Highlights

This week has been full of adventures.

Educational: The kids and I went with a friend to pick apricots in Egin. The trees were loaded but not quite ready to pick. While I was visiting with the tree owner, Erika, Justin, Derek and Terressa were scoping out the random plants that filled the garden (and it was a huge garden). They found these little spikey watermelon looking things growing on vines:

All the lady could tell us is that they were hops. As we were walking back to the Yukon we also found these little "mini pineapples" as Derek called them.

We were all giggling and laughing on our way back home because the only thing we could come up with about hops was that they were for some kind of drugs. We just had to look it up when we got home. Come to find out, the little spikey watermelons were really wild cucumber (not edible) and the mini pineapples were hops (used in the beer making process). It was a random vegetation internet field trip.

Frustrating (and Painful): Before our little apricot adventure I went down to the cold storage room (concrete room under the porch) to get the sugar. I already knew that it was hard as a rock because Derek had told me a couple of days earlier when he was attempting to fill the bucket. I was going to try to break it all up before we needed it to make syrup. What I found was that all of my bags of flour (8), sugar (4), oats (1) and rice (1) were all covered in mold. I figured that the sugar was hard because humidity had been in the room from when the builder pressure sprayed the rock for the homeshow but I had found online how to fix the sugar problem. Now I have to dump out about $165 worth of food storage but I'm also concerned about putting anything in there at all. It has seemed very warm and humid in my storage rooms and there is no circulating air in there. Just another thing to bother the builder about. Arghggh!

Truly Painful: Goatheads. I hate them! They flatten bike tires, stick in shoes, come in on pant legs and hide in my carpet. Not to mention that they HURT! These little buggers do not bend at all, they are like furniture tacks and they really dig in hard. I have stepped on 3 of them during the last 2 days and I have one spot that is red and inflamed. As if I need any more pain on my feet!

Yummy: I'm trying a couple of new recipes. Copycats from Olive Garden (Chicken Scampi), Lion House Pantry (rolls), carmel rice pudding, and maple corn bread. I'll post the good ones on my other blog.

Helpful: A friend showed up at my door on Friday and just needed to talk. I found that I needed to talk also and at the end of our long visit we couldn't decided who needed it more. We have both been struggling with feelings of inadequacey, wondering where we fit in, guilt at all that we don't get done as well as the guilt of being so blessed and feeling undeserving and then there is the issue of a poor body image. It was nice to get it all out, challenge each other, commit to check up on each other (Monday) and just simply not feel alone.

Spiritual: I was called by the Enrichment Leader to head up the Sisters in White group. This is a group of ladies that all go to the temple together. They already had a sign up sheet go around so I just had to pick a day/time and get it on the RS calendar. This will really help me to get to the temple at least once a month. This month we are doing an evening session and in October we are doing a daytime session. Maybe I'll get to know some of the sisters in our ward better.

Tiring: Nathan and Hyrum must be feeling a little of the stress that I'm trying so hard to suppress. They have both been up at least twice during each night for the past 4 nights. I'm so tired! Tonight I gave them both gripe water which is for grumpy/fussy babies due to teething, tummy aches or just plain fussiness. It has chamomile in it and I also heated up the chamomile rice pack that John gave to me for Christmas and put it in their room. It sure smells like sleepy heaven in there. Hopefully we will all get a good nights sleep tonight.