Whew!

Sorry for the "radio silence" but a whole lot has been happening. Including, but not limited too:
BigGirl spending 12 straight days unable to keep anything down.
Visit to Doctor.
Visit to Emergency Room.
IV Liquids.
No real idea of why.
My doctor visit (which I promised long ago to update upon).
I suspect I am having thyroid issues. Thyroid is notoriously hard for doctors to diagnose, because it mimics many other things but mainly because the range of "normal" is so @!#$%^&* huge (really, a range of 0.5 to 5.5) so what is perfectly "normal" can be seriously out of whack for your body, and they just can't tell!
(By the way--my test results came back *cough* "Normal").

Also--
New Chicks (around 35 or 40--hard to keep track) of various types (more variety than ever before--really fun!).
A visit from 2 really cute baby goats (they stayed at our house for 2 weeks).
Visits from lots of family we love.
Easter, Traditional (very fun) Easter Egg hunt and family dinner (at our house).
Birthday Party (quite a long time after the fact, due to scheduling issues) for LargeBoy. The party was awesome--almost zero work for me (which worked out nicely, since that was the day I was in the ER with BigGirl).
AND my debut party for my new business.


For those of you who have been waiting breathlessly for details:

I am now an official Consultant for Essential Bodywear.
(crickets chirping)
"I am officially a Bra Lady!" Yep. I can measure and do fittings, and I sell great bras (and other "foundation garments"). We had our first "Bra Party" and it was great!

In keeping with my tradition of "having a Mother's Day"--boy have I had one. I dared to try to take a nap, and SmallDaughter got into the shower and poured 3 bottles of shampoo (the Suave [for the family hair], the Bath & Bodyworks [my own personal expensive splurge--big sigh], and the Head & Shoulders [for certain adolescent type people]--[which is also not fun to clean up--trust me]) AND a container of purple cookie frosting (not from the shower--from the deeply forbidden, high up cupboard of doom--er expensive, yummy ingredients) onto the floor. There were also a dozen potatoes and a bottle of windex involved. Yep, "A Mother's Day" indeed.

Thoughts on Mothers Day

My little sister V passed me a note during Sacrament Meeting at Church yesterday. Her brain was obviously going faster than her pen, because the note said "Have a Mothers Day". Which was startlingly accurate!

I surely DID have "A Mother's Day"! It was pretty much like all of my other days--only more so. I was more tired, more sick and stiff (had a pretty bad fall in the driveway on Friday--bruised my knees, finger and dignity!). More stuff to do for people, more whining, crying and spitting on the floor (mostly from SmallDaughter, some from me!) Just, you know--MORE.

In the middle of all of this I pondered on MOTHERS DAY. A day that is simply fraught with emotional booby traps. Directly below the frothy pink surface of sticky kisses, Hallmark cards and brunch buffets is a seething mass of difficult emotions. While most of us have pretty good (or even outstandingly fabulous!) moms, there is still a lot of pain there:

The Hearts that hurt because this is their first (or thirtieth) Mothers Day without their Mom.

The Hearts that are lonely in quiet houses or nursing homes, where children "can't be bothered" to visit those who raised them.

The Hearts that carry the burden of having parents who are not (or were not) "kind and dear"--sometimes passively, sometimes aggressively abusive or downright evil.

The Hearts that ache because they long to be mothers, but because of many circumstances (unmarried, infertility, illness, whatever) they are not able to fill their lonely arms.

The Hearts that are mourning miscarriages, stillbirths, abortions, babies placed for adoption, children that died, children who have rejected their parents teachings and are busy making heartrendingly bad choices...

The Hearts whose beautiful children are given tremendous loads to carry in this mortal life--who not only won't watch their child graduate, but will never hear that child say "I love you, Mom".

And in all of this pain that mortal life offers, the sweetest answer is that God does care, and the amazing power of the Savior's atonement can heal every broken heart, and wipe away every tear. He suffered ALL of our pains, so he could succor us perfectly. Amazingly (to me, with my limited understanding), He cares about everything that matters to me.

The best part of my Mothers Day? Watching my Handsome Husband place his hands lovingly on the head of our Handsome LargeBoy, and, using the power of God, given to men on earth (with a group of good, strong men that we love) ordain him to the office of a Deacon, and give him the Priesthood.

It is a good thing that I was in too much of a hurry to put on makeup (and I think I lost my makeup bag, too) because I cried so much I would have washed it all off, anyway!

I just reread the post on last year's mothers day --wow, most of it applies perfectly! I did have another yard sale (please kill me if I EVER say I am going to have a Yard Sale again, for ANY Reason!) The weather (which has been so nice) was gross--@#$%^&*! cold and rainy, with big wind gusts.

My garden is sitting all lonely and unplanted back there. Don't know how much I am going to do, since I am going to be traveling all summer.

Also, I have been fighting off a chest cold, but I seem to be losing. Sleep has been eluding me, because my bedroom sounds like a tuberculosis sanatorium. Who can sleep when they are coughing like this?

On a more cheerful note--The Art & Dessert Show came together beautifully. It was a great success--which comes as a great relief since my last offering as the Ward Activities Chairperson was not.

This week I will recover from the last two weeks and try to dig out from under all the projects that got put on the back burner from the big stuff going on!

Yay! We made it!

We are all done with the yard sale! It managed not to rain, although we had wind gusts in excess of 60 mph. We did well enough, although the real triumph was packing all of the leftover-didn't-sells directly into the truck and to the thrift store--YAY!!!

I made it through Mother's Day with no bloodshed and hardly any swearing. I am not a fan.

It appears that Scotty the eternal houseguest (he who was shot in the leg) who has been showing up randomly for a night or two--which I haven't bothered posting, because I just try to ignore the whole thing--may possibly be leaving. I am not holding my breath--he did it before, got shot and came back. It's sort of like a boomerang, only smokes nastier cigs.

I am planning a party. I do love to have parties--and this is the best excuse ever! My dear Auntie A is GRADUATING FROM LAW SCHOOL! I am so proud of her. She has been slogging through school against incredible odds (seriously, the first month of her law school she had a crisis EVERY SINGLE DAY--including her hubbys heart bypass surgery!)

This week I have to work on my garden. I finally have the other stuff resolved to the point of being able to. I must go and get more hardware, for making more raised beds. I have entirely given up on the dirt here in my yard (which is such a fine grade of clay that my sister actually made some pots out of it, dried them in the sun, and they stayed (visibly pot-like) all summer). Great for pottery. Just not good for growing veggies in.

So, I have started making my own soil, and it is MUCH more satisfactory. It is not rocket science. I just put nice former plant matter back together--well aged horse manure, sawdust, grass clippings, all the raked leaves from along the fence line, all the compost bin stuff, and anything else that comes along cheap.

I really like the "square foot gardening" concept. (Just google it, you know I can't get links to work). MUCH LESS WEEDING. Especially since I staple garden felt over the box, and just cut a little hole for the plants I want. AAAHH.

So today, I need to go mix together all of the soil ingredients I have been assembling since last fall. Then I will let the chickens roam through the whole thing to eat all the cutworms and slugs out of it, and voila! I will be ready to plant! (although there is always a whole lot more work before that voila than I like to remember).