Beginning again

And so it begins again.  I haven't written here since March of this year.  It is now December.  I think I gave up.  I think I wondered what this is for.  But I have decided that if it is for nothing else, it is for me.

Today is the Winter Solstice.  The shortest day of the year.  I am glad.  I am looking forward today.  Waiting for a little more light every day.

I usually hate moving out of summer and into Fall/Winter.  But this past year, I prepared emotionally.  I did well.  I began to look for the good in it.  I reminded myself how very blessed I/we are. I reminded myself that my Mom is still here and she still gets to laugh and enjoy.

My Mom had a stroke at the end of April 2014.  It has been a rocky year since then.  And because of this, I didn't plant a garden last summer.  I bought plant starts.  I set them outside.  I let them fry in the sun.  But I didn't cry about it.  I just moved on. I got a few potatoes who decided to volunteer.  That was fun.

I read up on how to prepare my garden for next year.  I have since covered by garden beds with cardboard to kill the weeds and then with leaves.  I will eventually cover them with wood chips (the kind that come from chipping up tree branches).  I have chicken manure to spread on top of that.  I watched a really cool video on how this helps with water retention.  It is going to be a experiment this spring/summer. It isn't pretty at this time of year, but I have decided that it ok. 

Sometime during this year, we had to put our big dog down.  It was a very sad story and I have decided that I do not want to share it.  I am still in mourning about him.  He was such a neat dog.

Also, one of our sweet bard rock chickens passed away more recently as well.  She went quietly, but it was a big loss for me.  The weird thing is, that the other two have now started laying again.  They took a nice, long break and decided to start laying again in the middle of winter.  Funny.

In the interim, we got a new kitten.  What a little hellion he is!  His name is Yoshi.  His favorite thing to do is chase my 19 pound cat around the house.  With that in mind...I will share more about him some other time.  

I have been reading a lot about people living in tiny homes.  Our home is not really considered "tiny" at 1000 square feet.  I wonder what our house would be called...moderate?  In any case, I have been feeling a little cramped this winter.  We have really worked on clearing out the living room and making it more livable.  That has been a blessing.  I saw something in one of those tiny houses that I thought would work in mine.  I asked for shelves high on the wall in my bedroom for Christmas.  So far we have put two of them up.  It makes it really nice to be able to have some stuff up where it can be seen and not so jumbled up.  I think open side tables really give a feeling of spaciousness too.  I also asked for black-out curtains in my bedroom.  I finally found some that look like they might work.  I am hoping to get them up soon.  I wake up really early every day and for some reason, even early on the weekends!  So I am hoping that getting black out curtains will help.  They are a lovely lavender color that matches my bedspread.  I hope my husband won't mind the girly color very much.

There you have it.  My first post in 9 months.  I have missed writing.  And I have missed you.

Sleep

Sleep...who needs it anyway?  Well, I would LIKE some more.  My husband deals with serious neuropathy in his feet.  He wakes me up all the time.  And in the morning, I just cannot get back to sleep.  He is not diabetic and no one can tell us why he deals with this.  It could be the cement floors that he has been working on for years and years...or a number of other things.  But more than what has caused it, we can't figure out how to get rid of it.  We have tried a number of things.  Let's see...medications, acupuncture, supplementation...and on and on.  This and that.  That and this.  I really feel for him.  Sometimes it doesn't hurt at all and then sometimes it hurts a lot.  Last night was one of the latter.  But enough of that. 

Today I want to talk about animals.  My son has been waking up and commenting on the birds.  We live near a very wild greenbelt and the birds love it there.  One day he said it must be Spring since the birds have all come back.  It is neat to see that my love of nature has rubbed off a little on him.  And as I sit in my office at work, I can hear the frogs singing outside my window.  When I go out to put the chickens to bed, I can hear the songs of the crickets.  And on my drive to work almost every day I look up on the light pole in this one section of road and I see a red-tailed hawk sitting there, just watching the world go by. 

I am going to be going out to take care of my friends' animals this weekend.  They live where we used to live, out in the country.  I am looking forward to hopefully see Blue, the resident Blue Heron.  He mated one year when we lived there.  I have to admit that there is nothing more beautiful than seeing two adults and a baby Blue Heron winging their way across the sky. 

I am watching Spring come in.  I know I need to do something in the yard/garden.  But I have been so very busy at work these past few weeks that I have just not had the time or energy to do anything.  Maybe today I will just throw some seeds in and see what happens.  :-) 

Thank you for having tea with me this morning.  Have a good week.