The Pumpkin Lady

drive a few miles down the road from my house, turn and go another mile or so and you will arrive at what I affectionately call, "The Pumpkin Lady". Under a small white canopy sits a wonderful assortment of squash, gourds, pumpkins, indian corn, sweet corn, potatoes, bales of hay, cornstalks, and romance novels (yes that is right.....along with this wonderful bounty of nature sits romance novels). The Pumpkin Lady is more than reasonably priced--she is down right cheap in her prices. big pumpkins go for fifty cents, small gourds are two for a quarter, pie pumpkins are thirty-five, etc. it is amazing what you can get for so little--in fact in the past few weeks i have spent no more than 10 dollars and i have at least 15 pumpkins/gourds on my porch and a bunch more inside my house. i love the small town-ness of it all--you go in, pick out whatever your heart desires and place your coins in her padlocked tool-box of a money collection tin.

in the past two weeks, i have met the pumpkin lady three times.....after never meeting her before in the year that i have been going to her place. i am amazed by what i have garnered from our encounters--she is incredibly down to earth and hard working. she is an "older" lady (hard to tell because she is "weathered" by hard labor) yet drags around bales of hay and huge gourds like they are nothing. her smile is contagious and friendly. she wants to do right for others. she is concerned that if she raises her prices, that those who truly want pumpkins would not be able to afford them (especially in this economy she shared with me). she is kind, considerate, and giving. i love that she works hard to provide things that others get so much happiness from. i love that she is hard working yet does not expect a boat load of money for her endeavors. in fact, it is my feeling that money does not make her wealthy--hard work and enjoyment in life does. i have learned a lot of lessons as i have thought about the pumpkin lady. there are days i have thought, my goodness, my time is worth so much more than what you are paying me for..... but really, my hard work pays off in so many other ways that financial payment is not even the most important part.

if you get over our way in the next month or so, let me know and i will take you down to enjoy the pumpkin lady.

Facing my Fears

As many of you know, I have a specific phobia disorder--and it manifests itself in several ways. I have worked really hard on my puke phobia and am doing much better in this area. Today I faced another one of my phobias: FROGS. I have a terrible phobia of frogs and toads..... I do not mind snakes, turtles, salamanders, etc but Frogs and Toads give me pretty strong physical, emotional and mental reactions.

I have been working on this phobia of mine for a while...mostly with trying to produce "an experience" mentally and thinking through it. I have also been conscious of my reactions to them--especially when Jack and Luke are around--I do not want my phobias impacting them negatively. In fact, a week or two ago, we saw a small frog in the woods and I bent down to get a better look and thought (for a while) about touching it but he was not that cute and I just did not have the nerve to do it. Today, when I picked the boys up from daycare, I saw a small orangish/green frog hopping around the grass--he teeny teeny tiny! Jack was so excited and tried to pick it up but the frog hopped away. Jack was frustrated after several attempts at trying to capture the frog and Brenda (daycare mom...who knows of my phobia) stepped in to save the day by picking up the frog for Jack. I did not even give it a 2nd thought--Jack wanted to pet the frog and hold it so I would help him. I reached over and petted the tiny thing and when he jumped off Brenda, I did not jerk away--instead I reached down and picked it back up for Jack. I had no physical, mental or emotional reaction until later when I processed it all. I am not "cured" (which in my opinion phobias and anxiety disorders cannot be "cured" rather they are always being worked on) but this is a HUGE step for me. I have not touched a frog intentionally EVER and all of my unintentional encounters with frogs have produced those strong negative reactions. This probably seems small to you for me, it was a great success. Thanks for listening and supporting me!

Mailbox Mayhem

upon arriving home from our orchard adventure, we found our mailbox lying next to the road in pieces--including the thick wooden post the mailbox hung from. as we investigated further, it was evident someone lost control of his/her car before the mailbox, hit the mailbox and appeared to get back on the road and continue on their way. i was cranky about the loss of our maibox:) and a bit curious to what actually happened. hanging on the door was a small note from the state police saying an accident had occurred and to please contact them for more information. i called and left a message. in the meantime, our neighbors from an acre over stopped by to fill us in on what had happened. when they hurt the commotion occur, they rushed out to make sure one of our kids (or any of the animals in the neighborhood) had not gotten in the road (what sweet neighbors) ...... it turns out after the lady hit our mailbox, her car continued out of control across the street, hit a tree and then ricocheted off that tree into another tree head on. upon impact of the 2nd tree, her car flipped upside down and spun around several times. the works were called into to assist--firetrucks, an ambulance, and police cars (jack and luke were disappointed they did not get to see all those cool things). amazingly, the woman was only minimally injured. the state police stopped by and got some information from us and went on his way.

as we played outside, a very odd thing happened.....a car with two people drove by slowly (where the accident occured), turned around like they were going to talk to us, went into the neighbor's driveway, backed out and went by the accident scene again....never stopping to talk to us--perhaps they were bystanders who saw it all occur or perhaps it was the lady..... we will never know :)

at 3:30 this morning, another odd thing occurred in connection with our mailbox.....a car playing loud music woke me up (window was open)--people were talking extremely loudly and drove by slowly....turned around and went back by our house--again slowly! It was awfully creepy until it dawned on josh this morning that it was probably our GR press paper people confused to heck to where our mailbox was!

we are in the process of getting a new one back up and running!

Orchard Adventure!

today was a lovely september day in western michigan! the temps were low seventies and the sky was an incredible blue--perfect day for an orchard adventure! we traveled over to a nearby town where they have the most wonderful "home grown" non-comercialized orchard.

We enjoyed our afternoon there by:
~riding the wagon back to pick our own apples
~sampling apples--many many apples
~watching pot belly pigs "race" (painfully slow)
~petting and looking at many MANY animals through cages and fences--reindeer, a camel, a wallaby, goats, ducks, lemurs (no petting), birds, a zebra (no petting), etc.
~climbing on wooden trains, trucks and tractors
~"driving" old metal tractors that have been "retired"
~taking many many many pictures
~playing on the old fire truck that you can still climb up in to sit/drive (Jack even got brave and climbed up on top with uncle aaron)
~sliding down a massive tube slide

we ended our afternoon by having dinner out as a family--it was a wonderful way to spent this beautiful september afternoon :)

Positive Reminder

Friday was a tough day for me in teacher land. I cannot get into the specifics but let's leave it at I cried for a while after school because I want to help every student I encounter and want to give my 100% to every student and when my help is not enough, it hurts. I went from school to grad school with a huge weight on my shoulders. As I sat through class, it was beginning to life a teeny bit but as I got in the truck to drive home, I still felt heavy. I turned on NPR, as I normally do, and settled in for the drive home. On Friday nights, there is a program called "The Story" that shares a person or two and something that has happened to them. On this particular day, the story was about a teacher and his feelings on the impact he has made in his classroom since 9/11. He teaches auto mechanics down near Ann Arbor and the majority of his school are Muslim students. He had quite an uplifting tale to share and what really stuck with me was that if a teacher can impact just ONE student on any given day, we have changed the future positively. I have had so many INCREDIBLE things happen with students this week--awesome conversations, hugs shared with former 8th graders, light bulbs click on before my eyes, etc. All in all it was a great start to the school year. I am not going to give up by any means on the troubles I had on Friday but I am going to keep in the front of my mind all of the great things that have happened as well. The teacher on "The Story" was a great positive reminder for me that I do make a difference.

Prayers Please to Help with my Transition

Change is hard for me. This week, as always with the first week of the school year, is a tumultulous time for me. I do not want to take the time to get into it right now as my to do list is waiting. What I would love is for some extra prayers to help me. Specifically: prayers for calmness and prayers to ease my anxiety--I am having trouble sleeping as my brain continues its world wind of thoughts at night. I also would like to feel more balance between my home life and school life. And most importantly for me, I pray for a rhythm--I pray that my life starts to have a feeling of steadiness and we find that right "speed" for our family where everyone is settled in, at least a little bit!

Thanks for listening and praying!

Tasty-ness

I made several SUPER Tasty meals lately that I thought deserved sharing :)

Friday: Grilled Rainbow Trout (rubbed with Penzy's Northwood's fire seasoning), Savory Roasted Red Skin and Sweet Potatoes, Steamed Broccoli and Fresh Tomato Caprese Salads (layers of fresh mozerella, tomatoes, fresh basil, and drizzled with balsamic vinnegar and olive oil)

Saturday: Shredded Chicken and Smashed Black Bean Tostadas :) I boiled chicken breasts, shredded them and added a bit of McCormick Faijita seasoning and about 1/4 cup enchialada sauce as I reheated the chicken in a skillet. While that was re-heating, I simmered rinsed black beans in red cooking wine and olive oil. When the beans had simmered for about 10 minutes, I smashed them with a potato masher and then spread them on the tostadas. I put the chicken mixture on top of the beans, and then added a layer of shredded cheese and another spoon of enchalada sauce. Another shell went on top along with some enchialada sauce drizzled on top and more cheese. I gave them a quick toast under the broiler and served with diced garden tomatoes and a side of fresh watermelon.

Kindness of a Stranger

A few weeks ago my friend Katie blogged about an experience she and her husband had at Meijer. They were having a tough day and the man cleaning the windows spoke to them with such kindness that it brightened their day and really impacted them.

Today I had a similar experience. I needed (NEEDED) to get groceries today--we were out of many of our family necessities! As I had today off from work, I decided to haul both boys with me to Meijer and get the groceries together :) It is amazing that some of the times I go to the store my children are absolute angels and then other times they are NOT! Today's trip was trying to say the least. The boys were all over the place, and had a major case of the "I wants". I was proud of myself for staying calm and not yelling but was getting very agitated on the inside. We were 4/5 of the way through the store and I was feeling a personal melt-down warming up inside of me.....and did NOT want to lash out at the boys. As I was selecting chicken, and repeating to Jack for the nth time that we would go over the deli counter to pick out ham as soon as I was done looking at the chicken, an older lady next to me paused and made eye contact. She smiled and shared with me that I was a wonderfully patient mom and how great it was for her to see it in the grocery store. Man did that woman brighten my day. Her comment really helped my inner boiling point die down and my nerves were so much less agitated. It was the beautiful kindness of that stranger that really brightened my day. We made it out of the grocery store and home without any more crankiness or whining :)

Happy Friday!