Since the last time...

I've been unsure about how and when I would follow up on the last blog post.  A number of things have happened since that time that have some bearing on both my ability to keep up with the blog and my feelings about how to frame the last number of weeks:

• I had my first full blown anxiety and/or panic attack (something I would be very thrilled never to experience again) the night after I wrote the last very positive blog post, which by the way was all a very true description of how I was feeling that day. For a number of weeks, I had been experiencing some physical symptoms that had me feeling more uptight that usual including tightness in my chest, some shortness of breath, tingling in my arms, etc...  But after consulting both with medical people in the family (thank you Mom B and Dad M) and with my family doctor, it appears that I'm about as healthy as they come physically, and my body is responding to some of life's stressors in not such pleasant ways.  More on what I'm doing about that below...
• We've traveled to and from West Virginia, enjoying a luxurious four days without my computer (that was step #1 in addressing the stress!), enjoying helping prepare for and then joining in the celebration of my cousin's wedding. We celebrated Fausnaught Day and are well into Lent, where we have successfully thus far given up all grocery shopping and have been found to forget numerous times to not eat anything with cheese in it (the other thing we were attempting to go without and which Kali keeps reminding us of - she chose not to join us in giving up cheese, and Alida also has not). 
• Alida has become completely obsessed with computer keys.  She does not want to hear me talk about which keys she can/cannot press and wants full reign of the computer whenever I'm attempting to do anything on it.   So you might be wondering how I am getting away with this blogpost when she is not asleep and I'm home alone with her.  Well, she is chattering away beside me pressing buttons to her heart's content on our old dinosaur computer. It may never be the same once she is done, but she is content.
• E & J closed on their home in Keezletown!  They are officially neighbors and we couldn't be more thrilled!  And being the natural connectors that they are, they are already getting to know their neighbors.  It just so happens that the family right across the street has three children, one of whom is a 9 year old girl.  Kali is over there now meeting her for the first time and using a metal detector to try to find treasure in E & J's yard!

So I've been trying to figure out what to write about my emotional state and how much to just focus on the day to day activities of our homestead, which have been in large part very pleasant.  Somehow it doesn't feel fair to anyone that happens to land upon our blog, or read it regularly, to paint an inaccurate picture of home life.  But I'm not planning to make this public form of scrapbooking the way I process the things most precious and most difficult in my life!

Some of the take-aways for me from the recent health scare and pretty clear symptoms of too much stress and anxiety include, but are not limited, to the following: 

• Limiting the amount of time I spend on email on my days/evenings off work.
• More family walks/hikes or other forms of low key family times.
• Being a little more free to spend money on some things that we might be able to figure out how to do ourselves but which we really don't have time to add to the project list for this spring.
• Tied to that, I'm going to relieve myself of the stress of diving into honeybees this spring. Instead we are going to get mason bees!  They seem super cool and I'm super excited and we hope to order them tonight!

There are other things Jason and I have been talking about but that is enough for now and my time with Alida content appears to be VERY limited. She just reached over and put my computer into stand by...

Here are some pictures from things we have recently been enjoying: cute girls and watching seeds grow. We are also eagerly anticipating ducklings hatching but another picture of eggs is in the incubator would not be very exciting - of interest, however is that after the first candling we removed 8 eggs that had not started developing and none after the second candling. So we are at 30 eggs with one and a half weeks to go!

 

Kali has gotten interested in doing more cooking.  We made crepes together for brunch this morning so here is some photo documentation of our brunch, enjoyed before a family lake to the hike.  You will see the final result of Alida's enjoyment of her chocolate crepe.  If you pick up on her chatter what she is saying is "not this one, not this one...this one."  It's a game we play with her fork when she is needing some additional motivation to consume more than one bite of dinner!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Time to sign off and get the final touches on dinner as we are hosting supper club this evening so will get to enjoy having our table full of friends this evening!