Circling Through This Life

This is the second Friday of June but only my first Random Five for the month!   1. Honeybear has a garden again this year!  It's his "baby" though the girls do help.  I did get to help choose what to plant:  tomatoes, carrots, onions, squash, cucumbers, peas and beans. The garden has little sprouts and the tomato plants have a few tomatoes. Seeing the onions takes me back to when I was growing up.  My parents grew green onions and tomatoes and peas, I think.  But mostly every year it was tomatoes.  In general I dislike peas but fresh peas from the garden are wonderful and I am looking forward to those! 2. I didn’t post a Random Five last week but if I had I would have talked about how last week marked the two year anniversary since Honeybear's heart attack.  I even wrote about it. It ranks up there as one of my top 3 most scary moments of my life. 3. Another anniversary date of sorts passed last week. I graduated from high school 29 years ag...

I can’t say that I remember much of the first half of 2013, but the second half? Especially the summer? That was a stressful and busy time! I’ve decided to take a photo tour of the year! Sharing pictures as highlights from 2013. But first I’m going to start with some blog post highlights though: I chose my focus word for 2013 BooBear was accepted to her first choice college and received an academic merit scholarship ! I posted my most popular ever post in February of 2013.  It was a recipe  for “Stir Fry” in a Crockpot! I wrote a post about Better Butter ! Now for a few pictures! From January to May we experienced a Recital, Every Day School Life, a Birthday and Pascha! June through December we experienced another recital, a heart attack, a graduation, a wedding, and more birthdays. Other 2013 Highlights include:  Honeybear reading the Epistle for the first time, growing a garden, and I became an Orthodox Godmother for the first time. My friend Susan has ...

Some weeks these Random 5 on Friday posts are very easy to do; on those weeks I seem to have more to say than just 5 random things.  Then there is weeks like this one.  What did I do this week? 1. A friend of mine from church frequently shops at Goodwill and I keep meaning to take her advice and visit on a Monday.  On Sundays and Mondays Goodwill has one color tag that is $1.29.  Doesn’t matter what it is.  Throughout the whole week there will be one color tag that is 50% off.  I took two teens in search of clothes.  I got two shirts and skirt and my 14 year old got a skirt and a pair of shorts. My oldest purchased some things as well but not one of us found an item for $1.29.  We had the cart loaded with lots of items to try on but alas many things looked better on the hanger than on us.  (I love my new skirt though it is a little too big.) 2. I was warned that zucchini plants can be quite prolific. I think those people lied. Two plants an...

Yup, I missed last week and the August 2nd Edition so I’m going to combine two weeks of Random Thoughts. 1.  August 2nd would have been my maternal Grandmother’s 100th birthday. She’s been gone 10 years now.  She died just a few days before 90th birthday in 2003.  BooBear and I were able to fly back for the funeral and for the annual family picnic at Como Park. 2.  August 2nd also marked the 2 month anniversary of my husband’s heart attack. He’s doing so much better. Especially now that he’s had some adjustments to his medication. He’s able to do more though he still has to be careful not to overdo it.  Recovery has been slow but steady! He’s even been able to serve in the altar again and he’s started taking his turn doing the Epistle reading.   3.  Supergirl got to be a flower girl in a wedding. The other three girls got to help out at the reception by serving punch. 4.  We harvested our carrots! They taste wonderful. We lost our tomato p...

I feel like all I am posting are reviews and Random 5 Posts. Guess I better finish up the Little Steps posts I have been developing. 1.  This was another week cut short by furlough days. Since Honeybear was needed all 5 days last week, he got two furlough days this week plus he took a “use or lose” leave day. So he was home Wednesday, Thursday, and Today.  His furlough day for next week is Monday. 2.  Since Honeybear was home and available, he canned green beans for us! He planted the beans, he cared for them, he picked them, and then he processed them.  I am so proud of him! 3.  We had some berries left from the farmer’s market.  Oh and some strawberries from the store.  I made a berry syrup.  Because the fruit was not “just picked” fresh, we’ve opted to use it right away rather than can it.  I should have taken a picture of the evidence that my husband had “got in the syrup”.  He sampled it and it spilled on his white shirt! He sa...

My motto, for many years, has been “the days may be long but the years are short.”  The weeks and months are even shorter! Where did June go?  Are we really over 1/2 way finished with July?  How can I get August to slow down.  I want to ENJOY the gorgeous, not too hot, SUNNY days that we sometimes have here in the Pacific Northwest! I love PNW Summers (well most of the time and this year I have really appreciated the “typical” mild summer). 1. Today is gorgeous.  GORGEOUS.  Yesterday started out cloudy but turned into a beautiful sunny day.  Our temps this week have been on the cool side (lower to mid 70’s). I think we’ll see some 80 degree temps over the weekend.  I am so spoiled. I love lots of sunshine without the sticky humidity and over 90 degree temps. I do NOT miss Minnesota summers at all. (Though I miss my family very much!) 2. I should do a separate garden update post. We have um 9 tomatoes growing (4-5 on each plant) and there is one ...

I can’t believe it’s Friday already!  [ editor’s Tess Note: Ok so I started this on Friday and I finished it on Saturday.] This week has flown by but that’s because: 1. This week we had 3 doctor appointments, 1 dentist appointment, 1 final piano lesson and that was all just Monday-Wednesday.  One of the doctor appointments was a follow up for Turtlegirl because of her dislocated jaw, another was to get immunizations updated and certified for the college bound kid.  (It’s really real, isn’t it?  She really is starting college in the fall!), the third doctor appointment was really a spur of the moment since Honeybear was already there he talked to the doctor about some concerns with his bp and pulse.  He doesn’t see the cardiologist for a couple more weeks.  So our family doc squeezed him in right there on the spot and did some medicine adjustments. 2. We’ve harvested peas twice this week.  I used the first picking in hamburger gravy last night. I don’...

I completed and utterly missed last week.  I had every intention of posting a Random 5 last week but well, it didn’t happen. 1.  This past weekend BooBear had her last piano recital. Well the last one as a minor. She’ll be attending college in the fall studying music and playing the piano so I’m sure it’s not the last time ever that she’ll perform but it is the last time she’ll perform in this type of recital. 2.  We’ve had an awesome week of product deliveries! All for the review crew! The science will be technically for the next school year but the Lily Lapp books are some fun read alouds to end our school year and the pile of books from Moving Beyond the Page is a wonderful way to finish up Tailorbear’s 8th grade! We also received our download copy of the TeenCoder C# series from Home School Programming.  Boobear may be graduating in 3 weeks but she has said she “will probably work on this over the summer anyway.” 3. Graduation season is upon us!  I...