Random Shenanigans

You know all those thoughts I have whirling around in my never resting brain? The same thoughts I can't seem to put into words? I thought it would be fun to do a post about some of the shenanigans, thoughts and dreams I have floating around in my scattered brain.

I truly have THE best husband. Ever. I know I say this often but I cannot even put into words the love I have for this man. He inspires me so much and keeps me focused and makes me a better me. I am by no means a walk in the park on a sunshiny day.

We recently joined the deaf club here in Esky after being asked several times. No, I'm not deaf yet but we know that that is what meniere's disease eventually does. This group has some of the most amazing people and we are honored to call them friends. I debated for some time if I should join so I asked Ken's advice. His reply? "Kat, I think it would be great, embrace what is going on instead of being scared." So bless his awesome heart and these fab group of friends. I am not afraid and I will embrace it for what it is and no longer pretend everything is "just fine."

On September 12th we had to put my dear fluffy boy Buster Brown down. My heart still aches for his snuggles but I know he is in a better place. We buried him up at camp, right next to Sassy and Alex. He was 16. We still have Betsey Sue (another feline kid) and she is doing awesome. We were worried she would be lost without her brother. But alas, she is more sociable and lovable and energetic as ever.

I had an amazing birthday in August. Ken and I took a mini vaca and took the suburban and camper and pups on a eastern U.P. adventure. The highlight of that trip was being able to spend it with the ones I love and all those sunsets at Paradise. I definitely need to show pics.

I find myself missing my Mom and Dad more and more as time goes by. I don't know why or if it's "normal". I wish I would have had time to make more memories with them. Ten years was not nearly enough.

I put up two of our Christmas trees yesterday. I know it's early, but I was extremely crabby yesterday with all sorts of family drama. p.s. I despise drama and would rather free flowing, happy, love one another and be considerate vibes. But, I love Christmas and it brings me happiness. Plus, I was only a couple days early from when my "normal" decorate for Christmas bonanza begins.

Ken and I are both dieting. Rather, eating healthy. The word diet makes me think that you're hungry all the time. Believe me, we are not hungry. It's actually hard work to pack all those calories in during the day when you are eating good calories. Ken has dropped 18lbs now and if I wasn't so dang bloated I'd be down 12.

I wish I could get a hysterectomy so I wouldn't be so dang bloated and all that other fun lady junk. I mean, the stuff does me no good and cysts and endometriosis kills!! Last night I asked Ken if he'd slice me open and do surgery himself. I'm sure next week will be better.

I still sometimes have thoughts of wanting to be a Mom. I don't know if those will ever go away.

I'm very excited about the surgery Dr's in WA did on a man that suffers from meniere's. They did a procedure similar to a cochlear implant but hooked the electrodes to certain parts of the inner ear. When the man feels and attack coming on he will be able to utilize this unit to hopefully stop the attack. Technology is fantastic!! I sure hope it works and progresses. I'd love to sign up for something like that. To have my life back, or to some degree would be beyond smurfy.

We got a stellar deal on laminate hardwood flooring today. $0.61/ sq ft!! Plus all the underlayment is FREE after rebate!! Do you even know the awesomeness of that!!! Next weekend Ken and I will have a big project on our hands. This is where not hearing the greatest works to my advantage. I am sure there will be bickering and frustrations expressed.

I am so proud of my husband for all he has done, all that he is and all that he is becoming. I swear, I fall more deeply in love with him as the days pass by.

There's so much more I could write, so many more ideas, hopes, dreams and goals and future plans I wish I could just blurt out. Life is great!! We have a stitched quilt thing on our wall in the living room that it sums it all up...."We may not have it all together, but together we have it all"

What I did yesterday

I have so much to talk about but when I go to type it out it comes out as gibberish. Once I get my mind focused on all of the awesome and exciting things around me I'll have more words to say. For now, here's a peek of what I've been up to the past couple days.


It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas here in the Woodbury house.

"Christmas is not a date. It is a state of mind." ~ Mary Ellen Chase

No, I haven't fallen off the face of the Earth...

Whew, it's been a long time since I've been on here. Every once in awhile when the world seems to be too much or too hectic we all need a break...and that's what I took. Time to rejuvenate and heal and have some up to our eyeballs fun adventures canoeing, camping, hiking, embracing each other and ourselves.

I've got sooo sooo much to talk about, but yet have no clue where to even begin. Life is wonderful, my heart is full, and we are at peace.

I will have more to write about...but for now, I am going to put up a Christmas tree or two and make some cookies and a cake. We are having 11 friends over Saturday night for game night. It's going to be fantabulastic!

"Each morning when I open my eyes I say to myself ; I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today. I can choose which it shall be. Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn't arrived yet. I have just one day, today, and I'm going to be happy in it." ~Groucho Marx

New ear implant for Meniere’s disease

New ear implant for Meniere’s disease


There just may be hope and relief on the horizon!!! =) This excites every bone in my body

The end is near

Before I show you the new floor I've sooo totally gotta show you the ceiling in the den/dining room all finished!! Shazam!!

Look at the floor!! Ken and his dad layed the laminate last weekend. Ohhh, did I mention we only paid 77 cents per square foot for this yummy floor? Yup, totally awesome sale at Menards! It's not junky quality either. It had far better qualities that many of the more expensive ones.

Ohhh, a couple more things. The underlayment plastic stuff was free after rebate!! So, in a couple weeks we'll be getting a check, which will then be used to buy the remainder of the items needed for the bathroom remodel.

One more thing....Ken's parents had a rummage sale the end of July and we put a bunch of our non used, don't need anymore, this is cluttering up our house type things in the sale...anyways, guess what??? We were able to completely pay for this floor with the money we made!! BONUS right?!?! Get rid of stuff which we don't need and be rewarded with a beautimus new floor!! Bozinga!!

Buh bye yuckoid orange linoleum and fake marble looking linoleum stuff that always snagged my toes.

Putting up the Harvest

The gardens, the wilderness and our neighbors have blessed us with oodles of great fruits and vegetables that I have been canning. Two of my favorite books are the Ball Blue Book of Preserving and Small- Batch Preserving. Both are extremely amazing.

This is just a small portion of what we have "put up" so far this season.

So far we have preserved:

5 - 1/2 pts blueberry jelly (blueberries were foraged in the woods)

2 pts blueberry jelly (blueberries from the woods)

8- 1/2 pts bluebarb jam (blueberries from the woods and rhubarb from my garden)

10 pts green beans (beans from the garden)

7- 1/2 pts sugar snap peas (peas from the garden)

5pts garlic green beans (beas from the garden)

12 pts dilly beans (beans and dill from the garden)

7- 1/2 pts apple maple jam (local maple syrup and free apples from our neighbors apple tree...they were given to us, we did not steal them lol)

5 pts red hot applesauce (free apples from our neighbors apple tree)

6pts red hot apple wedges (free apples from our neighbors apple tree)

8 qts baby red potatoes (from our garden)

9qts white potatoes (from our garden)

2 qts green beans (from our garden)

2qts sugar snap peas (from our garden)

6pts stewed tomatoes (tomatoes and green peppers from our garden)

3 pts zucchini relish (zukes and green peppers form the garden. Red peppers given to us from my cousin)

7- 1/2 pts blackberry jam (blackberries picked by my sister's house)

We have also picked raspberries which were made into a custard cake dessert, strawberries that were froze, peas were shelled and froze, onions dried for future use in coups, salads, etc. Before I began keeping track I made rhubarb sauce, rhubarb jam, strawberry rhubarb jam and a few rhubarb desserts. The rhubarb comes from the garden and the strawberries were picked at a local pick your own strawberry patch/farm. We also have blueberries in the freezer from our foraging adventures.

Other goods I will be preserving in my very near future is more applesauce in the fall when we go to the orchard, tomato sauce, pizza sauce, stewed tomatoes (we can never have too many jars of those), whole tomatoes, salsa, sweet pickle slices, hamburger dills, sweet pickles, tomato soup, hopefully pesto, roasted red pepper spread, summer squash, zucchini, peaches, cherries for pies, cherry jam, cream corn, whole kernel corn, broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, and more beans and peas. August and September are busy months here for harvesting and home preserving. Our gardens are just beginning to give us an abundance of what we need on a daily basis. In the coming weeks I will have my hair in a pony tail, forget the eye make-up (because it would just melt off my face), towel on my shoulder and my green rooster apron around my neck. It's a great time of the year!! (Just don't judge me if you see me out in public and I have forgotten to take my apron off...hehe)

On the Homefront

Every morning I am greeted by several sunflowers in the raised bed at home. It seems they grow 6 inches every night. Before long they will be as tall as the garage roof line.

Even the cherry tomato plant is reaching for the clouds. I had to trim some of the leaves from the zucchini because the vines were taking over more than half of my driveway and they were much taller than myself.

The potatoes in our tater tower are almost ready to harvest.

I came home from harvesting at our community garden plots and was looking around by the summer squash plants. I saw that there were oodles of large yellow flowers so I went to take a picture & holy bean bags!!! I found this almost 2lb squash hiding.

part of the larger raised bed. I'm soo glad we put these gardens in this year.

Nasturtiums keep garden pests away and the flowers and leaves are edible. We have yet to try them however. I'm really hoping to get another crop of lettuce and spinach. The onions and other lettuce have been harvested. Gosh, I sure do miss fresh spinach though.

We have 4 Eastern Black Swallow Tail caterpillars hanging out on the dill and cilantro in the back herb/strawberry raised bed. I look forward to being a witness to their transformation.

A daddy-long-leg finds some shade on the leaves of a sunflower.

We're starting to harvest carrots at home too. =)

We are still getting a couple zucchini per day and we've just begun getting rip tomatoes from the cherry tomato and yellow tomato plant. The birds have been munchin on the sunflower seeds and I'm happy to report that the planting of spinach, lettuce and beans I planted are all poking through the soil.

Tally Hoe

July gave us plenty of veggies and fruit. I know it's nowhere near other peoples gardens but hey, it's a start and we've been able to "put up" a pretty decent amount of home canned goods.

Green Onions- these were harvested before I got my handy dandy kitchen scale. But we had at least 100. This was the 1st year growing onions and guess what?? I JUST learned that onion sets DO NOT produce large onions like I guess I assumed. Either way, we have enjoyed these onions in salads, soups, and other dishes. I dehydrated some as well to use in the future.

Asparagus- I planted asparagus this year so no harvest until next year. We did get a few adorable lil asparagus shoots but had to let them grow so they come up thicker next year.

Strawberries- again, no scale when these were harvested. Despite the insane amount of rain we got we were able to harvest a couple handful of berries. Chloe (our tortoise) got a few of those berries and I'm pretty sure her shelly self was pretty darn happy. I also went to one of our local berry patches and picked two flats of berries.

Spinach- several gallons which made for some pretty yummalicious pestos, salads and again, Chloe enjoyed quite a few leaves.

Lettuce- uncountable amounts.

Sugar snap peas- 8# 2oz

Green Beans- 16# 5oz

Carrots- 1#

Radishes- about 1#

Cilantro- It's growing like a weed. Just as soon as our 70 some odd tomato plants ripen up we'll be snipping that cilantro to make salsa. I'd really like to incorporate it with some dishes as well. Time to experiment with new recipes/concoctions.

Dill- We have mammoth amounts growing. I've used several handfuls when making the dilly beans. Once our cukes are harvested we'll be snipping dill to make pickles and relishes.

Yellow Squash- 1# 7oz August has just begun and we will be up to our eyeballs in this very soon.

Zucchini- 1# 9oz We are harvesting at least one of these per day now. I for see August to be one heckuva busy month already.

Baby Red Potatoes- 17 1/2#

Superior White Potatoes- 14#1oz

THEN.....I was very blessed when my neighbor friend came over one afternoon while I was sitting on the porch. He told me I could have as many apples from his Iridescent Apple Tree as I wanted. I figured we'd pick a basket full. Just enough to make some applesauce and maybe some jelly. Well....27 1/2 lbs later....I was able to make apple maple jam, applesauce, red hot apple wedges and red hot applesauce and I still had a basket left over!!

Ken and I went on a car rd adventure one day that took us to a popular raspberry bush area. The bugs were horrendous but we managed to pick a total of 4 cups worth of berries and a handful of thimbleberries. I tried a new recipe to use the raspberries and holy delish!! I'll have to post that one for sure!!

We are also extremely blessed to have forests all around us that are oozing with blueberries. It wasn't even the height of the season when we went and we picked 2-3 gallons. I hear the berries are at peak right now. I just may have to hop in the truck and go foraging!!! I'm extremely excited to see what August brings. July has blessed us with over 100lbs of homegrown, some free delicious fruits and veggies.

One of the most delightful things about a garden is the anticipation it provides. ~W.E. Johns, The Passing Show

From the porch

Sunshiny days call me to my front porch to read or just look at the garden. The Hostas we brought back from Nana's garden in Massachusetts after she passed away are blooming with their pale purple flowers.

I sit on the bench my brother Aaron made for us or on one of the rocking chairs that used to be Nana & Grandpas. Great memories and conversations, bird watching afternoons along with numerous Red Sox games were watched in those chairs with Nana and Grandpa when we'd visit them in Massachusetts. Sitting in them reminds me of those amazing memories we shared.

The Tiger Lilies are bursting their colorful orange in the front garden.

Thanks for enjoying an afternoon on my porch with me.

Flowers... are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty outvalues all the utilities of the world. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1844

Community garden plots

Our community garden plots are bursting with life. It's where I spend several hours a week weeding, watering, weeding some more, harvesting, eating, reading and smiling. Yup, smiling. How can you not smile when you witness the seed you planted become food.

We've been snacking on sugar snap peas for a few weeks now.

The Roma tomato plants are loaded with fruit. The Big Boy and the Yellow tomato plants are bursting with fruit on their branches as well. I'd say they should be ripe in a week or two. I'm sooo ready! Bring on the salsa, tomato soup, stewed tomatoes, pizza sauce, diced tomatoes, all that is tomato making, canning business ON! I am sooo ready to don my green rooster apron!

The pumpkin plants are flowering now. We have 5 different pumpkin varieties planted. Some are for eating and others will be used to host our first ever Jackolantern carving party this Fall.

This pickling cucumber plant is going to burst any day now. We'll be making dill pickles, sweet pickles. relishes and all sorts of cucumber salads.

Green peppers are almost ready to eat. I know we can't rush mother nature but please, ripen my tomatoes somewhat soon so I can use these peppers along with the jalapeno peppers to make some salsa and stewed tomatoes. Yesterday I used our last homemade jar of stewed tomatoes. I'll need to add about 10 jars or so to our stewed tomato needs for the year.

Tomatoes and squashes are loving this warm weather.

Below is our one and only eggplant plant that survived all this rain we've been having. There are a few flowers so maybe we'll get a couple eggplants from this. We've never grown eggplant so we shall see. I love the suspense of the surprise.

My lil, 6ft tall brother and his girlfriend standing by a stalk of our sweet corn. This is the 1st year we have ever grown corn. Our soil definitely needs more nutrients and after this season we will be able to add manure and compost to our plots. This was our 1st year at the community garden and we have no way of knowing what was planted where last season. Next year we're going to be closer to having "black gold."

We've harvested oodles upon oodles of green beans. We have 4 more rows than these two that are providing us an abundance of beans and on Sunday I planted 4 more rows where the potatoes were. Ohhh yeah, last week I harvested the rest of our potatoes. Our tater tower at home is still intact and will be harvested in the next couple weeks.