A Small Dose of Heaven

I know this will sound utterly ridiculous, but there is something so amazing about gardening.  It feels like you are doing God's work.  I find myself talking to my plants, coaxing them to grow and demanding to know what is eating all my lettuce.  Our garden is doing well despite the late start.  We moved the corn to a different location so it would get more sun.  Unfortunately, that also made it more vulnerable to our dogs.  They have busted a lot of plants while chasing each other around the yard.  We've never had much luck with our corn, so it probably won't be worse than in previous years.  The tomato plants are growing well and I see tomatoes popping up in there and I hope it won't be too long til we have some ripe ones.  If you made a visit to our garden, you would probably laugh at seeing some of the tattered plants growing there.  We had cilantro grow spontaneously from last year's leftovers. They've gone to seed because of the heat, but I can't bear to get rid of them.  I've broken off pieces because they're getting too big, so they look really bad now.  The squash never disappoint, of course, and I was excited to have some ready to eat.  It's a little taste of heaven!

Relaxing Weekend

For those of us in Utah, it was a holiday weekend (Pioneer Day).  I welcomed the extra day off even though it was scorching hot.  Emerson and I have very different ideas of how to spend our weekends and time off.  He likes to have actual plans of things to do, even if it's just wandering around stores and malls.  I don't mind doing some of that, especially when I need to feel a little air conditioning, but my preference is to hang out at home and relax.  I may clean a little, organize a little, work on random projects, play with the dogs, do some gardening, read a little, write a little, and so on.  I can tell this drives Emerson crazy because he'll start pacing the house and looking for things to do.  Even though I am totally fine with him running off by himself, I guess it's just not very fun for him to run around alone.  Me, I could wander almost any store for hours all by myself.  Fortunately, Emerson and Dwayne went fishing a couple of times over the weekend and they had a really good time.  I got to hang out and do all the odds and ends.  I even created a new tatted necklace (for details, see my Etsy Madness blog).

The family update for this week:  Dwayne started his new job at Teleperformance and seems to be doing well.  Dexter reports to also be doing well despite misplacing his Cutco shears (scissors).  Emerson is still losing weight and may be the skinniest he's been since I've known him.  I'm trying to do more exercising and push through the weird popping, cracking, and pain going on in my foot (I've been told this is normal).  The dogs are getting used to sleeping in their pen outside again.  The brakes on the car (and the rotors) had to suddenly be replaced - bummer!  The truck is holding up despite all the miles Emerson has put on it for work.  Our mechanic is still looking for a used engine for it that's affordable and in decent shape.

All is....

Well?  Still working on my Etsy shop, but at a more reasonable pace.  Dwayne hopefully starts his new job tomorrow.  He had problems when Job Corps wouldn't answer their dang phone to verify that he had been there.  Things are worked out and he should be starting his tech support training tomorrow.  Dexter stopped by the house.  He is still busy doing his Cutco thing and even recruited some others to do sales.  It sounded like he was running out of referrals, though.  The garden is doing okay and some tiny bell peppers, squash and tomatoes are forming.  The 100 degree temperatures are frying the lawn right now.  Gambit's wound has healed up very nicely and he's happy to get outside more.  I thought it would be quieter with one less kid here, but Dwayne has had some friends over somewhat regularly, so there's no shortage of activity in our house.  Dwayne is also becoming a bit of a legend over at Dragon's Keep where he plays Magic the Gathering.  He wins the tournaments a lot, even when he drafts lousy cards.  He also manages to trade cards and basically never pay an entry fee for these tournaments.  You know he's serious when he's got a locker at the store!

Pulling Back

Emerson says that Etsy has become my new "crack" after giving up all my Facebook games.  That was more or less true.  I sent a lot of hours monitoring Etsy's Alchemy area and bidding on any job I thought I could do.  I bargained with people to do design things for them and would accept whatever they would offer in payment from cash to items in their shop.  The items I received in trade are sitting in my office and I will contribute them to our fundraising auction in October to raise scholarship money.  Some of these people were pretty demanding for paying only $5 for a logo design.  The family was getting pretty frustrated with all the hours I was putting into it and I really was only making a few dollars here and there.  Now I've decided to pull back some and stop bidding for awhile.  I'm finishing up some more tatted items and Emerson has more beaded items listed.  We'll just let the shop do it's thing for awhile.  Besides, Gambit is going stir crazy while his stitches heal and somebody has to entertain him...

This Year's Garden

All the wild and wacky weather we had this year caused us to plant later than we wanted.  Snails already ate through the cucumber starts (all of them) and we have cilantro popping up randomly everywhere.  Still, things are growing and I'm looking forward to eating some fresh produce.  I have a raspberry start and a strawberry plant out front and each has delivered a couple of pieces of fruit.  Slow, yes, but still rewarding.

Contacting Dexter

I just found out that Dexter has given up the phone we had for him.  If you need to contact him, I'm guessing that Facebook or email (his gmail address) is the best way.

Gambit

Gambit, our four month old beagle puppy, had an accident this morning.  We have our two dog kennels stacked one on top of each other inside the back room.  Gambit jumped out of the top kennel this morning, catching his leg on the door of the bottom kennel.  The resulting wound was technically "superficial," but quite long and gaping.

A trip to the vet's office first thing this morning introduced us to the reality of how expensive pet repair can be.  It wasn't like we could just glue his skin back together (although I was contemplating every possible solution)...

We left him in the doctor's capable hands and picked him up a few hours later after he'd been stitched up properly.  The big challenge now is trying to keep this very active puppy from being active and ripping his stitches during the next 14 days.  We have been advised that we may need to purchase a "cone of shame" to keep him from licking the wound or biting at the stitches.  I'm still feeling bad that this happened to him while he was in my care.  Puppies and kids......

AdultTeens

Emerson and I have often looked forward to the day when our kids would be all grown up.  After years of being focused on our children, their needs, and their activities, it's nice to be a couple again.  We've had glimpses of this over the years when the boys were at Scout camp or other places.  The last little bit has been tough as we have encouraged the boys to look for work and get frustrated when they sleep all day and then wake up just to watch TV and play on the computer.  They did make some job search efforts, but it wasn't quite what we expected.  Dexter turned 18 and graduated and that led to some interesting discussions of which rules still applied to him now that he was all grown up.

The challenge of dealing with your children once they turn into adults is well known by those who have raised their children.  Additional challenges we have faced have been about culture.  We did the best we could to raise the boys to appreciate their Navajo culture and respect their elders appropriately, but it doesn't sink in when they grow up away from the culture and surrounded by kids raised differently. 

Our latest adventure has begun. Dexter has now moved out of our house.  It's hard not to take it personally even though I have watched my friends go through this before.  When Dwayne went to Chicago last summer we had some of the same feelings, but we knew in advance that he was leaving.  Dexter didn't even give us 24 hour notice.  We're still trying to get used to him not being here and we hope he'll discover some appreciation for family during this adventure.

Happy Independence Day (even though the celebration is tomorrow)

Having July 4th land on a Sunday is always a weird thing in Utah.  Pretty much nothing was going on today and even the places that would normally be open on a Sunday were closed for the holiday.  Some of the Independence Day festivities were held yesterday and the rest will be tomorrow.  I'm not saying that I mind, it's just that it can take some getting used to. 

Emery, Brenda, and kids came up for the holiday.  Dwayne decided to do a backyard cookout tonight and we invited Emery and his family as well as Gene and his family to join us. Dwayne enlisted Dexter's help in cooking and they made gigantic hamburger patty, topped with cheese slices, and then wrapped in bacon strips woven together into a sheet.  Guaranteed to stop your heart, these real life Baconators were the hit of the dinner.  Dwayne made sure I took a picture of him with his creation before cooking it. 

Dexter was pretty pleased with the results, too.  In fact, I felt it was necessary to take a picture of him taking a picture of the resulting bacon burger.  He had a pretty busy weekend already and this was his only day off.  Dexter has started selling Cutco knives and he has been doing product demonstrations with friends and family in order to practice.  It doesn't hurt to make some sales to sympathetic people along the way either.  He's actually a really natural salesman (which I credit to his acting abilities) and has made some sales in his first two days.  None of this would be possible without the lovely Emily who has been his main mode of transportation as well as his beautiful assistant.