Crazy and Fast

Life is speeding by crazy-fast and I can't seem to get a block of time big enough to compose a decent post. I've started several interesting posts that remain unfinished (limestone lithograph plates, barn signs, a natural weed killer recipe, cloth diapering info. etc.) But since I don't want to leave the blog dormant, here's a list of tedious "recents" that are noteworthy: 

A hummingbird got trapped in our screened-in gazebo and had to be freed. I think it went in to check out the shiny glass cup that my husband had left there. We feed them, and so they check the windows (since we have a feeder suctioned to the dining room window) and they check out shiny bottle-like things too, as we have a glass feeder suspended from a tree.

My oldest saw a 5 foot black snake wound around the downspout when he was mowing. He walked over to check it out and it dropped in a coil to the ground and managed to disappear. We have yet to figure out where it went, and think that it was a black rat snake.

My husband and oldest helped bring in our neighbor's hay. They pay to store it in our lower barn. It was a bumper crop! My husband threw the majority of probably 350 square bales up to the loft for storage. My 14 year old drove our pickup in the field when the load got too tall for him to heft bales on.

The aforementioned child also attended a week of sailing classes. He did some solo sailing, and often had the tiller when sailing in a group. He loved it, and knows more sailing jargon than I do now. He is attending robotics workshops this week. Later today the Lego robot he programmed with 3 other boys will compete against 5 other teams. I hope to go watch the competition.

My husband took our small, wooden sailboat out on the lake on Father's Day weekend for it's "maiden voyage". The pond is 2 acres, but fingered, and not roomy enough for sailing, so he rowed it. He reported that it is super fast and lives up to the name of "swift" carved into her side.

Additionally, his "start-up" company has been dominating our lives lately. He's been traveling, has worked long days, is texting/e-mailing frequently, and has worked evenings and even on a weekend. He's always "behind" as the workload is heavy, timing is all-important, and there are a handful of employees. Despite his busyness, he managed to put together an over-sized swing set though, for which my children are grateful. He also bought more play sand for me to spread in the over-sized sandbox he built last summer and took down the giant Christmas star from the back of the barn, etc.

My 4 month old is doing some serious teething. Thankfully he is still a mild-mannered and happy baby, but he's been fussy and his sleep (and mine!) is suffering. He also seems very interested in food.

The tractor saga continued. The repair place had promised us free labor on the wring harness due to their involvement in its demise, but when he went to pay for the part cost after it was replaced, they charged him for the extensive labor too, because it was "more work" than they had "anticipated". He pushed the issue and only paid for half the labor, but this was very frustrating and expensive for us. At least we can mow the pasture and such now.

A possum has now found the grill, and along with the 'coon makes it part of his nightly rounds.

One of the over-arching items in the last weeks has been my latest and ongoing bout of kidney stones. I was diagnosed with a milk of calcium stone about 5 years ago after I had an attack that required hospitalization during my pregnancy with my youngest daughter. It was described to me by the urologist as being a diverticulum in my kidney filled with a slurry of calcium and stones. There is no set treatment for this rare condition, so I adopted a "wait and see" approach. I have experienced kidney pain and random frequency/urgency issues for brief intervals over the years, but nothing major- until I started passing stones on Memorial Day weekend (when my in-laws were "camping" here in their RV.)  I have continued to pass stones on and off since then. Just the other day I passed a stone the size of a green garden pea! I was urinating and heard an audible "plink". Upon further investigation, I was shocked and disgusted buy the size of the thing. I'm hoping that was the climax, so to speak, and I will no longer be cramping painfully, peeing crimson, feeling the need to go when I can't, or feeling the need to urinate so frequently. I have been imbibing vast quantities of cranberry juice, which I dislike. Hopefully that helped. And at least I was able to avoid the hospital and the massive painkillers that would have been problematic for my nursing son. This has allowed my husband to work uninterrupted, allowed me to continue breast feeding the baby, and saved us money, etc.

The other over-arching item of the past weeks has been my father's health. He suffered two "micro-heart attacks" this month (although we did not know what they were at the time, as he showed no signs of heart damage during subsequent testing) and is scheduled for an open-heart valve replacement surgery next week. He made a quick visit here to say his "in-case-I-die" goodbyes. And I intend to take the baby and travel two states away to "help". This leaves my husband caring for the other four children for a longer time than he ever has, and squeezing in some non-postponable work in the evenings. It will be good for them though, as he's been all-consumed by work for the past three years. They need their daddy. And he needs their distraction.

Other than that, I think that everything else is commonplace: the endless and profuse laundry, the constant and copious dirty dishes, the meal planning, cooking, and clean-up, the "schooling", etc. The rainy weather has continued, and the loooong driveway is nearly impassable. The insects are terrible. The humidity is nearly unbearable. And we're all getting a bit of cabin fever, despite it being June.

So, to wrap up, please pray for my safe travels, for the success of my father's surgery and recovery, for the end to my kidney issues, for family unity, and for help with keeping up with everything. Thank you! 

A Bit Thick

Remember my post about stuff- about the endless onslaught of stuff? Well, the current rough patch is getting a bit thick, as the British saying goes. I had hoped that the weekend kidney stone incidents were over. They were not. I hoped to submit my quarter grades this week. I didn't. I had hoped to reconnect with my dear husband a bit, but in 4 days he worked well over 40 hours. He missed dinner for three nights running and was late for the 4th work day. (Monday was Memorial Day.)

The biggie was that I got an e-mail from my mother informing me that my dad had another and longer "episode", was admitted to the hospital, and would be undergoing a bunch of tests. Then I got word that it was determined that he had a malfunctioning heart valve and required open heart surgery. I spent a couple days updating family members, checking my phone and e-mail messages, and figuring out how to make an emergency trip a couple of states away if the surgery was imminent. I was helpless hundreds of miles away and would only be a bother if I descended upon my parents house with my brood. We wouldn't all be able to fit into a hospital room at the same time anyway. Stress.

Then we got a piece of good news, the clutch replacement on the tractor was done, and the work came in a couple hundred dollars less than the sizable estimate. My husband stopped in and paid for it. He was promised that it would be delivered this week. 

Yesterday I got a call. They "had a bit of a mishap when loading" the tractor. The wiring harness "sorta melted." It's an old tractor, so the wiring wasn't great. Maybe they let it soak outside in the rain and then fired it up wet and that caused shorting problems. Maybe they hooked it up wrong when they put the two sides of the tractor back together. Who knows? They probably did something wrong, given the "mishap" comment and the fact that they are only charging us for the cost of the part. But we're kind of over the proverbial barrel. The tractor is stuck there and now we have to sink another $400 in an underpowered tractor that my husband was hoping to get something out of to put towards a bigger one. (He thinks that the flail mower is probably too heavy for the little tractor and exacerbated the clutch problem.) But without a clutch or a wiring harness it is worthless.

It continues to rain. I think we're hitting another rainfall record this spring. The local river is expected to exceed flood stage for probably the fourth time in a month. The fire bowl on my patio filled with rain water just overnight! The grass is high. The undergrowth along the wooded drive has been weighed down and is hanging in the path of vehicles, despite having been trimmed back once already this season. And the hay.... the poor hay. It is heavy with seed, past the prime time for cutting. It has been beaten down over and over again, and at some point will no longer stand back up. There is no haying window in the future weather report. And we are second on our cutting team's list this year. It's not looking good for our hay crop. 

My father's surgery is not scheduled until the end of June. That is worrisome, but meant that no short-notice trip was needed. My husband had a disappointing week at work and will be out of town testing all next week. I need to take care of a long list of mundane things like returning a rental violin and stacks of library books. I'm just hoping for a little more sleep and that I feel a little more in control this week. I KNOW that I'm not in control, God is, but I'd like my kids to see that mom is self-assured and not on edge. But like the pope just said, 

"When a Christian has no difficulties in life -- when everything is fine, everything is beautiful -- something is wrong." 

"You cannot remove the cross from the path of Jesus, it is always there." 

And that is a truth that resonates with me and my "always something" philosophy. So I embrace the cross. But like I said before, I sure hope that I have the stamina to make it through this rough patch called life.

New Low

Well, I've officially hit a new low. This morning, after being kept up all night by a thunderstorm, torrential rain, and a teething baby, I finally decided to commit to being awake. I slipped on my clothes, donned my glasses, brushed my hair, changed and dressed the baby, and headed out at 5:30 to do some grocery shopping. I figured that since everyone was sleeping, taking the infant elsewhere to make noise would help them to sleep longer - and they needed more sleep. I also thought that if I was up, I might as well get something done. I couldn't correct school work with a big wiggly babe in arms, nor could I empty the dishwasher quietly, etc. So I packed him into the van in the twilight and headed through a downpour to the store.

I used to always have a menu/meal plan, generate a shopping list from it, and shop at multiple places. But of late, circumstances have prevented such organization and efficiency. Yup, I was winging it. My husband is leaving for a week of work in a different city on Sunday. If I didn't want to have all five kids in tow with me later in the week, then I needed to get food when I could with only one.

The little man made it to the bread aisle before he would no longer tolerate being cooed to in a seat on the cart. So I picked him up and continued on. I managed to make it all the way through the store- yay! I thought I was doing good. I was being efficient.  Most people weren't even out of their beds.

As I was about to unload my groceries, the cashier asked me if part of my order was WIC. I guess the rolling out of bed, wearing ill-fitting and out-of-style clothes on my postpartum body (because who has time for clothes shopping or excercising) and carrying an infant while grocery shopping was enough to warrant this question, but it hit me hard. I replied in the negative, sheepishly placed my organic milk on the conveyor belt, and tried to act like I was used to being asked that. 

I live in the poorest county in the state. There's a slight possibility that WIC program recipients are such frequent shoppers there that this particular cashier asks all women with children this question. But after going to this store randomly for 2 years, no one has ever asked me before. So maybe I just look bad? And if I look that bad here, I look bad! I mean, the last time I came back from the store my husband teasingly asked me if I saw "any lookers" when I complained about being the only woman shopping with a bunch of lost-looking, middle-aged men. So I told him about the gentleman with greasy, bed-head, and sock-less feet in blown-out loafers who was wearing a dirty T-shirt that didn't cover his belly, and baggy sweatpants with an unfortunate hole in them. Let's just put it this way. I know he wasn't wearing underpants. And then there's my previous experience.

But I started thinking about it. I can't remember the last time I got my hair cut. Was it last spring? My hair is long, so I've just made do with it getting longer. I think that the only (and few) clothes that I've bought for myself in the last 3 years have been from the nearest Walmart. Generally, I make it a rule not to shop at Walmart because they drive the local business under, etc. But it's the closest store that sells clothing, so you can tell that the few purchases were desperation-driven. Maybe I have sunk that low.

Yeah, I know that "I've let myself go". People say that like it's due to laziness, like since I don't go to the office every day I hang out in my PJs eating bonbons with bed hair just because I'm unmotivated. It's SO not like that. I am just BUSY people! To me, letting myself go was a form of self-sacrifice. Little peoples' needs were more important than my own. That phrase has always bothered me a little bit, but I didn't "LET myself go", I CHOSE to put others first, so I didn't get hung up on it.

I'm not immune to societal ideas of beauty and success. It's not that I don't WANT to be attractive and "put together", but when I'm weighing what's more important, Botany or styling my hair, washing laundry for a family of seven (plus one in cloth diapers) or applying make-up, preparing wholesome food or clothes shopping, etc. etc., my personal appearance comes last. It's as simple as that. I settle for brushing my hair and pulling it back into a pony tail every day, putting on lip balm instead of a face-full of make-up, bobbling the baby while tending a myriad of tasks instead of hiring a babysitter for 5 kids, driving 40 minutes away, and spending time and money on clothes shopping and make-up so that I can get respect based on how I look.  

But clearly my exhausted, postpartum self is looking extra bad lately. What can I say? I AM pushing 40. I HAVE borne 6 large children. I HAVE burned the proverbial midnight oil for more than a decade. I DO try to do more than most people consider reasonable. My husband IS gone a lot. My family DOES live far away. I DON'T have any babysitters. 

Maybe before the next school year starts I can work in a haircut and a few new "going to town" clothes between my husband's long days, business travel, and work on our homestead, between my oldest boy's sailing classes and robotics workshops, between my youngest son's nursing sessions, etc. etc. The only caveat is that my oldest still has a quarter of his school work to complete before we're done with THIS school year. So I guess I'll look like a WIC program recipient for a little while longer. Sigh...