10 Things I know For Sure

1. Alcoholics and drug addicts are hard to reason with.

2. If you can't take care of your own basic hygeine without the assistance of a nurse, you can't buy a farm.

3. Driving to Brentwood/Antioch every day for 8 days straight is exhausting.

4. Coming home after spending an entire day at the hospital and knowing that someone is bringing you dinner is so wonderful.

5. Green beans wrapped in bacon is so yummy!

6. You can't fix people.

7. It's about doing the right thing, not what you're going to get out of it.

8. Alcohol is a relationship destroyer.

9. I'm so thankful that my children will never know what it's like to have an alcoholic parent.

10. God is good, all the time.

The Garden

Lettuce, spinach, tomatoes, carrots, squash, strawberries and pumpkins, oh and sunflowers too! Have you ever grown a sunflower before? It's so easy and rewarding and it really is just a matter of planting a sunflower seed in the ground and watering it. There's something about looking out your living room window and seeing the huge sunflowers growing in the backyard. It makes me feel like I'm on a farm for a few minutes when I see them waving in the breeze. I'm not sure if we'll get sunflowers seeds from the huge flowers but time will tell. I have some big pumpkins growing too and the one that is doing the best was a volunteer plant. I compost my dead plants back into the garden and usually some of the seeds in the compost take root. I get some of my best produce from them because the plant is pretty hardy if it can root and grow without being planted on purpose. It's crazy that a plant that I prepared the dirt for, planted from a seed and watered on a daily basis doesn't grow as much as a random seed in the dirt that just happened to have the right amount of what it needed to grow. Whatever, I'm just happy that my garden grows at all. The square foot garden that we set up is wonderful and I'm so glad we put so much time and energy into it. I love it way more than my regular rectangle garden that I had before. It's much easier to water, weed and harvest this way since there are walkways in between the plants. Also, as soon as the plant is done producing I can pull it up, clean up the soil and plant again without disturbing the other plants. I moved my strawberries into pots and they have done so well. I harvest about a handful a day of fresh strawberries. I wash 'em and pop 'em in my mouth. That way they don't spoil and I get my morning fruit right from the garden. I'm very happy with my garden this year and as always, you get what you put into it.

Froggie, Allie and Izzy

So we're pet sitting for another homeschool family. Homeschoolers usually have strange pets probably since they're more interesting than your run of the mill dog. Don't get me wrong, they usually have dogs too and spiders, snakes, lizards, guinea pigs, rabbits, turtles and so on but this family has a poisonous dart frog. Ya, you heard me. Crazy, I know. He is really cool looking and of course he's a "look only" pet. He has to be fed wingless fruit flies. I know what you're thinking. Do I sit there and have to pull of the wings of each fruitfly before I feed it to this frog? No, they are bred that way so they don't have wings. You do have to dust them in a calcium powder first and then tap them into the cage. The cage has to be misted twice a day and you have to use spring water to fill his little pond. Our tap water contains chlorine and it would kill him since he drinks from it and sits in it for part of the day. He has real plants in his terrarium so they have to be watered every few days. He also has a heating pad on one corner of his cage and two heat lamps that are temperature controlled. That's just one of the pets we're watching for three months. I know, three months. That's another thing about homeschoolers, they like to go on three month long road trips across the United States so they can see every historical landmark possible. I have to admit, it does sound kind of fun to me. The problem with these trips is who will watch all of the pets? Another homeschool family of course because we see it as an opportunity to learn. We get to learn how to take care of strange animals and it gives us an opportunity to think beyond ourselves. Justin loves reptiles and amphibeans and his friend is the one going on the three month long car trip. All the animals are in his room and yesterday he came downstairs and said it was a dream come true. He said he wants his whole house to look like his room when he grows up. With terrariums and heat lamps and creepy crawlies all around. He really wants a snake but I have a rule. A rule which I have broken during this pet sitting experience. We can only have pets that if they got out of their cage I would not be creeped out. I seriously doubt this little teeny tiny dart frog would be able to escape from his huge terrarium so I'm not worried. So on to the other pets. A crested gecko called Izzy. He's really cool looking and will jump from one branch to the glass. He did it last night when I was checking on him and it scared me because he jumped right at me. He has to be fed baby food mixed with crested gecko powder formula from a spoon. I know, crazy again. I guess he's a finicky eater. Well I know all about those because I have several of those in my house already. The only difference is they're human. He did really well yesterday and licked the spoon almost completely clean. He didn't run away from me or bite my finger. Good thing ha? He has a fountain that has to be filled regularly. The fountain provides humidity. Aside from the baby food thing he's pretty easy. There is also an alligator lizard. He looks like a miniature alligator hence the name. He just needs a few calcium dusted crickets and water in his holder every day. Very easy. No heat lamp, no baby food, no wingless fruitflies. Piece of cake. Well maybe not that but still pretty easy. I hope none of them die on us, especially the poisonous dart frog.

Cookie

My niece's cat got a little frisky with a neighborhood cat before she had a chance to get her fixed and was blessed with kittens two months ago. We picked up our new kitten from her about two weeks ago and we absolutely love him. He's your typical kitten-furry, sweet, cute, playful and has very, very sharp claws. At first, he pooped all over the carpet and the house but we finally got him to go in the liter box. We placed a bunch of small liter boxes around the house especially where he would go the most. We also watched him like a hawk and immediately picked him up and put him in the liter box if we thought he had to go. It worked. He hasn't had an accident for a while. He likes to eat our older cat's food and our older cat likes to eat his food. Well this just won't work because they both have sensitive stomachs. We finally moved Gabby's food outside since Cookie doesn't get to go outside and Gabby can't stand him right now so she won't come in if she sees him. They're working out their differences and hopefully one day they'll be friends. She just needs reminders that she's our first born cat and we love her the most. So the name. We named him Cookie because when he was a newborn he kind of looked like an oreo so we were going to name him Oreo but we changed it to Cookie. Breanna is convinced his name is Cookie Oreo Mero. So cute. He likes to be held like a baby when he's sleepy so he can take his nap in your arms. He also likes to perch himself on Bryan's shoulder like a parrot and take a nap there. It's adorable. He sleeps in the garage at night otherwise he would be up all night playing and keeping kids from sleeping. He's a good kitty and he does just fine when we leave him home alone. So far he's been a very good pet. We're still trying to deal with the massive amounts of fleas that two cats can cause. It's getting under control. Have you ever bathed a cat? Not fun but we managed. We dusted our carpets, washed our cats in special flea shampoo, put flea control ointment on each cat and use a flea comb on them almost daily. It's getting better and he's worth it. He's attacking my feet as I type this. Ouch!!