Life.. most exciting when least wanted..

well, life around here just keeps trying to be exciting... not sure I like that.

Back on the 13th, Tom decided to take advantage of a small break in the cold rainy weather and go out for a short, relaxing spin on his motorcycle. about 20 minutes or so later, he called, needing me to hitch up the trailer and come get him. He'd gone off the road, into a ditch, the bike flipped and sent him flying. Luckily he wasn't hurt because he was wearing all his gear. This is especially important because he landed on his head before rolling and bouncing around. How he managed not to break anything we don't know. we're just grateful for it. Bike took most of the hit and even that's not too bad according to the shop guys. Just enough to use up the deductible but not enough to be worth talking to the insurance company. So he will be slowly putting that back together piece by piece.

The girls got here Friday, so house is full again. The 16 yr old is at girls camp all this week though, and her Tom went up last night and all of today to be the "token" priesthood holder for the day. He should be back home in a few hours though.

Sunday morning we woke up to find the basement had flooded again.. no apparent reason this time. We have no idea what is going on. Starting to think the little old man who built the place had some sort of contract where it has to flood at least once a year or something.. But we got it all mopped up fairly quickly, and the girls made muffins for Father's day breakfast, then made dinner that evening.

A week ago my brother announced that they were expecting their 4th child, and about 3 months along, but Sunday they found out that she'd miscarried, so we're all trying to help them deal with that. It's hard. I know enough from my battles with infertility how easy it is for well meaning people to say something that is completely the wrong thing to say because while it may seem "helpful," to the person hearing it it's like twisting the dagger. I've been sending them some links to some miscarriage support pages and articles about how it's ok for them to have all the emotions and pain they are going to have. While most of us in the family have only known about this baby for a week, for them it was years of waiting and hoping and expectation and 3 months of "hey, we're having a baby.." There has been a death in the family even if most of the family doesn't realize it.

Personally, I'm trying to avoid cottonwood fluff.. it's out in full force right now and I hate it.. it is pretty and looks like big fluffy snow.. but it is terrible stuff for allergies.. and I want to be out pottering around in my garden bed, which is doing really well this year, so it's hard. Today I decided to stay indoors and finally go through my pots and pans. I got a new set about a month or two ago but have never had the time to sit and weed out the ones that need to go. Finally got that done today and now there is room, the door actually closes all the way and everything... Even got one of the other cupboards sorted a little and made room on one of the book cases in the living room for a bunch of parenting books I had ordered that came in the mail today. (And I got them for FREE!! Being in the military does have some benefits!)

Speaking of parenting, today, in the mail, we got the paperwork from the agency we're going to try adopting through, so now we've got to sit and go though all of that, dig out all the info they want, do the background checks, etc... and figure out where we'll come up with all the money :) I was starting to print out the requests for copies of our tax records from the IRS, but my printer is out of ink, so will have to wait and do that later. I was just so anxious to get started!

Opps....

"Hi, uhm, I need you to come pick me up. Bring the trailer,"
Those were words I heard last night. Words I'd hoped to never hear. Hubby went out for a "relaxing ride" last night on his motorcycle. It was a route he's taken many many times. But last night, something different happened. He somehow found himself going off the side of the road and onto a soft shoulder which then dumped him in the ditch. He went flying one direction and his bike went another. Thankfully he was wearing all his gear and he was not seriously injured. He has scraped and bruised, is stiff and sore, but he will be fine.
His bike, however, took a lot of damage. We're going to have it looked at in a few days and find out just how bad. The front end took most of the damage, all the plastic/fiberglass bits are busted up front and the handlebars are mangled a bit. It still moves well, so there's hope :) But the handlebars were pushed back so we couldn't get the keys out, so we disconnected the battery and got it all covered over with a tarp for now. We'll wait and see how bad things are. Hopefully it won't be too bad. We haven't paid this one off yet :) (We had an agreement, he's not allowed to bust em til they're paid for... heh..)
But as much as I'm going to have to tease him about this for a while, I am very grateful that he wasn't injured. He was in a wooded area and could easily have been badly hurt. He wasn't, and that makes the rest of it OK to deal with.

Update on depression

*hugs* and thanks to all my friends who have talked to me about this. Figured I'd go ahead and update how things are going for me.
Most days I'm perfectly fine. I'm pretty much just getting physical symptoms and not too many of the emotional ones. Most days I don't even have too many of those, at least not at any level that interferes with daily life. I know how lucky I am in this. I know that depression can be really rotten and part of me feels I shouldn't even be using the word to describe what I'm dealing with because I'm not really that bad off, and I don't want people to think that depression is a "light" thing.
But until a better term is created, I have to use it. Anyway, as said, most days I'm fine. If I have any "emotional" problems, it's really more along the lines of being overly tired and emotionally "blah," disconnected a little and unmotivated. Mostly though it's physical. I ache, I get tired. I've gotten somewhat use to some pains, since my car accident I usually have pain in my lower back and hips, I've gotten use to that, but on my "bad" days that pain, even at it's worse, isn't much of anything compared to the pain I get in the rest of my body. And the headaches aren't much fun either.
Today started as a good day, but has slowly devolved into a not so good day.. still not bad enough to be a "bad" day, but it really could be better. But, I have many more good days then I have bad days. And, like I said, this is pretty much situational, part of the coping process of dealing with everything that went down last year. It's never easy to come to terms with that fact that you could have died, but I'm getting there, and I am getting better.
But thanks all. It's very nice to know I've got support out there.

Recipe time..

Ok. so some friends are trying to convince one of our other friends to start a recipe blog. This got me thinking that maybe I should post more recipes once in a while. I know I posted some for St Patrick's day but haven't really posted any others. I don't have many fancy summer recipes, but I know that many of us are on tight budgets, and that, often, we are also called upon to provide some sort of meal (usually winds up a casserole) for others once in a while..
So, I figured I'd present one of my casserole recipes. This is one that really, I came up with when faced with a bunch of left over vegetables and pasta in the fridge and no ideas for what to do with them. It's pretty simple and can be adapted to things you have on hand, things your family likes, and the number of people you need to be able to feed.
I started with a large bowl of pre-made macaroni, but you can use pretty much any noodle shape. (We have done this since with spaghetti.)
To this I added a bunch of left over veggies. At that time I believe I had some grilled asparagus, bell peppers, peas, carrots, mushroom, onions. You can use whatever you have, fresh or frozen, this recipe doesn't mind. Use whatever your kids (or husband) will eat :) I also usually add some ground beef or ground turkey, browned and drained if I have it on hand. You can also use the fake-beef soy crumbles. We use those in a lot of things and none of the kids, or hubby notices.
Then comes the can (or two depending on how much you are making) of the cream of whatever soup... You can use mushroom, celery or chicken, doesn't matter, again, it's a matter of personal preference. Mix that up with as much liquid as needed to get to a nice thick consistency, but thin enough to work everything into. Mixes those together, working in a hand full or two of shredded cheese. I use mostly mozzerella, but you can use what you like or have on hand.
Dump this all into a baking dish, spread more cheese on top, add a little pepper or other seasonings to preference, and bake at 350 until everything is warm, the cheese is melted and brown and the whole thing is yummy. Usually only takes about 20 minutes but your oven may vary.
Serve with a salad and maybe some garlic bread and enjoy. It's a great way to use up all the odd and end left over veggies piled up in the back of the fridge at the end of the week.

I am flabbergasted,....

Truly I am..
We needed to email one of my step-daughter's teachers. She lives with her mom and goes to school in a different state, but she had something come up with the school that would interfere with her summer visit with us, so we wanted some clarification and just needed to send off a quick email for details.
I asked her (16 years old now mind you..) for the address. She texted me back that the address (changed to protect the innocent) was smith.suzzie. That was it, nothing more. I wrote back asking for the rest of the address and she told me there was no more. If I simply put that in, it would get to her.
I have no idea where we went wrong. Do kids these days really not understand how email works?? They use it every day of their lives and don't really have a clue about it???
I have tried to explain to her via text this morning that, yes, that will work for her from within the school's server system, but that for me, from way outside their closed system, that won't work. She isn't getting it. She keeps telling me that it will work. Luckily, I'm smart enough that, now that I have the teacher's name, I can go to her school's website and get the rest of the information, but I foresee a nice long conversation this summer about how email and the internet in general really actually work...

depression...

I've been having a few problems lately so popped over to webMD.. I can cause myself so very much trouble over there.. but, at the same time, it has helped me in the past, so I went again. I've been having minor memory lapses and trouble sleeping and been a bit more clumsy then usual and all and, due to some things I'd been reading and seeing on TV, I was starting to worry I might have some sort of neurological problem..
Scary thought, but, given my family history, not entirely out of the question.. So I wanted to see what they might have to say before I started calling doctors in a panic :)
Based on what I plinked out in the symptom checker, and eliminating the obviously non applicable.. the 2 that stood out as likely candidates were MS (also a real concern, my mom has it, so that could raise my odds..) or Depression.....
Depression is such a big scary word anymore, but one I'd been down before a time or two so I was happy to see it there, and, really, it makes sense. I'm finally getting the chance right now to process all of everything that went on last year. All that stress and fear has finally been released and is screwing with me now. All the fears and stress of Tom's separation during his deployment, even though it was to a "safe" zone. All the stress of having to deal with the reoccurring basement floods, the busted water heater, the broken septic line. The worry over how to pay for everything that kept going wrong. All the stress and fear over all my own health problems last year. The realization that I kept putting off and blocking out, that yes, I really could have died last year if we hadn't caught everything when we did, and even then, it was a close call. Even the happy stress of his homecoming, and the kids coming for Christmas, and the older kids moving home and bringing the grand baby.. All of it has taken a toll and it got put on lay a way.. but now it has all come due and is hitting me like a ton of bricks.
It will pass. Now that I am once again reassured by WebMD that it is most likely just depression and not the end of the world (though if things don't improve in the next month, there may still be panicked calls to doctors..). As mentioned, I've been through this before.. Way back when in college, I had a really bad year. I'd been under a good deal of stress anyway, and then people started dying. A cousin was killed in a car accident, 2 friends each lost their mothers, several other more distant relatives passed away, and one of our dogs died. At some point I just got to where I couldn't deal with it anymore and had to take some time off from school. I tried antidepressants at that time, and really decided that they didn't work for me. I didn't feel any better, I just felt numb. So I didn't take them. I just went on. I worked through the grief, through the pain, and learned how to move on.
I'm better at that now. It may be hard at times, but I will manage, always do :) The fact that my mind has decided that now is the time I can handle this process means that life is pretty much back to what passes for normal around here.