She is right. There is a little elf trying to climb the wall!

Yes, the green eyed jealousy monster! My grandmother would have been in 7th heaven to have had one. She kept irises, as full acre of hybrids. Every color you can imagine. She split the bulbs and sold them as a side business after she retired from her position at the bank.

My goodness! It looks like some magic, secret garden cross between an orchid, A lily, and a fairy riding an exotic moth!

I am so sorry! I also wish for you a cut throat, evil s.o.b. of an attorney, the kind that makes companies run in fear. They need to make restitution which is a total chemical clean up of the property, new soil and soil conditioners to get it to the level you had it, plants, entire replacement of plants, and then some punitive damages for what they have done to you and your years of labor to produce the results they destroyed.

This is absolutely gorgeous!

No. We are letting the kids stay for a while. They have been through so much, and the last thing they need is to worry about getting a place of their own. It is a lovely house for raising kids, especially my eldest grandson who seems to be patterning himself after Bear Grylls! Dh will probably work four more years, and then we will travel some. We can't go anywhere permanently until his mom is gone though I will say we might be on the down hill side of things with her.

A new reason to beg the gods even harder to get this menopause thing to finally kick in! 😁

Oh. Believe me. I am relishing this. Saturday we leave to go back to the frozen, desolate tundra known as Michigan winter where the best thing I can do is count the days until March 22 when I valiantly attempt to start some seeds indoors with the grim hopes that IF they sprout, they will make plants that I might be able to put out May 22.

Well, hey, that worked out okay then!

My preference would be to take it more slowly. But we are only here for a week and if I leave it undone, my daughter who thinks she is super woman but who actually has a dicey relationship with healthiness would do it and end up back in physical therapy or worse having her uterus removed for NOT resting like she should after birthing. So though sore from pushing, I am determined to get it done asap.

Thanks!

Ooooo, that would be so nice. Whip up rice and a scrambled egg, add veggie hash, and bam, fast lunch!

This morning, assault on Mount Java and one of Mark's absolutely divine homemade sundried tomato and onion bagels which he makes with Einkorn flour. I am very fortunate to be in the small percentage of wheat allergy sufferers who are not allergic to its wheat protein which is quite different from hybridized wheat varieties. So darn yummy!! Lunch - none, I was working to beat the clock, ie the rain, to get those raised beds filled. We just built a 27ftx2.5ftx2ft bed put of pallets for our daughter, and since she is post partum only 5 weeks, and her hubby and mine are working a lot of hours this week, it kind of fell on me to get it done. She is so happy, and I am pleased about that. Dinner - we are cooking, right now, salmon, green beans, herbed potatoes, and making salads. There is a lot of fruit, and I won't eat any unless I acquiesce to a clementine. Mostly after all the hard muscle labor, I need some protein along with grains and veggies so I am going to eat a pile of leftover pinto beans with my meal salmon and sides. You know you are tired when you are already looking forward to the next day's morning coffee!

Here is a picture of what we just completed on the mountain. 30ft x 2.5ft x 2 ft, 75 sq ft or 6.9 sq meters. R is going to put in 3 cherry tomato plants, 1 slicing tomato, 4 rows of carrots staggered so they do not all mature at once, green onions, basil, and 3 rows of green beans which should end up being about 40 plants. These were all made of nine pallets that we paid $2 a piece for, leftover fence boards that the previous owner left behind, and lined with cardboard and agricultural fabric, filled to the brim with leaves from the yard, a few rotting logs in the bottom, and then top soil and compost. We will be using a plant based sealer on the wood. But that can't happen at the moment because a rain storm is coming. I am very sore. Mark built it Sunday afternoon, but since then has worked a lot of hours, and son in law also had his first week back to work since baby was born. R is still only 5 weeks post partum so I refused to let her do anything except rake some leaves. I have so far transported and shoveled alone, 2 cubic yards of top soil to go, and one more after the rain passes and it dries out a bit. The plastic bags you see in the photo are from compost. I sure wish I could take tubs or something and have compost shoveled in or get it in burlap sacks or something. These dumb bags are not recyclable. We also have a monmorency cherry tree on the way here. It is 4-5 ft stock. Montmorency is a sour cherry. This area doesn't get enough cold hours to produce sweet cherries. The nectarine and peach trees are blooming as well as the plums, blueberries, and mulberries. The pomegranate, and kiwis seemed to have survived the BAD epic winter storm here back in December, but they do look rough. I hope some fruit tree fertilizer and sweet talking will perk them up. The fig did not make it.

That.is.depraved.

Beautiful!

I think that maybe since sister in law interaction face to face is the issue, but she has the potential to be very hurtful, it might be wise to think for yourself, "How many hours of childcare can I reasonably provide knowing that it means I have to interact with her?" Then set that limit...maybe it is once every other week for three hours or whatever. Make it clear when the children must be picked up, and after the limit has been reached, "No, I am not available" without explanation is the boundary. If she is the one picking up or dropping off, deliberately call someone right as she is walking through the door so you are legitimately on the line with someone else and can't talk. I have no idea if that will work, but maybe. The 2nd thing might be to not entertain at your house and see if there is some way to show your gratitude to your brother in law, the other brother and the sister in law. Then when it comes to family get togethers, try to get father in law to do ones that are not around meal time or at a restaurant and each family pays their own way. One idea might be if you tend to get together for Sunday dinner, stop doing that and tell father in law you need some time after mass to rest and think before socializing. Go home and cook for your own family or cook enough so fil and pops can take some home with them, and then meet later for coffee/desserts. You can do other things to thank fil like doing his grocery shopping, or vacuuming and dusting. You could offer the same type of helps to brother and sil, and not center showing your appreciate around the whole group at once. For the other brother in law, he has to have figured out by now that his wife is off the charts mean and selfish, so he shouldn't be shocked. Maybe you can communicate with him privately, thanking him for his contributions to your children's lives. Beyond that, I don't know. Grey rock, text only, remove as much of her currency as possible.

I only worry about protein/dairy and fruit portion, and if my protein is from legumes, I eat however much I want. Due to diabetes on my mom's side of the family, I only eat low glycemic fruit and SMALL portions, definitely not even every day. I otherwise do not worry about it for whole grains and vegetables. I never lose weight. I would probably have to go on a starvation diet. Anything over 1200 calories no matter how healthy and how low fat, and I gain. I have gone as low as 750 calories per day, vegetarian, for months and never dropped a pound. Doctors don't care. They just lecture me and tell me I am lying and probably eating donuts. So I do not go to doctors anymore. I gave up. Since I can't lose weight because who the heck knows what is wrong with my metabolism, but I do pay out of pocket for AIC annually and it is always a really great number so blood sugar is not the issue, I decided that just being a healthier version of me, regardless of size, would have to do. I kayak, walk, swim, ride an exercise bike, do calisthenics, etc. I get exercise, am not sedentary. My calorie count hovers around 1200. My lunch today was four ounces of turkey breast, 1.5 cups green beans, 1.5 cups broccoli, 1 cup potatoes, and selzer water. Very filling because of the amount of vegetables and fiber. Calorie count not very high, and the protein was considered a healthy size serving for poultry. Had it been beef, I would likely have reduced that to just two ounces, but just to make sure the carbs metabolize properly, a slice of cheddar cheese to go with it or a little dollop of Greek yogurt or sour cream for the fat. I have no advice, just a lot of hugs. I do believe for some of us, the answers are not available due to flaws in the US healthcare system combined with insurance restrictions, and lack of understanding of US practitioners about metabolic issues. My sister gets way more help with this in France. So the only words I have are of compassion and just trying to be a healthier version of yourself. Mentally/emotionally, the move to more outdoor activities (including my gardening), and higher vegetable count, lower meat, and taking the stress and self recrimination about the weight, has resulted in a happier me, a much more happy me, and I think that has a lot of benefits too even though it isn't expressed by the number on the scale.

Today: Coffee mass destruction and scrambled eggs. Leftover vegetarian Mexican gumbo, rice, and beans. Dd had a turkey in the.freezer that she really needed to use up. It took three days to thaw in the fridge. Finally I was able to roast it today. We made mashed potatoes, roast brussel sprouts, roast green beans, steamed broccoli, and GF stuffing. It was really nice because Dd and family were sick at Thanksgiving and never got to celebrate. Since T has only been home from the hospital a short while, it seemed like a celebration of the whole family finally being together.

Bummer. The noise is lovely Great Lakes Region frogs are, I believe, the ones that the frog orchestra from the movie "Meet the Robinsons" were based on. If I was movie character, I would be Mrs. Robinson diligently teaching Mahler to a cacophony of frog instrumentalists. Mark is 100% Mr. Robinson! Sorry if the reference is obscure. In other news, we ran down to the little farm store at the bottom of the mountain and picked up cosmos and daisy seeds. We have high hopes that this spring the fence line will dotted with flowers. It is 69F (20.5C) degrees right now. Back at home in the frozen wasteland of Michigan, they are experiencing 30-34F (1.1C) and freezing rain. 😱

I love frogs! One of my favorite sounds at night is the low ribbit of bull frogs.

That sounds wonderful! Will you stock it with any type of fish?

And post it in YouTube videos with her family. It isn't gossip. She was forthright about it online and as part of far wrong clicks views for Hello Fresh which she markets for pay. She uploaded the videos both announcing the pregnancy, and then a big description of the loss at the same time as her promo for Hello Fresh. Straight from the horse's mouth, and if she didn't want people to talk about it, she shouldn't be marketing/making bank off the experience in as public a forum as you can get, YouTube and People Mag.

As February winds down and the ice continues to accumulate in Michigan, spending time at the Alabama mountain house where the peach, nectarine, plum, and pomegranate trees are blossoming along with the blueberry bushes and the emergence of a new raspberry cane makes me LONG for Michigan spring, I am consoling myself with the most wonderful find. There has been a lilac hybridized to bloom in zone 7, and will be perfect for our zone 7a home. Robin and I are so excited. We are getting on the list at the nursery to get one as soon as they arrive. https://www.monrovia.com/blue-skies-lilac.html

I think one of the deepest, most disturbing undercurrents we have in our culture is "othering", and othering seems to produce a hierarchy/caste mentality. Combine that with authority/power and the lethality is off the charts.