November 5, 2019

Experiments, Life, and Lessons Learned

Well folks, it's been awhile. Things have been very busy over here. The garden EXPLODED, despite the strange spring that kicked off the growing season. 

I'm actually in the midst of a garden experiment! I call it "Ghetto Greenhouse", and it's a nifty little thing I threw together with tomato cages, bamboo sticks, zip ties, and heavy duty clear plastic. I figure, that since I grow indeterminate tomato plants, I should be able to prune them way back, and then the plants would continue to grow. Of course, this is all theoretical, but can you imagine vine ripened tomatoes in the dead of winter, with a foot of snow on the ground? Because I can, and it is a beautiful dream.

Sadly, we do have to deal with Mother Nature, who decided to send cooler temps and our first frost about two weeks ahead of schedule. Naturally, this made for a lot of extra, sudden work! I stayed out in the yard, mulching the tomatoes, then covering them with their frost blankets, well into dark. I have kept an eye on things, but today.... today I opened up that ghetto greenhouse to see how the experiment is progressing.

Unfortunately, I think I mulched a little TOO well, and the tomatoes just couldn't BREATHE. So I removed just about all the mulch, and I pulled the plastic all the way back to let in a little air to help things dry out. My experiment has not failed yet though. After a few hours in the breeze, the plants perked up a bit. I HOPE that they will bud again, but if they don't, well.... that's totally on me.

Also, at the beginning of August, I got to fly out to Arizona SOLO to help my sweet niece Sadie find the perfect baptism dress and accessories.  Sadie's baptism would be the first sort of big family event since the passing of Troy's mom. And as I'm sure you can imagine, it was especially hard getting everything ready and together, because that was something special that Grandma and Mom did together. So I offered to come and help get everything all set for baptism, so that cute little Sadie and her mom, could have the support that they needed. Plus, I got to hang out with Marie, which is always a fun time. I also converted Marie to the mumu/kimono/NO PANTS lifestyle. I take it very seriously, on account of pants being very hurty to wear.

Case in point of pants being hurty: I just lost my gallbladder. It was an emergency surgery, and it took a little longer than usual, because *I*, Caroline Bingham, was STONED. (That's gallstone humor guys.) The surgeon was super impressed with me, and said that I had the worst gallbladder he had every seen, and that I had "HUNDREDS AND HUNDREDS AND HUNDREDS" of stones. Three times! He said hundreds THREE TIMES. So my routine,emergency, outpatient surgery turned in to a hospital admission with IV antibiotics and a whole bunch of medical staff coming to meet ME, the medically fascinating woman who said her pain was like, maybe a seven. YOU GUYS. I just have no frame of reference for pain!

The ONLY analogy I've ever found that fits ME is this:
Going to the doctor when you're chronically ill is weird.

It's like imagine everything in your house is on fire, and you're standing there and the fire department come in like, describe the fire to me and maybe we can find what caused it and put it out.

and you can't just say everything, so you're like.... well, the fire in the curtains is the biggest.

but the fire in the photo albums might be doing the most damage
also, the fire in the couch is really inconvenient.

Occasionally, the fire guy is like, well your tv is on fire, so it might be electronic-fireitus, but that would cause other things like fire in the DVD player.
And you're like, Oh yes. that's been on fire for years. i forgot to mention it because it's always been a relatively small fire. it's right next to the bookshelf which has much more fire.

and then the fire guy is like, oh. i wouldn't worry about that. book shelf fires just happen sometimes.

ANYHOW. My horrible gallbladder is gone, and now that it's out and I'm almost 100% healed, I am feeling GREAT. 

Also, like, 3 days after my surgery, Troy drove us down to Arizona to attend Sadie's baptism. Sadly, Thaddeus had to stay home to work and do mandatory school stuff. High school is a real good practice for real life.... moving on. 

Sadie was baptized and it was great! Great Grandpa and Grandma Bingham came up from Safford, and it was nice to say hello and give a *barely-hug* (you know, on account of being very ouched). We also got to see Aunt Jessica and her cute girlies, and afterwards Troy took our kids to see Kambry play in her volleyball tournament! 

Unfortunately, time was super short and Troy had made plans to meet up with some old friends way, WAY in advance, so we missed an impromptu extended-Bingham family dinner.

Hmmm... what else, what else. We just had Halloween. It was lots of fun. Thaddeus decided he's too old to go trick or treating, so he stayed home and handing out treats at the door. We had a lot of teenage friends in and out of the house all evening. (More like, all day, every day!) 

I also did an inventory of all the yummy stuff I've been growing and preserving the other day, and it just about blew my mind! We seriously don't need to hit up the grocery store for months, which makes my heart SO very happy.

Beyond that, we are not really up to much! The holidays are coming up, but we're not going anywhere. It's Troys busy season, because TRANSIT! He is working his tail off so that you can enjoy and be safe on your travels. It's a bit of a bummer this year, because we have to miss our nephews baptism, because he's getting baptized over Thanksgiving. 😭 We're pretty used to doing our own thing at this point, because that's just the reality of our life, but we do miss out on a lot of things as well. I PROMISE WE'RE TRYING! We did do a Fakesgiving about a month or so ago, because every now and then, you just need a big 'ole turkey dinner.