Gardening 2010

My garden has a humble beginning. I've dug up one little 4' square and layed out papers for the larger bits (4' x 8' or so). The soil is a whole lot of clay and not much else. I found spark plug digging up the small square in the back, so I'm hoping there isn't to much motor oil in the soil. That would really stink.

I've got seedlings going inside, and I'll get lettuce into the square bit in a day or so. The rain is so nice, but makes the clay hard to work with. Gonna have to get some sand and compost into it.

Who do I want to be

Next week, I have the whole week off for Thanksgiving. As per normal for Rachael, I started making a list of things I'd like to get done. It always frustrates me that I never quite seem to finish my lists, or that my mind and heart wander off and I do all sorts of other things that are not on my list at all.

In an effort to curb this tendency, I started a new statement about "The Woman I Want To Be...." I figured that if you know where you want to go, you can plan your moves to actually get there. This also is a response to the statement that "self-discipline is remembering what you really want." Its hard to remember something you've never known, so I started thinking about it.

I came up with some pretty nice, general statements, which sum up my desires fairly well. Here they are:

1. a woman who can have people over on a regular basis, someone who others seek out for help and comfort. A woman who has an open door policy.

2. a woman who, not every day, but more often than not produces/has around some yummy goody for family and visitors (cinnamon rolls, scones, etc).

3. a woman who's house stays picked up and clean (see #1), no hot spots, no nasty dirty bits. A woman who keeps up with taking care of things. Her house is lived in, but still comfortable.

Then, this morning, this thought came to my mind: I want to create beautiful things, with food, drawings, words, crafty sorts of things (sewing, x-stitch). I want to DO this, but is this a characteristic of who I am. Who knows, I think a great deal more thought is required before figuring that out.

So, I think I know some of where I want to go, and hopefully my Thanksgiving week To-Do list will support those things. At least now I'm not blindly doing my list without thinking about its purposes.

Though, as I ponder this topic, there are a number of other characteristics that I desire that are not on that list. I might have to expand the list. Maybe that should go on my Thanksgiving week list, also.

yards and gardens

We are nicely settled into the new house, which is a most wonderful thing. Life has started back up, and we are quite busy. Now, the yard calls. With all the rain this last week, the yard has blossomed with the wide variety of plants that inhabit the area. Unfortunately, most are not "grass" persay, but weeds. On Saturday, we pulled about 10 kitchen-trash-bag-sized bags of one particular weed, which was very easy to pull. Luckily, there were small patches of grass in the midst of this weed (I have no idea what is was), so hopefully the grass will fill in the now bare spots. There are masses of other weeds to be pulled, but that will come along slowly, in 15 mins-every-few-days sized chunks.

I've also got plans for a garden plot. Nothing too very big and its a bit late for some of the fall crops, but I should still be able to get some spinach, lettuce and peppers and garlic in the ground for next spring.

These are truely exciting times!

READ ALL ABOUT IT!!!!!

The Youngers are moving to Waco, Texas. Yep, you heard that right. Rachael is going home and Pete is becoming a Texan. We will pack up a truck with our seemingly many belongs on July 15, and will drive off into the sunrise on the 16th. On the 21st, we will close on our new house! I, Rachael, start my very first full time job on Aug 5 and Pete starts the PhD program on Aug 24.

The email addresses will remain the same and phone numbers won't change for a while. But if you desire the new snail mail address, please write or call us and ask for it.

Its all so exciting, and so much to tell! I promise, more news soon to come.

My Inner Brat

I named her tonight:

Lasaraleen

That's Aravis's friend who she meets in Tashbaan (The Horse and His Boy -- by C.S.Lewis).

Lasaraleen has really gotten the upper hand these days. Not a good thing: not getting basic chores done, leaving things to the last minute, pouting when I have to do something I don't want to. Got to get her under control, discipline her so that she doesn't control so much. Hopefully, naming her will help with that!

Something not many know about

I feel like I'm finally ready to write about it.

We've been trying for 13 months to get pregnant and haven't yet. I think this makes it official: we are dealing with infertility. Not the nicest thing to deal with, but definitely not on the "bad" end of medical maladies. We've got a doctor's appointment scheduled for next week and, so, we will begin the process of figuring out why we aren't getting pregnant and if we can get pregnant.

There is a great deal of disappointment in all of this. Disappointment that expectations are not met. Disappointment that God hasn't intervened to fix the problem. Disappointment that there is still no baby. And the disappointment is like being on a roller coaster. Each month, when I know I'm not pregnant, there is a wave of sadness and disappointment. After a day or two, those emotions wane. Then, when that time gets close, I try not to anticipate, but I do. I get excited, I wonder if maybe this month I'll be pregnant. And then sadness and disappointment again. An emotional roller coaster, if there ever was one.

Here's to hoping that in the next month or two I can post an update... with news of a miracle.