August stuff...

The weather has been dark and cold today and pretty dreary a lot of this week. I've been inside a lot and haven't gotten photos of the garden yet.


Yesterday when my husband got the vacuum cleaner out we weren't sure how Bear was going to react to it. His sister is still frightened by it at almost 5! He loved it. He literally chased his dad around the house shouting "car car car"! It was the funniest thing I'd seen in awhile.


Last week as the Northwest Washington State Fair on we took the kids and went on Saturday. Princess' favorite thing was getting to milk the pretend cow and the souvenier she chose to bring home is a wooden King Cobra almost 3 feet long. I am so not into snakes, but she is still delighted with it (I had to kiss its nasty little head at quiet time) and that is what counts! My husband and Princess both got to be party of the Imagination Circus show and it was lots of fun.


I went back to the mouth surgeon on Monday. He thinks I have a strained muscle and possibly an infection. I'm now taking muscle relaxers (which totally wipe me out) and antibiotics (which make me feel sick), but hey! At least he actually looked at me and had an idea. I'm not in as much pain, just feeling crummy.


If you're so inclined, it would be lovely to have you pray for sunshine for Princess' birthday on the 30th!

Here and update, there an update, everywhere an . . .

Well, we're half way through August! I can't believe we only have 2 weeks until Princess' party. The creation of all things buggy are underway. I am thrilled my family will be coming up to visit again, and Mom will be here for a couple of weeks. Sadly, they just announced the church summer barbecue is happening the evening of Princess' bash and I am sad about that . . . I'm not sure people will skip free food at the lake to hit a pinata at the park with us. Plus, I am late getting the invites out--they were supposed to be out last week and last week was rough and so I didn't do it. Sigh. More cake for me.

I'm writing a lot of fanfiction these days and my goal of 1000 words of creative writing a day is proving sufficiently difficult. I hit 2550 total last week and 1484 this week. Better than it has nothing though I suppose, so I'll just keep at it. I have a couple months left to practice before NaNoWriMo.

The garden is a discouragement and a thrill . I went and picked peas and beans this morning. Lots of green tomatoes & unripe bell peppers, some not too big corn, tons of yellow crook neck squash, moldy cabbage and Brussels sprouts which I am just going to pull out and try again next year, blight-covered potato patch which I am going to mostly dig up this week and hope the baby potatoes are okay underground, nice self-seeded sunflowers and lots of rotting baby zucchini and pumpkins. REALLY unhappy about the rotting/blighted/moldy stuff.

The mouth surgeon was not helpful--told me to take ibuprofen and come back in a week if it still hurt. Did not even look at my mouth--couldn't they have told me that over the phone? So I didn't go back in because it had stopped hurting, yeah! Last night I am eating dinner and I hear this HUGE "crraaacckkkk" and feel like someone just stabbed me in the jaw with a tent stake. Not the joint, it is actually lower in the jaw where they took the wisdom tooth out . . . took the maximum amount of proscribed ibuprofen and it didn't put even a dent in the (excruciating) pain. So I suppose I get to call them again tomorrow--it has been six weeks since the surgery and it just seems like this is weird, weird, weird.

Galactastic!

Well, my mom's visit was great and Bear's party was as perfect as a party can get. I actually got everything done on my party to do list, my family was a great help with the slave labor aspects of the celebration and Baby Bear absolutely loved having the house filled with people who loved him! Frankly, I did too :) I managed to put together a scrapbook (my first clumsy attempt ever) of Bear's first year and I really like how it turned out. Here is the moon and stars cake I made (blueberry moon and strawberry stars). Stressful to make, but I'm quite proud of it now that it is all over!

Mom helped with some garden stuff and I have corn and peppers and amazing things out there right now folks--I'll take you some new photos this week!

Bear's been most happy the last few days because Saturday we took the baby gates down and he is now allowed to roam the ranch. This has resulted in taking Oscar the garbage can out to the garage to keep him out of it (the lid was no deterrent), replacing the spices back in the cupboard 4 times, putting the dishtowels back in the drawer 3 times (after removing the child from drawer), and being puzzled by the fact that the kitchen drawer latches that STILL keep his sister out of the butter knives are apparently useless in keeping him out of the butter knives. The kid has a long reach.

Last night I posted my first fanfic chapter since January! Yeah me! Close to 1800 words, so a little smaller than most, but it felt great and I was happy with it. I also have chapter eleven done and am started on chapter twelve. Maybe I can get back into the writing and reviewing groove and that will motivate me to work on more of my completely original fiction. I am plotting in my head for this year's NaNoWriMo. Or maybe even some new poetry, although I continue to feel unsettled about that these days. Should I try to be famous or just connect with the masses . . . that is the eternal question for me & poetry.

Today I was chewing pizza at lunch and I heard a loud cracking sound and a shooting pain in my jaw. I can't think this is good. Back to Dr. Oral-Maxillofacial Surgeon on Thursday. Yuck.