by fluke or whatever....

 

 

 

 even with this crazy life/week

i ended up doing two photo shoots this week.

and i LOVED them both.

i don't shoot very often anymore -

but these were two shoots i wanted to do.

and i'm so glad i did.

isn't she lovely?

her senior portraits session might be my most favoritest ever.

i love working with confident teens.

and earlier in the week,

i got to take pics of a little baby boy of my step-cousin-in-law's -

it was a nudie-patootie shoot.

so dang cute.

and i also got to hang out and talk and catch up.

so relaxing.

on the not so relaxing front -

now that my meds are worked out for the most part,

i'm taking advantage/abusing my body once more.

i have mowed and picked berries and cleaned and cleaned and cleaned.

and then when all of that was done -

i finally finished staining all of the doors

and mixed the chalk paint

and started painting the big blue cabinets -

which i will now be painting for the remainder of the day.

wish me luck.

and good luck to you.

have a wonderful day.

getting ready for tomorrow...amidst perfect weather...

tomorrow will be jam day - 

and door staining day,

as well as blue cabinet painting day -

which means a-big-fat-mess-of-a-day.

the jam part will be my favorite part.

ps: my little helper is half-way to naked because these berries were juicy.
very, very, very juicy.
perfection.
ahhh, the precious boysenberry.

ps2: poor nick, he's mr. pukie-mc-pukerson
but no worries, we think he's been successfully quarantined
and de-germed repeatedly.
so, cross your fingers he doesn't spread the love.

i stained a door and mowed a lawn and stared at my tomatoes...

catching up on life

after spending too much time on the couch.

the kids were especially laid back and and delightful today.

and bonus, they decided they wanted to wash the car -

random, but awesome.

i love these guys.

ps: earlier today the kids tagged along to lowes with me -

and for the first time they rejected one of the kiddie-driving carts.

and they were even repaired with two steering wheels,

they normally fight/plead/beg me to ride in the kiddie cart.

today, charlie rushed up with a yelp and started climbing in.

i was smiling at her and luke came to my elbow and said,

"no, we're too big."

and then he proceeded to grab an normal cart 

and charlie nodded and reluctantly/courageously joined him -

as the pushed the big person cart ahead of me, their shoulders back.

i might have misted up a bit.  

my babies think they're growing up.

they are, aren't they?

sigh.

update...

i think i've figured out my meds!

last week, i started to see a pattern -

that i was feeling better between 3-5 in the afternoon.

and so for the last four nights, i've been experimenting with my medicine -

thinking that if i switched from my normal 4:30 am schedule to a night schedule,

possibly i could sleep through most of my bad reactions!

and guess what -

IT WORKED!

i'm still fatigued, but as of this morning I'm 80% back.  

which is great, because i have a huge unit to repaint the most gorgeous blue/black.

wish me luck.

hope your weekend was wonderful.

ps: how-we-do-it homeschool post coming up this week!
(ie: all my favorite curriculum ideas)

i'm a hot mess laying on my couch...

but the laundry is folded,
kids are clean and gone with their dad to fresno for the afternoon.
my plant babies are watered,
dinner is stewing away.

and i'm still a hot mess.
but laying down doesn't help, moving around doesn't help, calling the doctor doesn't help.
nothing helps. 

i didn't need this hiccup right now. 
i need to be able to wake up and spend six hours on my house -
and follow it up with a couple of hours in the backyard.
and maybe enjoy a movie on the couch with my hubby at the end of a long day.

but not i'm just trapped in their weird flashback to five years ago.
this isn't like the parathyroid and the calcium -
there is no cause and effect.
this is a finely tuned balance -
and the balance has been shifted and in thyroid world -
the shift will take weeks to right.
weeks.  5 to 6 weeks.

i hate naps in the middle of the day, i hate fatigue, exhaustion, headaches...
i hate my couch. 

okay, whining officially wrapped up.
have a wonderful weekend. 
i'm going to watch the office with the front window open -
the weather is perfect.

a labor of love...

okay, my review of chalk paint does not change -

it is indestructible and it is amazing and i adore the finish...

BUT (big but) -

while there are many claims that this can go unprimered on top of anything -

IT WILL NOT ADHERE TO OIL BASED POLY FINISHES! 

but not to worry -

we think we've conquered the apocalyptic/survival poly finish  on this cabinet.

(this stuff is the real deal)

BUT here is the good news -

to test out what is left of the paint,

i used it on a bare wood step stool we have -

and it is AMAZING -

and yes, chalk paint does not need primer -

it goes on so thick and nice.

just be careful what you use it on.

no one likes re-doing 13 hours of solid painting.

so help me if it doesn't work this time.  

ps: super sick.

laying on the couch -

wondering when i'll start feeling better.

ps2: i have such a HUGE list of things to do -

and no ooomph to do them.

but luckily nick and i finished nearly all of the electric -

and luke's room is done. 

baby steps.

sigh.

how to entertain your children for hours...3 simple steps...

these pieces of history were actually headed out to our science day at the school - 

where they were going to be taken apart and be rebuilt into robots...

and since making sandwiches for the teachers appreciation picnic took longer than expected -

there was little to no adult supervision and from what i could tell -

it worked out great.  

luke's table was surrounded by kids and they were all sharing and helping eachother the whole day.  

there was lots of -

"hand me the plyers - i need to pry this thing off the motherboard"

and 

"hey, are you using that bundle of wires for your robot or can i?"

classic.  

i love kids and sometimes they just need to be kids without all of us pestering adults.

okay, go do it -

buy a bunch of old 80's keyboards, record players, tv sets -

and then go to the dollar store and get them a bunch of tools -

and let them destroy them.

it's good for kids to see the complexity of life sometimes -

all the stuff/work/craziness that goes on under the surface of the simple things in their life...

like televisions and computers and on and on and on.

just make sure to let them play spy/secret agent with them for a day or two before destroying them -

i loved watching all the spy stations being concocted all over the house.

life is good. 

garden talk...no seriously, i talk to my garden...

ps: my in-laws have amazing plants because of their compost and 20+ years of soil cultivation.

plus, they bought plants with a big headstart.  

and i'm not willing to start seedlings in december.

ps2: my compost dreams a bit closer -

as soon as the welding is done around here,

i get to reclaim my remaining pallets and will build my partitioned heaps.

so happy -

it feels sacriligious to throw away produce scraps and eggshells.  

i can thank my step-mama for that. 

thank you holiday. 

(i'll owe you some of my steaming compost next year -

or i'll just bring you a wheelbarrow full of tomatoes and peppers)