Less Word Wednesday...

Here it is, another Wednesday... and it's late! So, today's photo is a birdcage that I found during a stop at a Goodwill store... oh yah, a whopping $5! I was looking for some nifty glassware and/or some candlestick lamp bases for my whole "grief nesting" process that I'm going through. I didn't find any but after a can of white spray paint, I'm totally excited to see how this turns out!

This was a great little family day. We didn't do anything terribly exciting but we did sleep in, play, took naps and then cruised all over Vancouver stopping at some places that I've never been looking for great little decorating finds. This kids even did really well, not that it's a huge surprise. I'm sure we'll be going back into town tomorrow though as it appears that K is coming down with some sort of eye infection. Poor thing.

So, as I was sitting here I thought it was pretty funny that "seek and you shall find" popped into my head so, here's the rest:

Matthew 7:7,8

"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened."

I'm loving how even in a trip to Goodwill, God speaks to us.

Alone-liness...

Yes, I realize that's not a real word but I like it. Well, I don't like the idea behind it but I do like the fact that the one pseudo-word does capture the feeling. By the way, it's Tuesday night isn't it? Why, yes it is... I knew there was a reason I was feeling scattered and restless. At any rate back to my non-word. I have realized that in the underground "grief world" there seem to be a lot of comments about 'alone-liness' and while it often feels that way, it just doesn't have to because it's not true. Sure our hearts are breaking but that should be because they are exploding from what we have, not imploding for what we're missing.

While it's important to surround yourself with people who can lift you up while you are in your darkest hours, He is always with you and will always listen when you cry out. As I was starting to type this out I was realizing that it was all starting to sound a bit too familiar. So, lest I start plagiarizing, I went back and re-read yesterday's e-votional and sure enough, I'm teetering so I'm just going to copy and paste part of what I was trying to say...

Isaiah 41:10
"So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with My righteous right hand."

"When we read today's Scripture we see that when we are the children of God we are never alone. Not only do we have His presence, but we also have His strength. When we feel that things are just too much for us, we need to remember that He says that we are not to fear or be depressed. Why? Because He never leaves us nor forsakes us.

It is easy to become so overcome with our circumstances that we forget that God has a plan and a purpose for our life. In the midst of our pain and loneliness, He holds out His arms and calls us to come to Him. Do not become caught in the trap of feeling that there is no hope.

God does not work on the same time schedule that we do. Joseph knew years of loneliness before he was elevated by God to a position of being able to save His family. Moses had to spend 40 long and lonely years in a desert wilderness before God called to him from the burning bush and sent him to lead God's people out of slavery.

When you feel that you are alone and forgotten please read today's passage once again and know that it was meant for you. YOU ARE NOT ALONE--HE IS ALWAYS WITH YOU--EVEN IN THE DARKEST NIGHT!"

Rather comforting, don't you think? It is also important to reach out to those who you know may be feeling down or lonely. If there's something simple that you can do, do it - it may make a huge difference in their day and really, you'll get the reward of feeling good about it too. I guess I just get a bit more introspective after someone says to me "you're so strong", "you're superwoman", etc. etc. etc. I am only strong because He carries my burdens. If I had to do this by myself and feel all of the alone-liness, I'd surely crumble.

Up Close and Personal...

As promised, I'm going to share some up close and personal photos of some of the plants in Eli's garden. Some of these in the photos have already been mowed over by a hungry deer who decided to walk the perimeter of our yard last night and chomp on almost every plant that had gone in the ground. Of course, at first this really frustrated me. I wasn't sad so much as annoyed that I was correct, the deer are going to be my biggest enemy in this project. However I decided to go ahead and look at it as a learning experience. I'll go ahead and watch what they eat, try to protect it as much as possible but in the end, I'm going to just go ahead and choose the plants that the deer don't really like to eat. I think I'll be adding in primroses for some splashes of color that I've never seen the deer eat. I'm also going to hope that as the plants mature some more, they become less tasty. I'm also going to go pick up some flowers that tend to deter the deer, catmint, sage, lavender, there was also a really minty ground covering that I ran across at one of the nurseries that I visited so I may get some of that. Apparently planting in proximity to the holly wasn't even going to keep this one from munching. Luckily, one of my favorites, the salvia, remained untouched. My girlfriend M had given me one from her garden and I picked up another that was in bloom so that's a good sign! There's one thing that should survive!



I could obviously go on and on about what will, won't and should work but that will have to wait. On to some of the plantings:



Scotch Moss... this is a cool ground cover that gives a nice shot of neon green. It's also supposed to produce little white flowers in the spring, we'll just have to wait and see!


Sedum... has neat foliage and should produce some tall tufts of flowers in mid-summer.


Creeping Phlox... another low plant with purple flowers and interesting foliage. This one will still be hit or miss as the deer ate come of the flowers but not all and none of the foliage.

Firewitch Dianthus... this is a really pretty pink with a ton of flowers on it. It doesn't seem to be too tough as the deer stepped on it but I was able to revive it and it was nice to see that none of it was eaten!

Star Lithodora... another blue trailing perennial. This came out totally unharmed and it's really cute. One of our cats loves it though (rolls all over it) so let's hope it stays tough!

Heliotrope... I love how different and dark these flowers are! Apparently they tasted quite yummy too as both plants were stripped even though I planted them right up against the holly in hopes of giving them a little extra protection. Lesson learned. I haven't given up on this one but I'm not going to expect too much from it which is a bummer since the butterflies love it.

Blue Fescue... a blue toned grass. It looks very interesting though and is supposed to flower a bit as well. The deer apparently have no desire to eat grass. They totally left this alone and they do have acres upon acres of grass all around Eli's garden.

Bachelor's Buttons... This should certainly do well as we have a big bunch of clumps in the field just below the garden. I really like the cool flowers, they remind me of little sea anemones.

Erysimum... bright, cute, cheery, tasty! On the bright side there is a new little bunch of buds that will probably be in bloom in a week or two if they don't get eaten as well.

So, that's a close up of some of the plants that were placed in Eli's garden. Of course I chose the ones that are more interesting at this point. The daisies, day lilies, phlox (which is also apparently a little bit yummy), Butterfly bush, black eyes Susan's, all are just green at this point. I'm excited to see how the garden grows and matures through this season and the next and the years following.

Thanks to everyone for sharing in our excitement. I'm really looking forward to getting even more done. I don't expect this to be a project with a finish line which is actually really nice - it's fun to get out there and tend to the plants and see what's going to do well and what's not!

Show & Tell...

I thought I'd take a quick moment and share what I managed to accomplish out in Eli's garden this weekend. I wish it photographed better but I don't think the photos do it justice. In person it looks so much nicer. It isn't complete. There is one area that's bugging me and we still need to get some mulch down but it's certainly an improvement over the last step!

Over the next few days I'll share some closeups of some of the individual flowers. Right now there's a lot of green but hopefully by the first part of August, everything will be in full bloom!

This really has been therapeutic, working on the flower garden, and the kids have had a blast helping some too. I'm going to keep it short tonight as I have a killer headache and I still have one more wall to paint in the dining room. Remember that "grief nesting"? It's still going strong. This weekend I not only got a lot done in Eli's garden, I painted the living room and dining room. I highly anticipate some posts about being tired in the near future *wink*!

A Fly By...

I was planning on posting a "tease" of all the work I got done on Eli's garden today. However, this was too fun to resist posting. As I was getting the last of the plants in his garden, the hummingbirds were crazy! They were chirping at each other, chasing, teasing, dare I say bullying one another. We were able to identify 4 different birds at once but we're still not sure how many we really have around the place. So, after the sun set, I was able to catch a handful of photos and these two were my favorite.

I love how you can see the little feet pulled up, ready for the landing!

You can see each teeny, tiny feather on this one.

And with that, it's cool to remember that God created all these creatures, great and small!

3's About Me...

Well, since this blog is mine, I guess it's ok to be self centered right? Actually this was sent to me by my sister-in-law who really should update her blog more often *wink wink*. It's late and I'm tired so I figure where better to do this than here!

3's About Me!

Three jobs I have had in my life:
- University of Montana Admissions Assistant
- Newspaper Advertising Manager
- Optician

Three places I have lived:
-Harstine Island, Washington
-Forest Grove, Oregon
-Missoula, Montana

Three shows that I watch:
-Local News
-CSI
-Criminal Minds

Three places I have been:
- Cabo San Lucas, Mexico
- Manhattan, New York
- Deadwood, South Dakota

Three places I'd rather be right now:
- In bed sleeping
- On a warm beach with a cool breeze
- Did I already say "in bed sleeping"?

Three of my favorite foods:
- Coffee, yes I consider that a FOOD :-)
- Anything Mexican
- Homemade Chicken Alfredo

Three of my favorite colors:
- Pink
- Robin's Egg blue
- Apple green

And with all of that, more than you probably ever wanted to know. I will draw tonight's entry to a boring close!

Wandering...

Today is one of those days where I have had a million thoughts racing through my head, so fast that I'd be lucky to catch just one. So, since it's wonderfully quiet in the house today (tandem naps - woohoo!) I went blog wandering. It's funny how you stumble across them. As you've probably found, one leads to another, which leads to another which leads to another that has very little in common with the one you started at, yet, somewhere there, there's a common thread. Yesterday I read an amusing play by play on piglets being born among other things. Today I sat down for a few minutes, looking for some home inspiration (which I'll probably get into later) and clicked around to some familiar places and ended back reading about a yard sale painting with a wonderful message.

Psalm 40:5

"Many, O Lord my God, are the wonders you have done. The things you planned for us no one can recount to you; were I to speak and tell of them, they would be too many to declare."

It's hard not to slip back into that pit of grief and I started thinking about it, while cleaning the bathroom of all things, and I realized that my grief is not really for the loss of Eli. He's safe. He's happy. He's healthy. He's perfect. He's running the streets of glory hanging out with some really cool people. But what I'm grieving is the loss of all of the "could have been's" for us as a family.

I was thinking about a pink baby tub/sling that we were going to purchase at Target. Then I had to slap myself back into the reality of the fact that #1, Eli's in Heaven and #2, he was a boy and we probably wouldn't have gone out of our way to purchase him a pink tub... blue probably, well, maybe. I'm not sure if it's all part of the loss process or if it's yet another unique situation. See, my "gut instinct" couldn't really settle on what I thought we were having, his high heart rate pointed to a girl based on the old wives tales. During the fateful ultrasound, I asked if she could tell the gender, she commented that "there was nothing to indicate that baby was a boy, looks like a girl". However, upon delivery, he was quite clearly all boy! So, I'm not sure what that's all about in my head. I had started the grieving process for our baby girl (if only for 2 days) and then had to start over grieving our little boy, Eli. I guess it was just one more of those "things" and probably why I still get that sinking feeling at baby items period... gender just doesn't matter. I'm not even sure why I brought that up other than, even that is something that was written in God's plan.

I have faith that God's plan is for us to prosper and I have to grow and learn from this situation. However, I also don't want to wallow in it. Yes, I know this blog is about my healing process and part of that process is going to have to be writing about the other things in my life besides Eli. He was a short entry in our lives that has made a huge impact but I have to make sure that the impact is a positive one. I want something good to come of this, I'm just not sure what it is going to be yet. I have a few ideas of how I can help other moms going through the same thing but I don't want Eli's life and death to be for not.