Blogging: FAIL.

So I haven't been blogging all week. I don't know... I just haven't felt it. And I suppose as a result of that, I completely forgot about Project365!! It was supposed to post today. I'm the worst. blogger. ever!!! Tomorrow it will hopefully be nice out and Hubby will have the girls in the yard doing yardwork so I will have time to post and set up the linky. My bad. Blogging, Fail.

A big apology to those who linked up last week and didn't get comments from me!! Thank you for linking up!! :)

We survived the recent Midwest storms just fine but those folks in Joplin, Missouri really got hit hard. There are TONS of ways you can help. Give blood, send $5 to the Red Cross... you get the idea. A blog I follow, Motherhood Unadorned, mentioned an auction going on at her friend's shop, LillyBelle's Closet. You can check it out by clicking here. Even a prayer, good thoughts, best wishes sent to Joplin would help out.

The destruction is really horrible.

OK. We have been super busy this week. 

The girls are out of school now so I'm trying to keep them as busy as possible. We spend a lot of time in our yard while the baby is napping. I putter around the patio trimming the flowers and plants, sometimes watering them ~ but it's rained a lot this week so not too much! :) The girls and I went on errands; somewhat superfluous, but it was nice to get out of the house. Snowdrop picked up something peanut while we were out; I think it was from the cart she was sitting in. I have one of those covers but she sometimes gets under it, etc. She's such a monkey; she has also discovered how to wriggle out of the strap. Monkey. Anyways, so she didn't have a crazy reaction but she was definitely a little puffy and rashy. It was scary. We gave her Wal-dryl (Benedryl) and she started looking better. It's really scary to think how easy it would be for her to come in contact with stuff. I had the Epi-Pen with us but still. 

I conquered my baby clothes catastrophe today and I'm proud to say that (...other than about 3-4 loads of baby laundry waiting to be done ~ a few items of which might need to be packed away...) I successfully organized, separated, and packed away 135 gallons (that's 5 plastic containers) worth of too-big/too-small clothes. As in, it's packed away in bins, IN a closet. UNSEEN if the doors are closed. Whoohoo!!! It feels REALLY awesome to have finally gotten all of that put away. The hallway floors can be seen and when Snowdrop went up to her room tonight, she stuck her arms out and said "Wheh?" 

I am so excited to be cleaning up.

This must be the medicine, right?

Which by the way... I think is going okay. Good-okay. Sometimes I feel like I could use a little more... kick to it? I'm still getting panicky sometimes. Still waiting it out to see how my body is adjusting... I guess sometimes I just feel like I need a little more "calm" than it's giving me. We'll see what happens.

Thanks for sticking around while I go through this.

I bought a pair of striped curtains from Goodwill this week. It appears that whoever previously owned them, decided to wash them instead of getting them dry-cleaned. The dark blue dye ran onto the light blue and tan stripes... there are a good amount of spots that need cleaning. Does anyone have any ideas? I read something about vinegar, but that was confusing. I'm not sure about bleach, what if I ruin them completely. They cost $16 total, which isn't a fortune but I don't want to ruin them further. I really like them but if I can't save them (relatively inexpensively, time and monetarily) then I don't think they are worth the $16.

Any stain/dye removal tips??

I also found two pairs (!!!) of white curtains with silver grommets. I've been looking for this style for quite some time now. I'm thrilled as each pair only cost $6. I can use these as curtains or under curtains as liner-curtains... there are so many uses. I'm so glad. AND since I found these, that means we'll be painting this main room GREY. I really love the combination of white panel curtains with grey walls. It's so crisp. And I think it will look great in our main room. Soooooooooo. The paint store sells "ooops" paint and I'm going to start checking for 5 gallon buckets of grey paint so we can get this room painted and done!! 

One more bit of news, Hubby convinced me to attend a wedding with him in June... across the country in Portland!!! It will be good for us to go away together. While I AM looking forward to going back to Portland for a visit & seeing old friends & getting away for a few days.... I'm totally NOT looking forward to flying ~ I really HATE flying. It makes me really anxious, nervous, worried, etc. I'm a fraidy cat. Never used to be. But then 9/11 happened and I grew a little worried about flying. And then I became a mom and pretty much decided it was TOTALLY irresponsible of me to go flitting about miles above the Earth. What if something happened and my babies were left here without me? I digress. I've been tossing & turning for the last two nights/mornings since we bought our tickets... I think I'm nervous. I also think I'm an idiot because everything will be fine and we will have a wonderful time.

*sigh*

Ok. Time for bed. 

Project356... Tomorrow!

Project365 ~ 133 to 139

It was a really long day. Thanks for sticking around!! Here is my Project365 for this week ~ better late than never!! Link up your Project365 at the bottom of this post!! 

~

Project365 ~ Days 133 to 139

{From my SOOC Self Challenge! Check out the pictures here!}

Missed Day 134. Boo.

{My Personal Starbucks Counter ~ previously shared (unedited) in this week's Sunday Scavenger Hunt}

{Our Vacation Fund. Well, to go towards our vacation fund!!}

{Why Hellllllllllooooo Pre-Twins-Pregnancy Jeans... you lookin' mighty fine, myyy-teeeee fine.} 

{During late night cleaning, we found a secret stash of Easter candy under a couch.}

{Snowdrop. My Little Crazy Pants. She thinks this is the funniest thing ever!! And it is!!}

~

Please grab my button from the sidebar and link up!! Thanks so much!!

Hope you have a fabulous weekend! :) 

Crazy Week

Project365 will be up later this afternoon!

Sorry for any inconvenience.

Yesterday, on my mother-in-law's 57th birthday ~ and her 30-something wedding anniversary ~ we found out that some of her skin samples sent in for testing this week, tested positive for skin cancer. The "Basal" kind, so apparently the less scary kind... My MIL is not worried about it but of course I am. I am trying not to worry but anything with the word "cancer" is super scary to me. She is like the cornerstone of our family here in the Little City. There is no way I'd ever live up to all she does ~ so I hope we are able to nip this in the bud and get rid of it!! I want her here for a very long time. She has always treated me so well and truly accepted me as her daughter, not just an "in-law". I hope she's okay and not hiding anything. {She's not the type of person to do that so I don't really worry about that.}

Hubby's grandpa was just diagnosed with congestive heart failure this week. He is on some new meds that are helping to make him feel better. And will go for more testing this week. This is not "the end" for him but certainly an indicator that things are on the slow-down...  AND Hubby's dad hurt his leg {ankle & knee} and pretty much can't walk, so Hubby has been picking up some of his stops this week. I think he's having surgery soon for this. Not positive on that.

Seriously ~ We are falling apart over here!! 

SO in addition to this, my brother is going through a lot with PTSD {US Army/Afghanistan} and his marriage is suffering and things are.... let's just say pretty fu-barred in his life at the moment. I don't really want to get into the details but being in Afghanistan really messed him up. It's so hard to be there for him when he's across the country. I wish I could just drive over to his place and take him out, you know?

And MY grandpa {dad's dad} is finally getting out of the nursing home, after spending time there to recuperate from a nasty bought with pneumonia. The doctors say that it is out of one lung but that the other lung still shows something. Something. My grandparents have elected NOT to have further testing done and my grandpa should be going home soon. They have also found a nice plot at a cemetery down in FL. We {between my mom & I} do not know if they are hiding information {unlike my MIL, they would totally hide something serious from everyone and put on a good face anyways ~ not a bad thing, they are just VERY private about "private matters"}. So.... that's all going down, too.

So I've been dealing with a lot the last few days and thus have not really had time to work on blog stuff.

Good news though, my medicine seems to be working and other than a few odd side effects {vomiting of course, waking up at night, and tiny panic attacks here & there, forgetfulness} I am actually enjoying what it's doing to me. I want to post about that separately. But I wanted to share it now just to update anyone who might be following THAT part of my life...

~

Thanks for understanding!!!

All best wishes, prayers, good thoughts are welcome & needed!! :) Thank you!!!

Project365 will be up later.

Posters

 Just a quick little Thursday morning post. 

Whenever we go to a show or music festival we usually pick up a poster as our "souvenir". I bought a ton of matching frames from Target and when we used those up, I bought a bunch from Ikea. We had about six of our posters already hanging but so many more are still rolled up or waiting to be hung.

Last night, we FINALLY got around to hanging the ones that were going in our main room. {I someday hope to have a long hallway where we can display these.} The "Before" picture is actually after we had lasered/measured for the new ones. Hubby is SUPER anal about measuring correctly. I'm the type of person who likes to eyeball and whack a nail in the wall and hang it up. 

But we do it his way when he's home. :) 

BEFORE

We've always had three posters behind the couch. Recently we added three more as a top row (not showing here). The poster in the top right of this picture is new to the room. 

I forgot to snap a picture before we started. Oops!

 We DID have two posters on the wall near the table (which isn't showing here).

 AFTER

(The table is usually positioned under the four posters.)

I am SO GLAD we finally got around to finishing this project! It was basically just adding four frames to the wall BUT we did have to put together the hanging parts on the frames which took some time.

Magnolia noticed before she even got all the way downstairs: "Thank you Daddy for hanging pictures. I like very much." Too cute! :) 

So. Nowwwwww I just need to get paint so we can change the walls. I really don't like the shade of blue (everyone else does!) so I'm thinking something more along the lines of tan or grey. I just can't decide. 

Speech

This is going to be a real short post today. The City School District called me this afternoon at 1:10pm and was like "So.... you coming to the meeting today?" I had totally forgotten!! It was on the calendar, but previously the date had been Thursday. I think somewhere in my head I kept thinking it was on Thursday. It was not a big deal as Snowdrop had just finished her lunch; we quickly cleaned up and off we went. I was there by 1:24! Phew!! I wasn't really too late and they said they didn't mind. {I was supposed to be there at 1 to begin the review of the things they observed the day we went for testing.}

To make a long story short, both girls qualified for speech services. They'll start next school year. YAY!

Lipstick

A couple weeks ago I kept Magnolia home with me on Wednesday and sent Snowdrop in her place to Gigi's. It was part me wanting time alone with her and partly me knowing she needed time alone without her sisters. She had been acting up that week and I was out of ideas. I think it seemed to work; we had a fun day! We bought a ton of flowers for the garden and she ran several other "big" errands with me. After we had worked outside for a bit, I sent her upstairs to get a new pair of pants.

She came back to me without pants but SO PROUD of her "Made-Up". She had applied it to her upper lip and not actually her lip! I shared a picture of this before during Project365 but there were some others from that mini-photoshoot that I've been meaning to post; they still make me laugh.

Without further ado...

~

I love you, Mags!!

Homemade Chicken Broth from Crockpot Chicken

A bit ago I posted my recipe for Crockpot Chicken. I'm so excited that it was well-received! I'm super excited to share with you the way I make broth. As with the Crockpot Chicken, I got the recipe from Amber at Paint Chips and Frying Pans. So I am sharing with you today, the steps on how to make it. 

Okay. So first you need to cook your Crockpot Chicken. 

Then you need to eat your dinner. Go ahead, I'll wait. Don't forget your veggies!

Wasn't that delicious? Now that dinner is over, take the whole chicken and get all the meat off of it. The meat goes in a container in the fridge and will last us for a few days! I always wait until after dinner to do this so I can do it with my hands (the chicken will be very HOT if you do it sooner). Please wash your hands first. Using your hands will help you feel if there are any bones. Sometimes I am able to find the tiniest bone ever with my fingers that would have gone completely unnoticed. This is important for a couple reasons: A.) No one wants to choke or eat a bone. B.) You want as much of the non-meat parts of the chicken as you can get. When you are done taking all the meat off, it should look something like this. A gross pile of bones and skin and stuff.

Put it all back into the crockpot and add water until it covers the bones and stuff. Turn the crockpot back on. (You will want to have turned it off during dinner so it can cool a bit and to give your crockpot a break. I make my broths overnight so I don't like it running all day long and then through the night. I think it needs a mini break in-between.) At this point, I add more onions, celery, carrots, leftover veggies from dinner maybe, a couple Bay Leaves, some garlic cloves, NO SALT, DO NOT ADD SALT, you can always use garlic powder, onion powder, etc ~ I just usually have those things fresh & handy. You really don't need much, the bones & stuff will add so much flavor to the broth. As far as the salt thing goes, don't add salt now because when you use the broth you will absolutely be adding salt so you do not want to over-sodium-ize yourself, k?
Talk about being bloated the next day...




















So you turn the crockpot back on at the LOW setting and set the timer for 10 hours. Depending on if it is later or earlier in the evening, I might set mine for 12 hours so the timer doesn't go off at 6:55am and wake the kids up. I'm sure you understand what I mean. But definitely give it at least 10 hours to cook together..

Now you go to bed. You've earned a good night's sleep. And waking up in the morning to the smell of freshly cooked broth is seriously amazing. I loooooooooooove the smell of my house after I make broth. LOVE. LOVE. LOOOOOOOOOVE.

Yum. Look at this stuff. How great does this look? And it tastes so good, too. I love to pour myself a tiny little glass of chicken broth and drink it. I know, I am a total freak but I don't care.
Chicken broth is so soothing.

Once you are up and at 'em, turn off that crockpot and remove the lid. Let the broth cool. 

Last time I made this, I unplugged our crockpot and left the house. For three hours. The crockpot was STILL too warm to hold barehanded when we got home. I'm telling you, let it cool down. Not to the point of being cold ~ It needs to be warm but not hot.

Once it has cooled down to a warm degree, take a sieve and drain the liquid into a large pot.

Now you are ready to make soup. OR you are ready to freeze the broth for later. 

If you are freezing it for later, I recommend measuring it in 2 cup increments into freezer bags. Be sure to label your bag with the item and date. AND WAIT UNTIL IT HAS COOLED OR YOU WILL BURN YOURSELF. When I made this broth and took pictures, I was planning on making chicken soup later so I did not freeze them. These pictures are of broths I have already made. I mentioned before in the Crockpot Chicken post about making them into "Files". I freeze them in my freezer in such a way that they will freeze "flat" and thus making them easy to "File" later on in my freezer. See?

 

And that's it. Yummy, rich, soothing, deep (can broth be described as deep? does that even make sense?) homemade broth. WAY better than bouillon cubes, WAY better than canned/boxed broths, and WAY easy to make if you're willing to put in the prep work. And if you're making a whole chicken anyways, why not use the bones and stuff to make broth. Otherwise they just go to waste being thrown out. Since discovering how to do this, I have only ONCE not made broth after making a chicken. I just feel so badly wasting it when I know it can be put to good use. (Boy, I think I could really learn a lot of useful things if I could spend a day with a real pioneer woman.) Sometimes I use broth to cook frozen veggies or pasta. It adds a lovely extra flavor. I was skeptical when I first read Amber's post and she said that I would never buy broth at a store again. But, she was spot on!!! I will never buy broth at a store (if I can help it!) again.

Shoes

Gram, my mom, sent the girls these shoes as a belated Easter gift. They have hardly taken them off their feet since we opened the boxes ~ even Snowdrop! I think these are just SO CUTE. And the straps are velcro so the girls can put them on by themselves. LOVE. LOVE. LOOOOOOOVE!!! I really do love shoes. And I'm glad my daughters are following suit. {More chances at having my dream shoe closet when there are more people it would benefit!}

Sometimes, my mom really comes through with the whole grandma thing and I really LOVE IT when that happens. Especially when it involves shoes!!

Scavenger Hunt Sunday ~ May 15, 2011

Scavenger Hunt Sunday Items: Give Me Flowers, Visual Contrast, Friendship, Before and After, Dark

Okay.

So I found time to do the Scavenger Hunt Sunday. Hubby came home earlier than expected from a bachelor party weekend so I was able to snap some shots!
YES!

{Give Me Flowers ~ from my SOOC Self Challenge! Check out more pictures here!}

{Visual Contrast ~ a vintage set of stacking snack containers that I rescued from my MIL's Goodwill box.}

{Friendship.}

{Before & After ~ My Personal Starbucks Counter.}

{Dark ~ Sunglasses keep my eyes in the dark.}

Head on over to Ashley's blog to check out all the other awesome entries for Scavenger Hunt Sunday! I totally encourage you to participate in this meme ~ it is one of my favorites! It's always a great challenge to find my interpretations of the items. 

As mentioned, Hubby is home from his fun weekend so I am relieving myself of all motherly duties for the remainder of the afternoon. I'm going upstairs to veg out in front of the TV, maybe doze in bed, maybe finally hem those hallway curtains, perhaps I'll shower... maybe I'll shower and then go walk around the mall. Who knows!

I'm taking time out for me is what I'm doing! :)

Hope everyone has had a great weekend! 

Blew My Cover

OOPSIE!!!

So. This blog is registered to my maiden name email address. {I don't think I can change the registered email?}

I have all mail from that address forwarded to my UnexpectedWorld email address so I can keep blog correspondence in the right place. I don't use my maiden name email address anymore; I have one with my married name that I use for regular corresponding. Yes, I do like to make things complicated for myself. :)

No one in my family {well, my sister knows about it but I don't think she reads it! If she does, Hi Bug!}, none of my friends {okay actually ONE does ~ HIIII Lucy's Mama, who will also remain anonymous!!}, nobody we see ever on a regular basis, no one knows about this blog. Or has the name of it. Or whatever.

So I received an email on Friday morning from one of Hubby's friends about some baby clothing website.

In my tired state of mind that day, I then responded to said email.

I responded to said email from my UnexpectedWorld email address.

OMG.

WTF.

AYFR?!

{AYFR?! Are You For Real?! I just made that up. I don't know if that's a real... thing.}

I am an idiot.

Her email shot me back an "Out of the Office Till Monday" automatic reply... I contemplated calling her company's IT department to explain my situation and see if they could remove the superfluous email without infringing on any privacy rights. Meh. Then I thought that was a little overboard. {LOL.}

Maybe she won't even notice the email address? Maybe she won't even care. 

This was probably bound to happen someday in one shape or form.

So, You. You know who you are.

If you pay enough attention to the email and notice the difference & decided to Google it and have just found me out:

please, pretty pretty please, don't tell anyone. 

You can totally read my blog if it interests you, just please keep what you read here private.

See, this is like the ONE place I can go to. 

And if everyone knows about it, then the fun will be gone.

The therapeutic-ness will disappear.

{My bestest friend in the entire whole universe doesn't even have the link to this blog.  Not that she couldn't read every word on here... it's just having the ability to express myself freely. She's a smart girl, she might have found it out anyways... and because she knows me so well, she hasn't told me that she has. She's really the best. The absolute best. Hey Lady. Are you reading this? I love you to pieces!!}

So yeah. Please don't tell people.

Savvy?

Fabulous!! And Thank you. ;) 

Fabulous Friday ~ May 13

Fabulous Friday ~ May 13, 2011

This is from our rose garden! It is a SOOC shot and I love it! 

{You can check out other pictures from my SOOC Solo Challenge in this post.}

Thank you for stopping by to check out my Fabulous Friday picture!

For those who might be new here, I host a Project365 linky on Fridays. You can check out this week's project, here! I'd love to see more projects linking up! :) 

On a Very Serious Note.

{I wrote most of this post on last Friday 5/6/11. I was interrupted before I could finish it... and well, you know how life goes.}
~
Seriously, this is totally on a very serious note. 

And I'm just going to dive right in.

I have been SO depressed. SO stressed out. SO anxious about... everything!! 

Anything and everything can set it off. I feel like a ticking time-bomb. I can eat just fine (haha, I'm even doing a good job at losing weight through clean eating!), I am exhausted but I can't sleep, I have zero desire to do housework or anything else, I yell at my kids all the freakin' time. I'm a ballistic bitch. Ok. I said it. I'm a big bitch. That is not always my fault. Hubby (God bless him, it's not totally his fault) has been SO unsupportive of my issues. It's not totally his fault; sometimes I'm just a bitch. On the other hand, it just doesn't help me out when I'm having a horrible time coping and he tells me to "Just Leave. Get out of here. Go back home if you're really so unhappy here. I'll raise the kids and you can have your life back."
(Really, he does! What a jerk!! Way to make me feel like you are totally not on my team, dude!)

I have been able the last few years to pick myself up, dust myself off, and live on. Sometimes I wonder if I have some sort of second personality that "takes over" when I can't. Or is that just "Being a Mom"? I do not know. I have reached a point now where I am just tired. I can't do it anymore.

I cannot function like a normal person should function.

So I just had my annual exam {YAY FOR PAP SMEARS! ~ that was only sort of sarcastic because truly YAY FOR PAP SMEARS they can save your life!} and I totally caved when my doctor asked me how things were going. I just seriously could not hold it together for another minute. My doctor, an OB/GYN who for the record is just about 40 and STILL trying to have a child, was really just so amazing.

I felt like SUCH a JERK complaining to her about all this.

{Sidenote: my mom, who was unable to have children, makes me VERY AWARE (in a negative way, duh!) how "fortunate" I am to be able to have kids. As if that means I should be happy my tailbone still hurts and I can't sit down/stand up without feeling it. As if I should be happy that sex fucking SUCKS because it's so painful, I should be delighted when my nipples bleed while nursing my newborn and I should praise God every time I pee my pants because peeing in my pants means that I got to push a baby out of my hoohoo... She has made me feel that I should never have a complaint about my life because I'm so fortunate to have been able to have my own kids. *le sigh*}

But my doctor is amazing.
And supportive. And sat with me for SO LONG to talk things out. And so she hugged me and told me that we are all blessed in different ways and that I'm not a jerk for how I am feeling about mine. She insisted that I am not complaining and that she is there to help me. She even said that I am one of her easier patients! She's really just so great. She didn't take it personally, like my mom alllllllllllways does. {And if I did offend her in any way, she never showed ONE inkling of it. Not one.}

And that meant so very much to me.

So now I'm supposed to be picking up some medicine later today that is supposed to help me function.

In addition to my mind being out of sorts... my tailbone/pelvis is still out of whack as well. This probably has made some contribution to my unhappiness since the baby was born. Long story very short, the muscles/bones in my pelvis got really out of whack when the baby was born. I began going to PT in February of this year. We worked just on my tailbone (which cracked and mishealed due to the muscle straining it) to see if that would help "everything" else down there, too. I felt great after a couple months of PT. So when Hubby and I resumed our...relations... and my tailbone got pushed out of place again it was SUPER depressing that I had to start PT again. I just feel so defeated. This time, we are treating me for the tailbone issues AND for pain in my hoohoo. See, the muscles in my pelvis are like SOTIGHT that they are knotty. Like how you get knots in your shoulders? I have knots in my hoohoo. And they are extremely painful. Especially when...you know. So the worst part of this is that we have to do these muscle releases. Sort of like massaging. Do you get where I am going with this? Yeah. My physical therapist has to massage my hoohoo (from the inside) to get the knots out.
Can anyone say Awkward? Embarrassing? Find me a rock to hide under? Or perhaps a heavy narcotic so I can forget about this easier? Please?

Why am I being this honest with you, Stranger?

Part of me does not know. Part of me hopes that someone out there is having similar issues to mine and goes to get help. Because I SWEAR that my physical therapist is a miracle worker sent to me from God. She has done SO MUCH to help me feel better down there. It is NOT normal to hurt down there after giving birth. Scratch that, it is not normal to be hurting sixteen months after giving birth. Yes, my tiny little body has been through A LOT (having twins plus another within two years) but it should not be "left in ruins". She said that so many women come to her and say that they just didn't realize it's not supposed to hurt, even a little. This week in fact, of the 60 hours she worked, 35 of them were with women who were having pelvic pain, as a result of childbirthing/pregnancy/etc. That amazed me! And made me feel so much less alone.

And the whole sharing thing is not just about the physical stuff, it's the mental stuff too.
If you're stressed out, depressed, "feeling blue", losing your marbles, a bitch for literally no reason at all, whatever is going on ~ you are not alone.
I feel that way, too.
All of the freakin' time.

Bloggers, like Chelsey The Paper Mama and Jennifer from Dishes in the Dryer and Delane from Life of a Mombie have reminded me that I am not alone in my struggle to enjoy mommyhood to its fullest. I wanted to say THANK YOU to Chelsey & Delane & Jennifer, and to all the others who I did not mention because so many of you have made a difference to me and have made me feel like I'm not a total nut-bag for feeling like this. You have also inspired me to speak up for myself and get myself 'fixed'. It is not fun feeling the way I do while I watch so many other mothers gleefully dance through motherhood. For me, the best news right now is that I have spoken up for myself and I am getting the help that I need... or at least starting on that road.

5/14/11 Update:
I am starting medication tomorrow night. I didn't want to start it Mothers Day Weekend and Hubby is out of town until tomorrow afternoon so I didn't want to be tinkering with medication while he wasn't home. Some of the side effects listed really scared me: psychotic episodes? WTF. AND the side effects are all like: extreme anxiety, depression, all the things I'm trying to get rid of? I'm confused by that. And of course, anxious (great) about what side effects I will have. Whatever. I can't remember what the medication is called and there's no way I'm running upstairs to find out. :) I will let you know how that goes. I HATE taking medicine mainly because I am always the one who gets the nausea/vomiting side effect. I feel like a nutjob. Fingers crossed, this will help me and not make me sick. Le sigh.

Okay. It felt really good to get all that out. Thanks for reading. I hope I didn't scare anyone away from reading my blog or step on toes or be a TOTAL Debbie Downer. Really. The blogging community has truly meant so much to me. Thank you!

Photo Dump: Our Rose Garden

I believe this is what one calls a photo dump.

I intentionally played around with the settings on our camera before snapping almost every one of these shots. It was my feeble attempts at manual photography /slash/ pretending I was shooting with film and had only one chance to catch each picture. I'm a total weirdo. And soooooo this was fun for me to do.

{Of course, I couldn't help but watermark them. I do love that feather so.}

We have a rose garden in our backyard. This is what I see out my kitchen window. :)

Next to the rose garden you will see one of our vegetable gardens.

We only have a few tomato plants in so far.

My Peonies. I just love peonies. Except for the ant part. Ours are at the far end of the rose garden. I put up that fence thing just today to hold them up. {I took the picture above before I did that.} They were so droopy, you know, as peonies become when they bloom. We also have pink ones but they haven't bloomed at all yet. I hope to take pictures tomorrow of them. Um, so do you think I should try and thread some of the smaller buds through the fency thing?

Anyone else growing peonies?

There were probably about five small rose bushes back there in that part of the yard when we moved in but we have added more than ten since then!! They are surprisingly easy to take care of and always bloom so well. Hubby does fertilize them two or three times a summer... and they really are just beautiful. I'm not a fan of roses in bouquets (I refused to have roses at my wedding. Our florist is probably still reeling about that! Whatever. My wedding, biatch.) but I really do love them out in the "wild". Yes, the wild of my backyard rose garden. Hahaha! They are really lovely and blooming so fantastically right now I just had to snap a picture.

Here are the rest of my SOOC shots from our rose garden today.

a little out of focus, i think

This little guy scared the crap outta me when he went scurrying through the plants! No bigger than my shoe!!

And seriously, just way too cute!! Those ears!! 

So his mother eats foliage in our yard & is now so comfortable with me that she will actually approach me/come closer to me to forage if I am still enough. I think that it's totally cool. 

I never have my camera when it happens. Of course. 

One bush 

One "arm" of the bush in the picture below. I want to wrap it around a horse's neck.

We definitely need to work on getting some sort of trellis or something for these roses to climb on.

Any suggestions for a homemade something-or-other to do the trick?

These are the ones in the front right of the full garden picture at the top of this post.

These are new to our garden this year! ........... I think.

Just brilliant!!

I love this one, too!

Ta-Da!!

We also have white and yellow ones back there that were not blooming today. AND a stunning yellow/pink (it's called a Peace Rose) bush in the front of our house. And Hubby just planted another dark pink one out front next to that one. I'm sure you'll see more rose pictures as the summer continues.

Thank you for reading my blog ~ I hope you liked these pictures! 

Try your own SOOC Challenge sometime! If you do, please comment here with a link to your pictures! :)