The Rest of Life

I happened to scroll down through my last several posts and realized that, proportionally, way too many of them were about gardening. Contrary to what this may indicate, there really are other things going on in life and I thought I'd illustrate a little more balance in my life. So, in the last week...

1) ...on Wednesday I bought tons of strawberries because they were on sale for $.88 everywhere I went while grocery shopping. They were beautiful, too. The plan was to make lots of smoothies to increase the fruit intake of certain family members. I broke the blender on the first batch of the week. Now we have tons of strawberries sitting in the freezer and I have to go blender shopping. Good thing there's nothing else to do!

2) ...on Thursday mailed my sister's birthday card and all my Mother's Day cards late, but at least they got mailed! I look at it as spreading out the celebration.

3) ...on Friday took Spencer to the doctor for strep throat and then to the pharmacy for a prescription. He'd rather take pills for 10 days than have one shot.

Friday also happened to be Ward Temple Night (our first since living here) and we met several people early in the cafeteria for the best prime rib I've had in a long time. The poor kids were stuck at home with fish sticks and a movie, but they were happy so it's all good.

4)...on Saturday took Erica to viola lessons, shopped for a gift for Ryan to take to a birthday party, wrapped said gift, and took Ryan to said party. After all the tilling (see previous posts) I took Erica to the Mercado Latina to buy empanada shells and stopped at the library to pick up some books on hold and a movie to watch. We settled on Hercules and had a little family movie night.

5)...on Sunday had a fun Mother's Day. The kids got up early and on their own to make me breakfast in bed. Several of them also offered to give me massages. Nice! All our meetings (except church, of course!) were canceled, so I had some home time on a Sunday. Very Nice! Greg gave me several John Bytheway talks on CD. My favorite part of the whole day was listening to the kids listen to the talks. They loved them and listened to all 5 of them on Sunday- and one of them twice.

It was also my turn to teach Laurels on Sunday and we had a really reasonably good lesson about the Melchizedek Priesthood. There's a fun correlation between motherhood/priesthood and the space program (we used Apollo 13 as our example). (Yes, dear brother Dave, it made me think of you all weekend!) If nothing else, the girls paid attention and participated. Success!

6) ...on Monday Greg and I talked with a mortgage guy about a refinance in the morning. The day was spent in the garden, then I made dinner and served as a resource while Spencer made cookies for an afternoon snack and Family Home Evening treats and Erica made empanadas for her Spanish class. Dinner was late and then it was my turn to give the lesson in FHE.

7)...today took Erica the empanadas at school for her Spanish presentation. I reheated them and dropped them off in time for her class today. Wow, did the car smell fabulous! (Little side note- I left them reheating in the oven while I walked the boys to school and asked Ryan to turn off the oven when I called. It took WAY too many calls before he finally answered. I was afraid they'd be burned to a crisp when I got home, but they were perfect. Whew!)

After going to the high school, I took Ryan to the doctor for what we thought was either a broken or infected thumb. Turns out it was just a good (or is that bad) sprain. I was worried about the infected part because we've had strep at home, he had a small cut on his hand, and his thumb was beginning to turn pink. It is just a sprain and the pink is from the swelling. He didn't want a splint and spent the day walking around with his hand on his head to keep the swelling down and protect it a little bit. I should take a picture, now that I think about it.

So, there are other things in my life besides a garden. I told Greg that I think I like gardens so much because, in general, what gets done, stays done. I only have to plant once (I hope) and, other than evaporation, the water doesn't jump back out of the ground after I put it there so I only have to water once a day. All the other "life" things have to get done, too, but the quiet and order of the garden are a very nice break.