Weekend Recap

Is anyone else completely bummed that its Monday again? I know I can't be alone here.  ( ;

This weekend was awesome, and it flew by way too fast (as weekends generally do).

Saturday was a busy but relaxing day for me. How can it be both busy and relaxing, you ask? Well, I got a lot of housework done, which means I stayed at home all day. I'm always relaxed at home. ( : I've been really slack lately about getting any cleaning done during the week; the past 2 Saturdays I've had to do some major cleaning. This week I'm gonna try to get back on track and clean a little each day so I can have more play time on Saturdays.

Cleaning time kept getting interrupted due to chickens. Yep, you read that right - chickens! DH has been selling a lot of chickens lately, and Saturday he brought home 25 to resale (resell? hmm...). So while I was cleaning up inside, he was rigging up a temporary holding pen for them. Well, I guess the first time he didn't make the pen quite sturdy enough, because quite a few chickens escaped. He called me to come outside and me and C helped him round them back up. Chicken wrangling is fun, let me tell you. Later, it happened again! I think they were flying out. DH and his brother came home to pick up a tool or something and noticed some more chickens were out. Luckily, we caught them all and they didn't escape anymore. So far, DH has sold all of them but 5, and he thinks they'll be sold this week. He's makin money so I can't complain!

Saturday afternoon when C woke up from her nap, I took her to my mama's house. Normally, I stay with her so I can visit with my grandma, but this time I dropped her off and headed back home. And I rode Sunshine! I haven't rode her in a couple of weeks, so I was curious as to how she'd do with cantering. I rode her in the back pasture (which is about 5 acres total) and she did great. We cantered quite a bit! She picked up both leads with no hesitation. Her right lead was very ugly, though. It felt like her back legs weren't extending like they should. So obviously she has some tightness in that ligament still. But its such an improvement from where she was! I know if I was able to ride her more often she'd be so much better. Normally my riding picks up in the fall, so I should be having more saddle time soon. ( :

Yesterday we headed to the coast. Somehow, its September and we've only been to the beach twice all summer. (The 3 of us went back in May for our vacation - to the Outer Banks - and then me and C had a girls' day at the beach a month or so ago. We went to the Pamlico River a few times in July, but that's not really the beach so it doesn't count.) Considering how growing up I was at the beach practically every weekend all summer, it amazes me that I haven't been more often. Especially now that I've finally found a sunscreen that doesn't get me sunburned (Mary Kay!). Not having a place to stay this year has been the main issue, though. My parents sold their place last year, and we can't afford to get a hotel room all the time. Anyway, maybe next year we'll make it out there more often.

We decided to head to Topsail Island/Surf City. My uncle has a trailer there and we planned to use his private outdoor shower to change into our bathing suits. Luckily, when I called my uncle to ask permission to do that, he told me where his key was hidden and said for us to go on in and make ourselves at home. ( : We spent a couple of hours on the beach when we got there, then headed back to the trailer and got cleaned up a bit. We had a nice lunch at my favorite restaurant at Surf City - Island Delights. After that, C took a nap on the couch at the trailer and me and DH enjoyed quiet time - and I enjoyed not having to hold C while she napped!!

Late yesterday evening, we headed back to the beach for a sunset stroll. We went to the south end of the island and it was truly magical. The beach just has a different feel on that end; the sand is softer somehow. The light was gorgeous with the setting sun, and there were very few people out there. We walked for quite some time and C picked up seashells the whole time. It was perfect.

The whole day was just perfect. The weather was beautiful - not too hot, but warm enough we could get in the water without freezing. We laughed all day and made some good memories. And I didn't get sunburned! All in all, it was an awesome day.

It sure has made today miserable, though!! I hope everyone else had a great weekend! ( :

Great Weekend vs. Allergies

This weekend would have been truly awesome if I hadn't developed this sudden allergy to pollen. I spent the entire weekend sneezing, sniffling, coughing, and being stuffed up. Ugh. My regular allergy medicine is not helping at all, so I may have to up my game today. Or just pray the pollen goes away ASAP. For some reason, being outside in the pollen makes me feel great; when I'm outside, I can breathe just fine. Its a cruel joke, I tell you.

I've never had allergies quite like this, so I have no clue how to deal. My allergies consist of itching all over my body until I go mad from it. Or GI issues. Not the typical sneezing, runny nose stuff. Yuck.

Despite my defunct nose, this weekend was awesome. Friday after work, C had a play date (and luckily me and the other mama are good friends, too, haha), that turned into supper at a pizza restaurant. C was extremely well behaved at the restaurant, and I was so proud of her. She had a blast, too.

Saturday, I only did minimal cleaning around the house and spent the majority of the day just playing with C. After lunch, we went to the playground at my mama's church. We met up with a couple others there, and everyone had a great time. It was hot though! I slathered me and C in sunscreen, but I guess I was a little careless with mine; I got burned in a few places. I'm waiting on the allergic reaction to that to start...(yes, I have a weird sun allergy. I'm extremely sensitive to the sun, and if I get burned, I have a reaction that usually ends up with me at the doctor begging for prednisone. Its great. The itching has already started, but I'm trying my best to ignore it...)

After C's nap, we headed back outside to weed the flower gardens. I've been slowly working on the weeds over the past few weeks - there were a ton of them. One of my beds is eat up with fire ants, so I'm waiting for that holocaust to be over before I can get started in there. The plan was to plant some flowers Saturday evening, but DH decided to take us strawberry picking!

DH showed her once and she got the hang of it right away. Surprisingly, C didn't eat a single strawberry while we were in the field. That night, however, she had three bowls of them chopped...haha. We had strawberries for a snack yesterday, and we had them again on homemade waffles last night. And I brought some for lunch today. ( :

Yesterday was another relaxing day. I decided to start playing with the Manual mode on my DLSR camera. I've had that thing almost a whole year now and I always shoot in Auto mode, or one of the other preset modes. I figured it was high time I learned how to shoot in Manual. It is not easy!! I took a bajillion pictures that were completely white or completely black. I need a lot more practice, that's for sure. I did end up with a few gems, though...

 

 Oh, how I love frilly dresses for my girl! She actually wore dresses all weekend. I figure I'll keep her in dresses until she decides they're too girlie. ( :

I had a couple other successes this weekend. Cooking successes, actually! One, I finally made a batch of cookies that turned out absolutely perfect. This was huge for me. I've tried to make cookies so many times over the years, and they always turn out extremely flat and run together. Saturday I made some double chocolate chunk cookies and they were delicious AND looked perfect! I don't have the recipe with me right now, so I'll have to post on that later. If you like chocolate, though, these are the cookies for you. I may have ate the majority of the batch already...Hey, DH doesn't really dig chocolate like I do, I can't let them go to waste!!

My other kitchen success was cooking spinach. I love spinach, but I have never cooked it. DH doesn't care for it, so I've never tried. After we picked strawberries Saturday, the farm owner let us pick out some other things, including some fresh spinach. The farmer's wife told me how to cook it, and I couldn't believe it was so simple.

I didn't get a pic, but everyone knows that spinach looks like, right? ( :  After a good washing, I just combined the spinach with some olive oil, salt, and garlic powder (fresh garlic would probably be better), and placed it in a covered frying pan for just a couple of minutes, until the leaves were wilted. And it. was. DELICIOUS! C didn't like it, but she doesn't really go for greens, and DH wouldn't try it, but I couldn't get enough. I can't wait to cook the rest of the spinach later this week. Anyone have another really good (easy) way to cook spinach??

Hope everyone's weekend was as great as mine! Now on to another busy week....starting with the farrier coming tonight to trim the horses' feet. ( :

All Sorts of Things

Its been another crazy and not-so-great week for me. Seems like crazy and stressful is my new norm these days. Maybe sometime soon things will settle down and start looking up!!

This week I had jury duty. Excuse me, jury service, as the clerks at the court kept emphasizing. I really wasn't there very long - just 1/2 the day on Monday, most of the day Tuesday, and a 1/2 day on Wednesday. Thankfully, the judge released us after that. But let me tell you, it was torturous!! There were at least 50 potential jurors crammed into the jury pool room, which was tiny. We were sitting in rows of chairs that were too close together to have any walking room between aisles, and each chair touched the one next to it, so you had no personal space. But the worst part was we weren't allowed to leave the room at all unless the judge gave us a break to stretch our legs. Which actually only happened once during those 3 days. The room had no windows. It did have a bathroom, a drink machine, and a snack machine. Oh, and a water fountain. But you couldn't even stand up without being on top of another person, so I just sat in my chair. Thankfully, I had purchased a book on my Kindle for the week, so I was able to get lost in that story most of the time. I was a little disappointed that I'd sat there all that time and never got to see a trial. But the judge released us on Wednesday and said he wouldn't need a jury at all this week. I was glad to be done, though!!

Monday was particularly stressful. Of course I knew I had jury duty (I had to be there at 1pm, so I went to work first), so I spent the first part of the day preparing at the office in case I got put on a case. I kind of hate not knowin what to expect day to day with my job. I like variety, sure, but not knowing if I would even be there? No thanks. Too stressful. Probably wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't just me and the boss here. But there's no one to do my job if I'm not here.

The other thing that made Monday stressful was being worried over C. My MIL and I decided that C probably needed to see a doctor. We were afraid she had another UTI. For the past 2 weeks, her potty training has been terrible. I just attributed it to all the stress we've dealt with lately, a growth spurt, general toddlerness, whatever. But last week she started sayin "my pee pee hurts" occasionally. Not while she was peeing, though, just randomly. Monday she woke up at 5:30am and told me it hurt and that she needed medicine. So I called her doctor when I got to work and the nurse said she needed to be seen. Apparently toddlers can have a UTI without a fever, which I didn't know. My MIL got a urine sample at home, bless her, so C wouldn't have to be cathed (and I knew she wouldn't go in their potty).

Well, the doctor looked at C's urine and said it looked fine. They did a culture just to be sure, but she didn't have a UTI, thankfully. She did, however, have vaginitis. That's kinda like a yeast infection, but a different bacteria. (And from what I understand, really young girls can't get yeast infections - yeast rashes, yes, but that's totally different.) The doctor said it was probably from her being on antibiotics last month (ear infection). She gave us some Nystatin cream and sent us on our way.

The very next day, C felt better. And I am happy to say she hasn't had an accident in THREE DAYS!!! So I guess the infection was making her uncomfortable when she had to pee, so she held it in as long as possible, then wasn't able to get to the potty in time. I'm so glad I trusted my gut and took her to the doctor, even though she wasn't acting "sick." Always trust your Mama Instincts!!!

As for the rest of the week, this year my body has decided it is allergic to pollen. Like most of the rest of the world. I have some serious allergies, but pollen has never bothered me, in all my 30 years. This year, however, is a different story. I sneezed a few times Wednesday night, and immediately my throat was sore. And it still is. I'm not congested or anything, but I just have that "allergy feeling," as I say. Ugh. All I want to do is sleep, though of course that doesn't happen.

I think my true problem is I just need a vacation. There's been a lot on my plate for a while now, and we normally take a trip in February for our anniversary. We put it off this year since DH's grandma was so sick in the hospital. Then we put it off because my uncle was so sick, and then he died. DH's grandma is still in a rehab facility, and she's started having seizures again, and some days she doesn't recognize people and talks out of her head. She's not in danger of passing away, but the family is stressed because who knows if she will ever be able to take care of herself again. And now DH has the flowers in for his business, plus the chicks, so he's super busy taking care of all that and selling it. *sigh* We had hoped to get away this month, but there is something going on almost every weekend, so we never planned anything. Maybe next month...

I did kind of feel like I had a vacation day last Saturday. C and I spent the whole day just playing and having fun. We were outside most of the day. I didn't take my DSLR out with me because I just wanted to enjoy life and not worry about taking a perfect picture. I did bring my iPhone and got some snapshots with it...

Still can't reach the pedals enough to go anywhere, but she tries!

DH took this one. C's first picnic! She had a blast.

 Sunday was a busy day. We went to church, then had a quick lunch. DH left to go to the livestock sale with a friend, and C and I went with my mama to TWO baby showers. We had a great time, but C missed her nap. After the second shower, we took C on a walk around Mama's house. Mama's neighbor raises goats and C got to meet the baby that they are bottle feeding...

She loved that! After that, we went to my cousin's house, where my brother was helping to build a deck. We stayed there a while because my 3 year old cousin was there, and her and C had a ball running around the yard together.

C was passed out by 8 that night, which is extremely rare for her. DH and I were able to have the night off, so to speak! We watched the ACM awards and just enjoyed time alone.

I wish I could go back in time to last weekend. Though I am looking forward to this weekend. Tomorrow, I am taking C to my mama's church with some friends. They have a little playground there that's fenced in (so the babies can wander around and we don't have to worry about them wandering off!) and the babies love to play in there. Its not public, so it'll be nice and quiet. And that is the only thing I have planned for the entire weekend. I might have to ask DH if we can take a day trip Sunday and just get away......! We'll see. ( ;

I'll leave you with one more image. I love this time of year because all the flowers and starting to come out. My hasta around the flower beds have come back and are growing rapidly. My amaryllis are going to be gorgeous when they bloom - there are a TON of bulbs now. The irises have multiplied, too. My gerbera daisies are coming back up. My azaleas are starting to bloom. My tulip tree is blooming and greening up. I just love it!! Last weekend I put 2 pots of geraniums on the porch and hung up 2 hanging baskets. One is a red portulaca (though I don't have a picture of it yet), and the other is a basket of 3 different flowers. Petunia is one of them, but don't ask me what the other 2 are, haha. I love it, though! Its gorgeous hanging on my porch. Don't you agree? ( :

Pamlico River

Last Sunday, we loaded up and headed east. (Maybe one of DH's New Year Resolutions was to take more day trips? Not complaining!! And this just made me realize I never blogged about our Wilmington day trip...) My husband's aunt and uncle have a house at the Pamlico River, which is on the coast (sort of). Its a little over 2 hours of drive time from home, so not too bad. DH went with his uncle a while back to the river and has been raving about it ever since. So when they invited us down for the day, we jumped on the opportunity!

We got up Sunday morning (though not as early as DH would have liked!) and hit the road. After a few wrong turns, we made it to the river around 11am. We had a delicious lunch, then put the boat in the water and set off. It was a gorgeous day, temps in the 60s, though of course it was cooler on the water. DH's uncle likes to go fast on the boat and then it was C-O-L-D!! I had to wrap a thick coat around C, head and all, because the wind was so frigid. But once the boat wasn't moving it was very nice.

The men did a little fishing, we all did quite a bit of eating (what is it about being on the water that makes you so darn hungry?!), and we all had a great time. After a while, C told me she wanted to lay down, so she laid in my lap and promptly fell asleep. (Hello, baby girl, why can't you do that at home??!)

The Pamlico River is cool because its all mixed up in ocean water. Part of it was brackish water, which is part saltwater and part freshwater, and then you cross a line and you're in all salt water. The difference was amazing. When we crossed that line into the salt water, the temperature dropped probably 20 degrees. Okay, maybe not quite that much, but it was a noticeable difference!

While C was asleep, we mosied on back to the brackish water, and wound our way along the river. That's the place where people do some good duck hunting, I'm told. (I could never hunt duck. We have 5 at the house and while they're not tame, I still consider them my pets, so I could never intentionally kill one!) But that gives you the general feel for the area. Very swampy looking, but beautiful. Ducks, pelicans, and seagulls everywhere. And fish jumping out of the water right and left. (Though neither men caught a single one all day, haha.) Back there, it was very peaceful. We were the only boat around, the sun was shining and keepin us warm, and it was so quiet.

DH and his uncle saw an eagle the last time they were there together. They told me to be on the lookout for it, but his uncle said it was kinda a rare treat to see the eagle. I of course had my camera ready, but since C was asleep and I had to hold the coat around her, I couldn't use the camera. So DH grabbed it and was ready.

And then we got lucky! Super lucky.

DH's uncle said he'd never seen two eagles together like that.

I've never seen one in the wild, so it was awesome to see these magnificent birds. They stuck around just long enough for us to get a few pictures.

But we caught up with them again later!

I was proud of DH for getting such good shots.

After the eagle sighting, we loaded the boat back up and left. It was starting to get pretty chilly by then, and the men had given up on catching any fish.

To wrap up our awesome day, we stopped at IHOP on the way home for some delicious pancakes. All in all, it was an absolutely wonderful day, and I can't wait to go back to Pamlico!