Storing up For the Winter

All summer our gardens are usually bursting with more produce than we can keep up with.  It is easy to imagine being wrapped in a warm celestial embrace in the bright summer sunshine.   I can almost hear whispered voices blowing through the pine trees surrounding my house when the breeze is blowing.  Abundant flowers, fruits and vegetables adorn the plants in my yard providing all of the senses with more stimulation than my favorite scented lotions and candles.  All summer long it is easy to feel loved and appreciated in my imagination because I am surrounded by so many wonderful things.

Rather than letting that overflowing of God's blessings spoil, we can, dehydrate, and freeze the excess in our household.  I know that some of these things may sound scary to the inexperienced readers, especially the canning, but it really isn't as scary as it may seem if you follow all of the instructions and precautions I promise!  When we still have more left we give them to friends and neighbors because that is one great way to show His love for us in how He takes care of us.

Canning and preserving His goodness from the summer helps to remind me of His love daily while the winds are angrily howling and the cold biting winds bite you to the core.  It makes me feel so not alone.  It has helped me to climb from the depression I had sunk into when the times got tough.  I got a sense of empowerment because I was more in control of our expenses, the only thing that limited me was my creativity.

This summer was not as kind as past seasons have been so we were forced to buy more produce than usual which ends up being more expensive.  It's not the end of the world of course, you can still live frugally if you have to buy the items you can stock up when the items are on sale.  Not everyone has the time or ability to garden anyway, God gifted each of us with different talents.

Thank you for stopping by to chat with me. Please leave me a message, I'd love to hear your thoughts! Cindy

I Give UP!!!!

Have you ever felt like you could just collapse on the floor in a huge blubbering pile? Like nothing in the world will ever go your way again? As if you need to take out a white flag and wave it for everyone to see and call a truce? The endless barrage of hardships and difficulties are just too much to bear!

I don't know what has been going on the last 5 years so that nothing will ever go our way, but I am at my wits' end. It just seems like it's one thing after another. As soon as we start to see the clouds breaking up, more clouds roll right in to take their place. It's just one never ending storm after another. I feel empty and hopeless. I am truly at a loss and no one will help us. I feel like I am in a bottomless pit of quicksand from which there is no escape. I have a feeling that the depression is trying to move back in and take back over my life, but I don't want it to.

I am usually a pretty optimistic person. I know it is always darkest before the dawn, really I do. I have made many batches of lemonade out of my pile of lemons, and some earrings, lemon bars, lemon sherbet, lemon bread, lemon meringue pie, lemon drops, lemon chicken, lemon poppy seed muffins, and lovely scented soaps too. But I am running out of things to make with these lemons and I would really like to get something else instead. Did you know that we have had 10 qualifying hardships within the last 5 years? I am sure I could find even more than that too if I tried. Sad. Pathetic. Unnatural.

Why does no one see my pain? Why will no one reach out a helping hand? Why does everyone think my business is none of their business? Even when I ask for help, no one will help. They won't see my need, it's like they put blinders on, plug their ears and sing a merry tune until I have talked so much I can't talk anymore. They change what I tell them to ease their guilt and so that they are able to do their worst to me. I am sick of it.

Bad service, rising expenses, job transfers, job losses, botched rentals, home sale staging, deaths, depression, short sale, foreclosure, credit clampdowns, home repairs, credit counseling, stress, illness, refinancing, medical debt, loan modifications, I could go on and on. All the while I always try to do the right thing and take care of my debts at the expense of our family and our life. It's sickening really. Why won't it stop? Why do these things keep happening to me? I need to put an end to this vicious cycle.

Everyone has a plan, and everyone tells me what to do when they can't help me. When I tell them I've tried that already, they simply tell me that I must have done it wrong or that I need to do X as well. They tell me someone else will help and pretend to act incredulous and disgusted when I tell them that didn't work either.

Can't anyone just listen, support a person, and help them out? Why does everyone feel the need to require documentation of everything even though I have never told any lies about my situation? Why can't we prepare for something bad that is going to happen when we know in advance it will happen simply because it has yet to happen?

Yeah, I know I have a lot of questions. Why can't anyone answer any of them? Doesn't anyone else have these kinds of questions too? Hasn't this kind of thing been happening all over the world? Why is no one willing to help a person simply to be helpful, not just because a law says they have to?

Apparently no business, no government program, and no job performance bonus is going to get us out of this mess. Only God can and only God will. How do I give this all up for him to deal with when all I do is worry about tomorrow? How do I give it all up into God's hands? I want to give up.

Thank you for stopping by to chat with me. Please leave me a message, I'd love to hear your thoughts! Cindy

Where Did June Go?

The month has brought about much growth both in my life and in our yard, I am constantly amazed at the progress I'm seeing. It's also brought me much needed peace too.

I'm looking at the calendar and I see that there in only a week left of June. Where did this month disappear to? I've been working on getting our current home loan modified, getting lots of little things done I've wanted done in the last three years, finding ways to cut our expenses so we can make it on our reduced income, and just generally getting everything in order.

I seem to have suddenly sprung to life too. I feel so much happier, unencumbered. I feel like life is good again and things are only going to improve. I see hope and harmony and I'm loving it. My energy levels reflect that too, I can't believe how many things I get done in a day nowadays. Not like the days when I was happy to even get one thing done!

Looking around I can see so many blessings that God has sent us, I think that helps lift my spirits too. Everywhere I look I am reminded of these wonderful things that tell me he still loves us. Blackberry brambles seem to have overtaken the entire woods surrounding our house. There are drifts of white blackberry flowers floating all over on the fringes of our yard. Any picture you take seems to inadvertently include pictures of these blooms. If we didn't like wild fruits so much this may annoy us, but it makes me feel truly blessed. I wonder if my blackberry jelly is good enough to sell to raise money to buy my dad a headstone....

The apples I pollinated with a paintbrush continue to swell into fruits. It looks to be covered in numerous apples that are on their way to becoming food for our table. One of the new trees we just planted this year even has one apple growing on it. I'm pretty impressed!

Our first strawberry of the season was ready today. I picked it and gave it to Cheesehead as a gift. He's been kind enough to water the veggie garden even though he hates any vegetable that's not corn or potatoes. He has even talked about giving me more room from his back yard for more future veggie gardens. Will wonders never cease?

I planted two tomatoes in coconut lined baskets earlier this spring. You know... like those green bags that hang on a hook? It's a little experiment. So far it seems to be working out great. Look at all of the blooms it is forming!

Our other tomato plants are taking off too. I have all 16 plants that are in the ground caged up with those cheap little cages. Two of them aren't doing so well, but the others seem to be thriving. Would you believe I got all of these as those cheap little 6 pack plants? We have a total of 18 tomato plants. Looks like I may need to start looking for ways to prepare and can some of my garden goodies! I also planted a six pack each of green peppers and zucchini and a three pack of broccoli in the garden.

Cheesehead can't believe the difference between this year's garden and the gardens of the past. We were just talking about that earlier. I guess I might not believe it either if I weren't living in my body feeling so much better and getting so much done. Cucumbers, beans, and peas are all growing from seed. I also planted some carrots, lettuce, water melon, banana peppers, and squash seeds last week. It may be a bit late but I guess we'll see soon enough. I think I'll try planting a late summer garden of spinach and other goodies too.

This fall I will move the asparagus I planted this spring to a sunnier location with much better soil.

Thank you for stopping by to chat with me. Please leave me a message, I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Cindy

Plans For the Best Garden Ever

It's that wonderfully exhillerating time of year when many of us are in the process of implementing the plans we made over our winter hiatus from gardening. While I'm a little way from being able to carry out my plans and therefore still in my planning stages, I know that many others are out digging in the dirt already. As I read one of the five gardening books I just checked out from our local library, I thought of a few reminders that I wanted to share with you about our gardens.

1. Gardens should bring you joy, not sorrow. Don't worry about what the outside world thinks of your garden. As long as it doesn't intrude on your neighbor's life

2. When planning your garden changes, make them according to the garden aspects you enjoy. A garden should be our refuge from the crazy every day grind of a busy life, we should be able to enjoy our time in them and our work should feel like play, not a chore.

3. Don't expect perfection, because you won't get it. I don't know how many gardeners I've seen that get totally frustrated about the deer that eat all of the pansy heads. (Oh, was that ME?) A plant doesn't have to be pefect to bring us joy. Stressing about imperfections in our garden defeats the whole purpose of having a garden. I know it's hard to just roll with the punches but wouldn't it be nice if we didn't feel that everything had to be just so?

4. Gardens are as individual as it's caretakers. No two gardens can or even should be alike. What one person views as a garden, another person may not like. That's okay. We're all different, our gardens can produce a variety of niches for the wildlife that choose to inhabit them.

5. Plan your garden to suit your environment. I don't know how much work and how many headaches that keeping a simple thing like that in mind would save us. It doesn't make sense to yearn for a yard full of sun loving plants if we are limited by massive amounts of shade. If we plan our garden to fit where it will live, the garden will basically take care of itself and we can spend more time enjoying our work.

Thank you for stopping by to chat with me. Please leave me a message, I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Cindy

Trials and Tribulations

Many people bemoan the fact that we have many trials and tribulations that we all must suffer through in life. I have found myself complaining about them too, probably a little too often. I think we all do, but we fail to think of the lessons in life that we forget without these very same trials. Those trials remind us of the lessons we learned as youth and have forgotten with the passage of time.

These trials are brought into our lives for various reasons. We may not even know why we have been put into the position we are in, we simply move through life and hope for the best. We need to remember not to just go through the motions in life, I tend to do this too often too. With prayer, I know that I can find the answers to all of my questions if I just have enough patience.

Sometimes we need reminders of what is truly important. Maybe we have forgotten to keep our life focused on what God wants us to do, so we get sent gentle reminders. Maybe it never occured to us how it was that we were truly supposed to live out our lives, so we need to be set onto the proper path.

Whatever the reasons for our trials, we must do our best not to forget the ways in which we are blessed. It seems easier to forget our blessings when we are living in times of abundance than it is when we are living through difficult times. I will work hard to remember how much I am blessed through all of the seasons of my life.

I am going to start a blessing box to help me to remember all of the reasons I have to be thankful. At times when I feel down, I will be able to look into my blessings box and remember the many blessings I have in life.

I must remind myself often. Have faith that things will get better. Do the best job you can to live in the ways you are directed to and know that you can not fail if you follow God's guidance.

Thank you for stopping by. Please leave me a message and a backlink. I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Cindy

A Journey Through Depression

I've been thinking a lot about blogging about depression again for some reason. I have found that if something's weighing heavily on my mind there's a reason and I need to share with others. This post is about my journey through depression and how I finally decided to seek help for my problem.

My struggle with depression started back when my friends left me behind after high school. I have a few family members that suffer from depression too, so I guess I'm sort of prone to feeling depressed and sorry for myself. I also tend to be a bit of a perfectionist and if I don't live up to my own high standards I can be a bit hard on myself. That's a big thing I've been working on lately. I tend to blame myself for things that I really have no control over too. I know it's crazy, but it's a hard thing to control.

After moving much as a child I found it difficult to form true and lasting friendships, so I did a pretty good job of sheltering myself from the pain of friends I had to leave behind. That strategy worked very well for me until I hit high school. I found some friends I felt I could really open up to, I could be myself and they didn't expect me to be anything but myself. I tried to do my best and to be a better person when they were around, but not out of crazed obssession but because I enjoyed it.

When they moved away to spread their wings and head off to college, I didn't feel that I had anyone to talk about my problems with. Our busy lives made us drift out of touch and pretty much loose contact. Stresses built up and I went back to my unhealthy ways of dealing with feelings, mainly eating those yummy comfort foods.

My expectations were high and I didn't do as well as I thought I should do the first year of college, I wasn't even getting a B average and my goal was to have an A average like I did in high school. Not to mention the stress of working 30 hours a week and trying to pay for most of college myself. The vending machines were everywhere and in those days I didn't seem to believe in packing my own lunch to eat at school. It was a crazy year and I gained weight like crazy. I spiraled farther and farther, I was out of control and I didn't even seem to realize it.

After I made some new friends at work and got back into the groove things improved somewhat. I even met this great guy (Cheesehead) who was super sweet eventually who was very interested in me. My underlaying problems remained though and I never fully recovered to myself again. I refused to really open up to anyone again because I just couldn't afford the expense of being discarded again.

Eventually I began to trust again a little bit and I became really good friends with Cheesehead. We began dating, got engaged and eventually got married in March of 1996. I didn't feel free to open up to anyone else though, there was just something about him that made me want to cling to him and him alone. As a newly wed I never felt like leaving the house to go anywhere with anyone besides my husband. I suppose it was the combination of being a newly wed and having a mild case of depression.

My sister decided she didn't like him because she thought I gained weight because I was with him. She thought he was controlling me and telling me that I couldn't go anywhere. She told my friends she thought he was abusive towards me.

I didn't want to go anywhere with anyone, it was the depression and fear of rejection welling up inside me. I never told her the truth since we were never close. She just wanted to blame someone for my problems. It couldn't have been health related or anything. I suppose thoughts like that don't occur to most people though when you're supposedly a young healthy person.

A few months after we got married I became pregnant. I was a little nervous and not completely sure I really was pregnant, I'd never been there before and I wasn't sure I'd be a very good mom. Shortly thereafter I had a miscarriage. Of course I blamed myself. I know now that it wasn't my fault, but this crazy voice inside my head just told me that I secretly didn't want the child so it decided to leave me before I could reject it. Was it my fault because I had just gotten a new kitten and shouldn't have been cleaning the litterbox? I must have given myself toxoplasmosis. I was stretched thin with work, marriage, a new house, and the loss of my baby and the blues seemed to close in around me a little tighter.

I talked to very few people about my miscarriage. They just didn't understand what I was going through. When I talked about it with others they tried to comfort me with comments like "it wasn't meant to be", "it wasn't alive so how could you miss it", "there must have been something wrong with it", the list goes on too.

Why shouldn't a woman be sad when the little life inside her goes away never to be heard from again? Why can't a woman cry when she sees all of these moms walking around with healthy children? I didn't feel it was okay for me to talk about such things, so I just buried them deep down with all of my other baggage. Cheesehead and I made a memorial garden at our new house for the poor life that was snuffed out before we got a chance to really get to know it. It helped me to feel better about life to get out there and get my hands in the dirt.

When I had my son a year later, I felt inadequate for him. He was so very small and I had so many problems with the preeclamsia during pregnancy. I was afraid I would break him like he was some little china doll or something. People were constantly offering me unwanted advise. I know that happens to everyone, but I took it personally of course and thought I was an unfit mother. He was so small, I was afraid to take him outside so I didn't get to garden as I wanted to. Having other people watch my son when I was home would make me a bad mom and I couldn't leave him inside all by himself when he was so small and fragile!

I kept myself mired in such thoughts for years. I tried half heartedly to get full time teaching jobs every now and then and wondered to myself why on earth I had wasted so much money on an education that I would never use.

It got even worse when I had my daughter. I had placenta previa with her (which was also obviously my fault) and ended up spending two weeks on hospitalized bedrest before I had her. I had no visitors really other than mom and dad and cheesehead. I never really thought about it at the time, I just assumed no one cared. Looking back I'm not so sure that anyone even knew I was in the hospital and it was an hour away from where my friends and I lived. That didn't matter to my mind though. I just beat myself up because nobody liked me or cared enough to even call me or send me a card or anything.

Still it never really occured to me that anything was wrong with my attitude or thoughts. As far as I was concerned all of these things were completely normal. I'm not sure how I stayed on the brink of depression for so long.

When my children were older I got back into gardening and started to feel a little bit better. Before we moved I talked with my doctor about thinking I may be depressed but we never did anything about it. I didn't want the label of being depressed.

My dad needed to have heart surgery so he stayed with us for a couple of weeks when he was recovering. Mom lived there too and but they had been divorced for several years before that. It was uncomfortable for everyone. I got even more frustrated because I could never get him to take his pills, I needed to have mom tell him to take his pills before he would take them. I beat myself up some more because he refused to listen to me because he thought I didn't know what I was talking about, it was all my fault.I told myself I was stupid and incapable of doing anything right. Looking back I'd say he just didn't really want to take instructions from someone so much younger than him.

When he died I just knew that everyone blamed me. He didn't live with me anymore and I should have had him move back in with us when my uncle went back to jail. I didn't go over to his house to see what was wrong when he didn't answer the phone. I should have gone over and seen if there was something wrong, why in the world didn't I? Truthfully he was always involved in something and he rarely ever answered the phone when I called but that thought also never crossed my mind when I was in the midst of beating myself up again. My depression kept me sinking deeper and deeper into a dark funk I couldn't break free from.

I blamed myself for moving my family far from home and not being able to sell our old house, for being stupid enough to buy a house upon the advise of the bankers and realtors when I should have been smart enough to know better, I should have thought to fix all of the little problems with my old house before I out it on the market, I shouldn't have been stupid enough to have spent all of that money on my old house's new windows, appliances, flooring, siding, roof, soffits, and paint. It's crazy the thoughts that kept flying through my head. It rarely occured to me that anything was wrong with such thoughts OR that having these thoughts would keep me stuck in a depression cycle forever.

I kept seeing these depression commercials on tv. Thoughts started playing around the fringes of my mind about needing help, but I kept trudging on through life. I was just being paranoid and a hypochondriac I chided myself. These thoughts kept weaving themselves into my mind though. I even started to dream about it. I dreamed about how I used to be with kids and I thought about how crabby I was with my kids.

These thoughts eventually even entrenched themselves into my waking mind. I thought about how I couldn't sleep at night, I couldn't lose weight, how I cried over things that shouldn't be cried about, how I never had the energy to motivate myself off the couch to do even the simplest of tasks, I had no energy ever, and I couldn't remember anything. I talked to my doctor about it again in the summer of 2007, but I told her that I wanted to try to snap out of it myself first.

I prayed about it a little bit and started making some friends on the internet. My friends and cousins started sharing the fact that they suffered from depression too. With their friendship and encouragement as my guide I finally gathered up the courage to ask the doctor for some medical intervention. Nothing I was doing for myself was enough to help me get over it and I decided enough was enough, I didn't want to feel like this anymore.

It's been almost a year now that I've been taking my meds. I can't believe the improvements I've seen in myself and my outlook on life in such a short period of time. I still have a long way to go with controlling the thoughts of worthlessness and inability to do things, but my frame of mind is becoming better with discussion, journaling, prayer, gardening, and self examination. One day I may not need the chemicals to help keep me in the right frame of mind, but for now I'll keep plodding on with therapy in hopes of a complete and total recovery one day.

Thank you for stopping by. Please leave me a message and a backlink. I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Cindy

The Munchkins Trick or Treat

Cheesehead had to work today so the kids and I made the most of a cloudy dreary day. I was able to feel mostly human after the second dose of medicine and using a whole box of kleenex to blow my nose. The kids were kind enough to make breakfast and unload the dishwasher for me. I spent the morning on the couch checking out blogs and contacting family members about my ancestry stuff.

We decided to carve the pumpkin today. The kids were very into it. They got out knives and got right to work. They didn't mind helping me to scoop the seeds out, but when it came to getting the guts out it became my job somehow. How peculiar. I'll roast the seeds tomorrow, I just don't feel energetic enough today.

Okay, I know I said I was going to take it easy today but we also got out the halloween decorations and put them up. My computer is being uncooperative at this time though so I'll have to show you later. I'll have to show you the crafts I made previous years later too. Isn't technology jusy peachy?

Since the kids were so nice this morning, I couldn't skip taking them to town. To lift my spirits a little bit more I decided to join in the dress-up fun too. Peanut was Darth Vader, Son was Luke Skywalker, and I was Princess Leia. Peanut's costume was the only store bought costume. Son's was a black hooded sweatshirt, black sweatpants, a long piece of black scrap fabric used as a cape and a light sabre (as he would have looked in Return of the Jedi). Mine was a hole cut in the middle of a white sheet with an afro wig in two pony tails. Okay, not exactly the most elegant costume ever but oh well. It was fun. A few people even named me by name without me having to tell them who I was supposed to be so I guess I couldn't have done too badly.

Once we were done downtown I took the kids to see their dad at work. Cheesehead was hiding his face when he saw I was dressed up too, I think he was laughing at me. He asked if anyone else saw me. Of course they did!

The rest of the night was actually mostly spent lounging around. Peanut had checked the Bee Movie out from the library so we watched that tonight before Cheesehead was too tired and fell asleep.

Thank you for stopping by. Please leave me a message and a backlink. I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Cindy

Daycare Drama

Okay, some of you may be a bit confused about the babbling I've been doing about the daycare I used to work at. Techincally I worked at two different daycares, so I'm sure that may be where some of the confusion came in. If you'd like to hear the story, please read on!

I had 5 years of experience as a toddler teacher (and later lead toddler teacher) at a daycare center that I worked at when the kids were younger in MN. I started there when my son had just become a toddler. My mom could no longer watch him because of her breast cancer and she needed time off to recover.

I left that daycare right after my daughter turned two. I was tired of working full time for so little pay and still had my MN teacher's license, so I became a substitute teacher working part time for about the same pay. I was a substitute teacher for about 3 years in MN before we uprooted our family and moved hundreds of miles away.

When we moved to WI, I immediately applied for my WI teaching license. My husband was transferred within his business. We were assured by several realtors that our home was immacutlately beautiful and would sell easily. They told us the most it should take to sell would be about 3 months and we should feel free to buy a house. Even the banks concurred. Feeling sufficiently assured by all parties involved (as well as those who wished they had been involved) we set out to buy a house.

We thought that only moving the kids once would be the best option, so we bought a house that we could move into before we closed on it. It took our wonderful realtor a bit of work, but we eventually found a great two bedroom home that the buyer would let us move into prior to close. It was our fourth choice because we actually wanted more bedrooms, but it was a nice home and it didn't seem to need much work so we jumped in with both feet.

Our closing was half way through September of 2006 so we could push the payments off for a couple of more months. Our first payment on our new house wouldn't be due until November 1. I wanted to further secure our financial stability, so I decided to search for a job.

On September 9 I called a daycare that had run an ad for a full time infant-toddler teacher for the unheard of rate of $10 an hour. I went in the next day and filled out my application and walked out with the job. I started on the next day with orientation. I was SO excited! This was surely the answer to all of our prayers. Now I could put aside every penny I earned to keep us current with our house payments until our house sold.

I started orientation and got introduced to everyone. They all seemed so nice and enjoyed spending time chatting with each other even when they weren't on the clock, they were a tight knit group. Little did I know that would end up being my downfall. We discussed things I had done at my old daycare and they seemed to think that my ideas were great, they gushed on and I felt like they were happy to have me there. We were going to redecorate the room and make lesson plans to do with the older babies. It was going to be SO much fun. We could talk about just about anything and I felt like we were becoming fast friends. I guess appearances can be deceiving was one of the lessons I walked away from this situation with.

Apparently someone who was attending school to be a daycare worker was gunning for my job. She worked in the center for 2 years before I came along and was apparently the one left in charge when our boss wasn't there. She was shifted into the toddler room on an almost daily basis instead of being with the older infants that I was supposed to be in charge of. She became upset by this and started making waves.

I don't know why she didn't feel she could talk to me about any problems she had with changes I was making or why she didn't feel that she could ask our boss if I could take turns going to the toddler room. She went to the boss with lots of little issues that really weren't issues at all, I think she just wanted to have something to get me in trouble with. Most of the time I wasn't even aware of who was making these complaints/accusations.

I didn't usually have to start work after 7:30 in the morning and only worked until 3:00 in the afternoon. This was planned so I wouldn't have to shell out any money for anyone to watch my kids, my boss identified with me since she was a single mother. She was fortunate enough to have her retired mother living nearby to care for her daughter. I guess the childless employees didn't like the flexibility I had with my schedule, so I was often the subject of most complaints about how the room was run. I guess I never realized the extent of these complaints though, especially from one woman in particular. Maybe I was naive and really thought I was their friend, blind and way too nice, but I liked my job and the kids were adorable and sweet. My boss was great, very understanding and easy to talk to.

Shortly before Christmas, our daycare moved across town. That's when the trouble really started. Our boss was in another building and had to take the word of the people I worked with when it came to their "problems" with me. This complaining lady had another new issue with me too. I guess she didn't like the fact that I didn't come to work early and just showed up when I was supposed to get there. Oh, did I mention the clock she looked at was ahead of real time by about 3 minutes? She figured I was late every day even though all other clocks said I was right on time. She teamed up with the other person I worked with and they told her I didn't do my fair share of work either. Even though I changed more than my share of diapers, I always took the older kids outside, cleaned up both the kids and the dishes after lunch, and did all of the paperwork it was never enough. Apparently that wasn't enough for them though since I didn't make the meals.

I just got sick and tired of it and quit, I mean the housing problem was mostly covered by then because Cheesehead's friend got a promotion and job transfer to our old neck of the woods so he would live in the basement of our old house and Mom would continue living upstairs.

I was tired of being pulled into the bosses' office about their constant petty complaints and I get the feeling my boss was too. I cried during that last meeting, it took me a long time to compose myself so I wouldn't leave the building in tears. I didn't really want to quit, but I just couldn't take it any more and our finances looked solid.

After Christmas I put my name on the district sub list and that's where I've been working ever since.

Any questions? Maybe I confused you now more than ever, I do tend to babble at times.

Thank you for stopping by. Please leave me a message and a backlink. I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Cindy

A Day Late and a Dollar Short and Other Grumblings

I have participated in Carol's Garden Blogger's Bloom Day all through the spring and summer. I don't have a whole lot of flowers around here, plenty of mushrooms though! Needless to say I didn't run out to take pictures of my flowers this month since I really don't have much of anything going on around here.

I saw these mums sitting on the store shelf last month and I decided to purchase them. They were only a dollar each so I thought I'd give them a try. I've never grown mums before so we'll just hope I can keep them alive.



The purple ones were my favorites. I may have mentioned this a time or two before, but I like multi-colored blooms.



I bought the yellow one so the poor purple one wouldn't be all lonely.

Okay, I guess I mis-spoke when I told you that I had nothing else blooming. One of my pansies are still putting out quite a few blooms and I have one marigold that still has a few pathetic blooms too. My camera view finder is broke and my aim was WAY off on those pictures apparently so I only got the two pictures. Can anything else go wrong???

Okay, maybe I shouldn't ask that at this point with all of the health issues up in the air and everything too. I haven't heard anything else from the doctors to report yet so that COULD be a good sign, right?

Now if I could just afford to pay the collection agency, I'd be happy as could be. They're trying to get me to skip a car payment so I can afford to pay them what I owe Wells Fargo. Um, how would we get to work to support our family if we didn't have any transportation? We live out in the middle of nowhere so it's not like I could just walk to work or anything. I don't know why they seem to think I'm being unreasonable when I tell them my story, they keep telling me it's Wells Fargo's turn to get paid. If Wells Fargo and Wachovia could have gotten along and shared back when I had that offer I wouldn't even be in this situation! I feel like crap when I have to tell them I can't afford to pay them, but we need to make the best choices for our family. Does that make me a bad person? They seem to think it does.

I know I need to stop worrying about what everyone else thinks about me, but sometimes I find myself thinking I'm a bad person and making bad decisions. I doubt myself too frequently, I keep feeling my thoughts pulling me to that dark place they were a year ago. I don't want to go back to that place, to be that person again. I want to just move on with my life and be happy again. How much more do I have to endure before I get to move on?

At least going through all of this stuff has made me be less wasteful. I never throw away food anymore. You should have seen dinner tonight. I made left over casserole. I had a small amount of steak, pork chop, french fries, mashed potatoes, carrots, macaroni and cheese, and sauteed mushrooms. To that concoction I added a can of cream of mushroom soup, 3 onion rings chopped up, and some garlic salt and pepper. It was really good. Only one of the kids even complained.

Thank you for stopping by. Please leave me a message and a backlink. I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Cindy

Another Doctor Appointment

Could I ask you all to please say a few prayers for Cheesehead? Well, for US? I'm hoping that our insurance decides to have some better coverage for THIS visit than it did the last one, I've already got collection agencies calling me daily about my old home's second mortgage that I can't afford to pay. I am also hoping that he doesn't end up working late like he usually does AND that he doesn't "accidentally" forget his appointment, I wouldn't put it past him. He HATES going to the doctor and I usually have to drag him in kicking and screaming. I'm hoping his friends at work urge him to remember his appointment and remind him to go.

I called and talked to his doctor's nurse today about the vomiting of blood (discussed at the well visit that had no follow up as of yet), the oncoming kidney stones that were diagnosed via the blood tests from previously mentioned visit, and the hernia I think he's developed. I also think he's suffering from depression. With all of the stuff we're going through, who wouldn't be? I hope the nurse took notes on our phone call because I'm sure that most of these issues will slip Cheesehead's mind.

There were no openings in the schedule but she got him worked in as soon as he's done working tomorrow. Usually I go to these appointments with him since he never mentions his problems and when we do discuss them he makes them seem like no big deal. I usually go to set the record straight. I have a job at JWMS in 8th grade math tomorrow, I offered to cancel so I could take him but I think he's seeing dollar signs now that I finally have a job on my calendar.

Frankly we desperatley need the money so I'm still going to work. Somehow I've got the feeling that I'm going to be all nerves tomorrow until I hear what's going on.

I still haven't heard about Son's medial tests either. That may be a good thing though, if it were serious I'd think they'd place a phone call to me. If you're worried about one thing, there's about a million to worry about. Am I right?

Thank you for stopping by. Please leave me a message and a backlink. I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Cindy

Why Do I Blog?

Karen at Artist's Garden asked us why we blog.

I originally started blogging to keep in touch with people I alredy knew. I could check in with what they were doing any time of day and stay and visit as long as I wanted without being a pest. As you may know, I CAN be known to be a bit gabby at times. LOL.

I started out on myspace because I have a bunch of friends and relatives that were already members there. The site is free and there were quite a few people that I wanted to keep in touch with on there.

I started an outside blog because my friend Syl had an msn account and never really went to myspace. Well, myspace tends to have a few problems with letting non members view photos and blogs from what I've heard too.

We chatted merily on occassion with our msn blogs (which I still have but have converted it to an ancestry blog) when they changed things over there. This caused Syl and all of her friends to leave msn in drovers to blogger accounts. Wanting to stay in touch, I followed suit. I was now newly moved to a new town and had no friends to sit and chat with over here and was feeling rather lonely out in the middle of nowhere. I didn't blog as much then as I do now though. I viewed it as time consuming and I always seemed to have plenty to do.

My blogging has evolved since then too. You see, I was suffering depression and met a bunch of wonderful people on the HGTV chatrooms that I came to know and depend on for friendship. They could make me laugh and smile even on the darkest of days before I sought treatment for my illness. I was seeking help on how to get my house sold, it had been on the market for 18 months and I was really feeling the strain in all areas of my life. One of those dear friends is Anna aka Flowergardengirl.

If you know me at all, you may know that I sometimes tend to talk about things other than the topic of the blog. Apparently the powers that be didn't like our silliness and getting off topic so we were constantly getting our posts deleted. I was very upset as was Anna, so we moved our conversations out to the blog world instead. I have since stopped posting at the HGTV chatrooms as it seems that my account there has been frozen and they were accusing me of promoting my blog when I posted there. I had a link to my blog so we could all get together and be as off topic as we wanted without having to worry about our posts getting deleted. I left with an extremely heavy heart, many of my friends I made there still have never made their way to my blog. Maybe they never will, but I am on the road to recovery with my depression and it's all because of the kindness of "strangers". Anna told me about this great new little gardening community called Blotanical where she was spending lots of time so I thought I'd give it a try too.

Now I enjoy rushing inside after seeing something neat and interesting to chat with you about. As you can see I have been posting much more frequently here than I ever did on any of my other blogs! My early posts were few and far between and now I post at least a couple of times a week. I now blog to chat with my cyber buds that have helped me come so far in life who have helped me find my happy place once again.

Thank you for stopping by. Please leave me a message and a backlink. I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Cindy

Making Curtains and Other Random Thoughts

I know it's unusual for a shed to have curtains, but I thought it would help it look pretty from the outside. I didn't do as careful of work as I would have if I were to put them up inside, but I think they look cute. Normally I wouldn't hang up such wrinkled curtains either, but I wanted to get a lot done today so I admit I may have cut some corners.



If I had the money I probably would have went out and bought some fabric that matches the curtains hanging in my house's windows. Since I don't though, I raided my fabric stash. I thought this powder blue looked rather striking with the siding color.



I didn't have any curtain rods either, so I used thumb tacks instead. DO you think that's strange?



Now all that's left is finishing the landscaping around the shed, staining the ramp, and building the planter box and shutters. Those projects may end up waiting for next spring. The staining will definately have to since the wood is still so wet and I don't want to be staining again anytime soon. I have put up some decorations on the railing, can you see them? I suppose I should have waited until after this winter and after staining, but I just couldn't wait to see what it looks like!



I have refinished a wood bench that we rescued from our other house. I will place it under the window on the shed's ramp once the poly is dry and my side yard grass has finished growing in. I will also paint a plant stand that I have black and put it in one of the corners. SO many plans, so little time!

I got two doors for our basement stained today too. 3 down, 6 to go. I can't wait until we can put an end to the basement finishing. They can be put up once all of the flooring is finally installed. I am hoping that it will be done in the next week or so. Is that too optomistic?



Also got some banana bread, banana cake, applesauce, baked beans, and potato salad made today before we headed off to football practice and Cheesehead visiting. I want to relax, but should be doing laundry and dishes since I'm Chaperoning Peanut's field trip to the outdoor classroom tomorrow. I should also be taking a shower before our hot water goes out again, but I'm just going to hope that we still have hot water tomorrow morning. I'm exhausted!

We had another showing today for our house in MN. Just over 2 months left until the final foreclosure. I don't know if I should be relieved or worried. I wish it would just sell already, then I could stop with my hand wringing and worrying. I desperately keep trying to give my worries up to the Lord, but somehow I just can't keep them given away. Somehow I just keep taking back the yoke and I can't lay it down. What's wrong with me? Is this normal? How can I give my worries over to God for good?

Thank you for stopping by. Please leave me a message and a backlink. I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Cindy

God's Cake

I got a great email from a friend of mine a few days ago. Here I am feeling sorry for myself and my friends are kind enough to help me put my life back into the proper perspective. I guess that means I'm going to be an awfully good cake someday!

Sometimes we wonder, 'What did I do to deserve this?' or 'Why did God have to do this to me?' Here is a wonderful explanation! A daughter is telling her mother how everything is going wrong, she's failing algebra, her boyfriend broke up with her and her best friend is moving away.

Meanwhile, her Mother is baking a cake and asks her daughter if she would like a snack, and the daughter says, 'Absolutely Mom, I love your cake.'

'Here, have some cooking oil,' her Mother offers.

'Yuck' says her daughter.
'How about a couple raw eggs?'
'Gross, Mom!'
'Would you like some flour then? Or maybe baking soda?'
'Mom, those are all yucky!'

To which the mother replies: 'Yes, all those things seem bad all by themselves. But when they are put together in the right way, they make a wonderfully delicious cake!'

God works the same way. Many times we wonder why He would let us go through such bad and difficult times. But God knows that when He puts these things all in His order, they always work for good! We just have to trust Him and, eventually, they will all make something wonderful!

God is crazy about you. He sends you flowers every spring and a sunrise every morning. Whenever you want to talk, He'll listen. He can live anywhere in the universe, and He chose your heart.

If you like this, send this on to the people you really care about.

Life may not be the party we hoped for, but while we are here we might as well dance. I hope your day is a peice of cake!

Thank you for stopping by. Please leave me a message and a backlink. I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Cindy

Health Care Annoyances

I find that it's just plain crazy that a person can pay $500 a month for a family's health care coverage with our employer paying 1/2 of the expenses for top of the line coverage and have the health insurance not cover a routine wellness exam.

It is always advised that people go in yearly for a routine physical exam as preventative coverage, isn't it? Doesn't it cost less to keep a person well than to let them become ill? At the said wellness exams you are required to attend each and every year if you doctor prescibes medications, you are to dicuss any health issues that may have arisen over the last year. Cheesehead went in for a once yearly exam (which he hasn't been in the habit of doing since we got married, this was only his second one ever) this summer. No other visits at all, so the health insurance is basically just going to waste and paying a small part of his prescriptions.

Do you know what? He is only allowed ONE wellness check every TWO years! HUH???? How does that work when you have a condition that requires meds which in turn require a yearly checkup? Am I also supposed to pay $200 for an office visit ON TOP of the $500 a month insurance???? Where does all of that money we pay go if not to care for our own health and wellness? What is the point of carrying insurance if a provider can tell you you need to have an exam, but we won't help you pay for it? Wouldn't I be better off just paying the presciption fees and one yearly office visit out of my pocket rather than paying $6,000 a year for OTHER people to get my benefits?

I am furious. I don't have the money to pay the doctor now because of the problems with selling our other house. If I don't pay the doctor we won't be able to seek treatment. What in the world am I supposed to do? While we're on the topic, why in the world does it cost $300 for a 15 minute visit and talk with a doctor anyway? (Insurance was kind enough to cover appx. $100 of the office visit)

I don't even have that much left for my family's groceries this month, not that I would want to starve the family to line the hospital's pockets or anything but....

What is a person to do when you make "too much" money to qualify for any type of assistance programs, but not enough money to pay off all of your debts? I'm trying to be an honest person and pay all of the debts I owe, but why does everyone have to be so unreasonable? I won't claim bankruptcy because I refuse to pass my debts on to other people, but I am SO frustrated it's just not even funny!!!!! Am I being stubborn or is trying to hang in there and do my best the best solution?

Right about now I just want to sit down and cry for a week, but I don't want to let on how stressed I am to the kids. They have it hard enough right now anyway. Cheesehead is working his rear end off trying to keep our heads above water and I still haven't gotten any teaching calls this year. Our house in MN is now listed for $139,900 which is the price we paid for it 7 years ago when we bought it before all of the inprovements were done on it I might add! Should I look for a new job? The last full time job I had worked out SO well (NOT!) that I'm afraid to even try again.

Sorry for the rant, I just need to vent before I explode into a million pieces. My stomach hurts now. Where's the pepto bismol?

Thank you for stopping by. Please leave me a message and a backlink. I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Cindy

Brett's a Jet?

Dang, here I wanted him to be traded to the Vikes if he was traded. Oh well. I think this whole situation has been totally blown out of proportion.

People are mad because he retired and changed his mind. Now if he were a woman that wouldn't be a problem at all. We change our minds all the time. Why can't a guy?

I swear some people act like he did this whole thing on purpose or something. It's been so overly analyzed and discussed with his ex-Packer teammates that they just got sick of it. I think all the media attention increased the tension that was already there making it impossible for Favre to compete for the Packer QB starter position. He didn't even feel that he could report to camp. How sad is that? He's been part of the team for 16 years. Seriously!

Being an outsider, I can see both sides of the situation. It's just too bad that people can't just be supportive. It's wierd hearing people say that such a good quarter back should HAVE to retire because he wasn't feeling committed 6 months ago. If I had to base all of my actions based on what I was like 6 months ago, I'd be sitting on the couch watching tv and wallowing in self pity with a pile of shed materials still sitting outside un-built. (Not that I'm implying I had ALL that much to do with the building of the shed or anything, but it's the only major project that really came to mind.)

He's a good quarter back and he can play if he wants to. I just wish he were wearing purple, MN could really use a superbowl win finally.

I tried asking TBO and Cheesehead what they thought of the newest development in the Packer soap opera, but they had no input for me to share.

Thank you for stopping by. Please leave me a message and a backlink. I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Cindy

Thank you Lisa!

I was so happy when I got the mail yesterday. Look what was waiting for me.



Lisa @ Millertime emailed me and told me she had put the package of hostas for my shade garden in the mail. She even labelled them all for me any everything. Isn't she just the sweetest to cheer me up with wonderful plants????

My hands were trembling as I tore open the tape on the box. I got so impatient I went and got the scissors to cut the tape. I felt like a kid on her birthday. I knew what was in the box, and I was just DYING to get to these beauties!

She wanted to know how they travelled, so I took this picture of them. They appeared to be very comfortable in their cozy box.

There are 7 different kinds of hostas here, aren't they the bomb? I can't wait until it cools down a bit so I can expand my shade garden. It is bursting at the seems and begging for an expansion project already. I'll be happy to oblige once this heat and humidity lightens up. In the mean time, they'll have to make their homes in pots for a while.

Thanks again Lisa for your kindness and generosity. These hostas will be very happy in their new home as long as I can manage to keep the deer away from them.

Thank you for stopping by. Please leave me a message and a backlink. I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Cindy

Munsinger Gardens in St. Cloud, MN

I just love visiting these gardens. These first few pictures are of the Virginia Clemmons (Er, did I spell that right?) gardens just up the hill from munsinger. These gardens were built across the street from their house because she was no longer able to have her own garden. I always thought that was so sweet. They were built more recently than the Munsinger Gardens were. We lived in the general area (give or take 30 miles) when the rose gardens were built, although it's hard for me to recall an exact date. When we lived in MN we tried to visit at least once a year. Such a lovely serene place. I wonder why I didn't walk over here and visit them more often when I was going to college right across the river....

I visited here on my last trip to MN, you know... before the sheriff's sale. I've been so busy I forgot to share them with you.



Usually this time of year the roses would be in full bloom, but they weren't. That's okay, I was still happy to be able to get here. This is what you see on one end of the gardens.



After meandering around, you climb a hill. I love the view from the top of the hill. Since the spring had been so cold, there were countless gardeners getting plants in the dirt. I felt like kneeling down and helping them out, but Mom had to work later so I wasn't able to.



Once we were done admiring the plants in the sunny upper gardens, we headed down to the river. There is a good shade coverage down here. So many plants I'd love to have. It seemed they had so many plant varieties that I didn't know. I could name many more than mom did though, so I sure felt smart. Not that she's not, but it feels good to know something your mom doesn't. Does that make me weird?



The path is well used down by the river. The sound of gravel crunching under foot is lovely. Countless benches and swings lne the path too. You can see people running and/or walking on the path on any given day. There was one swing nestled in between the lilac bushes that I could have spent all day enjoying. I adore the sweet smell of lilacs!




There are lots of fountains and plenty of places to walk around and enjoy the beautiful flowers both above and below. The gentle sound of trickling water can be heard in many places throughout the gardens as well. Fountains abound all over, except down by the river where you can enjoy the sounds of the river. One of my favorite sounds besides the water is the ducks. Look at this mom in charge of all of the kids. How typical! Do you know where I saw the dad? Taking a nap farther up the river. Just like a man to leave the woman in charge of all the kids and go off to "work"! At least the human males actually work when they say they're going to.

Of course I had over 100 pictures from here too, but then you'd be here drooling all over my blog instead of enjoying your own gardens. I couldn't do that to you now, could I?

You can

Thank you for stopping by. Please leave me a message and a backlink. I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Cindy

She's Gone. I'll miss you Anna!

I just went to see what Anna was up to. I noticed that she dismantled her blog. We sure had some good times. I met her when we were both going through the nail biting experience of selling our houses. Thank God she was able to get hers sold. She was kind enough to offer great advise that I followed religiously in an attempt to get my house sold. Mine still hasn't sold and we're almost on 2 years now. There are so many things we have been going through together, it's eerie!

Then there was the planning and decorating our homes/basement. Now that's another hair raising experience. Talk about trials and tribulations, nothing ever being on schedule,....

We have so much in common! We were off topic and laughing like madwomen about cleaning frenzies (method cleaners anyone?), candy offering to singers who attend our open hoses, and other colorful topics not neccessarily related to Get it Sold.

The thing that brought us both to blotanical was being harrassed on the message boards at HGTV. We both left the message boards in tears, we had made some great friends there but our posts were always disappearing and I think we felt that we were being picked on over there. I'm glad I came here and met so many more nice people, but I'll always miss the people I met on the message boards at HGTV. I wish they'd stop by and visit me sometime!

Now that we're both settled into our new homes we had planning and planting of our new yards and gardens to tackle as well as unpacking and endless chores.

She has helped cheer me up when I felt I was at my lowest point and nobody in the world cared for me or if I were even alive. She offered me friendship when I felt I had none, even though it's a virual friendship she offered me much needed hugs (and chocolate). She could always bring a smile to my face even when I felt like I was drowning and could never break the surface of the water.

Here's to you, Anna. May God bless the next chapter in your life. He has blessed me with you, no matter how long you were placed in my life, you will always be dear to my heart!

Thank you for stopping by. Please leave me a message and a backlink. I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Cindy

Consoling myself with plant shopping

I was feeling pretty down the other day, so I decided to calm myself with a trip to town. I had a bunch of errands to run anyway. What harm could a little bit of shopping do?



I needed a few more essentials that I ran out of. Since I just started my compost pile and my "lawn" reminds me of the beach, potting soil was a must on my to purchase list! I also got some grass seed to place in my deer track hole areas of the yard and I managed to find a few plants. I tried not to buy too many since I have some seeds to plant as well. Cheesehead will probably get tired of waiting them to grow though and *make* me go buy some already grown ones. I guess we'll wait and see how patient he's feeling!

I also had to get Cheesehead a new battery for his rider. The battery shouldn't be bad already. I suppose that's what happens when you get so distracted by life's events to take it out and protect it from freezing. I wonder why we don't have to do that to car batteries????



I decided to do a scientific experiment. I have the exact same plants in the same numbers of variety. I thought it would be fun to see how the expensive potting soil mix we bought last year would fare against my home mixed container mix. I can't wait to see the results!

My mixture? Potting soil, perilite, sphagnum moss, and cow manure compost.



I love the stripe effect on this petunia, isn't it interesting looking? I was planning to buy proven winners as Anna suggested, but I just had to buy this petunia instead. Peanut's favorite color and the neat design was just too much for me to pass up!



Each coconut lined hanging basket contains one wave petunia Misty Lilac Spreading Petunia, 2 Dusty Millers, and 2 Rose Splash Select Hypoestes. They may end up a little crowded at the end of the summer, but summers here are fairly short-lived anyway so I thought I'd give them a try!



Look, I found a mix with some neat orange coleus too! YAY! I'm sure it probably isn't sonata or anything, but close enough to please me. The tag says it's a Wizard mix. The best part was the price. This lovely 4 pack was only $1.55! A far cry from $8 for ONE plant. The other one was bigger, but I can be patient (I think I've proven that already!).

I am hanging this basket by my shade garden. I also added a few impatien seeds to the middle. I've never grown my own impatiens from seed before, but I hope I'll do just fine.

Oh, and all 4 of these packs of flowers only cost me a dollar and some change! I finally got around to using my newcomer certificate (worth $5) at an out of the way nursery. I'm sure I'll be frequenting that one more often than the ones I went to Tuesday with Cheesehead.

Thank you for stopping by. Please leave me a message and a backlink. I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Cindy

Warning Signs of Depression (for you or someone you know)

Depression is a hard disease to deal with. I have it and I'm working on my recovery, it's a long, slow road but I'm already starting to feel better. I've felt pretty good a few days lately which hasn't happened for a long time, in fact it's been years.

I felt inspired to share some signs to watch for, it has been on my mind so much lately that I wish someone had confronted me about it sooner. I wish I had sought help sooner. I gave up so much of my life to this disease and I don't want you to do the same thing.

What have I discovered on this journey? I have discovered that asking for help doesn't make me weak, it makes me stronger. I am not alone. My condition CAN be treated. I can become myself again, it will just take time and patience.

Please read this list and seek help if you (or someone you love) have depression. These symptoms are things that occur often or on an almost daily basis.

Frequent sadness
Irritablility
Low energy
Trouble sleeping
Fatigue
Significant weight loss or weight gain
Feeling worthless or guilty for no reason
Loss of interest in your favorite activities
People say that you act agitated or restless
You've slowed down (softer voice, take more time moving into action)
You feel isolated from family and friends
Trouble concentrating or making decisions
Thoughts of death or suicide
Do your symptoms affect your ability to function or be yourself on a daily basis?

I encourage you to check out these websites if these symptoms apply to you or someone you love. Get help. Be yourself again, it's not too late.

symptoms assessor to take to your doctor

depression topics on web md

Thank you for stopping by. Please leave me a message and a backlink. I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Cindy