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Sometimes something comes to me and sometimes nothing does. Today is a nothing day and I'm blaming the whole thing on the prednisone I am on, which seriously interfered with my weekend.

I'm trying to beat down this lupus flareup and poison ivy rash, so I began taking prednisone. Along with prednisone comes lack of sleep and nightmares. I ended up waking from sleep Sunday night with a nightmare I won't even mention because it would give you the willies. Needless to say, my adrenaline was flowing pretty well and I remained awake the rest of the night. I did get my "To Do" list posted so it wasn't a complete loss, but the whole next day I was not worth beans. LOL

Poor Michael was such a trooper the whole time he was sick. He kept working a doing as much as he could. I fought some frustration that my son has to work so hard because his father barely sends anything and is apparently hiding from being served with papers to make his give proper support. Michael is helping me work jobs nights, or weekends just to try to make ends meet, while his father is off in another state, with a girlfriend, and keeping 50,000 dollars a year for himself while sending us about 5,000. And this week, we got nothing again. But Michael never complains and he's such a young man of integrity. I am a blessed mother.

I also know that God will take care of us, somehow, when each difficult thing comes, He makes a way. We just try to work diligently, put Him first, and go about our lives with joy and gratitude.

Sunday we got up, did a few things around the place and then took off at about 9 to do an office cleaning and try to visit my parents. We had no time to go to church that morning as we'd not been able to clean on Friday due to Michael being sick.

We dropped by my parents and left some things there, they had gone to an early service and came home, so we visited. Michael is turning into quite the shutterbug and took many pictures of their place.





























My father, my son.





My mother, who has Alzheimer's, began chasing this dog away from the house with a stick. My dad would prefer to keep on good terms with it. It's a pit bull.





We are from California originally, or rather I am. My dad moved there with his family shortly after the Depression when things got too hard in MO for his family. They all migrated there. But we grew up in the country on a farm/ranch. When dad got older, he could not keep up with the work due to his neck vertebrae being fused. They sold and bought a place in town, swearing to live a life less buried in farm work.

The result is that you can take the boy out of the farm, but you can't take the farm out of the boy. They have the world's tiniest farm, on a city lot. The house still looks nice, but it works like a farm and doesn't fit in so well with the neighbors' places any longer. LOL

Here on the back lawn is one part of the garden, a netted hoop house. Dad also likes his songbirds, so he's got quite the menagerie, and they must be kept from the garden. We went out so I could show them how to harvest their cut and come again lettuce crops. He just built an outdoor sink area for the garden. Very handy.





And here is the result:














It was a nice visit, but we still had the office to clean. 12 operatories as well as the rest.












Yesterday we did a little work outdoors, but honestly I was still so messed up from the prednisone that not a lot was accomplished. I finished spraying under the last of the grapes when I'd finally had enough of our broken sprayer. We bought a 10 dollar replacement one at WalMart, which, given proper care, might last a month. LOL

We weeded and pinched runners off the strawberries. Watered and fertilized garden, the sprouts are all coming up, but struggling for nitrogen. I was going to spray fungicide on the grapes again, but we had intermittent showers between hot sun all day long, so it was not the best time. This also made BBQ for Memorial Day more of a challenge, but we got one in late.

Michael is trying to balance this fan that wobbles terribly. I've tried in the past and failed, but it sure is good to have another person here who is learning and trying new things. More and more often he figures something out that I haven't, so I appreciate his help more than I can express.





Our first radishes, tasty, sweet, delicious:




Our first Sugar Snap Peas:




Some daisies I picked from the horse pasture while down spraying for weeds and poison ivy around rocks.




And we spent time in the kitchen. YAY! I miss time in the kitchen. I hoped my parents could come for dinner, but they were not up to it. We made a few salads, some new potatoes, had delicious corn on the cob, and Michael did a great job BBQing some juicy, pepper-jack stuffed burgers. Served with banana peppers, BBQ sauce and other fine fixings. He was too full for the chocolate shakes I had planned.

When we had finished cleaning the kitchen, I took a picture of our table. I love the natural light, natural air... But it was a bit warm and muggy yesterday. Made me think of the future of turning on the cooler. It sure is nice to have a lower electric bill though.





So we played some card games, talked and laughed, until bed. And I did not have nightmares.

Now it's off to sewing class.

Faith

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