Homegrown Thoughts

My dear friend and sister-in-crime, Dianna, has awarded me with the You Make Me Smile award. Isn’t that nice of her? In fact, it made me smile, but I guess I can’t award her back with it. Rats!

I will sort of copy her post so if you aren’t familiar with the award, you will be now.

“This is what the person that created this award says about it- the thing that I love most about blogging is that I learn so much about a person just by reading their blog. I have met MANY wonderful people with wonderful stories to tell,and I am grateful every day for each person that I have the pleasure of crossing paths in life with.

I wanted to create something special for the top ten people who have inspired me through their blogging; the stories they tell, and the lives that they lead with grace and dignity. I visit their blogs for inspiration and encouragement.Although there are MANY people I want to give this award to at this very moment, I am going to choose ten bloggers:

Please grab your badge and wear it(with a smile) proudly, and pass it on because you inspire and encourage me, thank you. So, now it is my turn to pass it on. “

**Don’t forget to pass it on to 10 more bloggers.

So now I’m supposed to find 10 other bloggers to award this to…who haven’t already received it. Now I’m going to pay for not being up on my blog reading!! I’ll do my best.

I have chosen, in no particular order…

Heather - Okay, I’m sort of cheating here right off the bat. This is supposed to be for people who have inspired me through their blogging, and quite frankly, Heather is NOT blogging on a regular basis. But I know she feels bad about that and if she didn’t have 100 other irons in the fire and a (fortunate for me) addiction to online Scrabble, she would blog more frequently. But I have to give her this award because she makes me smile almost every day. The only days she doesn’t are when I don’t chat with her! Then I am sad. :-( But seriously, I don’t know what I would do without my best friend who is always there for me whether I’m smiling or not.

Maggie - While I’m giving this award to those who are not exactly blogging like clockwork, I’ll give it to Mrs. Maggie Hogan, too. You guys, she is a riot. She, Melissa (see below) and I are that fun kind of weird that we can share with each other and we totally get it. She has been very supportive and patient and just a joy to know.

Melissa - Thanks to Maggie (see above), I also have the joy of knowing Melissa. She is also a crazy nut in our tree of weirdness. Boy, I hope she and Maggie don’t take that wrong - I mean weird as a good thing! As in, interesting, fun, able to laugh at ourselves! AND - she actually blogs! More often than I do, even. Check out her adventures in moving and the pics of her nice new house. She is now a Michigander now, like half the homeschooling population, it seems. :-)

Nancy C - Nancy is now my Boss Lady, as I like to call her. But we have worked together for a long time and it is great to have her as a friend. Even though we don’t have time to ‘chit chat’ very often, we do manage it every once in awhile. Check out Nancy’s homesteading adventures on her blogs. :-) She is one of those people I look at and wonder how in the world they get everything done that they do. Also, she may still have a couple of kittens available as she seems to keep getting adopted by mama cats!

Nancy B - Of course, I also want to include my dear friend, Nancy B. We have also worked together for a long time and shared many trials and tribulations. She was such a blessing to me during some of my ‘down’ times and I think we really understand each other well. She is a blessing during ‘up’ times, too! And her family is so talented. You should go read about them on her blog - and maybe she’ll start posting some of her beautiful photographs for us again soon.

Well, that’s half of them, anyway. I’ll try to add the others later. I have to stop now to make dinner. I hope I remember to tell them all that I’ve given them this award!

I just happened to look as I was signing in and it says I’ve made 99 entries at HSB, so I guess this will be #100. Wow, it seems like I blog so infrequently, how did I get that many posts? Apparently I don’t remember all the stuff I write. :-)

So, again, it has been awhile since I last posted. I tell ya, life has just gone crazy. Granted, some of it is due to choices I’ve made, but other things have been going on, too.

The kittens are getting big now, especially Chase. Cats just live for food, don’t they? They come running whenever they hear food, even if it isn’t theirs. They like to steal food from the dog. Of course, the dog steals their food, too. I’m about to start feeding them each others food to start with. We’re working on getting the basement in enough shape so we can let the cats go down there. It is mostly finished, but the playroom is down there with all the little toys that the boys leave out and that the cats like to ‘play’ with. We also have an office, exercise area, laundry room…lots of places for curious kitties to get into trouble. I think I’m going to give it another once over, then let them go and just deal with any issues as they come up. I can’t possibly think of everything they might get into. And, quite frankly, I want my 1st floor half bath back! Their litter box is in there and that is where they stay at night and when we are gone. It’s really stinking up the joint! So they are being evicted VERY soon. They can earn their keep by getting the spider population under control downstairs.

My husband was offered a permanent position at the place he’s been a ‘temporary consultant’ for. He’s been there for a few weeks and was hoping he’d be able to stay. They did approach him about a permanent situation and offered him the salary he wanted, so it’s a go! I can really tell how much I’ve changed over the last year or so. I wasn’t worried at all about him finding a new job when he left the last one. I really felt that he would be offered a job where he is now and even if he didn’t, that just meant there was something better in store. This job isn’t perfect, but I think he’ll enjoy it and we’ll be able to loosen the belt just a little bit now that we’ll have a bit more security in that area. If this had happened even a year ago, I probably would have totally freaked out. I’m in such a different (better!) place now.

(Sidenote: It’s really hard to type when there is a persistent cat wanting your attention.)

What else? Oh yes, I got a guitar! I’ve been wanting to learn to play for a long time now. I was trying to decide between violin and guitar and decided a guitar was just more practical. So after the place I ordered from didn’t send it and didn’t send it, I called and switched what I ordered and had it in less than 48 hours! So now I’m trying to callous up my tender little fingers and practicing pretty much every day. I think I have about 5 chords down fairly well and I can play a few songs. :-) Hey! Skip-to-my-Lou and Jingle Bells are songs!! I’m having fun with it - even though I did NOT need another ‘project’ taking up time in my life. Still working on that balance thing.

I think that’s about enough for this post. I have another one to write, but I’ll keep that separate.

I did want to share this little picture and story with you, though. I think it’s the cutest thing!

The picture alone is sweet enough, but the story is gooey, too. I’ll summarize, but you can see more of the story here, if you like. Basically, this little macaque monkey was abandoned by his mother and nursed back to health at an animal hospital. But he wasn’t very perky or happy. Then a fellow patient, a pigeon, became his friend and they’ve been inseparable ever since. Isn’t that cute?? I wonder how long it will last. Talk about an odd couple, but that picture just does something to me. (”No, Jodi, you may NOT add a monkey to your menagerie!”, says the inner voice of reason.)

Okay, I need to get my other entry posted so that’s it for now.