Playing Catch Up

Good Morning everyone!

I hope you’re having a great Thursday. I am actually off of work today…HOLLA!…because my mom is coming into town later this afternoon. I just decided to take the entire day off…Mental Health Day, shall we call it.

This morning I went to the gym and did a little cardio schmorgesbord (<—sp?). 20 minute run and 20 minutes on the elliptical. St. Jude training is officially underway! I am going to do a full post on it soon.  I was going to do 20 more minutes on the bike but was tired and wanted to get started on my ‘mental health day’ aka…doing nothing at home. :)

Actually now I’m not doing nothing, I just made a way-too-peanut-buttery smoothie and now I’m canning some salsa.

Into the smoothie went:

• Handful of spinach
• Bananer
• 1 packet sugar-free hot choc. mix
• milk
• 1 1/2 T. peanut butter (too much)

Reba supervised.

She was not impressed.

Speaking of Reba…

She has heartworms.

Yes, true story.  Very upsetting, but true.  We are very diligent with her heartworm preventative, but the mosquitoes ‘round these parts are really bad…they will carry you away.  So it is not uncommon for dogs to contract heartworms in the Delta, even if they are on preventative. So you can imagine my shock and horror when my perfect angel baby angel child gets a life-threatening disease!!!  Our vet assured us that her numbers were VERY low, and she is young enough to do fine through the treatment, so we decided to move forward with the treatment. 

If you know anything about heartworm treatment, you know that you have to keep your dog calm and inside and contained so as not get their heart rate up while they are undergoing the treatment. ALSO she had to take prednisone which makes her really thirsty, which of course makes her have to pee. So every day, instead of frolicking in her yard, sweet Reba has to stay in the house (which actually is better right now, because it’s been like 105 degrees here lately) all day and Tom has to go home at least once a day to let her out to pee. 

Well.  (now is when you stop reading if you are squeamish or happen to be eating lunch right now)

One afternoon, Tom let her out at her regular time, and I got home at my regular time of about 5:15. 

And walked into our bedroom.

To this: River-O-Pee.  So I spent about 30 minutes, one full roll of paper towels, and half a can of ‘Tuff Stuff’ cleaning this up.  Bless her heart, right!?!?  She must have been crossing her little legs!  Of course I couldn’t fuss at her because she couldn’t help it.  And after all those paper towels and Tuff Stuff, it came right up and the carpet is good as new now!

Don’t worry, she hasn’t done it since, but we are on the lookout.  Sigh.  I felt so bad for her as she watched me with this mortified look as I cleaned it up. 

*Anyway* moving on…

I also mentioned I was canning some salsa this morning. I made a big batch and wanted to can some, because you can’t get fresh cilantro year-round. I use this recipe and I LOVE IT.  It is always a HUGE hit whenever I take it to parties and stuff.

You guys wouldn’t know this because I haven’t blogged in forever, but Tom and I have a MASSIVE garden out at his parent’s house. I talked about it briefly in this post but hadn’t really mentioned it since.  Tom planted this huge garden and let me just tell you that produce has basically taken over my life.

I told Tom that if he loves our children half as much as he loves that daggum garden, then win Father of the Year.

I have made about 10 squash casseroles, 6 eggplant parmesans, 12 loaves of zucchini bread, 12 8-oz cans of salsa, about 2 gallons each of edamame and okra, and two dozen jars of pickles and pickled okra as a result.  It is a lot of work!

It needs to be said that I love my husband very much, and am SO THANKFUL that he is a hard worker and provides for our family.  He will work a 10 hour day at his real job, and then go work in the garden until sundown.  He loves it!  It is like therapy to him.

But, how easily he forgets that his wife (that would be me) does not like to work.  I like to do nothing.  I like to enjoy popcorn and M&Ms on the couch with an old episode of Dateline.  Sweating it out amongst the okra and eggplant ain’t really my thing.  So, each evening when Tom comes home with yet ANOTHER 5-gallon bucket of fresh veggies, I am half-thankful, half-dreading the work I know is ahead of me in the kitchen.

Now I jokingly complain about all the work it takes to sustain a garden, but I know I’ll be thankful this winter when I don’t feel like cooking, and can just turn to the freezer for a delicious dinner!  And I will say it is soooooo nice to be able to just grab a watermelon or a bag of edemame when I need a quick snack or appetizer.  And people are always impressed when I tell them it came from our garden.

Reba’s favorites are raw okra…

…and watermelon.  She eats the rind, too!

Weirdo.

So, other than gardening, we have been doing fun summer things like going to an outdoor Jason Aldean concert!  Tom and I have always like him, so when tickets went on sale at a nearby amphitheatre, we snagged some.

It would totally inappropriate for Tom NOT to wear the ‘ole Stetson (yes I realize it’s August and he has already started The Beard, but more on that later)!

Jason Aldean sings a duet with Kelly Clarkson…one of my faves!

They had her purdy face up on the big screen for that song.  Love that Kelly!

Sweaty grease face self-pic, post concert.  Love it.

Other than that, we have enjoyed spending time with our friends and family of course.

Remember our next door neighbors who were expecting twin boys?  Well they are now about 8 weeks old and so much fun!

Of course I can say they’re fun because I get to play with them and feed them and hand them back over for Erin to deal with at 3am.

I don’t know who’s Harper and who’s Turner, but aren’t they adorable?

“Whatchu talkin’ ‘bout Willis?”

The neighbor on the other side of us had a baby about week after the twins were born!  They are closing in on me, I tell you!

Sweet Baby Benjamin Norwood Meyers!  All three of these babies are sweet snuggly gifts from God!  Love having them around.

That’s all for now!  I’ll be back soon with a recap of another fun (and baby-filled) weekend in Knoxville.