A place to find updates on all of Mother Hen's stories. Bottom and side bar of the page you can find subscription links to make keeping up with all of the updates easier.
Not a huge update tonight. Beginning of the month so the business is taking most of my time. My father is also getting out of rehab earlier than expected so we are in a rush to figure out how things are going to work out.
(This is my Confederate Jasmine hedge along the front of my yard.
It is just full of blooms and smells divine.)
My day has been busy but what day isn't lately? LOL. Today, in addition to playing catch up from Monday's work that didn't get finished I've been looking around the house trying to decide what I can do to make things less crowded for my parents. I might have a month to prepare but it is a busy month with the school year coming to a close, the sports leagues ending for the semester, and getting ready for the kids to go away to camps. I need to grab the help to get me through while I have it which means getting organized as soon as possible.
First on the list is the garage. It is a garage but not really. Mostly it is storage space for filing cabinets, school stuff, food preps and miscellaneous other stuff that is in transition from its former space to the new space where it belongs. Nice way of saying it gets junked up on occasion and that's about the size of it right now. It isn't bad-bad but it's usually better than it is at the moment.
Next comes deciding who is going to be switching bedrooms. We'll probably get our middle daughter a new mattress and have my parents sleeping in there. She can use her brother's room while he is gone for much of the summer ... he's going to be a counselor at the Winshape camps for two months. He's my landscaper and all around mule so losing him for two months, right when things are turning so screwy, is going to be tough. But he needs the chance to get out into the world before he is stuck in the claustrophobic demands of grad school.
I had hopes of using his bedroom as a temporary office for me but that's off the table now which means reconfiguring my workspace yet again. I didn't pick up some wifi extenders so signal reception will be better but again, that's going to require a little bit of reconfiguring as my current desk is going multipurpose so the girls can help scan all of our old files and legal documents so I can get them on discs in case something happens to them out in the barn.
Like my jasmine in the picture above? Sometimes I just go outside and walk along the fence line to enjoy the aroma. Snapping turtle surprised me today and I did a funny little jig that made my neighbor and his dogs laugh. But hey, you gotta be able to laugh when the opportunity presents itself. Gopher tortoises are ok ... we've got one the kids have dubbed 007 ... but those snapping turtles can be downright mean and he was irritated because he had gotten turned around and lost his way and couldn't figure out where the water was. I eventually carted him back to the pond and swamp but I did it by capturing him in a five-gallon bucket. No way was I risking his not-so-friendly nature.
Before I forget I want to thank Lilli for her outrageously yummy sounding pie recipe. My mouth watered just imagining it. I've already shared it with a neighbor who has promised to try it - nephew sent her some real maple syrup he cooked off himself. I'm promised a piece of pie as soon as she does it.
No vids tonight. Youtube isn't cooperating. So enjoy the rest of your evening and thank you for reading!
I believe I have finally gotten my life reasonably under control. Note that I said reasonably and not totally under control. My parents may be coming to live with us for a short while until my father has recovered enough that my mom can take care of him by herself. If anyone is interested in a short synopsis of what has been going on you can read it here. Basically my father is now in a wonderful rehab facility but he still hasn't really reached a point where he can completely participate in his own physical recovery; and his mental recovery from being intubated and sedated for so long will in many respects take nearly a year. It isn't going to be a sprint but a marathon.
I mentioned before that if you are only prepping for high impact/low probability events you are missing the point. You can prepare for the end of the world and you may never need it, but if you prep for things like illness, job loss or some loss of income, death in the family, disability, weather event, property damage, etc then the likelihood that you will almost assuredly need your preps is quite high. I've been blessed to be able to help my parents on occasion up to this point. But now the rubber is hitting the road and I'm discovering that those mental and financial preps that we've been making will allow us to come together as a family, face, as well as survive the stressful future in front of us. There is some satisfaction in that but I can't totally focus on it yet because every day brings some small setback with the small triumphs.
I will do my best to post more regularly but I've had to drop everything several times to go help my mother who lives a few hours from us. This situation as had hubby and I reviewing our own future plans.
First and foremost while the idea of going to live out in the middle of nowhere sounds wonderful on most days, the reality is that as we age it will become more and more difficult for us to do what it takes and one illness or accident could destroy everything we've worked for. Along with that, we are gladder every year that when we built our "retirement home" that we may actually one day be able to live at year round, we did not put the bedroom upstairs.
Secondly I regularly re-evaluate the food storage I have but from here on out I am going to focus less on volume and filler and more on making every calorie count and ensuring that I'm able to not just put food on the table but that I'm able to put healthy food on the table. To that end I'm going to stop allowing too much to interfere with my canning and food preserving. If my parents do come to live with us for a while my mother and I are going to be giddy school girls and can to our hearts content. My Excalibur is also going to be getting quite a work out. I used to do a lot of that but over the past year work and other things have gotten in the way. Well no more. I don't want to look back and realize that I strayed from my appointed path and it is costing my family their health.
Lastly - at least for now - I'm accelerating my edible landscaping plans. I'm accumulating the materials I need to build new raised beds ... including the fencing to keep the varmints out of them. My older son has already, as a surprise for me, replanted several citrus trees. They're small but by the time the ones that I have that are still viable need to be uprooted and burned, the new trees should be producing.
Life events like the ones my family is experiencing highlights what you are doing well ... and where you need improvement.
I've managed to get some of my work-in-project additions added to:
(This is one of the stories I said I would be migrating over to blogger. I had to copy it using he wayback machine and the formatting was a mess and I'm still finding flubs. As I neaten a chapter I will post it.)
(ETA: I managed to get the next section up. It isn't quite as bad as I thought it was going to be. Just needs a little editing, not a completing type over.)
I will be spending most of the remainder of the evening putting the last touches on "Geek". Transferring it from my old computer to my new Spectre 360 created some weirdness. The text is all there but when I go to paste it into blogger and hit preview it is like the text is hidden. I'm hoping that copying the final chapters into a plain text document and then copying them to blogger will fix whatever the snafu is but I won't know until I try it.
Today's vids pretty much fly in the face of what I was saying earlier about getting healthy. LOL. However there was a very nice older lady sitting in the cafeteria at the rehab center and the staff was encouraging her to reminisce about her childhood. She lived in Minnesota and Wisconsin as a child and she had fond memories of her parents making "tree syrup" and of the many ways her parents providing fun that wasn't "storebought". Below are some vids that I found while researching some of the things that she spoke of.
I feel like a clock that has been wound too tight and is about to fly apart. Too many things going on in my life and in the world and too many things not getting done in my life and in the world. Sigh.
Left wrist is officially out of the brace. I still have some mobility and pain issues but it is improving. My right wrist - after a second x-ray - proved to actually have a minor fracture in one of the small bones. I'm right handed so this is just all kinds of fun.
I'm in the brace on my right wrist for at least another week, possibly longer. All I have to use on my right hand is my index finger. It is very difficult to do any amount of typing yet without making the hand and arm sore. The dictation program barely does what I need it to and still requires a lot of editing. The swelling from the wrist injuries really aggravated the carpal tunnel I have. So, I have to be careful. Ugh.
None of that is anything compared to waiting on the heart surgeon to see my father. We hope to get some answers and a timeline for the triple by-pass and valve replacement tomorrow (Tuesday). I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop ... like he desperately needs surgery to improve his quality of life but the surgeon saying the surgery is not going to happen because it will cut short his quantity of life. Depending on the answers he gets from the doctor I may or may not post tomorrow night. I will try but if my emotions are in the tank ... well I'm sure everyone understands. I've had some very nice people tell me of their own experiences. I truly appreciate it. It makes me feel less alone in these feelings of near helplessness.
The only story addition I got up this evening is for Geek. I'm used to typing at over 80 wpm (words per minute). Having to use the dictation program, then transfer that to my word processor, then try and edit from there and finally copy and paste to blogger has slowed the process quite a bit. With the one brace off it should speed things up a little but I still have to be careful not to over exert the wrists for a while; permanent damage is not the goal that's for sure.
Sorry there isn't more. I may get something up earlier in the day tomorrow depending on my schedule. Having someone come work on the chimney. Stupid birds are in there again trying to build a nest. The screening we did ourselves ultimately didn't work. Time to call in the professionals. I do not want to wake up again with a bird dive bombing me in the wee hours of the morning, followed closely by the cat and dog trying to catch the kamikaze as I flies around leaving gift cards of droppings. Yuck. Go ahead and laugh. I did too but not until the next day when the trauma had faded away. I'm thankful no one had a camera to get a picture of my face. My husband's face was hysterical enough as a memory. LOL
Enjoy and hopefully I'll have more in the coming days.
The above is another one of the pics that I took at MacLay Gradens. Bees were everywhere and photobombed more than a few of the pictures I tried to take. Also had a couple get hung up in my hair ... obviously they would not have been able to pass a Breathalyzer test if there was one for bees; they were surely drunk on nectar.
I have been using my memories of that good day to center myself. I guess you just never think that certain things are going to happen you those you love. My dad is actually upbeat - or is playing the part like a pro - and wants to get it done and over with as soon as possible. Unfortunately my parents are still in waiting mode as they have to first get a referral to a physician/surgeon then the surgeon has to book them for surgery. I'm not sure how long this is going to take but it definitely disrupts all the plans that they had.
I'm also watching to see how this is going to affect my mom. Stress is not her friend and it messes up her chemistry which plays havoc with how well her medication works. She's also worried about finances. The new and very strict diet my dad needs is playing havoc with their budget. Hubby and I have already discussed it and will help them as much as they allow us to, but the emphasis here is on allowing us to. You cannot treat two adults like children and take their freedom out of their hands by dictating to them, at least not if you have the least bit of respect for them you can't. It is just going to be challenging. It isn't just about what he eats but how it is cooked ... and hardest for my father will be portion size. Changing habits of decades - of a lifetime and culture - will definitely be a strain.
I want to thank everyone who has been so supportive. You have no idea how much it has helped. I was struggling with the shock and freely admit it. Hubby has been a rock and the first thing out of his mouth was "how can we help." No one is perfect but he is perfect for me.
The kids have been helpful too, especially considering I've been one of the walking wounded. Made a mistake of trying to get rid of the ace bandages yesterday and was online too much. By last night my hands and wrists were swollen so much my fingers looked like sausages and typing was next to impossible. I used a dictation app today to get most of my typing done and the swelling has finally gone in all but my right wrist.
Dictation programs aren't perfect. I caught most of the mistakes I think but there are probably still a few in there. If anything is really out of kilter let me know and I'll nuke it from space as soon as I can. The new additions can be found in the following stories:
The vids are pretty much all over the place tonight. The first one coincidentally happens to be a very recent upload from someone that went to MacLay Garedens in the beginning of March. Some very nice shots.
First I apologize for my abruptness here but I did want to let people know what is going on. First off I wrecked up both of my wrists falling out of a tree. Dumb move on my part and for a stupid reason on top of it. I was trying to dislodge a kite and took a header. Nothing broken, just typing is difficult.
Second, I just found out tonight that my father will have to have a valve replacement and triple bypass. It will be a week before we know more and I'll admit to being shaken up. His health isn't the greatest but this wasn't what we expected when he had his heart cath today.
So, I'm going to try and get something up tomorrow but it might be full of errors. Just give me another day's grace. Thanks.
The above picture was taken by me at one of my favorites places. Maclay Gardens in Tallahassee, FL. I don't live in Tallahassee, or even anywhere near it but sometimes when we go to our "retirement home" and our schedule allows, we take a day trip and go for a visit. The gardens are out of this world lovely. Every month of the year you can go there and find something different in bloom. I missed the iris which bloomed earlier than usual but I caught the tail end of the camillas which made me happy. I missed the magnolias and daffodils but the azaleas were simply amazing, as were the spirea and the dogwood. Honeysuckle vines are late and I couldn't even find the vines for all of the wisteria going this way and that.
Earlier in the day we also went to St. George Island which is right on the coast near Apalachicola. It was nice and breezy, almost cool, in the morning so there were no crowds and we enjoyed an hour or two of having the beach to ourselves except for a couple of elderly shell hunters. Then a picnic lunch and then the crowds so that's when we took off for the Gardens. The few people we did run into before we left gave me strange looks. Wonder why. Maybe it was my unique choice of reading material. LOL
Just a little light reading. LOL. Or maybe I should say just a little research. Either way the book is turning out to be pretty interesting.
I haven't had as much time to write up here as I thought I would which means Geek will probably get finished up this weekend or the start of next week. It is very close to completion and I have the final chapters framed out. Then I'll probably take a couple of days off writing to give me a chance to do a reread or two, finalize which story is next for completion and then away we will go once again. However, while that is happening I am going to continue posting on "Zombies Aren't Real" and "Wild Thyme".
I already have today's addition for Geek up. I'm using my traveling computer which hasn't been cooperating very well so things are moving slower than I like with blogger. If you see any really weird stuff - like challenging fonts and font sizes or print colors that don't show up with the background - let me know. I've tried to catch it as I see it but on my end as the editor I don't always see the bloopers the way other readers do.
Give me a couple of hours to find and fix the glitches for Thyme and Zombies and I will have today's chapters up. For today's videos I'm posting some youtubes on edible flowers. I'm having a hard time pasting the links in so if I can't get the links attached to the vids today I'll go back in and fix that when I can get to a different computer. Hopefully however most of you will be able to see the vids.
