::rainbow mailbox gets a job::

I got the idea for a rainbow mailbox off pintrest and I couldn't wait to make it.  Link here to see that process.  After it was done I proudly showed it to Josh - who gently told me that we couldn't put it up.  He was concerned that it would be vandalized and I would be upset.  All true.  

It found a new and safer job in my garden.   

  

 

::woodpecker::

Look who was hanging out on my pear tree?

Isn't he handsome?

I asked him to hold still while I took his picture and he agreed.

What a gentleman. 

::tomato cage labels::

 I need a good way to keep track my tomato plants and not get them mixed up.  I decided this year to just hole punch the labels and tie them to the cages.  Doesn't it look pretty with the rainbow cages Josh bought me for Mothers Day?

 

::600::

This is my 600th blog post~~~  

That is so insane.  

How can I have had the time to write 600 blog posts?

...but I love this little blog of mine.

I don't think I could have gotten through Zack dying without it.  My mouth didn't work then.  I couldn't make eye contact.  I was a totally mess - but my thoughts were still going 100 miles a minute and this blog helped me get it out.  Its all so blurry now that I am glad I have it written down some where.  Even though I haven't re-read "the day of" blog post since I wrote it.  See infant loss label for details. 

I feel like we live such an abnormal and bizarre life out here on our little farm that I am glad I have a place to chronicle it.  I want Lily to be able to tell her great grand children that they should have seen the family homestead back when her parents lived there.  Then she pulls up the blog and they see what I hope is the coolest childhood a kid ever had.

I am a little embarrassed when someone who I am not that close to tells me that they read my blog.  I feel like I am an ego maniac for thinking the anyone is interested, but then I really just write it for me and the kiddos.  I am so blunt on here that I feel like I let someone read my personal diary.  I often regret my really honest posts as being too personal.  But I have a rule that if I posted it I can't take it down.  Josh is a private person and I am sure he finds it invasive.  (He never says a word about it if he does, but he is just humoring me.)

What happens now:

More of the same

Gardening

Parenting

Living and loving

Goats 

Monthly headers

No pressure, blog four times a day or once a week, what ever fits

Zip lines and art projects and pictures and emotional out pourings

Having no real set goal for this blog, just what ever topic strikes my fancy that day

What I want to change:

I like run on sentences a bunch a bunch a bunch.  I speak in run on sentences and fragment sentences.  I am not going to change that in my writing.  But I really want to improve my grammar.  If I am using incorrect grammar I want to do it for affect (or is it effect?), not out of ignorance.  Any idea's on how I can work on that? 

  

 

::haters gonna hate - a minivan tale::

"I will never give up and drive around in a damn minivan.  No matter how many kids I have.  I will only drive a Suburban." - Brooke with only Lily and gas costing next to nothing. 

Here is a little bit of unsolicited advice- 

Don't be a hater.  

Don't be a minivan snob.  

Drive one for three weeks and you will want to own it.  You might not admit it openly, but you will.  You will be charmed by the power rear door, by the fact that the kids can't bang their doors into cars next to them, by the fact that you can change the seats around to suit any kid/goat/dog senario that may come your way.  

  When it was just Lily I had a cute little Passat station wagon that I just loved.  It screamed "hot mom" to me.  It was a fun little family truckster.  Then I crashed it.  While it was getting fixed my rental car was a minivan.  I was so snobby and embarassed that I parked it far away from were people would see it.  But it won me over slowly - with sliding power doors, and fold away seats, and lots of room, and all the sudden I found myself in love.  But I fought it off for a few more years.  Add two more babies and six more goats and I was begging Josh for a minivan.  

After tons of research and price comparing we went with the Kia Sedonna.  It fit me because I really wanted a Honda Odyssey and the Kia is like the generic version of it.  Perfect.  Much cheaper but still with good reviews.  And I love it.  We bought it gently used with low miles but an older model.  It is perfect for the kids and creatures.  This car is so flexible.  I only regret not having bought one the second I saw my first plus sign in January of 2003.  My dream of a Suburban makes no sense in the face of gas prices and what I know now about being environmentally conscience.  I will drive this thing till the wheels fall off, and then buy another one.  I might make it through 2-3 minivans before Quinn is off to college and I get my convertible.

Does anyone know were I can buy a MILF bumper sticker?  Because in my little swagger wagon I need one.

"Where my kids at?  Where my kids at?" 
 

::zip line::

 We lived in a pretty cool neighborhood when I was little.  Big lots with tons of trees, but right in the center of town.  One of the neighbor kids had a zip line.  Yes, I bit entirely through my tongue on it one time but it was still damn fun.  I saw one in a magazine and bought it for the kids.  Four years ago last December.  It sat in Josh's barn with his plain refusal to hang it - too dangerous he said.  I don't know how Emma got him to change his mind but she talked him into it and up it went.  

Q feared for his life when Max demanded to hold him.  That kid already shows smarts.

 We had to use a big stick to push it up the slope to the top.  

 Lily had to watch the other two do it before she could work up the courage to get it done.

Max told me his job was to catch the girls at the end. 

::happy birthday to Josh::

Josh, 

Thank you -

For you for singing me Southern Cross on the phone while I was driving

For always invading my personal space as a way of stopping a fight, you just smell so freaking good

For instilling quality music in my life and forgiving me for teaching your kids bad pop

For spending your days off building goat/chicken/dog/horse/platypus enclosures

For loving babies and allowing me to have too many

For thinking my crazy is cute

For always thanking me for every meal I have ever made you.  It sets an example to your children that can not be taught any other way.

For being an incredible example to your daughters of what a husband should be and to your sons of what a man should be.

For saying that me working over time isn't worth the money.

For being so handy and clever.

For selling your super fancy truck so I could have a maternity leave.

For always putting things in the attic.

For taking my crazy plans and making them make sense. 

For aging well.

For feeding the animals at night.  I know those Red Capes from the Village are in there.

For humoring me about my three crockpots.

For craving time with me instead of time away from me.  

For being brave enough to try one last time.  He is worth it.  

For being my husband and not just my co-parent

Happy Birthday.