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The past few weekends, I have been working on the yard.

As I get older, I enjoy tinkering in my little plot of land more and more.

Ugh.

I sew, I knit and now I garden...for fun. 

I complain about my arthritis and I'm one of the women that young mothers call for advice in the ward. 

I am so dang old. 

By the time my parents were as old as I am now, I was already grown and on my own. I had children of my own.

 I've never even lived with people in their 40's.

We old folks putter around in the garden and talk to the neighbors about fertilizer and compare garden tools.

My garden has been planted,  a small plot with a lightweight netting on top to try and keep the rodents out. 

I've been working in the front yard a lot, trying to keep it from being the neighborhood eyesore. I pulled out everything that died over the winter and added color. I put in some new flowers, as well as some of the annuals that grew really well last year and I added a trim to my little flower gardens. 

The shells were collected by the Mitchells when they visited last summer. I know they meant to take them back to Arizona, but they forgot and every time we see them- we smile and remember the wonderful week we had together.

The pretty little yellow snapdragons should overtake most of this planter by the end of the summer. They won't make it through the winter, but they will grow and bloom until the first snowfall. They are Romy's favorite, it brings back good memories of time spent with Karin Holmgren, as she taught Roe how to make their little dragon mouths open and snap back into place.

My favorite is the new rose bush.

 It is thriving and I think every home should welcome visitors with roses. 

I put in some raspberry and blueberry bushes near the driveway, I am just hoping that they don't die and establish themselves this year. If the birds and squirrels eat all of the fruit, that's okay. 

Next year, when they come back and are heartier, I'll try to get enough to make at least one batch of jam. 

I also planted some holly along the fence between us and Jacobv and Bronjia. Bless Jacobv's cranky  heart,  but I think a nice hedge will be great. He tried to plant one on his side, however,  his dinosaur poop shaped junipers haven't grown so much as an inch since we moved in. 

When I step back and look at my front yard, I feel happy.

 I've come a long way from my Arizona front yard of rock, oleander and scorpions.  

The stairs look crappy because it was just raining, and our front door has a 'no touch, no talk, no eye contact until he has all four feet on the ground' sign.

 He may still be pooping on the carpet, but other than that- the training is going great. He's such a sweet and smart little dog and I adore him.

Since it's been over a week since I posted a picture of Badger.....

Next up, a post about vitamins, adult diapers and blue hair dye.

The Last Post of 2013

In a few more hours, another year will begin.

Have a safe and fun New Year, be sure to give a big smooch to someone you love at midnight, unless you are old like we are and will be asleep long before then.

If that's the case, just go kiss your sweetie now.

We have had a great day with our friends from church.

We went bowling and then to the Thomas home for Chinese. 

We filled up half the bowling alley and it was great to be with everyone amid the lights, laughter and those damn noisy New Year's horns. 

I mean they were festive....yeah, festive.

Even when things are hard and crappy, we're super blessed and  my life is filled with the love thanks to the amazing people I get to share it with. I'm so thankful for the family and friends I have. 

My resolution in 2014 is to be a better friend. 

It's not that I'm a bad friend, I am a very good friend.........when I am functioning and participating in life.

 I've kind of retreated  in recent months and haven't allowed my friends to really help me through a hard experience. Since I didn't let people in when I needed help, they didn't come to me when they needed help. I kind of created this whole dumb cycle of isolation, when I know that at my darkest hours, it has been my friendships that helped me find the light. I know that when a friend is down, I am able to help her get through things as well and it's a good thing for us both.

I just have shut myself off in recent months to a huge degree and I miss my friends.

My reasons for doing so were legitimate reasons for climbing into a pit- but nothing good came of it. 

I have some wonderful friends though, and I can get things back to where they were if I will make the choice to put myself out there. I need to open the doors again and be there for those I love, and let them be there for me as well.

It isn't good to be alone and I have such wonderful friends, it's downright silly to do so.

And I started making that change by getting out of my house and spending the afternoon celebrating with people that I love, admire and trust. 

This will be the first of many better days filled with laughter and the company of these wonderful people.

Walmart Score

My first trip to Walmart in New Jersey was a rough one.

I walked through the sliding doors and was hit with a store that was packed, filthy and the first rack of clothing I saw contained cheetah print MC Hammer pants.

The prices were outrageous, the employees were rude and I was honestly shocked by how different the environment was from even the worst Walmart I'd been to in Utah.

It was not a good experience and I  vowed not to go back.

Of course, I went back. 

The prices were not any worse than anywhere else, everything costs more in New Jersey. I adapted to the grouchy employees and it was convenient. That convenience is why we all put up with Walmart.

Today, Walmart was good to me.

I was looking for bags to put leaves in. You have to use paper bags, otherwise you are not allowed to get rd of your green waste. Now that we have a truck, we can actually go to the dump and have a decent yard as long as we don't get any more tree- toppling hurricanes. 

Walmart didn't have any bags, I was annoyed.

 I went to look at yarn to ease my irritation.

They were making space for the Christmas craft items, so they had a bunch of fabric on clearance in the tiny back corner of the store where they have a small selection of sewing and knitting stuff.

1 yard cuts, packs of 4X4 squares and jelly rolls  for a buck. 

2 yard coordinating prints for three bucks and a pack of larger squares that matched the jelly rolls for four bucks.  

I nearly cleared the shelf. 

This almost makes up for the TWO times I have come home with rotten milk from that store. 

Almost.

Because Laughter is Better than Cake

Today is weigh in day for Weight Watchers, I'm down 11 pounds. 

My fat pants are back to being 'fat pants.' 

Good times.

I've finished a couple more bonnets.

That first one was a beast, but I've made some adjustments to the original pattern and I finished one in just over an hour this evening. 

I found that I can get 5 complete bonnets out of one flat twin sheet. Walmart has them for 5 bucks each, so that makes the cost about a dollar. With each bonnet taking less than 2 hours, it's a pretty good service project for me. 

Here I am, sporting one of my bedsheet bonnets.

Good Lord, why was I wearing dark lipstick? I look like a pioneer prostitute.

---

Rugby season is almost over.

I can't say I am sad about that.

It's been a ton of driving and an emotional roller coaster for us all, especially Zane. 

I love the kid, love the sport, but I'm sick of driving to Linden three times a week.  It's not so bad now that it's light outside so I'm not driving in the dark, but it's still just become a massive pain in the rear.

While driving to practice yesterday though, I saw something that I had not seen since we moved here.

(No, not a car wash. I have stopped parking under the big poop perch tree though.)

I saw it and said out loud "is that...nah..it couldn't be..."

As I got closer, I realized it totally was.....

Two missionaries, riding their bikes down the road.

I honked and we all waved, and they waved back.

I'm going to guess that isn't something that happens very often here to the Elders, even though in Utah it happens about every 10 minutes when they are out. It certainly isn't something we have encountered here yet.

It reminded me again that the world really is just our home, filled with people who really are in our families, we just haven't met them yet.

I am not so lost in this crazy place with so many people, I'm the same old me and my same old life that I choose exists wherever I go.

It was a little thing, but for me, things that remind me of  'home' also remind me that this is also home.

I leave you with more things I swiped from the Internets to bring a smile to your face today......

Springfield's Spring

This week, oh, this glorious week!

I am sorry it is cold in Utah, but we have had such beautiful weather I want to sing.

(Don't worry, I won't sing, but I may hum.)

The squirrels have awakened  and are scurrying all across the streets and our lawn again. They are so skinny,compared to the fat rodents that dropped nuts on the roof of our house and scared the tar out of me last fall!

I'm going to make a squirrel bait in the yard, hopefully to keep them out of my garden.

 I figure if I can at least get the zucchini to produce this year, it's a start. We're also planting watermelon, sugar pumpkins and a lot of climbing plants. I'm hoping they take and we can start to have a little bit of privacy from our well- intended, but often grouchy neighbor, Jacobv.

Our yard stresses him out.

  I can't say I blame him, it stresses me out too when I go into the corner of doom.

 Between Sandy and the former owner, it's bad.

What you see, is a giant stump, a bunch of twigs and leaves.

What you do not see are tons of boulders bigger than basketballs and chunks of concrete and asphalt that were dumped there and buried under a light layer of yard debris.

What you also don't see is the thick layer of vines that weave their way through everything, making it impossible to just hack and rake and move on with life.

I don't want to deal with it, and honestly- right now-  I just don't think I can.

In Utah I loved my irises. 

We didn't do squat with the rest of the yard, but I kept my roses alive and I fussed over my irises.

They made me feel loved and they are my favorite flower.

There is a huge Iris garden just about 45 minutes from here and I'm going to go when they bloom.

We planted a lot, but I think they are duds. 

One of my NJ native friends assured me that they will bloom- they just do it late in the summer here. 

Time will tell, but they look pretty scrawny right now.

I think I planted a miniature version, though.

I will buy bulbs when I go to the iris garden this summer. In Utah we had white, purple, yellow, red and orange blooms. 

We are going to try and get sunflowers to grow in the front and I'm also going to try and get some poppies & violets to grow. So far, my starters are still just little containers of dirt.

My tulips are so close to blooming! I am relieved to find that the squirrels really didn't dig up as many as I thought they had and I am soon going to have a pretty row or tulips along my walkway.

I don't remember planting daffodils, but here they are!

They were not here when we came out to NJ last year to find a home.

Can you believe it has been a full year since we learned we were moving and we put an offer on this house? It has it's challenges, but it's a great house and a great location for us. I love Springfield.

The trees are starting to have blossoms, the sound of chirping birds fills the sky and I love that there is so much nature here in the big "Back East." There is a mockingbird that is building a nest in a tree nearby and you can whistle and if you are lucky, you will hear your song sung back to you.  There is also a woodpecker just having a party in the trees. 

There are so many wonderful, new spring sounds here.

Thank you, Heavenly Father for the Spring.

 Thank you for this sunshine and for the pretty blooms that I see when I walk up to my house. Thank you for bringing yesterday's rainstorm to us at night, so I could soak in the sunshine again today and most importantly- thank you for helping me feel that You are there, wherever we may go.

 Thank you for being in New Jersey, too, Father in Heaven.

Hungry?

Food shopping here is always interesting.

There are seasonal, ethnic foods that fill the shelves alongside the Wonder Bread and Cheese Whiz.

There are so many foods I have just never even heard of.

There are so many foods I will never try as well.

I'll stick to my Kraft Macaroni and Cheese.

Matt told me today that Twinkies and Ding Dongs will be back soon, they sold the company.

My super healthy Raspberry Red Zingers had better come with them.

These are some of the items that we did not pick up today at the supermarket:

Butter beans, ackees, large green boiled peanuts in a can and callaloo.
I have no idea.

  Yum! Irish Moss peanut drink!!

 Care for a chocolate digestive?
Matt says it's just candy from Great Britain.

Better make sure you have the jumbo sized container of oxtail seasoning......

There is a giant assortment of various brands and flavors of plantain chips, as well as every flavor of Goya fruit soda/drink on the planet.

Pineapple is my favorite.
 I am just starting to develop a taste for guava, too. Okay- guava flavoring and guava filling, but I'm getting there.

These are wafer cookies from Europe, they also come in about a dozen different flavors. They don't stock them all in the same place though so you can find different kinds in the cookie aisle, near the checkout and in they make seasonal flavors, too.

Plum Butter.
Who knew?

PRUNE butter.
Who cared?

Note that plum butter and prune butter were in  different aisles. 

Prune butter is seasonal, I think it's for Seder.

We didn't buy any of it, but we did leave the store with these:

Matt had them at work recently and said they were wonderful.

Matt was correct.

They're  bite sized layered cakes with a layer of lemon, vanilla and almond cake. The filling between the layers is raspberry jam and they dip the whole thing in milk chocolate. 

The first bite will give you a cavity.

The 400th bite will give you diabetes. 

Totally worth it.