I am going for it

I have a good friend who moved down to Florida two years ago and I have not been able to make the trip down.  Things keep happening or I just didn't have the money for 3 plane tickets, assuming the kids would go with me.  Well, I have decided the kids are old enough for me to go alone so I making plans to fly down to Florida by myself and visit my friend.  I am so excited, I haven't flown in YEARS, like before 9/11.  I have also never been away from both kids, and though the thought of being 4 states away is a bit scary, but it is also very exhilarating and exciting.  I can't even fathom what 5 days without my kids is going to be like, my friend does have 3 kids so I won't be completely kid free.  So I have something exciting to look forward to, I hope that the month of May goes by fast because I am so looking forward to my June adventure.

Green thumb

I would love to have a green thumb, but despite lots of effort, my thumb tends to be more brown, I can kill hardy plants quite easily.  Despite my numerous failures, I have had some success and every spring I try again. 
My successes to date:

My rose bush, despite being cut down to nothing the first year or two by the deer, it has survived and looks like a real rose bush, though a "real" gardener might say it needs to be pruned, I love it, it produces roses and is ALIVE. 

I planted this forsythia five years ago and it now finally looks like a bush and not just a few sparse sticks, FINALLY!

butterfly bush I planted last summer which is still alive and looking good, I almost lost it last August when we had no rain, but somehow it survived and I am so excited that something I planted is still thriving and looks like something after just one year, i should have tried one of these years ago.

This is my fifth attempt at growing a hydrangea, they are favorite of mine as well as the deer who have eaten attempts 1-4 to death.  I religiously sprayed to keep deer repellent on this plant last summer and I am overjoyed to see that it has grown back and I hopefully will have flowers this summer though I don't know what color.

I have learned that growing flowers can be an exercise in delayed gratification as well as patience and persistence. The rewards sometimes take years to receive and for some of my plants I am finally reaping the rewards that I sowed years ago.  My few successes have given me the hope that my ultimate green attempts will be successful.
  I am trying this year to grow some fruits and vegetables, last year I just fed the deer.  This year I am in it to win it.  A couple of weeks ago we built this:

a raised vegetable bed

I also planted along the fence:

we have planted strawberries, lots of sunflowers, pumpkins, and our blackberry bush and so far so good (the Rose of Sharon that are at the fence posts are another success story)

pumpkin seedlings that have sprouted by the fence

the start of a salad in our raised garden

Our blackberry bush, it has already been chopped down once by the deer when the net slipped off but it is still good size and hopefully will give us some fruit this summer it is by the fence

Cantaloupe seedlings, we spend a small fortune every summer on cantaloupe and hopefully this summer we will have some of our own in our own backyard they are in our raised bed

our strawberry bushes, we have six, and fingers crossed we can get some berries they are along the fence

we also have peppers, carrots, and beans in our raised bed

The garden will hopefully also be a great lesson for the kids and hopefully will encourage them to eat more vegetables.  So, so far, so good, fingers crossed we will actually have something to harvest and all my hard work will pay off, only time will tell.  Our next project is a rain barrel to keep the garden growing this summer.

The God Box

I signed up for the Role Mommy Book Club and received a copy of The God Box by Mary Lou Quinlan and I just got through reading it.  I must admit when I first began the book I was not impressed, it is a little book with good size font, lots of pictures, and lots of large quotes.  I honestly thought this book was going to be just fluff, a gift book that you might find at Hallmark, but by the end I was challenged and inspired, I didn't see that coming.  Mary Lou Quinlan shares the story of her parents' marriage and her mother, Mary's spiritual habit of writing down her prayer requests and putting them in her "God Box."  Quinlan explains that her mother would use whatever paper was available (receipts, stationary, business cards, etc), write down her request in a short note to Jesus include the date, and would put it in the box and let go.  The letting go part really made me think and challenge me.  There are so many time I have prayed for something and prayed and prayed and prayed, but never really let go, I lacked the faith that it is taken care of.  Mary Lou explains that her mother fully believed that God was big enough to handle these requests and once the request was written down and put in the box you had to let it go, believe that it is taken care of, I want faith like that. 
Just the idea of the God Box and writing down requests whenever and wherever really struck a chord with me.  Years ago, we visited a church in Wilmington, NC and the pastor was talking about Thessalonians 5:17, "pray without ceasing."  While reading about the different prayer requests Mary had made, the big and the small, I realized that she was living that out, she was praying without ceasing, she didn't put things off to later, she would stop, focus on the request, take the time to write it down, and then place it in the God box. 
I was also challenged and inspired by Mary Lou's parents marriage.  She mentioned that her parents made it clear that their relationship "took precedence," with today's high divorce rate and the focus on children, it is easy to lose focus on our marital relationship.  Reading about the love these people had for each other gave me the desire to work on my own marriage, to love more, and hope that I can leave a legacy of love to my children.
The other major take away for me, was the importance of listening to others, and carrying each others burdens but to release those burdens to God through prayer.  Honestly, too many times I will admit I just listen to people, but not really LISTEN to them, this was a good reminder that listening is not always giving your advice or answers, but listening, just being there.
So this book quite surprised me, it had more in it then I thought.   It was refreshing and inspiring  to read about real faith from a regular person who experience true love in ordinary times, it gives me hope for my life and I hope that the little nuggets I took away will stay with me in the future.


I was not paid to write about this book, but I was given the book to review, and my thoughts of this book are all mine, thank you very much!

Proud mama

Tonight was Evening of the Arts at Lance's school and part of the evening was the Kindergarten play. 

Lance is the pink pig

Lance was a pig and the pigs did a dance and Lance was center stage and did such a great job.  He has come along way, in preschool, during sing-a-longs, he would just stand like a statue and stare. I was a bit worried tonight he would see all the people and freeze, but he danced and he sang and he was great!

The pig dance, Lance is the pig in the middle

  I can't get over how much he has grown this past year and not in size but in confidence and independence as well as academically.    He isn't my little baby anymore, he is growing up too fast. 
This afternoon and this evening I helped get the kids ready, I was in charge of painting noses and applying blush.  It was very cute how excited the kids were to get makeup on, especially the boys, they all wanted pink blush cheeks.  It was so much fun talking to all the different kids and seeing how excited they were to perform for everyone. 
Kindergarten is such a fun and magical year, I am sad the year is almost over with.   I hope 1st grade won't be too much work and will still be fun and that he will love school as much as he does now.  Time is moving too fast and tonight was a great reminder of what is important and how to make sure my priorities are in the right place, especially with Spring Break next week, I have a week of no school, even though I have school I hope I can enjoy the time and not stress over the unimportant things like having a clean and neat house.

feline foe

I have never been a "cat" person, but now I am on the brink of being a cat hater.
The neighbor's cat has lost all sympathy, cool points, any emotion other than disdain from me.  It has crossed the line and it has got to go, and the neighbor too.
Let me start at the beginning.  Back in February, back when it was really cold, one Sunday night there was a poor little kitten sitting in front of our door shivering and whining to come it.  We had seen the kitten hanging around for a few weeks and we was starting to get concerned that the kitten was a stray and not going to survive the cold.  We got a cat carrier, caught the cat, and kept it inside overnight with the plan to take it to the Humane Society the next morning.  Unfortunately the Humane Society is closed on Mondays so we let it out the next morning with the plan to get catch it again that night and take it in on Tuesday.  The kitten was so cute and sweet, we thought about keeping it and just getting it spayed.  Well Monday night I went outside to find the kitten and right when I stepped outside the neighbor two houses down arrived home and I noticed the cat followed him in his house.   We didn't know if the cat was his so we waited until the next morning and asked him as he was fetching his newspaper if the cat was his.  He said it was and at that moment a cat that looked similar but larger ran around the side of the house so we realized that there were two cats hanging around not just one.   (we had been hearing a cat at night whining, I think under our house)
Flash forward two weeks ago, Lily and I decided to have a picnic lunch in the fort on the swing set.  As I was climbing in I noticed that there was poop on my shoe, I walked all around the yard looking for the pile and then I discovered the pile was actually in the mulch under the monkey bars of the swing set.  I didn't realize at the time it was cat, but I was still quite upset that our yard despite being pet-free has lots of poop in it. 
Flash forward one week ago, the kids were playing in the sand box and we went in to eat, after dinner we came back out and noticed one of the neighbor's cats (the one with one ear) was in the lid of the sandbox circling around, we quickly shooed him out. 
Then on Saturday, at about 8 am, we heard two cats fighting out on our deck, we immediately went out and one eared cat was on the deck stalking birds trying to come to our feeder.  It was then we noticed that it also vomited on the deck railing, not cool, we chased it off immediately and were starting to get irritated that this cat was quickly becoming a pest.
Saturday the kids and I planted strawberry plants in the yard.  Sunday afternoon I went out to show Jeff our new plants and I bent down to see how they were doing; I noticed one plant was kind of covered up with dirt, I thought the kids had done it in planting so I tried push away the dirt and quickly discovered I had raked my hands through cat poop.  I was MAD.
I should also note that Saturday afternoon the kids and I were playing on the swingset and I had to remove poop that was buried in the mulch. (I then realized the other mulch by the swing set was also cat poop).
So the total is 3 poops, 1 vomit, and who knows how many urines.
Monday, Jeff and the kids were playing outside, they went in to get something and when they came back (within 5 minutes) they discovered the cat had peed in the opened sandbox and pooped in the mulch by the swingset.
That was the last straw, when I got home from book club Monday night it was about 8:30 and since the neighbor was home I went down to his house and rang his doorbell.
I told him we were having a major problem with one of his cats, it was peeing, pooping, and vomiting in our yard and it was unacceptable. 
I should note that in the last couple of weeks we had not seen the kitten and our next door neighbor thought both cats were gone because bad neighbor was kind of getting back with his wife and never home.
The neighbor apologized and said he would keep the cat inside during the day and not let her out all day like he had been. 
I should also note that neighbor has been gone for days at a time and left the cats out the entire time, but I digress.
He also mentioned that the kitten had just had kittens a week ago.
I was livid, the guy who can't take care of 2 cats, now he has 5.
How I wish the Humane Society was open on Mondays, that cat would have been spayed and our neighborhood would have 3 less cats. 
The conversation ended with the neighbor saying that he would not let the cat out during the day and he was sorry for the problems.
Well I quickly found out how sincere he was.
Next morning, Lance and I left for school and what should we see in the backyard?
Yup, you guessed it, the cat squatting beside the sandbox peeing.
I was so angry, the neighbor's car was gone, he had already left for work, so much for not letting the cat out all day.
Last night Jeff went for a bike ride and what did he discover when he got home, the cat, stalking some poor cardinals trying to build a nest in our bushes.
Today when I got home from work, guess who I saw in the corner of our yard?
The cat.
So frustrated.  What do I do?
Do I catch the cat and take it to the Humane Society of someone who will take a cat missing an ear?
Or do we use the cat for BB gun practice?
Do I buy the expensive cat deterrent spray and pray it works?
Do I eat a bunch of oranges and leave the rinds all over since cats supposedly don't like citrus?
Do I scoop up all the bodily fluids and return to neighbor on their front porch?
Something has got to change, I hate that we can't play outside without worrying about what lovely gifts the cat has left for us and then what do we do about the sandbox?  Dump the sand and start over or what?