Sunny Days, Sweeping the Clouds Away

Again, I've been lacking in my blog updating... But I have several perfectly good excuses along with a prayer request!

First the prayer request:

Hubs has a very badly injured shoulder. He's been off work for the past 3 weeks, and will be off for at least 2 more. He was injured during a self-defense training class that he had to take for work. Most of the instructors of said class were great, but there was one guy who really got off on hurting the participants and Hubs was unfortunately one of his victims. Don't believe me? Two other guys from his work were also badly injured. One with a broken nose which will require surgery, and the other with several broken ribs. I cannot even begin to tell you how angry I am at this particular trainer, because Hubs was perfectly fine going into this class, and now he has very limited mobility of his right arm. And guess what, he's right handed. Which means I have had to pick up the slack and do practically everything that he would normally do. As if I don't have enough to do already!!! I guess the good news is that I have learned a new appreciation for the things Hubs normally does around the house: the diapers he changes, the trash he takes out, the picking things up and organizing he normally takes care of. Plus there have been lots of extra forms to fill out which I need to do because he can't write more than his signature without being in serious pain. He's really in a bad way.

Having had my own shoulder injury to deal with over the past 10+ years I know what it's like to some extent, except that I think his shoulder is much worse than mine ever was which worries me... a LOT! At this stage in the game the Dr.'s suspect that his shoulder is separated and they're talking about referring him to a specialist. I'm actually really thankful that they're sending him to someone else because I think that up to this point he hasn't been receiving the proper care... it's been 3 weeks of him being at nearly the same level of pain and not improving at all. And the amount of pain meds they're giving him is a little scary in my opinion. I tend to lean towards the more holistic approach of medicine, and the fact that nothing has really changed in 3 weeks means to me that the problem is really not being addressed or treated. And that makes me really angry too!

Mostly, I want my husband back! I want him to be well and healthy and pain free!!! I know there are people with bigger problems in this world so I feel kind of lame talking/complaining about our little problem, but I don't have many ways to vent my frustrations... so there you have it. lol


ANYWAY....

On to a BRIGHTER topic!!!

Another reason I haven't been blogging much lately is our weather here has been FANTASTIC! I mean, seriously gorgeous! And if you also live in the Pacific Northwest you know that when the sun comes after 9 months of absence there's really only one thing to do. GET OUTSIDE and ENJOY it WHILE YOU CAN because we all know that this is yet a temporary reprieve from the rain. Proof? Forecast predicts rain tomorrow. I'm totally not thrilled about that. But very thankful that I was able to enjoy the sun for the past few days. Especially considering what was going on inside my house... sigh...

I decided that this last weekend was THE weekend for getting my garden beds put in. Since Hubs has his shoulder situation the garden has been put off and put off weekend after weekend. But this last weekend I said NO MORE and just decided it would get done without him. And much like any project I tackle, I want it done NOW! All at once! No step by step process, just one BIG step. Honestly, I tend to thrive during such big projects and get a rush from seeing large things accomplished.

So after many phone calls recruiting help from my parents, ordering soil, hiring our lawn guys to fill the beds etc... I pretty much had it all handled and in place to ALL occur on Saturday.

My parents came over early Saturday morning. Mom watched the girls while me and Dad put the beds together. After some time passed Mom decided to bring the girls outside with us, which kinda freaked me out at first, but it turned out ok. And the girls really enjoyed being outside "helping". Plus it gave us an excuse to take lots of pictures.

Here's Ziva, laying in the moss. She decided she really liked the moss and kept trying to kiss/taste it. Very cute, but very messy. lol







Anya was mostly interested in the stuff we had brought out there for the project. I was really surprised with her that day because she actually tried to imitate a lot of the things we were doing. I was VERY proud of her! :)







Yup, that's me with a power tool! I had never used a power tool before Saturday. In fact, I'd never worked on a project like this with my Dad before either! So it was a day of firsts, and I'm very glad that I was able to have such a day! My Dad's quote of the day? "We'll make a real woman outta you yet!" lol



All while Ziva played with the weeds and Anya "helped".



There's me measuring.



And Anya supervising.





Such good little helpers!











Whoops! Looks a little scary, but she was actually laughing while she was in this position. lol



And then we ran into a little road block. Some of our boards had labels on them that didn't come off easily! So we had to stop and scrape/soak/goo gone to get it off on at least the outward facing side.





But then we were finally done!!! We put chicken wire under the beds to prevent moles from digging up into our garden.



And we finished not a moment too soon! Our dirt arrived during lunch time, and the lawn guys showed up to move the soil to the beds just a few minutes after we finished! Perfect timing in my book! Too close to call according to others... lol



Then I made a fabulous recipe for dinner, which I will share with you next week. :)

And we did a little celebrating! We put the bucket seats on our swing set and took the girls out for a swing!







Yup, we NEEDED that sunshine let me tell ya! Feels so good to get my garden beds done, and extra super good to feel the sun on our faces and enjoy it's sweet warmth!

Tomorrow? I'll share pics of our trip to the Tulip Fields... you'll wanna see them, trust me! :)