Late September Musings

How in the heck is it late September? Life has been a whirlwind. I'm juggling, floundering, living, flourishing, surviving. It's crazy, beautiful chaos and I'm consistently overwhelmed on even the best days. Sometimes it feels like I'm leveling up and that I've totally got this. Sometimes it feels like it's all too much.

The silver lining (realization #53 of my forties: my toxic trait is that I am an aggressive seeker of silver linings) is a major shift in perspective this year. 

I have to choose exactly where I want to spend my time. I am setting boundaries with myself (as a serial people pleaser) - why am I spending time on this? Does this need to happen? Does it make our lives better? Does it make me happy or fulfilled? Does it make our family happy? Does this strengthen our family or community? Am I sharing this for myself and memories, or is it to stroke my own ego? Can I put this off? Let this go? Am I really letting someone down or is it no longer measuring myself by the expectations of others? How do I want to spend these little bits of precious time?

These questions have led us to... a messier house (but not so messy that it stresses me out). A dirty car. A mulch pile that is still sitting in the driveway. Laundry that doesn't always get put away. A neglected section of my yard that desperately needs weeding. Neglected craft kits bought with good intentions. A garage that still needs to be cleaned out. A basement that needs to be organized. But also... plenty of flowers in the garden and backyard. More friends over. More family visits. More play dates and trips to the pool and swims in the backyard and family bike rides and hikes and day trips and core memories. 

I am trying to carve out bits for myself, otherwise I would have gone batty months ago. All summer I made sure to take the time to enjoy the backyard pool more and not just clean it. I actually tried to swim or relax on my favorite float with headphones. We swam in the ocean, hiked to waterfalls, saw the rings of Saturn and the super moon from our telescope, watched the Perseides meteor shower from the mountains, floated down the Delaware River. Flowers and gardening are my big happy and I pick bouquets that fill our house until frost. I drink lavender cold brew, draw on my iPad or sketchbook, ride my bike, walk the dog, read plenty of books and try to meditate a few times a week. My goal is to spark joy, celebrate milestones and little things. Big adventures and small ones. Find the silver linings. 

And time is in short supply. Having two very active boys in multiple year-round sports is... a lot. It's good for them for a million reasons, it's fun, and we support whatever they want to do. I'm fully immersed in this season of life because I want to be here for it, I want to enjoy it. I know now that this is as fleeting as the early years which felt so endless at the time and are now distant specks in the rearview. The games and meets, the practices, the driving, the volunteer hours at their schools, the fun outings, family time and friend time and everything - it all takes up pieces of a finite amount of time. 

In April, May, June we had a completely insane schedule of double taekwondo and double baseball chaos, plus birthday season and general end-of-year craziness. June and July were packed with trying to juggle camps, swim team, swim lessons and taekwondo. In August camps wrapped up, we were grieving the loss of Mike's dad, we went away to the mountains in New York state, we prepped Oliver for middle school. September has been a lot of back-to-school chaos, both boys in soccer and taekwondo and Oliver is doing the middle school cross country team. It's A LOT. However, for Oliver this is his year of new sports... swim, cross country, wrestling, fencing, track and field... because we fell into the trap of "do what we've always done" in athletics (after a couple of failed attempts at new sports). We realized it's time to try some new things and explore new opportunities before he's locked out due to lack of experience. So this year is Oliver's journey to discover what else is out there, what sports he also enjoys. So far he loves swimming and he loves running... next year is going to be full of tough choices! 

As for my choices and this space, I know I've been posting less while flying too fast through my life. There have been so many distractions, and it's easy to overlook what I'm doing here, but the truth is I still like it. Writing and taking photos takes up precious time, but I'm looking at this blog like a journal. In the long run it's fulfilling to have posts to look back on. Re-reading some of my old content has brought me lot of joy. So I'm going to try to make a bit more effort in this space again (hopefully), I want to choose to come here more often. 

April Chaos

Things are BUSY. The house littered with cleats, baseballs, giant gym bags filled with sparring gear. There are nights when the kids are eat dinner in the car between practices. This past week we had 14 games/practices/sessions in 6 days between the boys. The spring is full with school events, volunteer work. Music lessons and rehearsals, after school clubs. It's a lot. Too much. 

It's raining heavily today, games cancelled, I've gained back 5 hours and it feels amazing. The kids are enjoying some unscheduled relaxation time before heading off to birthday parties. Right now I should be writing up the volunteer schedule for Science Day and making another signup genius. Or work on something artistic before I use up all my creative energy. Maybe bake a banana bread or organize the garage sale items in the basement because the town yard sale is coming all too soon. 

But  I feel like I've earned at least a few minutes here to write a quick update (Hi!) and reflect on the insanity of April. I dropped an entire carload of toddler stuff at my sister's house this morning from our attic and every square foot regained feels like an accomplishment. A weeks worth of teacher appreciation gifts were acquired during errands. My to-do lists are a mile long - I don't think that's going to end anytime soon and I am enjoying this unexpected break.

Inside the house in April, we did things! But now I need to photograph them which requires cleaning and good light and TIME. We updated Matt's room. New art that isn't for a baby nursery and reflects his interests. I drew most of it myself over the winter. We repaired a ceiling crack, painted his ceiling navy blue (just like Oliver's room) and restyled his bookshelves. Oliver's room also has new custom art. I repainted the downstairs half bath navy blue because it really needed a fresh coat of paint (and the dark blue looks SO GOOD in there). I've been meaning to do it for a year. We also repainted the upstairs bathroom ceiling after making a minor repair. The kitchen ceiling is untouched but next on our list. 

Outside... I prepped the garden for planting, but haven't done any planting yet (first weekend in May!). I have trays and trays of seedlings ready to finish hardening off this week. There are so many dahlias sprouted in the greenhouse. I bought a bunch of beautiful, earth-friendly native plants from a plant sale I ran for the boy's school recently and planted them in landscaping gaps in the yard (hopefully they do better than some of the other things I've planted). 

I'm still mulching the backyard, but I'm more than half done with the big pile. I really wanted to be done with it before May, but between the schedule and the weather it's a miracle I've gotten as far as I have to be honest. One big thing in my favor though is that the garden beds have needed very little weeding - the result of all my consistent mulching efforts the past few years. If it wasn't pouring right now I'd probably be outside mulching (OR at baseball!).

We have not touched the inside of the garage yet, but will have to get into high gear soon because it has the pool equipment, the flower pots and summer toys tucked inside. I have big plans to deliver the best of the outgrown toys to my sister and sell the rest at the yard sale. The patio furniture at least is set up and we are hoping to have the pool go up in the next 1-2 weeks depending on the weather. Lots to do and very little time to do it! 

This phase of life is crazy... but it's also beautiful and amazing and we are embracing it. Even though we are exhausted and overwhelmed sometimes, they are so lucky to have so many opportunities that it's hard to fit them all in. We are cramming as many fun things into the spaces between as we can. Sometimes it's big stuff (like day trips), sometimes it's little stuff (like homemade pizza on a family movie night) and sometimes it's in between (like friends over). I think my biggest issue right now is that I'm not taking enough pictures, I'm not documenting enough of the fun... but I'm absorbing it and it's keeping us going in the middle of the chaos. 

How is it August Already?

I didn't mean to only do gardening posts for three whole months. I have so many things to share but I'm lacking in photos. I need to take some photos, but I've been so busy doing and running from one thing to the next, photos fall to the bottom of the priority list. Life has been extra-extra busy. In the spring it was my day job + managing a surge of colds during allergy season (a double whammy that was hard on my asthmatic kids), a double baseball season because Matt started farm league instead of t-ball, Oliver earned his black belt, our family had our crazy but wonderful birthday season (one birthday after another!), and we were trying to cram an entire school year of activities into the final two months of school (which is an extra challenge sitting on the PTA board). We went away to the Catskills in June for a long weekend to celebrate my birthday and our anniversary. This summer has been a wonderful but exhausting nonstop rotation of camp pickups and drop offs, play dates and birthday parties and pool trips and cleaning our own pool and watering the garden and swim lessons and more play dates... it's been crazy and wonderful and exhausting. 

I completed my first big furniture reupholstery project! My sister had her first baby and one of her baby gifts was my mother's rocking chair, reupholstered with love in sage green velvet. I've never reupholstered anything before, it was a bit intimidating! With the help of YouTube tutorials and a very helpful lady at the fabric shop, I learned all about jute webbing, stretching, foam, etc. The original chair frame was in really good shape, it just needed cleaning and polishing. The 1980's gold velvet though was sagging and withered. I chose sage velvet to coordinate with my sister's chosen nursery color, and the sage and gold trim is a homage to the original chair choice. Mike had to help me with the stretching and stapling - it was a two person job - but I'm really happy with how it turned out. 

My nephew has since arrived and it was magical to be a part of the baby's first few days (officially I was "helping out" when really I was hogging as much baby time as possible). I was exhausted afterwards though - we are definitely done with the baby years at our house. 

On the home front, I'm working on so many projects! The dining room was repainted woodland white and the color is perfect. The living room is a soft silver. The trim is sparkling white and I REALLY need to photograph it before chocolatey fingerprints start building up again. Oliver has a new desk in his room, Matt has a new (to him) desk in his. I need to take photos of all these things - taking indoor photos is challenging in the best circumstances, and these days my time has been lacking. 

I found a desk for Oliver's room! It's the perfect size but it needed a fresh finish. I wasn't a bit fan of the yellow oak stain either so I sanded it and refinished it to a nice dark espresso. 

Both boys also need new art in their room, which is supposed to be my summer project... but then again WHY do I think I have time for summer projects in the summer? The summer always seems to be our busiest time! I also want to paint the stairwell to coordinate with the living room color. The kitchen walls and ceiling need some love. 

But it's progress! I'm making so much progress. Outside the garden and yard is now in maintenance mode (which is still a lot of work). Flower pots, flower beds (front and back) planted with dahlias and annuals. Every day I have to block off time to water the gardens, pick the gardens and clean the pool. Not a hardship by any means but they take time. 

The battle with the chipmunks has been time consuming as well. We escalated to rubber snakes (which worked for 2 days until they figured out they were fake) and traps (which they learned to avoid). Then finally, weather was cooler last week, so we finally had a chance to replace the deterrent netting with wire mesh. We knew they couldn't chew through that. And the bigger chipmunks can't get in. So what did they do? THEY SENT IN THE TINY ONES. I almost lost it. So then we had to add in hardware cloth along the bottom too. It's just out of control. 

This year I planted extra flowers in the front garden beds of the house. Last year it looked SO nice with all the dalinovas, I realized I should plant flowers all the way across the shrubs with more variety. This year it's a mix of snapdragons, dalinovas and lantanas, with a couple of taller dahlias in the open space next to the new shrub that needs to grow. It's a rainbow of color and I'm really happy about it. 

I cleaned up the greenhouse finally. It was such a mess from the winter and spring. Now it's a clean slate for working in here and eventually bringing things back in during the fall. 

I'm also trying to make time for little hobbies. First and foremost, my little flower farm has filled our house with bouquets regularly. Every time they fade, it's time for another harvest.

I even pressed a bunch of flowers again this year. I have a thing for pressed flowers. Overall I think the ones I pressed back in 2020 were better, but from this year's batch, the calendula and geraniums came out even better than I hoped. The cosmos came out as expected, but the rest of the flowers turned out more brown than I wanted. Several of them were experiments, and I've learned that yarrow and astilbe are much prettier and more colorful dried than pressed. A few things I pressed that worked before just turned moldy. Maybe it's that I used a different pressing method this time? 

I'm on a syrup kick this year. Every year I seem to get into something new in the summer kitchen. It started with lavender syrup (with dried lavender from the garden) to make lavender lattes and lavender cold brews. Next was blueberry syrup with the last meyer lemon from our tree which is weirdly good for lattes/cold brew and of course amazing for cocktails, waffles, seltzer... basically anything you want to add blueberry citrus to. Both taste like you're drinking summer. I'm so limited in my food consumption these days, these really brighten up my routine. 

Doldrums of Winter & The Tiny Joys

I haven't posted recently because... well, I didn't like anything I've started to write. This winter is a slow crawl of chilly days strung together with doctor appointments for Matt. Any myself. And too many COVID tests. The stress of having a medically delicate kid during another pandemic peak has been a lot. We are figuring things out, grateful to live near a top hospital with specialists who are able to tease apart symptoms and test results, build a plan to manage all of this. There is hope. But every time I have started a post recently I waffle between ignoring it all for the sake of being SUPER POSITIVE (EVERYTHING IS FINE! GREAT! WONDERUL! HAHAHAHAHA LA LA LA! I am only acknowledging the life I want to live and manifest!) or going way too far into how stressed and tired I am and it re-reads as... kind of overwhelming? Depressing and a bit whiney? 

I want to be honest without throwing a pity party. And honestly... January and February are just plain tough months on their own. The normal winter bugs, the lack of sunlight, the freezing temperatures outside and the irritating dry air indoors. Polar vortexes, ice storms, winds that rattle the house. Add in our current COVID crisis (omicron is finally calming down in NJ but the numbers are still high compared to fall), the looming deadline to de-mask in schools, supply chain issues (shopping at multiple grocery stores to find the basics every week is getting old), all the juggling of working full time and motherhood and a chronically ill child home for sick days frequently... I'm tired. I'm more than tired. I have been living in a state of chaos and stress and winter for so long now that I have new lines on my face and my hair looks terrible and I'm always cold. 

I'm fighting the winter blues with small joys. Every morning the sun shines through the kitchen and dining room windows making tiny rainbows from the prisms. Random and cheap spring bulbs from Trader Joe's are providing the spring scent of hyacinths when I work at the table. Little bouquets of flowers from the greenhouse are bringing me a lot of joy. We've made homemade caramel, played lots of board games, watched new movies, gone sledding, taken long winter walks, made snowflakes and valentines. There are many bright spots when I look for them. 

Other joys include... more flowers! Now that it's February, I'm starting my ranunculus bulbs I ordered in the Fall. Last year I ordered them for spring, but they didn't arrive until mid-April and it was too warm. The corms didn't do well because it grew too hot too quickly and they rotted. Fingers crossed that these do better. They are one of my favorite flowers, but difficult to grow in the Northeast. I'm hoping that starting these now, in the greenhouse, will give me a real ranunculus growing season. 

And speaking of favorite flowers... dahlias. It's no fun being practical or reasonable when it comes to dahlias (or any flower tbh), but I did not order any new dahlia bulbs this year. GASP. I know. This was hard for me. But it came down to three reasons: 1) I have way too many dahlia bulbs already in multiple crates, 2) I couldn't decide which one I would remove from the flower cutting bed if I had a new one to bring in, and 3) I spent so much time waffling thanks to the first two reasons, my top two choices sold out. So we're going to pretend I didn't get new bulbs this year for practical and reasonable reasons. And truly it's for the best because I have no idea where I would put new dahlias right now, let alone where I'm going to fit the bulbs I have already. This year I need to give some serious thought to additional dahlia/flower space this year if I want more. 

I did order my seeds for spring and summer and am planning out the garden. Going through a big stack of seed catalogs keeps me going in the winter - even if I don't need to order much. The garden is going to be pretty similar to last year with a few tweaks I think. I'm REALLY looking forward to getting my tomato and flower seeds started in a few weeks! 

Spring hurry up, I'm ready for the doldrums of winter to be over. 

New Year, New Beginnings

Happy New Year! 

I am especially grateful for the change in calendar year this time around. This year, more than others, it feels like I am in dire need of a fresh start. I know it's been a hard year for everyone, and this past year has most definitely taken its toll on me. I'm trying. I try to put my energy into the bright side of things, find the blessings in the challenges, grow stronger from every hill we have to climb and be grateful for all of the wonderful good things in our lives (because there is so much, even when things are hard). But this year definitely knocked me down and rolled me sideways. I think I'm still tumbling to be honest. 

This year... I don't know if I ran out of steam, or if the constant shifting of pandemic guidelines and safety just left me sputtering. I felt like we were taking too many risks and being left behind all at once, doing too much and yet not nearly enough. I felt like I lost myself, sifting through the days strung together by doctors appointments and sports practices, looking for things to help and hold onto. I was frustrated with my health and the lack of control with chronic illness. I've had to come to terms with my diagnoses, to accept the reality of this new life, while also powering through to things like work, practices, games and activities. Managing is very different than overcoming. 

The storm hasn't relented. If it's not me, it's the kids. Someone doesn't feel well, something hurts, someone is sad, upset, had their feelings hurt at school. Big things, little things, pandemic things and growing up things... it's all part of life but in combination they build up. This year Matt developed a severe, potentially-dangerous grass pollen allergy and is getting weekly allergy shots for a year (then monthly for several years after). Kindergarten germs are brutal during the best of times. We've had to play "is it a cold or COVID?" way too many times already. And the day after Christmas he ended up in the Pediatric ICU and gave me a million gray hairs. He's doing a lot better and is even back in school, but we have a long road ahead with specialists lined up to figure out what the heck happened, why and how to prevent it in the future. More days ahead strung together by doctor appointments.

Last year I made grand declarations at New Year's. Better! Stronger! Healthier! I will soon be diagnosed and vaxxed and ready to take on the world! I felt like the only way we could go was up. Turns out we can also go sideways. And I've learned that sometimes the halfway, between stages are just as hard as the big bad part, just in different ways. This year my goals are smaller. Softer. Whispers of what might be possible. Happy and healthy have become moving targets. We've cancelled so many plans in the past 6 weeks that part of me wants to throw in the towel and stop trying. Omicron feels inevitable in NJ (we're talking over 25,000 new cases a day, every day). The gap keeps widening. Maybe I'll just paint the dining room instead. 

But I am trying. And I'll keep trying to focus on the silver linings and nurturing the sunshine that hasn't quite fizzled out yet. I'll make plans in my head and on paper and hope for the best. I'll keep our house stocked with tissues, Gatorade, and chicken soup just in case. I'll meditate, go for morning walks with Mike and Morgan, take deep breaths and hide in the greenhouse with my plants . I'll pick little vases of winter flowers. I'll play games with the boys every day and tell them over and over how much I love them. We'll find and build our own new normal, an in-between, and I'm going to try to let go of expectations. 

I have every hope that 2022 will be a brighter year, a better year, for all of us. 

A Chronic Illness Diagnosis

I mentioned this a few times, but I've been sick for about a year and a half. It hasn't all been one single issue, but more like a series of unfortunate events and conditions (like the emergency appendectomy). I've seen more doctors, had more tests and been under anesthesia more in the past 18 months than in the rest of my life combined. However, there is finally light at the end of the tunnel. 

I'm finally ready to talk about it here, because I have a diagnosis. Actually 5-6, because of course I can't just have one thing wrong with me, but multiple things that required a really exceptional gastroenterologist-diagnostician to figure out. And it took a long time to get to him. I've spent the past year being misdiagnosed, going from specialist to specialist, running a repeat of the same tests (but through the lens of their specialty), doctors only addressing symptoms and prescribing me drugs at best. At worst they were giving advice that actually aggravated my condition, making assumptions and judgements due to my weight or being a woman. A true low point for me was when one doctor told me that the medicine wasn't working because, "sometimes anxiety, particularly in females, can reach a level of hysteria that overrides the medication." Not that I might be misdiagnosed. He blamed Female Hysteria. Like it's the Victorian Era. Did I mention I am lucky enough to live in an area where we have some of the best doctors in the country and top hospitals? What do people in other parts of the country with only one hospital DO?

Living with a chronic illness is no joke. I decided to share it because it's been such a big part of my life and will continue to be, but mostly I tried to keep it quiet for a long time. Partly because I was struggling, partly because I kept getting misdiagnosed, partly because I didn't want the attention. There are a lot of stigmas. People's reactions are awkward. But for anyone else out there who's suffering, maybe me talking about some of my stuff will make you feel less alone. Chronic illness is isolating, it's a struggle. And it can be cyclical, so you never know when it's going to flare up. Making plans, going out, doing anything can feel daunting.

I am now on the road to recovery, though I will have to take medication for the rest of my life and deal with some massive life changes to manage my conditions. And not everything can be fixed with pills. One of my conditions is something called gastroparesis. Basically my stomach doesn't contract to digest and move food through properly, which makes me feel very sick when I eat. And my stomach doesn't expand. I get sick really easily, I was nauseous all the time. The only way to manage it is through a strict diet. No fat, no fiber, no tough meats, no seeds, nothing that expands in the stomach. So no fruits and vegetables except overcooked carrots and zucchini. No nightshades (tomatoes, peppers, white potatoes). Nothing with fat like chocolate or avocado or nuts. No bread or baked goods. Think lots of bone broth, collagen powder, a few crackers, a single meal a day of chicken soup with overcooked carrots and a little plain pasta. I have really bad GERD from this condition too, but now that it's healing I can use my new juicer to get some vitamins from a selection of fruits and vegetables without the fiber. 

The thing about gastroparesis is that there is no cure and there are a million causes for it. Sometimes they can figure it out the cause, sometimes they can't. Sometimes it's permanent, sometimes it gets better with the treatment of the underlying cause. My condition is considered mild to medium (I don't need a feeding tube, I can keep down liquids and gastroparesis-friendly solid food), which means there is hope it might just get better on its own long term (like in a year). But also, maybe not. And we don't know what caused it - it could be from one of the other conditions I have, it could be diagnosis number six waiting in the wings. And there's no long term treatment for gastroparesis, the drugs that can be used to temporarily relieve it have some very scary side effects long term and don't do a darn thing to fix it. To me it's not worth it. 

I was just settling into my gastroparesis diagnosis when I got another curveball added in - I have celiac disease. This was a shock because I was tested for it over and over, and it never showed up in my bloodwork - just in a genetic test and a biopsy. The crackers and plain pasta that made my stomach happier were making the rest of me really sick. This is a hard change for me because my diet is already so limited. I'm struggling with this one. Yes there are LOTS of gluten free options out there in this day and age... but a lot of them contain fat and fiber to make them palatable and I have to be so careful. Mostly it's the rice stuff that I can have... and it takes some getting use to. 

And before anyone gets weird about "but white rice isn't healthy!"... this is from a nutritionist, humans need carbs in our diet to live. My best options are juice and rice because fiber is actually dangerous for gastroparesis patients. Imagine waking up one day and suddenly everything healthy you normally eat  made you sick. And no doctors believed you, while you got worse and worse. It was HARD. Looking back, the worst part was not knowing. Not knowing why, not knowing what it was, being afraid that eventually I wouldn't be able to eat anything at all. 

I also want to acknowledge that I KNOW everyone has had a tough 18 months thanks to the pandemic. This isn't meant to be a pity party for one. What I'm going through isn't exceptional and I think the pandemic struggle has been universal for a variety of our own reasons. And for all those hardships, there was a silver lining for me because I could hide my illness for a long time thanks to the quarantine restrictions. No one could get together much anyways. Stick to your bubble. Only a few people outside my family needed to know. I was able to hide it for the most part. And at the limited things we attended I could pretend I was eating or stick to water in a red solo cup because everything was outside anyways. Sports were limited or virtual. As soon as the cold weather hit, I was able to wrap myself up in my giant coat and no one could see the weight loss. Hibernating in the winter is kind of my default setting anyways. 

And then it was spring and suddenly everyone's vaccinated and making plans and outdoor sports to attend no matter what I felt like. It was scary... but the only way past it is through. I put my big girl pants on, stuffed a sleeve of anti-nausea meds in my purse and sucked it up. Sometimes I was fine. Sometimes I was miserable. I learned to wait to eat solid food until after we're back home. Never before. I figured out a game plan, and it's working. I bring bone broth to places and gatherings in a travel mug as my meal. If they don't know about it yet, I confess my illness. I'm used to watching other people eat now. I've had to cook for my family for months and not touch a bite of it. I've dealt with the uncomfortable compliments. Awkward comments. Embarrassing questions. I am a pro at it now. 

Honestly the hardest part for me was not having answers to questions, having to say "I'm sick but we don't know what it is," because it has left me feeling very vulnerable. Because I've been to so many doctors and had so many tests and so many misdiagnosis issues (including some big scares). And while some well-meaning people love to play detective doctor with google and webmd to help... sometimes it got embarrassing. And weird. And honestly I was getting enough bad advice from doctors, let alone from random people with no medical knowledge. But it's okay because now I have the answers, the correct answers. I'm armed with knowledge now. 

The gastroparesis diagnosis came first out of everything by almost two months. As scary as it is, it's also been a shield to protect myself. I'm not being picky, I'm not being difficult. I don't have an eating disorder. It's not in my head. I have gastroparesis, an actual disability. I'm not being lazy, I'm having a flare up. It's okay to rest, it's okay not to eat that, it's okay, it's okay, it's okay. My first real diagnosis allowed me to stop feeling guilty about ignoring bad advice from doctors that was making me worse. I can wear the condition as armor around people with uncomfortable questions, with nonsense suggestions. After months and months of not knowing what is wrong with me... knowledge is power, knowledge is strength and just knowing is everything I need to keep going. 

Mentally and physically I feel better than I have for a long time. I have to take medications 6x a day which is kind of a pain, but I'll get used to it since I'll be doing that forever. Things are going to take time to heal (like the celiac disease... it will take months to fully detox from the wheat gluten), but I feel better than I have in over a year and that's HUGE. Onwards and upwards. 

And finally... for anyone else dealing with chronic illness or autoimmune stuff that doctors can't figure out... keep fighting for yourself, searching and don't give up. Doctors are human with their own biases, overloaded with cases and often just want to treat the symptoms. I was about ready to give up on getting a diagnosis when I finally got into see the doctor who figured it all out for me. He was my sixth doctor and the first one who wanted to figure out the root cause and not treat my symptoms. So get a second opinion, a third, a sixth. There's hope. Even if the answer isn't what you wanted... knowing sometimes can make all the difference. 

November Yard Cleanup

We had a wild week last week. We were hard at work cleaning up the yard for winter and putting the plants to bed. We had been gifted with a string of non-rainy, very warm days and I definitely didn't want to waste them. There's always so much to do to get ready for winter. And honestly I have had a lot of nervous energy to burn all week as I repeatedly checked the internet for election results. 

I went through and cleaned up all the spent perennials. It makes the yard look a little less ragged as things start to die off. I'll have to do a second round after a few hard freezes. I also cleaned up all the deceased annuals in pots so that the pots can be stored in the garage for winter. Some pots I overwinter against the house to give the hardier plants a chance to survive, but if they don't it's okay. 

---

Dahlias! We hard our first frost/hard freeze at the end of October and it nipped most of the flowers. I dug up all of the dahlia bulbs and put them in paper bags to store them in the basement for winter.

Each bag holds one type of dahlia. Most of these bags have multiple bulbs in them! Looking at all the bags together... I have A LOT of dahlias. I put the bulbs in the paper bag dirt and all and it seems to work for the winter. The paper bags are each put in a plastic shopping bag, then stored in crates in the basement crawlspace, as dahlia bulbs prefer to overwinter at 40-60 degrees. 

---

Figs! Mike and I also wrapped the fig tree this winter, trying something new that my neighbors do. They have a medium fig tree and it produces TONS of figs every year. They wrap it in pink house insulation and plastic after the first frost every year and that seems to be the key. So this year, we are trying the same thing with the Chicago Hardy fig in hopes of also creating a lovely high production fig tree. I trimmed all the excess suckers from the ground and we wrapped just the three main trunks that were the largest.

I recently moved a huge piece of the Brown Turkey Fig tree into a pot and put it in the greenhouse. It is still alive, if I can keep it alive all winter we might get figs from that next year too (and if not, I can try again next year, there's still a large piece of it in the ground here). So fingers crossed for a lot more figs next year! 

---

The garden was half done by Thursday. I pulled up and chopped up the dahlias and zinnias to be picked up by our town's brush pickup because they had terrible powdery mildew and could not be composted. Only a few still-green things were left (besides the herbs) - chard, carrots, snapdragons and yarrow. 

I had big plans to finish it on Friday. Put down fresh black plastic and harvest the chard and carrots. Clean everything up and have the garden ready for winter in the nice weather.

Life had other plans. 

I woke up with strange abdominal pain on Friday. I rested, figuring it would pass. However it got worse and worse as the day wore on. I ended up in the hospital with acute appendicitis and was operated on Saturday morning. I woke up from surgery to the wonderful news about the election (silver lining!). I am still in shock about the whole thing - how I can go from a busy day of yardwork to being so ill so quickly? 

Since then, I'm home recovering. I'm a little bit better every day and this week I'm back on the computer. I'm not allowed to lift anything over 10 lbs for 6 weeks, which seems impossible, but at the same time I still can't even move much so it's probably totally reasonable. 

Mike tackled finishing the garden for me over the weekend while I "supervised" and didn't lift a finger. The boys helped too which was very sweet. I feel better having everything mostly put to bed for the season.  The rest of my to-do list will wait for a warm winter's day or the spring. I'm just so grateful that I got the tender dahlia bulbs dug up before all this happened.