The Garden Is Planted! Que The Singing Angels!

I planted my garden!

I planted my garden!

I planted my garden!

I am so excited! I did not plan a traditional family day, like I should have, so we just had the Easter egg hunt with some friends that we consider family and then we came home to eat our ham and potatoes and green beans with bacon and pepper in them! The green beans remind me of the way we make our garden green beans, so it really geared me up to go out and plant the garden!

I had already broken up the ground on Saturday. We do not have the pleasure of using a tiller, so I broke up the ground with a 4-tine twistable tilling device! UGH! There is nothing less fun that twisting your arms over and over and over again! On the upside, I think my bustline just magically got perkier! HA! Anyway, I took the tilling device out to the garden yesterday, in hopes of breaking up my of the yard, so as to increase the size of the garden, because I share "the fruits of my labor" with my neighbor, so he said I could break up some of his yard! He just doesn't want to mow! I got lucky and my husband broke up the sod! I did some of that yesterday and it was AWFUL! Needless to say, I have woke up these last two mornings feeling I have been hit by a truck! After all this yapping, all I really wanted to say is that my garden is now about 1 1/2 - 2 feet longer than it was last year. It is probably 8 x 12, or something like that.

I strategically placed my rows so as to maximize the amount of goodies I could plant! I put a row of yellow onions in and then green beans, because onions do not require much top space. Then, I put in a row of radishes, I think, and more green beans, followed by a row of carrots and, you guessed it, more green beans! I put in a row of red onions, packed tightly in place, because if all works according to plan, I will pull about half for green onions and then I will let the rest grow into bulb onions! Peppers, and more red onions, followed by a row of peas, finished out the items that I planted in seed form! Well, onions are not from seeds, but I am sure you already know that! Anyway, I have more room and more to plant, but there a 2-3 foot area that is just waiting for tomato plants and some banana peppers and maybe even some really mean, spicy peppers for my neighbor! The end of my garden has 12 mounds of potatos! I made a little area for an "herb garden" that has cilantro, parsley, sweet basil and something else, but for the life of me, I can not remember it! And, finally, I put cucumber seeds in a little patch at the other end of the garden. We will see if I get anything out of that mess! Last year, I was not very diligent with keeping the cucumber watered, so I got 3 the entire season! HA! Crazy, right!?

So, here is the fun part! I let B, Bucko, Ponch, Boog and Z all "help" me! It was GREAT! Nice try! There really is nothing great about having to force your kids to help, but I sure did follow through with it! Even when it meant hunting them down after they had wandered off into the house! I found two of them sitting at the computer! UGH! Steam was just a-rollin! I did not have much for them to do, but they were helping anyway! Everyone eats out of that garden and everyone was going to help, even if it killed ME! Almost! The one thing I should mention is that the little boys really do like to help plant seeds. As far as that goes, Z liked helping make rows with the hoe, but his rows were more crooked than mine and about 6 inches deep! I had him make potato hills instead. I gave him a certain amount of room, in which he could plant, and he used about half of that! I tried to get him to spread things out, but... I guess we will have close knit potatos this year!

Anyway, all in all, and a whole lot of typing later, I am so excited about having my garden planted! I would have taken a picture, but I assure you, there is nothing to see----yet!

Cunningham Children's Home

Over the weekend, our Sunday School confirmation group went to the Cunningham Children's Home for their annual confirmation class "field trip" day.

It was an experience unlike any that I have ever been through before. I felt sad throughout most of the day. I was just sad to know that kids are without a "mom and dad" home. Oh, don't get me wrong, I am a "mom only" home kid and that is fine, but the point is that it drives me crazy that so many people have kids and don't stick by them. Kids need parents! Kids need support! Kids need guidance! I know life is not perfect and I also know that it is wonderful that there is a home with loving staff that really do their best to become the "parental influence" for these kids. It still makes me sad.

Being sad was not to be the point of the blog, so on with it already!

I wanted to take a minute to personally blog a thank you to all of my hat making cohorts! I thought it would be nice to make hats for all of the kids who live at the home and to also make hats for all of the kids who attend the school. I mentioned it to my sister. I was attempting to tell her in hopes of her saying that she would help. Well, over the course of our hat making excursion, many other generous souls offered to help as well! My grandma started making hats and my sister's man-friend/fiance' did too! After that, our friends Ant Knit, 3DNP, Kekee, and Life With My 3 Boys all joined in too! I forgot to mention that my 9 year old, Ponch, and my 11 1/2 year old, Z, also pitched in!

I think you are all wonderful and I am so thankful to have you as friends! Thanks for everything!

Ha! IF I was "cool" I would say "you ROCK!"

I am not cool!

Birthday Parties Are Fun!

Birthday parties are fun, right? Sure. Why wouldn't they be, unless you are as anxiety stricken as I am! I don't even invite many others, because every fiber of my being warns against it! Let's just say that I know better! My fragile psyche can not take it!

So, the details of the double b-day party, for Bake-our now 6 year old son and Ponch-our now 9 year old daughter which are technically our two middle children by birth right and otherwise(!), from Saturday should not come as such a surprise to you, since you have been warned of my Birthday Party Syndrome.

(I was emailing this blubbering mess of crap to a friend and thought I would just pass it on, but as I went through I saw lots of missing links, so you get the new and improved, but still all true life events, I assure you! I don't know how anyone could mentally create the stuff that goes on in my world! These events may be shocking and or unsuitable for younger readers! Not really, but you never know!)

It was fine, but the unfortunate thing is that birthday parties stress me out terribly! First off, I thought we were going to be late, which would really be bad. I knew my friend K would be because her little girl R was sleeping. She had made a comment earlier in the afternoon that if she woke R up, we would see a drunk K at the party, so it was a given that she would be late! Anyway, my sister somehow got the time wrong (and had two of our brothers, another little girl, and Big T)and did not get there til 6 when we said 5 and had all the kids there at 5 so I was thinking that the kids would be a disaster by the time we got the party going, but most of them were ok. On the other hand, Boog decided to miss a step and do a face plant, so she had the beginnings of a Unicorn horn a little off to the side of her forehead! Bad news!!!

I had to run and get Z and his buddy, the boy who lost his dad this week, which is the only reason a friend of Z's got to come to the other kid's party, and grandma, so it was almost 5:30 when I got there. The kids made the best of it by playing pool and just running the place!

I was starving and ready to eat one of the kids by the time we got to the food part! I had two cupcakes without a second thought as to whether there was enough for anyone else to have more or anything! Knee jerk reaction to being hungry!!!! I did not even care if the kids got to open presents as long as I could have food and to prove that, I made S, my husband, take the pics!!!!!!!

We started bowling and I got 3 frames into it by the time Meeeeema exploded poop everywhere, which also happened to be the exact time I was on the phone with Pizza Hut. I was trying to get our order in, so we could eat sooner, rather than later! Again, HUNGRY! I think being nervous makes my blood sugar drop like it does for a diabetic, honestly. Anyway, back to the poop sensation the swept all over my arm and Meeeeema's clothes! GROSS! I am sooooooo extremely sick of being shit on that there are no good words to explain it, so just know that in an archaic, but quaint (ha) little bowling alley, I was never happier to be one of the two groups of people to be there! We needed our own extra lane for poop changing!

By the time we got the pizza it was 7:30 and I had taken grandma home while I was out getting it. I can say that I did not eat straight out of the box while I drove, but only because I had it in the seat behind me! I only bowled 3 frames, because I had to feed Meeeeema, my GIANT newborn, before I went to get the pizza. I stood and ate pizza as soon as I could get some in my mouth, making myself look like a starved orphan or something, but that is just about the way I was feeling, so I guess it worked out just fine! Somehow, in between scarfing down food, I managed to dish something out for all the kids, who were probably just as hungry as I was, almost. You should always think of the children first, unless you are pretty damned sure that you might be hungrier than they are!

As you can tell, birthday parties are always a treat in my family! What I really wanted was a drink and although I could have gotten by with it, I did not have one. I could really have used some sort of anti-anxiety something right about then, but, well, Hell, I don't know! I survived, as did the rest of the family, so I guess it was O K !