In which I whine a little. Maybe a lot...

Yesterday and today have been rough. Not because of one thing, but because of what feels like a few dozen little things that have been happening over the the course of the last few days.

Wednesday: The great egg distaster. Boo.

Thursday: Numerous milk spills. Boo.
Brooke fighting me when I try to get her out of the car, put pants on her, make her take a nap. Boo.
The new tires came for the car came. Yay!
Brooke didn't take a nap, so no break. Boo.
I picked a gallon of home-grown strawberries. Yay!
But then the instructions in the pectin package were wrong and the double batch of jam I made didn't turn out. Boo. (fyi, some of the packages of sure-jell still have the wrong instructions. The right ones are online, plus a recipe to fix the un-gelled jam.).
I fixed the jam. Yay!
My kitchen was a disaster. Boo.

Friday: The front left tire was flat. Boo.
I filled the tire. Go me.
I got the kids all ready in the car and loaded the tires to get them put on at Les Schwab and the battery was dead. Boo.
I called Jeremy to walk me through using the battery charger and I'm incompetent. Boo.
Jeremy came home and jumped the car. Yay!
I take the car for a drive to charge the battery and realize that I'm driving on the highway with a tire that has a leak. Boo.
We go to Les Scwab and Brooke actually fell asleep and there is an hour wait. We went home.

In between all this is Brooke repeatedly moving the couch to the entertainment center and grabbing DVDs and taking them out of the case and trying to ruin them, Tayvin begging to play video games, Brooke shrieking as high as her little voice goes because Tayvin thinks it's hilarious, trying to keep the chicken's watered, Tayvin spilling milk all over three separate time, including on a rug that I then had to wash, wanting to weed the garden but unable to b/c Brooke wanders in and out of the house and I can't leave her alone for 2 seconds.

Now I understand that none of this is really a huge deal. But all of it happening at once and adding so many little things that I have to get done is driving me nuts. And not just a frustrated kind of nuts, but a crawl into a hole and don't come out kind of nuts.

But.

I have been taking deep breaths. Crying a little. Being thankful that the kids and I aren't sick. Thankful that Jeremy has had a good week at work and has been really cheerful and helpful all week. Eating lemon drops. They are delicious. Eating smores dip. Also delicious. I made twelve pints of amazing jam and they look beautiful. I got to help and friend and watch one of her kids so she could pack. My roses are getting new growth and are going to look amazing next year. My hydrangeas are getting new growth too and filling out. The garden is growing and the corn came up. The view from my backyard is amazing. My daylily has tons of blooms this year. The chickens have laid a dozen eggs already. The books I had on hold arrived at the library. We have ice cream.

Lots of things to be thankful for = Life is better than you think.

Sometimes I get bored...

And now a dancing lovebird.


You're welcome.

And before you know it, life moves on

We were so sad when our little chicks were killed, but a dear friend who is moving soon needed to find a home for her chickens and asked if we would like them. How could we turn that down?

We picked them up last week and they made themselves right at home. These are full grown laying hens, and we are loving them! They were hand raised and are very sweet. The kids love finding eggs in the nesting boxes, we've been getting 3-4 a day!

I love having different colored eggs, it's so fun! By the end of the first week this box was full and we were quickly filling up a second. Brooke decided to take matters into her own hands last night and when I left the box out on the counter after boiling some eggs she took the rest of the carton and flung the eggs to the ground when Mommy wasn't watching. Mom fail, right there. The mess and carnage were just... wow. But we got it cleaned up and had tasty egg-salad sandwiches for dinner.

Next up is my garden, I mean weed patch. I've been slowly taking it back and weeding a row every day. One row doesn't sound like much, but when it's 20 feet long it takes a bit of work!

That's the end of that

This year my family decided we wanted to try raising some chickens. My hubby built the chicken coop and the kids and I raised four little chicks in the laundry room. Two weeks ago we finally put them outside in their coop. They were so cute foraging in the grass!

We had named them and everything. From left to right that's Squeaker, Forrest, Feistypants and Lazybones.



They are no more.

The kids and I went to Wenatchee to do some shopping and when we got back I saw a pile of white feathers in the grass by the driveway. I put the kids in the house and checked on the chicken coop and there were more dark feathers and a piece of meat, but that was all that was left of my chickens. The fence in one corner had been pulled up by some dogs. I'm impressed Feistypants got almost 30 feet out from the coop before they got her.

Immediately after I found the carnage I went to the owner of the only dogs within a mile of our house and informed him that my coop and been broken into and all of my chickens were gone. I had not seen the dogs do it because I was gone all day, but we have had to chase them out of our yard several times since we put the chickens outside. Thankfully he was very gracious and offered to replace them. But I'm still sad that my little chickies are gone.