Vacation

Hi all -

I am off on a vacation with the family.  I hope we don't fight to much and hope we all stay safe.  I need to get away from the stress of everyday life and rush rush rush.

Take care and I promise to be back soon with stories and this and that.

Tribute to Mia

I hate writing this. It brings up the hurt and pain but Mia deserves a tribute so I will do this.

She was our little pumpkin. We rescued her, gave her a good life for the time we had her. She learned to smile with us!

Last Thursday she had a seizure. She had not had one for over a month with her new medication.  We went to check on her later in the evening and poor Mia had gotten worse. She was ice cold and her bowels had let loose.  We immediately called the vet and he said it sounded like she was in hypoglycemic shock.  We gave her some honey, held her to warm her. She seemed to perk up a bit so we put her in a box wrapped in towels by our bed.  In the morning she seemed a lot perkier but still could not stand. She drank water but was unable to keep food down.  We nestled her in her kennel and went to check on her at lunch.

Lunchtime visit was NOT good. She was worse so we took her into the vet. While there she began vomiting blood. We didn't want to admit it but it was time to say good-bye.

Mia can now run and play and chase cars. We miss her terribly. I miss her toenail tapping on the floor, her running right behind me no matter where I went. I miss her playing with me in the morning and rubbing on my leg like a cat.

You were a good girl Mia. (*sniff*) I miss you pumpkin!

It's only 10 - why is it so hard???

I mean just look at them, individually they are not hard or difficult. They all make sense and make you a better person for doing them.  Our shortsightedness, our me - me - me attitude, our laziness, our excuse making, and many more all lead to messing these 10 simple things up each and every day.
1. Thou shalt have no other gods before Me.

Now you may think, I never do this. I believe in God and not a gold statue. I'm safe! Sorry, not so fast. Money, jobs, material things are all lumped into this other gods category. When something like that new pair of shoes comes up even when you have 50 pair at home...Shoe god has won and you have sinned.

2. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord, thy God, in vain.

I actually get upset when people use the GD or JC in cursing but sinful me rarely says anything to that person doing the swearing. Isn't that just as bad accepting someone else saying it?  Plus even though I rarely use those names in vain I do use other curse words. I think that is a sin also because swearing only brings negativity into your life.

3. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.

I have a lot of troubles with this one. Yes I go to church but sometimes make feeble excuses not to go. I also work a LOT on Sundays. I catch up on home chores that do not get done during the week when I am working long hours.  I need to learn how to slow down and enjoy everything good I have in my life.  Take a breather people!

4. Thou shalt honor thy father and thy mother.

No matter how mad you get at your parents, respect them. This needs to occur no matter what their age. Even if you are an adult, respect them. They really did do the best they could and helped to mold you into what you are today. Both the good and the bad. If they were bad parents you learned what not to do. If they were great parents, they modeled you into good things you can use when you become a parent. If they are gone, still honor them.

5. Thou shalt not kill.

 Boy this should be an easy one right?  I mean I have never physically killed another human being but there maybe more to this one.  I believe you can kill another person's spirit just from hurting them with words.  I know some of my hopes and dreams as a person were killed and stopped just by an others words. Be careful what you say in addition to what you do.

6. Thou shalt not commit adultery.

Another one that by it self should be easy but in today's technological society I think the devil is winning this one. Porn and sex are all over every technology media device out there. Plus it is in so many other media such as billboards, books, and every where you turn.  It is not only men who do this. The women always try to act so innocent on this one but they are just as bad!  I don't think you should become an isolationist but you do need to try to limit your exposure to this sort of thing.

7. Thou shalt not steal.

This one is crazy.  When I think about it I was told in one breath not to do this but in the next breath if someone gave me extra change back I was to shut up and keep it???? Definitely not right but that is how I was brought up. In no way does it make it right, just pointing out that even in a Christian household things are sinful.

8. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.

This one is easy to break and not even think about. How many times did you see something that was not right going on and you either walked, bicycled, or drove right by thinking oh someone else can help them out. What if the shoe was on the other foot? What if it was you that was needing help and everyone just passed you by?  Be nice to others. Do the right thing. Pay it forward.

9. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house.

This is another one in today's society that is easy to make excuses for not following. Cell phones are a great example. EVERYONE has to have the iPhone. Even if they have no idea how to use it or why they need it so bad. Joe has it and says its the best so I need it to! Suri sounds like fun so I just HAVE to have it. Do you really? Stand back and think about it. Do you have a legitimate need or are you just coveting?

10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his cattle, nor anything that is thy neighbor's.

This ties into #9 only expands to include everything other than the house. God will give you what you need. Be happy with what you have and enjoy the good things in life. I know easier said than done. Wake up tomorrow and try harder.

Please remember these are just my rambling thoughts. I am sure God would look upon my words and find many things I should have said better, differently, or more clearly. I am trying to do my best to think about and explain them to possibly help someone else see the message.
One thing I have learned in my years on earth - the right thing is ALWAYS the harder thing to do. It is way easier to be bad, mad, accusatory, gossip. Heck some of them even temporarily feel better but in the end never the right thing in God's eye.

We have one thing that makes following these 10 items impossible - our sinful nature. It's in our blood to disobey. To be "naughty" and disobey our Father.  Talk about a catch - 22 to be in.  Zowie. I don't have any answers just ideas to try.

I guess I will sum it up with this:
THANK YOU LORD for sending Jesus to die for our sins. We need it badly!

How doth thy garden grow?

Isn't it amazing how quickly plants will grow if you leave them to just do their thing?


Garden update:

First we will start with the pond, which is a water garden to me.  You can see we have a small waterfall which a horrible algae bloom has taken place (grumble).  The lily is blooming but when I took this picture it was early morning and not quite out yet. It is a beautiful dark pink. I can see it peeking out in this photo but you have to know where to look. You can see the purple flowers in the foreground of a different water plant. The water iris are finished blooming. They are the tall reed looking things in the photo.  I need to get the algae under control and the pond will be great. We have the fish and some local frogs also in there.

Here is kind of a neat shot of one of my apple trees. The apples are doing OK. Not a lot of them but the ones we have are growing nicely. I liked this shot as the apples are still small.

This shot is blurry but I wanted to get close and show you how blackberries start out. Our bushes are just loaded with fruit. I can't wait to show you how big and different they look when ready to pick!  Some are still blooming as you can see at the bottom of the photo. (white flowers)

Next we have our peach trees. How many peaches can you see? I count 5 in this span of 6 inches or so. The trees are loaded with fruit. We have a lot that drops off but you can see how large they are getting all ready. I can't imagine how big they will be in another month. It kind of scares me as peaches have such soft wood that the trees break easily. Last year we lost over half of our smallest and newest tree.  I will be keeping my fingers crossed for no big wind storms to hurt these delicate trees.

Here we are finally to the vegetable garden. This is an overall shot showing potatoes on the left, sweet corn on the right, cucumbers and onions in the back. All doing fairly well.

Here are the potatoes and onions with a couple sunflowers.  I read the kids a book about the giant in the back yard - at the end of the book you discover it is a sunflower. Fun book and it makes me smile at the sunflowers towering over the garden keeping watch.

This shot is sweetcorn in foreground, tomatoes and peppers on the upper right and upper left is supposed to be carrots...I haven't seen any yet so I don't know if they will appear or not. Still hoping.  Our green beans are an epic failure. We have planted twice and the seeds keep rotting in the ground. Big sad face. I have no idea why that is happening this year.

I love my gardens and yard as you can tell. I'll try to keep doing updates this summer. I hope you enjoy following my garden as much as I like blogging about it!

cinco de mayo

I had never participated in cinco de mayo before this year.

Geeze - now I know what I have been missing.

Yummy

Mexican

Food

and

Drink!

First we started off with free flour tortila chips and pico de gallo. Can we say to die for???

Here is a recipe that is close to what we had:
pico de gallo
Ingredients

• 6 roma (plum) tomatoes, diced
• 1/2 red onion, minced
• 3 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro
• 1/2 jalapeno pepper, seeded and minced
• 1/2 lime, juiced
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1 pinch garlic powder
• 1 pinch ground cumin
• salt and ground black pepper to taste

Directions

1. Stir the tomatoes, onion, cilantro, jalapeno pepper, lime juice, garlic, garlic powder, cumin, salt, and pepper together in a bowl. Refrigerate at least 3 hours before serving.

And now onto the drink portion...
1/2 priced margaritas! The glass was completely full but by the time I took the photo the free half of the drink was gone :-)

After that we then had an amazing meal! I had a chicken enchalada with beans and rice. Not one bad bite in the entire dish.

I think we should make this an annual event even if I am not hispanic :-)

Have Uzi will Travel

One of my cats did a funny the other day and I just have to share.  This story is about Buddy. She is our upstairs kitty. This means she has reign of the main floor in our home.  It was getting near bed time and during the night she sleeps in my daughters bedroom.

Hubby and I begin to look for her to put her "in" for the night. He finds her lounging on my son's bed. He goes in to shoo her back to the other bedroom and she squeals and growls like she is being killed. (This is normal behavior for this rescued kitty that was tortured in her previous home by an adult male.) She runs back into the other bedroom, we shut the door and head to bed ourselves.

As we are getting ready for bed, hubby notices something on his side of the bed near his pillow. It seems that Buddy has not so nice feelings for hubby. She placed a toy Uzi gun on his side just for him!

Hubby shows me and I BURST out laughing.  Seems that Buddy has plans for my husband and they aren't to friendly.  I just said he better watch his back.  His response: "Damn cats!"

Garden time

Yes I know I should NOT let my vegetable garden go weeks without attention. This tangle of weeds is the result. Way at the far end of this mess you can see my pretty clump of chives but other than that - HIDEOUS.

We started Friday night. After a quick dinner, I said let's head out and start on the garden because I knew it was going to take a long time to fix. We started by weeding the potatoes. The weeds were taller than the potatoes so it needed serious work. Plus after potatoes are up you need to mulch them with straw.  We were approximately 1/2 way done weeding when rumble rumble (thunder). I looked up at the sky and said "REALLY?" This is the ONLY weekend I have to work on our vegetable garden so if you want me to feed my family please hold off on the rain.  The response? More rumbling. I told hubby to pull faster and start putting down the straw. So he is putting down the straw and we run out! I finish frantically pulling as the lightning starts to kick in. We rush into the house to more rumblings. I was shown who is boss...

Fast forward to the next morning. We had an early morning rain shower but by noon it had cleared up and heated up. Boy was it H-O-T! We dug in on weeding, mulching and planting. Here is a section of garden we previously had planted. I weeded and mulched the radish, lettuce, onion, and garlic plants. Looking better.

Approximately 5 1/2 hours later of solid work by hubby and I we finally planted the last kernel of sweet corn.  So in addition to what was mentioned above and the sweet corn. We also have green squash, yellow squash, honeydew melon, cucumbers, green beans, beets, two kinds of tomatoes, 2 kinds of peppers, and carrots.  Can you say exhausted? Neither one of us could hardly move and I acquired a nasty sunburn on my back. Look at the final product. Looks pretty nice right now!

I made a nice bucket of adult beverages and we rested on the deck while drinking them. We then went out for dinner as neither one of us could cook a thing. We have been on Advil for a couple days now trying to work out the kinks in our backs, necks, arms, legs.  I will try to update the garden topic occasionally throughout the year as it takes a LOT of our time.  The fresh produce is very worth it though for healthy eating.