by flowering, though the plants are only just large enough for planting in the garden.

Campari salad tomatoes and slicing tomatoes are ready to go in the ground, too.  I think I will have to transplant them to larger pots while I wait for the official start to the growing season. 

My first successful rosemary shrub is doing well.  I usually kill my rosemary plants very quickly and never know what it is that I've done wrong.  When Christmas tree shaped bushes went on sale during the holidays for just a few dollars, I decided it was a good time to give rosemary another go.  I did lots of research and learned that a rosemary plant will go through "sudden death" from which it cannot recover.  Well, though mine began to die suddenly, I was able to save it.  This little guy has now been living in our home for four months.  He's hanging in there. 

I learned that because rosemary is a Mediterranean plant, it needs lots of sunlight.  Mine needs A LOT.  I have to rotate it, frequently, to keep it growing steadily.  Without proper rotation toward the window, it lags in growth and begins to brown again.  Watering it has been an ongoing experiment.  Most of what I read on the subject is information that suggests that a rosemary plant should be under watered and allowed to live in dry soil.  The little pamphlet that came attached to the boughs of the plant, however, stated that it needed to be kept moist.  I went with moist theory since I always followed the dry one in the past and killed my rosemary plants.  I know that because our temperatures get too low in the winter, I will never be able to plant this bush outside, unless I keep it in a container to bring back inside for the cool season, but I think I am happy with it right here, conveniently growing within a few feet of the stove for easy snipping and adding to dishes.  I'm hoping it grows large enough that we can use some of its branches for kebab skewers on the grill this summer.  Won't that be nice?!

My broccoli is ready to go in the ground, now.  It will thrive in the remaining cool days and hopefully, if I've timed it right, give us a freezer full of blanched stalks.  I have lots of seeds for more plant starts so am going to see if I can rotate my growing broccoli in different stages through the summer and fall.

Spring is in the air outside, as well. 

It may be hard to tell from these photos, but even near the city, spring is painting the landscape.

 The Grove Park Inn looks fabulous and inviting even when it's surrounded by leafless trees, but when we visited the other day, green was popping up all over.

 It was a misty morning overlooking Grove Park Inn's spa and grounds with the Asheville rooftops peaking through the clouds.  Such a relaxing spot to sit with a hot cup of coffee.

 The blazing fire pit on this still chilly morning made this view of GPI's spa.  It's a shame that no one was out to enjoy it.


Turkey Dance~Hilarious to watch the male turkeys that came out of the woods on the golf course fan their tales and parade around, slowly, in front of their potential mates.  I was a bit concerned that my children would get a first-hand lesson on the Birds and the Bees, but unfortunately for the dozens of male birds that were blustering about, the girls didn't even seem to notice that they were there, except to step around them to get to where they wanted to go.

As far as my birds on our little farm are doing, the duck is still producing an egg a day, even though she is far beyond the usual laying age.  Our little Bantam has begun laying again after months of sputtering to a stop, and she is a week older than Mrs. Bickerson, our laying duck!  So nice to get those cute little fresh eggs every day.  They are just right for breakfast when you want a little protein with your grains without eating a big meal.

So now that spring is officially here, after getting those broccoli sprouts tucked into my raised beds, I plan to finish making the patio in the area in which we were forced to jack hammer the old one up last summer to find our missing septic tank, weed and re-mulch the flower beds in the front yard, plant a new grape arbor to replace the old farm's original row that was removed when the septic system was put in, move my raspberry bushes to what will be the new orchard, build a berm and plant fast-growing trees atop it to give us more privacy from the rotten old, nosey couple we were stupid enough to buy property across the street and down the hill from (don't get me started), and whatever else I have time and energy to do over the next few months. 

It's so nice to look out the laundry room window and see the newly picket-fenced patio area that has gotten a big ol' check mark next to it on my mental To Do List and to look out back into the farmyard and realize that I've finally added enough compost to the raised beds over the years that they will not be requiring hoeing or weeding this spring.  I guess this small town hoe'r won't be doing as much hoeing in the warm season as usual.  Ah.  More star gazing and tea sippin' for me!

Happy Spring, everyone!!

Oh my!

This week has been full of "Oh my!" moments, epiphanies and new beginnings.  I guess the fact that yesterday was "Spring the 1st", as I have been calling it, may have something to do with it.  I don't know. 
The weather has been so unusually warm that on the last day of winter we actually had to sleep with the windows open.  Had to.  The night before was miserably sticky.  The first day of spring was so still and sunny that the house had already heated so much by nitghtfall that we had to use a window fan just to cool the bedroom off well enough for sleeping. 

It's very strange to have the daffodils and our nectarine tree, as well as they yellow bells, already finished with their annual show, and to see dandelion puff balls all over the place.  I love it.  Love the racket of song birds waking me up in the morning, green popping up everywhere, the flowering pears exploding with blossoms.  We turned a corner in a turn of the previous century neighborhood the other day and found ourselves driving through a cherry blossom covered lane through old trees...in winter!  Beautiful, like a fairy land.

Spring also brought a few exclamations of Oh my when we were enjoying a quiet moment in the deserted wing of one of our local old hotels where my boys and I had passed the time while Hubby was downstairs at a business conference.  It took us a minute to realize what we were seeing, but there on the golf course below us appeared dozens of male wild turkeys struttin' their stuff before maybe a half dozen females.  What should have been a magical witness to one of nature's rare moments, not usually glimpsed by human eyes was one of the dorkiest displays we had ever seen.  And I know from their behavior that that's exactly what the female turkeys were thinking as they totally ignored the puffed up, fan tailed idiotic looking males and casually walked across the green patches of course.  Where's Gary Larson when you need him?  I can imagine that he would have come up with several good cartoon drawings from that fifteen minute event. 

Another Oh my experience occurred when I visited my anonymous blog on a site that is focused on health.  My goals are centered around being "Fabulous at Forty" or as darn close to that as I can get.  I set up my profile over three years ago, and though I have only a few weeks left, I am no closer to being "fabulous" than I was then.  Well, a little closer, but my initial goals are not even close to being met.  I did realize, however, that the last time I posted or visited the site was when I had just started my cooking blog and was very nervous about how I was going to survive cooking and eating "real" food again rather than grilled chicken, fish, and grains.  Then I looked back over my year of food blogging and saw that I have done everything but subsist on grilled chicken, fish, and grains.  I did it.  I made it through with very few bumps in the road. Strange to be on the other side and see that I can cook, eat, and work very hard to keep myself from blimping up like the Hindenburg, though I still have a lot of work to do. 

Another thing I noticed was the regular progress reports about my sudden back problems and how it was affecting my workouts and yoga practice.  I am such a glass is half empty type person that I didn't even realize that my back is perfectly fine now and I never even feel the slightest kink anymore thanks to a great chiropractor.  So nice to realize that I am on the other side of that too.

I was even more surprised to find myself in my blog post committing to my old 6 p.m. yoga session when I hadn't done a full session since November.  And, though I was two hours late fulfilling my commitment, I did it.  I really did it...and cried the first dadgum five minutes of it.  I kept thinking that it was how coming into your mother's arms should feel, or slipping into a hot bath, diving into a cold, natural Florida spring.  Why, why, HOW could I ever let that slip away from me?  I won't let it again.  Not ever.  That is an Oh my that I need every day, twice a day if I can manage, as I was doing regularly the year before my back went on the fritz.

There were a few more Oh my moments to my day yesterday, but one of the biggest was the fact that my husband's business got a big jump start.  Our future looks even more interesting than it did last week with many possibilities that can help get him working from home, permanently.  This is our ultimate life goal and he is a good three or four steps closer to getting there.  Oh my, am I proud of him! 

But before half the day was even over and I knew of the developments with my husband's business I posted this as my sign off for my anonymous blog post, "Two years ago, if I had reached my goal weight, I might as well have had an additional 75lbs. to lose, there was still so much work to do on me. I think I'm going to be fine. I think I have worked on EVERYTHING else first and now...I'm HAPPY!!"

I didn't know I even felt that way until it streamed out onto my computer screen.  Mission accomplished.  Oh MY! 

The Prettiest Shirt In The Whole Wide World Jackpot

I am not a big shopper.  Having to find a use for gift cards given to me for Christmas or my birthday, not that I don't appreciate them, bathing suit shopping (UGH!  Nightmare all around.  I've had the same dadgum suit for four seasons!), or having to find an outfit for a special event, etc. nearly drives me out of my mind.  I avoid malls except for our annual Christmas run to buy things we can't find in our small, mountain town, and every few years we "do it right" and go to the Mall of Georgia, making a day of it, like you would a trip to Disney or Universal Studios. 

The one time I turn into shopping dawdler is when I am in a kitchen store or specialty food store, I must shamefully admit.  And I love quant little towns with little shops and antique stores but still I use my knack for scanning to get myself through each store quickly.  I figure that if I have any interest in anything it will pop out at me and it always does.

It was my method of scanning that led me to my quest for the "Prettiest Shirt in the Whole Wide World".  It is a running joke in our family that when I spot a blouse or shirt that is just my style I'll say, "Oh look!  It's the prettiest shirt in the whole wide world!"  If it is of a reasonable price I will buy it to add to the collection of lacy, flowery, crocheted items that fill my closet which I love to layer together over jeans or jeans skirts because it's easy and I don't like to mess around.  My wardrobe grows very slowly this way. I don't do seasonal shopping or go on weekend shopping expeditions, just buy a couple of new pieces a year.  I have clothes that I still wear from purchases I made ten years ago when, fortunately, the whole Eddie Bauer style started to fade away and you could once again find something slightly decorative in a clothing store.  Yes, it's a little fuddy duddy but it's me.  :P

Well, this Steampunk convention we just went to had me surrounded by the prettiest things in the whole wide world.  Gorgeous handmade, even leather, corsets, flouncy skirts, vests, beautiful layered things, all my style just multiplied in substance and frivolities.  Expensive, expensive lavishly decorated pieces of clothing for sale to use as Steampunk costume wear not everyday wear.  Still, I was inspired. 

Since our hotel was near the Mall of Georgia, we voted as a family to make an afternoon of it on our way out of Atlanta, probably the only trip we would make there for a few years, since it had already been three or four since we had been there as a family. 

We totally whimped out, and as always happens when we visit the MOG, we entered the crowded, ridiculously expansive space and remembered that city life and malls just aren't our thing.  Give my little family trees, trails, parks, beaches, natural springs and streams, movie theaters even, but you can keep the MOG.  It didn't help that since we had just, minutes before, left the hotel filled with "our people" -- fellow Steampunkers, creative thinkers, nerds, astronomy buffs, and sci-fi geeks -- where we had felt very at home in Steampunk and geek clothing and among others dressed the same way, the MOG felt like a foreign country if  not the surface of another planet.

Our feet hurt so badly from running around, at least mine did, in Steampunk costumes all weekend that we could barely make it through one tiny section of the mall.  I couldn't even do Williams- Sonoma properly, which is usually a rare and appreciated treat for me.  We finally went looking for a mall directory so we could stumble to our favorite stores, stop for dinner somewhere, and get our butts back to the mountains where we belonged.  We all took what was left of our personal weekend spending allowances and went our seperate ways, me to two stores I like that were blessedly adjacent to each other where I am always able to find "me", and the fellas to GameStop to buy games and gaming equipment, of course. 

My goal was to find the Prettiest Shirt in the Whole Wide World like the ones that I had admired for sale at the convention but at a reasonable price, preferably dirt cheap clearance price, in a style I could wear every day.  One store had possiblilities but was so crowded with people swarming around that I hobbled out.  Another of my favorites was nearby. 

Jackpot.

Half an hour later, clearance racks scanned through, "me" shirts selected, tried on and laying on the counter in front of the teenaged sales clerk and I was ready to go.  A call from my husband let me know that they were finished too.  The shirts were so "me" that I had taken a picture in the dressing room of the row of Prettiest Shirts in the Whole Wide World.  And aren't they just...the Prettiest Shirts in the Whole Wide World?  I thought so.  And all for a fraction of just what just one of the Steampunky shirts I loved for sale at the convention would cost, all but one pulled from two ridiculously low priced clearance racks.  Woo hoo! 

Yes, those are black skeleton keys on a pale, pale pink shirt.  Couldn't believe my eyes when I saw it.  Of course it was the only one in the store.  Of course it was in my size.  Of course it perfectly matched the black skeleton key earings I had made that were at that moment dangling from my very own ear lobes.  Does fate apply to shopping expeditions?

Oh, and the concho belt in the photo was handmade by the partner of my now favorite jeweler, the owner of Throne Jewelry.  He made it from old clock parts. I had been wearing it but draped it over the dressing room bar to try on the clothes.  I think it looks beautiful with the other, soon to be mine, items on the rack.  When I spied it in Throne Jewelry's convention booth, I thought the tag on the belt said, $120 dollars, which to me is a typical boutique, handmade artistic item price, but it was $20.  I snagged it and I really love it.  This is exactly along the lines of what I used to do, repurposing antique and used items.  The fact that she said her partner had been a little disappointed that no one had purchased his belt through the weekend and it still hung beautifully on a towel bar in her booth at the end of the convention, made me even happier to help the local artist. It now hangs in our black and white Steampunky bathroom looking prettier than it ever will tied around my waist.

And this is the silliest, frilliest blog post you will ever read, I guarantee.  Giggle.