I know, I know . . .

How the heck can my real friends and my cyber friends live without knowing what's going on At Our House? I bet you're living no differently than if you were in the know. Wow, am I being bratty tonight or what? Really, you all must be thinking I could change my post off the R rated carrot already! :) I know, I know, I agree with you!

I am feeling a little hyped up and stressed out and overwhelmed. Work is crazy right now with a scheduling software implementation of which I missed 9 weeks of while I was on maternity leave, so that's just crazy right now. There's a wellness initiative and a big push on it for the next month for employees to finish a lifestyle management program to receive a discount on their insurance premiums - we have a long way to go to hit the target percentage of participation and only 30 days to get there. Yeah, that's the extra stuff and not the daily stuff. I have had a hard time getting caught back up after being gone for 9 weeks. It's really making my mind spin.

We had a busy August. We took a great trip down the Oregon coast. I should blog about that. I said I was going to blog about Fischer's blessing day, but never got around to that so it makes me wonder if I will get around to blogging about the trip. It was fun and we plan to do it again next year! I LOVE the ocean. There are a few inanimate objects that I love like I love my kids - the ocean is one of them. The other is the Gorge Ampitheather in George, Washington. It's the best and I am very sad that we won't be going to the Dave Matthews concert this year. Well, we plant to go to Grand Coulee Dam that weekend, so I guess we're not going to the concert. The video to Grace is Gone is filmed at the Gorge. It's one of my favorite DMB songs and it makes it more favorite because the video is filmed there. Anyway . . .

Both boys started soccer. Paden may not turn out to be a dedicated athlete. It's ok. He's dang cute anyway. Gunnar has a disaterous attitude and I may need to seek professional counseling to learn how to deal with it. I know that I certainly don't help him at times when I lose my patience. It makes me sad that he has a poor attitude about stuff, then if we get upset or disappointed at him, it gets worse and he thinks we're angry. He has a hard time discerning anger and disappointment, which I can see why. Yeah, I need help. School stars tomorrow and wow I need to change how I deal with him or we aren't going to make it through the second grade. He's so smart and he is good at a lot of things, but he is so hard on himself and if he can't do something right the first time he just gives up with a terrible attitude. It's so hard for me not to get irritated and give up on him. Pray for patience and love - I guess that's what I can do.

I like my job, but sometimes wish I had the ability to do more with my friends who are not working at full-time, paying jobs outside the home. I know some of you work part time and you do make me feel a little better. I sometimes feel that I miss out on some stuff though. I so need to clean my craft/computer room so I can do some scrapping - that's got to help me feel better. :)

Phew . . . I am heading to sleep probably only to wake in an hour to a hungry baby. His schedule is all messed up this weekend. Nighttime is still a chore and I don't make it better on myself, but I just can't seem to change my routine. I am going to end up with a baby who won't sleep by himself because he's always laying with me. But, the other boys did the same I am sure and I got them in the own beds . . . eventually. They do keep me warm though! Love them dearly.

Just one more thought . . . speaking of the baby . . . Fischer looks like Gunnar a lot and it gives me all those "first baby" feelings. I love him so much. He's just a cutie. I like to watch him get worked up to cry, he's so cute. I love his chubby cheeks and his fat thighs. He was laughing at Gunnar today; it was so precious. Gunnar and Gunnar's mini me. It was fun to watch them. With all the frustration I have with Gunnar, he's a great big brother - the best.

Garden Harvest

This is the first year we've had a real garden. We've tried a couple of other times, but didn't really get it done. Last year we started a bunch of plants inside, but never planted them outside - not sure what happened there. This year we planted everything outside and just let 'em grow. It worked, which always amazes me. Side track: I love living in agriculturals areas where you can see acres and acres of food growing. I miss the area we used to live where we could go from one town to the next and go from cherries, apples, apricots and peaches to more apples, grapes, asparagus, corn, wheat, potatoes, green peas, sugar snap peas, lima beans, carrots, and so much more. I also dearly miss the intersection of Road 9 & Road K, where a super nice hispanic family grows a huge U-pick garden that you can just wander around with a 5-gallon bucket and get peppers, tomatoes, tomatillos, melons, etc. for a great price. Where we live, there's still quite a bit of agriculture too, so I still feel great about it. We have potatoes, onions, mint, watermelons, cantalope, strawberries and more that's grown in the general vicinty. It's fabulous.

Anyway, back to our garden . . . it's not the prettiest garden because it's surrounded by weeds, which is actually good - hides it from the neighbors! :) No, our neighbors wouldn't bother our garden anyway. But, we have at least 15 watermelons growing- so exciting. There's one honeydew melon that is pretty close to being ready to harvest. There's a couple of cantalopes. We have harvested tons of cucumbers - those things grow like crazy. We have had many carrots. Our tomatoes are ripening well. We have some yellow pear tomatoes, which are not much bigger than cherry tomatoes and we have a couple of cherry tomato plants too. We grew peas, which we thought were pretty much done a while back, but there were lots of new ones on one plant the other day. Our corn is doing great - we have some popcorn plants growing too. We have some strawberries and grapes growing. The strawberries are really getting going now and the grapes are new this year and will be a few years before there's really good grapes, but there's some on there now that are tasty, just not that many. I don't necessarily like gardening for a hobby - but I love having a garden and I think I can get used to the idea of having to take care of it so that it stays healthy.

Last Sunday morning, this is what I harvested:

I made up my own pasta dish - tri-color bowtie pasta, chicken, peas and carrots from the garden. It was seasoned with salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, italian seasoning and thyme (lots of it). It was tasty! No picture because I ate ALL of it!

So, we go out to the garden every couple of days to pick stuff. There's always tons of cucumbers, so I need to get some pickles made - hopefully today. I harvested this very intersting carrot the other day. I am not sure what to say about it!