Beautiful Day

Today has been beautiful for many reasons. Mainly, I have friends and a the beauty of nature to thank for that. Look at the treats Mother Nature gave me this morning when I stepped out my back door that leads to my garden....

What a beautiful thing to wake up to! Thank you Mother Nature for the sunflowers, yellow crookneck squash, Roma tomatoes, cabbage, squash blossom and butternut squash.
Also, you'll notice...my blog is beautiful again. A big thank you to Lyndsay (again)! She had me test adding an html code widget to set my background (rather than her logging into my blog to fix things) to see if it worked and wha-la, it worked perfectly. Please visit her new site HERE.....if you are looking for someone to beautify your blog, she's your girl!
There are certain days when one would be remiss to not mention certain things or people that need to be mentioned. So today I hope you won't mind me highlighting a friend (I hope she won't mind for that matter)!

T has been a friend of mine for as long as I can remember (we're talking elementary school here so 20 plus years). We recently reconnected thanks Facebook (where else)?

Today her son would have turned 18. She lost him a few years ago due to circumstances I'm not quite clear about. What I do know for certain is that it was beyond tragic, as any loss would be for a mother. He was a beautiful boy with his mother's eyes.

I don't know how she's getting through it, but she is. She's as strong and as beautiful as she was when I met her as a spunky girl at Sirrine Elementary School in the late 1980's. Some people just have that spark- that fire inside that keeps them going when others would just give up. She's one of those people, an inspiration in my book.

Tonight I feel really grateful for my friends and family. What a blessing it is to learn that it's people, not things, that make life happy (and yes, I know some people have the ability to make life not happy...but you know what I mean, the people who build you up, who love you and support you).

The people in my life mean more to me than gold...the old friends, the new, the locals and those across the sea, the chosen family, the blood family, the besties, the sisters, the casual ones, the old school friends, my church friends, and of course blogger friends....the lot of you. ThAnK YoU for making my often rocky, bumpy (and of course hilly) life much more joyful than it would be without you.

Remember: today is a gift...that's why the call it the present (I know, I know, feel free to insert an eye-roll at that catch phrase, I can see some of you now....but, it's true).

Attack of the Triffids....

The gardening is taking over every aspect of my family's life- the various plants and their contant care make me feel like a new baby is in the house (guess that'll help with the baby hunger issue)! Since I last wrote we have created a raised bed, and a sunken bed that is half way done.

I have literally not had time to write, but I miss my "therapy" so had to sit down and take one minute to at least start this post even if it'll only be half done when I publish (no time on hand to upload photos).

Between kids, home, school, the Englishman, health, spirituality, wanting to help a few friends going through a really hard time, worrying about my Grandma, not to mention all the other issues on hand concerning the world at large etc, etc I feel a bit stretched.

But it's a good stretch, one we all need from time to time. It's tiring but also good to feel needed in many different areas....instead of complaining about all the worries and concerns I'm soaking them up and remembering to enjoy life and the bumps along the way. I still wish I had a magic wand at times of course.

Here's what is demanding all our family's attention as of late:

Bell Peppers
Banana Peppers
Honeydew melon
Cabbage
Sweet Corn
Watermelon
Yellow Zucchini
Sweet Peas
2 types of Carrots
2 types of Tomatoes
Lettuce
Spring/Green Onions
Leeks
Jalapenos
Cucumbers
and Sunflowers for fun

IF we can keep everything alive and growing, I'll have plenty to share. I'm also searching for some good pickling recipes in hopes that I will be able to make pickles for my Mimi (she loves them)....so if you have any, please leave one for us all. :-)

Texas Hot Cocoa Cake (and utter randomness)

A lot of you who are my friends in real life have either eaten and loved (or have heard me talk about and want to try) my Grandma's Texas Hot Cocoa cake. It's a "secret" family recipe that is no longer secret because well, I caved in and gave it to my friend Lyndsay for her awesome recipe sharing blog (which you can find by clicking on the cake link a few lines back). Lyndsay went to the hospital yesterday in labor to have her new baby girl so it would be uncool if I didn't give her a shout out..so Lyndsay, Wes and Finn have fun welcoming BG (Baby Girl) Johnson to the world! I am happy she didn't make you wait until Friday the 13th and I can't wait to learn her name! Between Lyndsay's baby girl and holding my friend Christi's new baby boy Zander on Monday (not to mention another friend expecting a baby soon, a few more trying and other friends adopting), I am becoming very baby hungry....hurry, change of topic!

I think I just met our new neighbors who made an offer on the house next door to us(their offer was accepted...it's a huge 4 bedroom, 2 bathroom giant house, such a steal at 100,000). I think they're Vietnamese and am really hoping they are because I love Vietnamese food (especially from Cyclo). Maybe I can become their new best friend in Mesa and they can teach me some new cooking methods! Either way, they seem nice enough and quiet....I hope our kids shenanigans in the back garden don't prompt any phone calls/complaints to the police (they tend to get a little loud at times despite my shushing them over and over and over and over).

I've been a bit exhausted the past week or so following the re-decorating of the bedroom....it really was draining (but fun, and I still love the green)! Our plan was to rest this past weekend (to make up for all the hard work of the weekend before) but that didn't happen. All the kids weren't feeling their best so that meant mom (i.e. me) stayed up most nights comforting them (I'm not complaining, there's nothing I'd rather do)! Then I came down with another mini-cold which now luckily seems to not be getting worse- small miracle!

Late Saturday afternoon, the Englishman decided to build a greenhouse/cold frame (whatever you want to call it)....basically a warm little house full of moisture for our veggie plants. He built our new little veggie house out of our old box springs that were just tossed onto the back patio during our room makeover (they were just sitting there waiting to be thrown out on a bulk pick up day so he just decided it had to be able to be used for something)! He had fun dismantling it and getting some stress out. First he had to rip all the fabric/cloth off and then had to remove all the metal staples holding the wires to the wooden frame, then he had to unhook all of it. He took the wooden frame apart and then put it back together, covered it with tarps and wha-la, our greenhouse was born. And we are saving the metal framing from the box springs to use as a trellis or veggie frame for our cucumbers, etc. It ended up being a really awesome project in recycling and in this economy I was happy to save the money that we would have spent buying new timber (which yes, he was planning on going to Home Depot the following weekend to do just that). I was assigned the lovely task of picking up the dozens of metal staples that went flying all over the patio and into the patio carpet which tangled up nicely together (it was fun trying to pull them all out of the carpet without gouging myself....anyone who knows me, knows I am a klutz)! Here are a few pics of our new veggie house and plants:

On a totally different note, I'm re-thinking the name of my blog, again. I keep going back and forth and everything I think of and use just isn't sitting right. I'll think of something that'll stick eventually. Thank you to those of you who read my blog, no matter the name. It's brilliant to see the dots from around the world of people who have stopped by. To be honest, I set this blog up mainly for my children to someday know what their mom was thinking and for myself to focus on the good things in my life but if it can connect me to other moms (or anyone else of course who gets something out of my ramblings about not-so-important things) then that is a gift. The more the merrier!

On the surface, I detest technology because I pride myself all things vintage, but technology in it's purest form can be used for so much good and to connect people together who otherwise would never meet. Personal blogs in particular, where a lot of us write about what is closest to our hearts, show that we share a common thread that loops around the globe. That thread = we humans who cherish our own lives and those in it. Our words share with others what makes us tick, makes our spirits soar, what we believe in, what gets under our skin and mostly, what inspires us to be more. What could be cooler than that (aside from making those same things take precedence in our real lives every day)?

Speaking of which....I promised our children today that we would make fresh squeezed lemonade, and I can't wait (only 1 hour and 10 minutes until they get out of school)!

Remember: hug the ones you love.