Under Pressure

This blog was started as an outlet - someplace to come and write out the day-to-day happenings (the inner workings, if you will) of my life as a wife, mother, employee, believer, etc. How I could allow it to become a nuisance is beyond me. I don't like feeling pressured to post, and that's exactly how I felt. We took a short trip to Denver a few weeks ago, and I haven't posted since then because I wanted my first post to be the pictures and stories of that trip - now I'm 3 weeks behind because I've been stalling on *one* post! That's just not right.

So, I'm postponing the Denver post so I can continue on with other, less important yet still interesting, things. Rest assured, I will post our Denver Oddessy, Part II.

My garden has sprouted, as have the rabbits. They started after my corn, which I was unsure would germinate anyway (lack of space). Now they've taken to my cantaloupe leaves. So, I googled and found about 1,456,829 solutions to the rabbit problem. What I ended up trying was simple garlic powder sprinkled around the space (I have such an overabundance of garlic powder, it's not even funny). We shall see how the cantaloupe plants look tomorrow morning - the rabbits must be getting them either at night or *way* early in the morning, because I never catch them there during the day, and there's a difference in foliage when I do my morning garden check.

Other than that, I do have some surviving corn. I planted it rather late, so it's smaller than the corn I see in other gardens. Size aside, however, it looks alright so far. I have peas, which the rabbits also got. Every time I'd go out and see new sproutings on the ends of the vines, I'd come back later in the day to find the new shoots gone, bitten away. Ah well - hopefully the garlic will solve that as well. I have no more mini sunflowers, although I can't blame the rabbits. I only had one plant that grew, and I think it may have gotten pulled as a weed by helpful little hands. Honestly, I'd rather have the help than the lone sunflower.

We've got radishes galore, the two hopeful cantaloupe plants, tomatoes, pickling cucumbers, green peppers, and pumpkins. No pumpkins yet, but flowers out the wazoo. All in all, I'd say it's a pretty good fare so far. Everything got put into the ground late, and I didn't have near the room I'd planned (that tiller kicked my butt). At the end of this season, I'll be ready with the newspapers and mulch in order to gain more space - about three times what I've got now.

The kids are C.R.A.Z.Y. The boys have cabin fever...the heat and humidity here have been awful for the past couple weeks. Now it's beautiful out, so hopefully we'll be curing that soon. Gina got another tooth, top left, second from the middle. It may not be a vampire tooth, but she'll still look vampire-ish until those top middles come in. She's crawling, standing with support, and "cruising" against furniture like a madwoman.

This weekend marks the 3rd annual (?) trip to PawPaw's over the summer. I think it's the third, but technically it's the first time going to his house up north. We'll leave early Friday morning, and I'm going to stay for a couple days to get the lay of the land there. Then I'll come back with GinaGina, and head back to pick them up the following weekend. If this doesn't cure their cabin fever, then it's hopeless. After they get back, they'll be attending VBS at a friend's church for a week, which they're excited about.

So much going on, and so little time. Soon it'll be time to start buying school supplies again and sending them off during the day. So I'm trying to make this summer as fun as possible for them. I just can't believe how much they're changing, almost day to day.

Vacation!!

Do you know what happens when you have a vacation? Not necessarily a time when you travel away from home, but simply a time in which you are not required to go to work. I'll tell you what happens...

You get even further behind than you have been! How does that happen?? I guess things aren't that bad. The kids are out of school for the summer, so if I'm stuck in the throes of paperwork, it's my own, not theirs. They are begging every single day to have so-and-so over, or to go over to so-and-so's house to play, but that's no biggie, and not atypical for them (they would ask that after homework was done during the school year anyway).

I at least had a handle on laundry, sorta kinda, at the beginning of the vacation. Now it's backed up again, but I've started on it early this morning in the hopes that we might actually be getting out of here for a few days. Later today, I plan on going around the house with trash can in hand, to collect "stuff". How said stuff accumulates without actually going anywhere or doing anything is Beyond. Me.

So what have we done? Well, I've begged my older son to let me cut his hair (just a trim!), to no avail. I've watched Jacob get very angry at a V.I.D.E.O. G.A.M.E. because it won't move fast enough. I've seen GinaGina not only begin to actually *crawl*, but to pull up on her knees as well (sigh). I've gotten to watch my entire DVR collection of Burn Notice, or at least start watching it. I've got today to finish, as tonight is the season premiere for the third season. I told Patrick that's what I want for Christmas - seasons 1 and 2 on DVD.

Still haven't gotten the electricity wired to my sewing machine downstairs - that might be a later summer thing. My garden is in full swing as well! My corn has popped up, the tomatoes look terrific, and yesterday a friend brought over another plant for it - he said "It's either an eggplant or brussel sprouts, but I'm not sure which". Then he said he hoped it was eggplant because he doesn't like brussel sprouts. I said I'm the opposite - I was hoping for brussel sprouts because I don't like eggplant. This, of course, led to an entire discussion on how to prepare each veggie. I don't think I convinced him, but he didn't quite convince me either!

My dryer calls!