What I've learned lately

That god and family are most important to me.
That I am a great creative writer.
That I can accomplish goals I set.
That I am my mother's daughter in my generousity.
That I am smarter than I thought, and have much more to learn.
That I have great friends that support my dreams and pursuits.
Sometimes I just need to rest and take in the moment.

I am truly blessed.

On the move......

It's been a busy 3 days of moving...ready? Hold on.....

Moved my sister Kelly and her girls into there own home, stuff from my house and her old house. (Sister Susan is here from Montana for a couple of days to help get them settled.)
Moved my son into a bedroom downstairs.
Moved my home office into my room.
Moved Letitia into the 3rd bedroom.
Moved the family room around, back into a family room.

Then we had a great 4th Birthday party and family BBQ for my grand daughter on Saturday night in the middle of it all! Can you say FUN? Actually all moves went great ...
Whew...I think I'll go to work to rest up :>)))

Transformations and dozers.....

I started my Saturday morning at 6 am, with coffee, knowing that the backhoe/bulldozer would be here about 7:30 am. Sure enough, they showed up. Ken, his son and nephew...all ready to jump in and get to work!

The lady that built this home loved rhodies and roses, and all other sorts of large plants. After 35 years, the place needed some thinning out. I had 7 trees removed last year and two large ones about a month ago.
This is the stump to one of the trees at the back left of the house...the other was just as large. about 3 feet across the base. Although we didn't remove these stumps, Ken did remove the other 7 from the other areas.

My dream is to create a peaceful space, install my pond (that I bought several years ago), install my fountain (that I bought several years ago) and get my vegetable garden started. I miss my old one.

The back of the house...before....

As you can see I started cutting down the 10 foot tall Rhodie earlier, and the tall european alderberries.

and after,,,, ahh, plenty of space for a stone patio and ....with the pond in place, ready to install.

The mound of dirt behind the pond is where the top level pond will go, to run water into the other.

Kelly bought me a beautiful red japanese maple for mother's day which I am going to plant next to the pond, to divide the upper area and lower patio a bit....it will look great next to the pond.

The side yard, before.....

and now where the vegies will grow in the same space,,,with my fountain placed at the rear of the section, overlooking the garden.

I was able to save one unique rhodie and place it where I removed two small birch trees that morning. you can see it next to the purple rhodie, in the 'before' side yard photo,,,,I had to trim it back a bit...but I think it will make it.

It is a beautiful light peach color. this is near the back corner of the property and will fill in nicely when I get the back fence installed.

Yes, lots of work,,,Brandon, Kelly and her girls all helped haul brush, load the trailer, pick through and get out the roots....we crashed hard that night. Thank you!!!!!

Now that the space is cleared out, I'll start adding to my dream throughout the next year...stay tuned.....oh, and look for the house to be painted....I think I've settled on a medium tan color, the trex deck has a red tint,,,I'm going to invest in one of those paint programs to play with the color scheme....anyone up for a painting party??

Rocks in my head....

So apparently there are little rocks in our inner ears...who knew?
My doc did a procedure to get them back into alignment and my vertigo is all healed.
Whew!

Feeling like a kid again....

So last Thursday morning when I woke up I had vertigo really bad, and it is still there. Everytime I turn my head too quickly or lay down or even roll over...ok, go ahead, make the dizzy blonde comment.
As the weekend progressed I was working in the yard, etc. I had to climb onto my roof, from my bedroom balcony. Did I mention that there is a railing in the way? about 3 1/2 feet tall? and about a 2 foot gap between there and the roof of the garage? and oh, BTW I have a serious fear of heights. As I 'gracefully' make my way to the roof, I land on my left leg giving the outside of my shin a great scrubbing from the roof tile...ok, ok, not so bad.
Later that day I dropped my keys on my right foot, poking a hole in the toe next to my 'pinkie', it's only slightly purple and still swollen....
The next day I start to reach into my car door and the top corner of the window stopped me with my left bicep~~~ Oh, I'm not done yet!
Still enjoying my naturally induced 'buzz' I am walking into a work site Tuesday morning and my heel gets caught in a 2" break in the sidewalk, and yep, down I go....witnesses and all.
So, the right ankle is swollen and bruised, my left knee lost only a top layer of skin and is only swollen a bit with a nice shade of purple......The ankle felt especially good when my chiropractor used the activator on the bruise to get in back in place. At least it moves better now...but MAN! did that smart!
And did I mention the carpel tunnel thing happening in my right wrist? A bit of typing lately.

I started thinking about this last night......this kind of thing happens to kids all the time, they end up bumped and bruised and scraped, whine about it a little, and then still have the moxy to go and play all day.......
I'm going to do the same. Just got done whining here, Heading in to work for a busy full day workshop and then one more day of work before I take the better part of next week off. (guess I'll see a doc about the dizzy thing while I'm off work.)
Enjoy your day ! and Be Safe!

Life at the Lake

Lake Meridian comes alive this time of year.
This weekend the waterskiers were out, the float plane took off and a ton of teenagers in cutoffs are running around. The kayaks were in the water in the morning.....
The police boat that docks across the street has started making it's daily rounds.
The sand is ready for toes to sink into, and ready to be shaped into sand castles.
I took the sunny Sunday opportunity to study outside....yep, you guessed it. Only about 1/2 the time, the rest was a great nap in the sun! (without the benefit of sunscreen,,,,not so great) The sound of the birds, and lapping of the water on the shoreline, warm sun was just too much to resist.
I'm going to fire up the barbeque for the first seasonal BBQ this weekend...should be fun.

Be careful what you ask for

I asked for balance and got the opportunity to practice it.

I attracted a little drama this week. My new neighbors are building a giant house and have kind of elbowed their way onto my property with an elevated driveway, saying it's their property.
Oh My, time for a surveyor.

Work is picking up the pace, more improvement workshops to lead, classes to teach and meetings to run....glad to have the job~ I'm lovin' it.

The house is empty for about 4 days, allowing me time to do homework. I got a nice visit from my dad and Terry, they came up from Oregon City for a couple of hours and got quite a few roses that I was getting rid of. Also helped me gather up old hoses and rope lights from the back yard. yes, rope lights...apparently the lady that lived here before loved them in trees. The bulldozer is coming in next Saturday to take out stumps, rhodies and a few other things to make way for the vegie garden and the brick patio. I'll post some before and after pics.

I finished up the PLA paper on Conflict Management....good reminders while I continue to work through the whole boundary issue.

I also got some time in the sun and took the convertible out for a spin, grabbed a chocolate shake and visited my aunt for few minutes.



Now, back home ready to dive into my Writing class homework and start my next paper on Listening.shhhhh.