Life Well Lived

Eight years ago I came home from the hospital after having surgery for my sinus tumor.  

I don't remember much of the time in the hospital and somehow I thought we came home from 

the hospital on the day before our 25th anniversary, but in checking the blog post of the time 

it was the 5th not the 7th of June.  

At one time we thought of taking a big vacation to celebrate 25 years, but instead I had cancer.

I found the following article in the June Reader's Digest.

"Life Well Lived

On our 13th wedding anniversary, we didn't go to Mexico as we'd planned.  Instead, on that day when we had avowed ourselves for better or worse, my husband helped me down the steps and into his car and took me to physical therapy.

This is the metaphor. Sometimes -- many times -- both in life and in marriage, you hope for the sunset overlooking the ocean off a deserted beach, but what you get is a drive to physical therapy.  That's OK. Maybe that's actually how it should be."

Excerpted from The Book on Being 40(ish) edited by Lindsey Mead

 

4th Annual Memorial Day Picnic -- At The Farm

Families are like pieces of art -- you can make them from almost anything, and kind of material  Sometimes they look like your DNA and sometimes they don't.  The only ingredient you need to make a family is unconditional love. 

--Mitch Albom, Author

Taking a nap on a plank bed.

Hunting frogs in the creek. 

 Gun safety, and shooting practice.

 

Hiding from the shooting range.

A better place to be safe. 

Checking out the camouflage. 

This is the fourth year we've gathered together to enjoy ourselves on Memorial Day weekend.  Three of those years, we've been on The Farm, one at our house, because it rained.  

The two other previous years at the farm, we left early because of threatening storm and rain.  This year, we were on our way home when the sprinkles fell.

In our experience, over our 30+ years of marriage, we've had more rainy Memorial Day weekends than not.  

Christian turned 7 during these crazy times of COVID-19k restrictions.  The plans are to have a party later with big brother Barry.  We brought him a gift on pool cleaning out day.

Christian still got a cake for the big day. 

Jim spent some time this month helping a friend with a sewer problem that turned out to be part of  the city's problem and resulted in replacement of both sewer and water lines.  Jim did some of the digging and got a thankful response.

Mother's Day.  

Lorene decided this year to give me fake flowers, since I've managed to kill every other plant she's given me.  The little one is a succulent.  They are harder to kill, since they thrive on neglect. 

May 16th -- Still too cold to go all the way in. 

It's A Sod Life

Starting a project usually leads to another one.  Jim put in that new rock pathway last week, and he wasn't satisfied with the ground level next to it so he used his sod cutter to cut away the sod.

Then used the sod cutter on the bare ground to lift up more dirt,

scooped it up with the tractor,

leveled it out,

rolled the sod back in place, 

and it's finished!

Looks pretty good, too. 

The Quarantine Continues

As the quarantine and volatile weather continues, we keep ourselves busy,

 just without any lookers-on. 

The boys are coping with a nice little school room. I think they spend some of their study time and most of their other time in a huge blanket fort in the basement. 

We started the month with snow.  The nice thing about snow in this season, is that it doesn't last very long. 

 Jim has been busy working outside on the nice days building rafters for a new chicken house/garden shed that has turned from a dream into reality due to a windfall of free wood.   

He also had a order a load of small rock for a job and with the leftover, extended our front sidewalk to a nice looking rock way instead of weedy grass.

It looks so nice, finished! 

Our chickens don't care anything about milk and egg shortages, so we are getting between 12 and 16 eggs a day.  One of our favorite ways to eat them is deviled.  I've learned a few tricks on how to boil new eggs so the shells come off easily. 

The eggs should be at least three days old and at room temperature. Put water in a sauce pan that will cover the eggs, put A LOT of salt in and let it come to a boil.  Using a slotted spoon put the eggs in the boiling water and boil for 15 minutes.  Cool in ice water and peel when cool.  The salt is important, because sometimes the eggs will crack and the salt contains the egg white so it doesn't all leak out and keeps in it one place.

I was hungry for fried polenta, so I made some.  It wasn't quite as good as I remember.  I think making a smaller batch next time would be good.  

We had a hard freeze the second week in April so I picked most of my daffodils so I could enjoy them. All the ones I didn't pick were done for, but I see ones that weren't blooming are struggling onward. 

My daughter was featured for her work on their facebook page.

I think.

And..

Happy Birthday to Jim this month.  We had better birthdays alone because we got these lovely homemade cards!

This is the only time he gets Lucky Charms!

It would be nice to see them, though. 

Adoption

My Views on Adoption

I really admire those young women who can give up something so much a part of themselves to someone else, knowing they no longer will have control over that life.  I know these things.  My daughter had a baby while still in high school.  She made the decision to keep her baby.  We encouraged her to consider adoption, remembering what her birthmother had done for us.  There were many people who have said to us “how can you even THINK of giving that precious life to someone else?’  I can think of it because that is how I received two of my children.  I can think of it, because I believe It is best for children to have a two-parent home.  I can think of it, because there are couples out there wanting a baby of their very own We were one of those couples.  I love my grandson; I love to have him in my house.  I loved him enough to know he and his mother needed to live with us, because both needed a stable home. I loved him enough that if my daughter had decided to choose adoption, I would have let him go. 

I hope we too, have made the experience a good one for my our oldest two with their birth family.  The openness of letters and pictures must help, as they can see how they change as they grow.  I’ve never felt threatened that my kids grew up knowing who that “other family” is.  All kids at some time or other are going to express the wish that we weren’t their parents, or that we never had been.  That happens to most parents, adoptive or not.  We had our first two children since they were a few days old and what we have given them, no one else can take away.

One thing we didn’t do and I wish we had known to is to get counselling.   Parents and children should have counselling with a good adoption counselor before they are teenagers or just beginning to be. AND, if you are a book reader, 

read books!

Family is family, no matter how it forms.