The Great News, and the Bad News

I want to start this off with some positive news - my mother-in-law found out Tuesday morning that she is now 5 years cancer free!  In 2011, Clydie was diagnosed with a type of lung cancer, at Stage 3, that only has a 15-20% 5-year survival rate.  Well, she has kicked that cancer's ass, and is now down to once a year screenings.  It's been a tough road for her, but she has done it, and I am so damn happy for her!

Now, for the bad news.  We found out Tuesday afternoon that Clydie's youngest son, Jimmy, passed away the night before from a heart attack - he was 46.  Clydie and Brian found out while I was on the way home from work, and I walked into a house full of utter sadness and grief.  I'm not going to go into details, but I have to say, everyone in our household was devastated by the loss, for one reason or another.

There are a couple of messages I want to share in reference to this loss:

• I'm listing the most important message of all first - always tell those that you love that you love them.  Don't hold back, as we are not promised tomorrow.   Even if you're mad at them, even if you're not speaking to them, find a way to express your feelings to them that you do in fact love them.  Make sure that they know you love them in spite of your differences.  Guilt can eat you up if something happens and you don't get the chance to tell them you love them.
• Do what you can to mend fences with those that you care about.  Some things are really hard to get over and forgive, but you do it for YOU, not the person you are forgiving.  Death can take someone suddenly and if you don't have a chance to make peace, it can be hard on those left behind.
• Take your health seriously.  If a physician tells you to make lifestyle changes (eating habits, exercise, smoking cessation, etc.) - please follow their advice!  I know sometimes things are just meant to be and it's "in the genes", but if you can do anything that will improve your health, please do it.  It could mean the difference between a long life or an early death.  (I don't mean to sound insensitive with this last one, please I hope no one thinks that)

So if you're the praying type, please pray for Clydie and Brian and the rest of the family.  Or send positive vibes, thoughts, mo-jo, ju-ju, whatever it is that is positive and healthy and light.  Thanks!

Busy Busy Busy!

I'm a canning fool today!  I canned 10 pints of dill pickles (2 with habanero peppers in them for someone at work), Clydie canned 6 cars of pickled squash, and I tried out my new pressure canner to can 4 pints of pink eye peas, and 4 pints of butterpeas.


Clydie bought the canner from Wal-Mart.com, and we picked it up last Sunday.  We had already picked some peas and beans and shelled or snapped them, and she and I both have picked some more over the last week and yesterday.  We figure we didn't have enough to make 8 pints of any one particular item, but we could do a couple pints of this, a couple pints of that, to make the 8 to be able to run the canner once. 


Today, I finally get the canner out of the box and start reading the instructions.  I have never used a pressure canner before, and honestly, the thought of using one scares the hell outta me.  I imagine horrific things happening, such as getting burned by steam, or having it blow up because it was too pressurized, or whatever.  Anywho, I read through the warnings and directions, and then I read over processing times and realized that we can't process the peas with the pole beans, as they have 2 different processing times.  :-(


But that was okay, being that we had 4 pints of pink eyes, and 4 pints of butterpeas.  I decided we'd have a vegetable plate tonight for dinner with some fried cornbread, so the pole beans are getting cooked, as well as the lima beans and field peas. 


Once I started processing everything, I just kept my instruction manual with me, and it was actually quite easy to use the canner.  40 minutes of processing time, and we're good to go:

                                     Here's my peas from the pressure canner

Here's everything we've processed today, minus 2 jars of pickled squash that are headed to my mom's right now

Blessings and Being Thankful

This weekend is my husband's last weekend of drill.  EVER.  He is retiring, officially at the end of the month, but this weekend is his last scheduled time to actually report for duty.  Twenty-five years of service and dedication to his country.  He will miss his fellow soldiers, but not the bullshit that comes with serving our country.  It's a great honor to serve, and the people that chose to serve whether for 2 years or 25 years, deserve our thanks and gratitude, and you deal with bullshit at just about any place that you work, so please don't think I'm being negative about the military.


His retirement is truly a blessing, and I personally am very thankful for his retirement. 


Never again will I have to wake him up on a weekend at some ungodly hour so that he can drive to the armory and spend his weekend away from his family.  We will be able to sleep in every weekend we choose to (well, as late as Dominion and Gabriel will permit of course), and only wake up before the asscrack of dawn to go hunting.  :-)


Never again will I have to worry about sending him off to some foreign country to serve his country, to worry that he will get injured, maimed, or worse. 


I'm thankful that we did not become members of the Gold Star families.  They deserve much respect and gratitude, but it's not a "club" anyone wants to be a part of.


Never will I have to worry that he will be activated to deal with some domestic issue, whether it's maintaining order after a natural disaster, or dealing with protestors who get out of hand.  We're unfortunately just starting to see a lot of the latter starting to happen, and I'm extremely grateful that I won't have to worry about seeing him off to deal with those things.


I will miss seeing him in his uniform, whether it's his regular drill duty uniform, or his dress blues.  The Stetson was my favorite part of the uniform, but there'd been a recent change from Cavalry to Infantry, so my favorite hat was no longer a part of his uniform anymore.  :-(


I will miss the fun we would have at the military balls (lol I said balls!), but not the stress of finding the perfect dress to wear and being ready on time and driving into Atlanta to go to some fancy-smancy hotel, to spend time with a bunch of people that for the most part, I don't know.  The balls were honestly a lot of fun to attend (hee hee I said balls again!), and seeing the honor and traditions on display was something I was glad to have been able to experience.


In the short 10 years that we've been together, and 5 that we've been married, I consider myself fortunate to have only dealt with 1 deployment, and not a whole lot of other stuff outside the ordinary "1 weekend a month, 2 weeks a year" commitment that my husband made.  He's made trips to Scotland, Ft. Benning, Ft. Stewart, and many others for AT and various schools he's attended.  There's a lot of bureaucracy and red tape stuff you have to deal with for various things but overall it has been a good experience.

                                                 Military Ball 2011

      Kosovo, 2011-2012

Military Ball 2014


Thank you for your service my beloved husband!  Happy Retirement!  I've got the honey-do lists ready!  LOL

Oh Boy What a Night!

Ever have one of those times where you go to sleep and when you wake up, you think it's much later than it is?  I had one of those moments tonight - I fell asleep on the couch shortly after dinner.  I woke up and felt pretty rested, looked at my phone and saw 8:41 (I didn't notice it was PM, not AM), saw it was still daylight outside, and immediately jumped up, freaking out that it was Friday morning!  In my panicking mind, I was thinking "I can't believe Brian let me sleep on the couch all night!" and "I can't believe Clydie didn't wake me up when she came to get coffee", and even thought by some chance that perhaps it was Saturday morning.  I ran back to start getting ready for work in a panic, and stopped by Clydie's room, exclaiming that it was Friday morning and OMG I was going to be really late to work and she said "wake up Deanna, it's Thursday night!"  I was so confused for several minutes, then I had a really good laugh.


So now it's almost 11pm, and I realize that it's been really quiet and peaceful in the house, meaning the dogs weren't inside.  I let them in, and Kita was really wound up.  Everyone wanted to go outside in the front yard, and I told them they could wait until bedtime (in the not too distant future), and sat back on the couch.  Of course Dominion was standing in the living room, looking at me like WTF, and then I hear an excited bark - that would be Kita.  She's our only barker.  The boys can bark, but only do it in very specific circumstances.  I knew someone had pushed Clydie's door open, so I walk back to check and Gabriel is laying on the bed with her, no Kita.  I walk to my room, it's dark (and I could have sworn that I'd turned the lamp on earlier), and as I walk in to turn on the light, Kita scares the hell out of me because her ass is sitting on the bed and she lunges at me and takes off running to jump wildly on Clydie's bed, doing that wild, hyper, run in circles shit ON TOP OF CLYDIE'S BED with Clydie and Gabriel both laying up there and getting trampled.  It was kinda funny, but Kita's so heavy and rough I was afraid for Clydie and didn't want her to get hurt.  I take them all back out the back, and Kita runs all over my bare feet with her big, fat feet.  How I managed to not get totally mauled, I don't know.  Lucky, I guess.


Had an interesting event on my phone this week - I was entering a physician's name into my contact information, his first name being Bryan.  My phone offered "Cranston" as the last name!  I thought that was kinda funny, suggesting that I enter Bryan Cranston as a contact.  LOL


We've already started harvesting cucumbers, squash, and zucchini from our garden, and they are yummy!  We've picked so many this week I've had to take some to work and Brian gave some to the neighbor, because we didn't want them to go bad before we could either freeze, can, or eat them.  I imagine in another week or 2, we'll be able to harvest enough cucumbers to make a batch of pickles, and I just don't know of a method to freeze or can the squash or zucchini.  I like those grilled, or in a squash casserole, and I don't think they are conducive to freezing or canning and maintaining their texture for those.  We've shredded zucchini and frozen it, and it worked out ok for zucchini bread and fried squash patties, so I'll just have to do a little more research to see if there's another way to do things.


Tomorrow's Friday, and I'm so glad!  I hope everyone has a fabulous weekend!

The Garden, and Other Fun Stuff

I am constantly amazed at how fast our garden is growing, and how bushy everything looks.  This photo was made 5/31/16 from the landing on the back steps:

Believe it or not, there's even more green out there now, only 6 days later!


We picked our first veggies Saturday - 4 squash and 1 jumbo jalapeno:

Clydie found a squash casserole recipe, and those squash got cooked yesterday.  Click here for the recipe.  We didn't use "soft" breadcrumbs, we used the kind you buy in the store that are almost like crushed crackers.  I also didn't use fresh parsley, I just put in about a tablespoon of dried parsley when I mixed everything together.  For future fixing of this recipe, I personally would add more cheese to the squash mixture, a little less breadcrumbs in the topping, and more cheese in the topping.  But it was still yummy!


The jumbo jalapeno was a little disappointing - it was not hot at all.  Well, to me and Brian it wasn't.  Clydie said the bite she got had a little heat to it, but honestly, the bites I took were as mild as a bell pepper.  Nice flavor to it, too.


Here's a small zucchini, next to my index finger:

And here are some cucumbers on the vine:

 



We picked the fat one, as I figured it would be too seedy.  I offered it to Gabriel to sniff, and he tried to take it from me!  Then I offered it to Dominion, and he tried to lick it.  (see last year, the cucumbers grew on the fence that separated the garden from the yard, and both dogs got caught picking and eating small cucumbers!)  As I was walking through the yard to go check out the bell peppers and tomatoes, Gabriel followed me, and jumped up on me to try to get the cucumber (I had to hold it way up over my head to keep him from snatching it out of my hand!).


I washed the cucumber, and started slicing it up to eat,

and of course I shared it with the pups.  I almost lost fingers when Gabriel took his first slice!  (he's normally very gentle but he really, REALLY wanted this cucumber).  Dominion loved getting some slices, and Kita acted all excited but I found chewed up pieces of cucumber on the living room rug, and she mashed up her second slice.  And I was right - it was pretty seedy when I got to the thicker part of it.  But what I ate of it (with vinegar and salt of course) was delish!  And what a fresh, strong cucumber smell!  After seeing what was out in the garden, I predict we'll have at least a half dozen cucumbers ready to pick by Thursday this week!


I really enjoy the garden, knowing that we're growing food to put on our table and in our freezer.  I'm glad we increased the size this year, to grow more than we did last year.  We have double the # of cucumber plants, and our squash and zucchini are in great shape (we ended up with 2 zucchini plants last year that produced a small amount, and our yellow squash plants just never panned out).  Oh and the peppers and peas and beans and tomatoes!  So much more than last year - we are gonna be canning fools in another month or so!


I'm sorry if I bore you all with my garden photos and stories, but it's something I take great pleasure in these days!  I hope you all have a great week!

Woot Woot It's An Awesome Day!

Today is an AWESOME day - it's my 5th wedding anniversary!  I am so blessed, lucky, fortunate, whatever you want to call it, to have found Brian.  He is truly "the one" for me - he has been so good to me, and to Steven, over the years, and for that I am eternally grateful.  We don't have anything special planned today, but hell, every day that we have together is special in my eyes.  Besides, I'm getting the absolute BEST present I think I could get today - my mother and her husband are coming back from England today - FOREVER.  Their plane lands this afternoon, and I'm so excited that they are going to be home.

Here are some photos from our wedding and honeymoon:

Yep, this is the epitome of our relationship - we always joke around and laugh, and have a fun time.  The wedding was no exception!

Here we are with Meme.  She'll be 92 on Tuesday, May 31.  NINETY-FREAKING-TWO!!!!!

At my uncle's lake house in the pool, on our honeymoon.  

Our 5 years together as a married couple have been fun for the most part.  Nothing's perfect, but we're perfect for each other and just roll with whatever life brings us.  I'm the happiest I think I've ever been in my adult life!

So here's some fun an excitement from last night - I'm sitting in a camp chair in the garage, while Brian is grilling a venison tenderloin.  We're shooting the breeze, talking nonsense, when I look up at the truck and see something "pouring" out from under the truck across the driveway.  My heart sinks, thinking that something burst in the truck and either water or oil was leaking out quickly, when I realized that it was a SNAKE!!!  Here's a couple photos:

I realize that the snake is rather small, but still.  It's a freaking snake!  It was about a foot & a half long, one of those rat or king snakes, so while not poisonous, it's just not something I want to see in my damn driveway.  Brian picked it up with some BBQ tongs and dropped it once on the gravel next to the driveway, before tossing it in the woods.  Dominion walked up next to me on the gravel while I was watching Brian, and I must have caused the gravel to shift because as Dominion was sniffing where the snake had been dropped, all 4 of his feet left the ground at the same time like something got him!  It was so funny, I wish I'd been videoing him.

The excitement of the snake dies down a bit, I sit back in my chair, Brian goes back to grilling, and I'm looking at the pepper patch (it's next to the garage and at the side of the steps leading into the front door), and then I see another damn snake on the side of the steps to the house, trying to get in between a crack in the rocks.  I hollered at Brian, and he grabbed it and threw it down in the pepper patch so he could grab it with the tongs.  This one was a little smaller, maybe a foot long plus an inch or 2, and he kept dropping it.  He finally threw it out in the woods, but everywhere it fell on the ground, the pups were sniffing intensely.  Dominion proceeds to start sniffing where the first snake went in the grass, and the grass must have tickled his nose and made him think something got him, and he jumped almost as high as he did the first time.

No more snakes!

We're just hanging out at the house this weekend, planning to go to my mom's on Monday to cook out and celebrate Meme's birthday a day early.  But folks - remember the reason for the holiday on Monday - it's Memorial Day, a day to remember our fallen heroes of the military.  We wouldn't have the freedoms in life that we have if it weren't for those that gave their all.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Happy Mothers Day! (and more)

My Mothers' Day gifts this year - a beautiful orchid from my mother-in-law, Clydie, and a gift card to Hobby Lobby from Steven.  :-) 

 

The last week of April was Administrative Professionals week. I'm an Administrative Specialist at the hospital, and received a beautiful red rose floral arrangement from the CMO and my executive team, and a very pretty hanging basket from one of my directors:

                             

I cannot believe how quickly our garden is growing - we literally had sprouts with leaves on them in just 6 days!  We planted 2 weeks ago today, and I am just amazed at how much is coming up.  These photos were taken a few days ago, so maybe 10 days after planting:

Here the 2 double rows to the left are Kentucky pole beans, followed by 2 single rows of Dixie speckled butter peas, then a single row and a double row of purple hull pink eye peas.

 This is one of the ghost peppers up in the front yard pepper patch, already getting blooms:

This is a little tiny pepper starting up, thinking it's perhaps a jalapeno (it's not labeled, and Brian's not 100% certain):

 One of the squash plants getting ready to bloom:

I've been having weird dreams lately, yesterday it was a dream (more like a nightmare) that I was working again at my last job.  It was kind of weird, things were different, and I woke up feeling off.  Last night, I dreamed that my son got engaged and I found out on Facebook!  I would be so freaking pissed if that's how I found out!

I hope you all had a great weekend!