Miss me?

Sorry for the lack of posts...   I think I just ran out of things to say.   We've been over and over the grief, the hurt, the anger so many times that I figured you were sick of hearing about it.   I know I'm sick of living it.   I think our friends are sick of hearing about it too as most of them seem to avoid us these days.  We've hoped for better, happier days, but they still elude us at every turn.   I don't know how you stay positive when life is nothing but a string of negatives.  Jason is my strong, silent husband who rarely says anything, but he finally shared that even he has lost hope for happiness at this point.   We even ventured as far as having the d-word discussion last week.   Sad that it even came to that, but coping with the loss of a child is HELL and sometimes it is too much.   We have a bit of a plan to try to work on our problems so we will see what happens.  

There's an old saying that money is the root of all evil.   (It might even be a Bible verse?)  For us, money is the KEY to all hope right now.   I feel like we are in a spot where we truly need about $15,000 to even have a shot at being a real family again.   Nobody is going to hand that over, so we have to try to figure out a way to save it up.    If you know anything about our past, you know we are pretty good at saving when we have to.   We had to pay for two funerals in about six months time right after we got married, so we KNOW about saving and paying off debt.   It is hard with me not working, but I'm slowly starting to send out resumes in hopes of someone returning a call and granting me an interview.   I know the chance to try PGD/IVF isn't going to fall into our laps and I feel like it is my responsibility to try to EARN it.   Jason works and pays the bills; I need to work and save!   Even a part-time job would work for me right now, so keep your fingers crossed that something opens up for me.  

More on that...   For a long time after Eli died, I barely functioned.    The thought of having to build a routine and get up and go to work every day was so overwhelming that I couldn't even think about it.   Now, I am ready to get out.   I feel trapped at home lately and I NEED to get out for my own sanity.  I just signed up to be a demonstrator for Stampin' Up so I at least have some projects to work on until something else comes through for me.   I love paper crafts, so I hope that love will help me get others interested as well.    I know it is a lifesaver for me sometimes.   I love being able to go in my room and let the creative juices flow.   It stimulates the mind, but also lets you be a kid again when you color images and cut and paste things.   :)

Anyway, that's what is going on in our world.   The garden has been producing quite well so far and now I am spending time baking zucchini bread to use up some of our crop.   The plant looks like it has had enough Texas heat so I think we are at the end for that.   My first tomato is starting to turn and the plant is full of small green ones.   We've picked beans a couple of times now and have a little freezer stash of those.   The strawberry plants are still going and man are the new ones good!  They are so sweet and delicious.   I know we won't get that many more this season, but we have a nice quart bag full of them frozen for later.   Jason pulled off the first few ears of corn and will be eating them in a veggie stir-fry for lunch tomorrow.   We've been taking full advantage of the fresh basil and putting it on our homemade pizzas.  

Oh, I am trying to quit eating meat!   That is my other news that I almost forgot to mention.   I started losing my taste for it back when I was pregnant with Eli (except for steak and chicken salad) and I just never liked it as much as I did before.   Jason decided to reduce his intake of red meat because of his family history of colon cancer so we haven't been eating it much.   So, I just decided to take the leap and give up meat.   I still have seafood and dairy on my list of foods I will eat, so I'm not going vegetarian....at least not just yet.  

I know, it has been a while...   Many things have been going on down this way, but nothing really to report.    The garden is growing.   My class is finished.   I still have no idea what I want to be when I grow up.    Still missing our boy.  

I think trying to divide myself into too many blogs got to be too much so I'm going to go back to posting just on this one.    If you don't like recipes, ignore those posts.  The pictures of cards bore you, scroll down.    Unfortunately, my life isn't exciting enough to fill up 3 different blogs.    I wish I could be posting pictures of an 21-month old, but that isn't going to happen, at least not anytime soon.    If anyone has an extra $30K just sitting around and would like to donate it to our baby fund, we accept cash, checks, or credit cards.  

Now for some pictures:

The apple tree has two apples on it this year.   Last year we had one and it ended up staying about this size.   We are curious if these will grow into real apples...  

Jason picked these two last night.  We only planted one zucchini and one squash plant, but both are doing good so far.   Hopefully we'll have a squash to show next week.

Here's our dinner from tonight.   I was in a lazy mood and didn't work on making it all pretty, but it was tasty. The burgers were lean meat (beef for me, chicken for Jason) with some pepper jack cheese, avocado, and tomato on whole wheat buns.   The potatoes were a lighter version of Pioneer Woman's crash hot potatoes.

Please be sure to go vote in the Pepsi Refresh Everything contest.   Both SMA charities are in the top 10, but have to do better than that in order to win any money.    

More pictures of spring!

A somewhat better shot of my boy's rose.

One of our other roses.  

A yellow rose is a must-have in Texas!  :)

Today's harvest of strawberries!

Spring is here!

The corn is up!

The crab apple tree survived last season's bag worms and is in full bloom right now.   It is amazing!!

Our first rose of the season!   For some reason, it looks like a different color than the flowers on it from last year.  I'm curious to see what the next one will look like!

Here's the cauliflower plant we bought from Lowe's...I think someone put the wrong label on it.   We love broccoli, so it will be fine.  

The strawberry plants are full of berries, but something is already eating them once they are ripe.  :(    I hope we can figure out what it is and treat the garden.  This is the first year we actually have some decent sized berries!

Today I went to Lowe's and decided to look for some sort of lawn "art" that we could add around the house as a memorial for Eli. Look what I found: A CRAB! I was so excited and immediately started crying in the store. I put it in my cart and several people made comments on how cute it was before I made it to the cashier. I'm happy that I found something that already has so much meaning for us. I'm almost tempted to go back and buy all of them that they have. :)
**NOTE: If you are interested in adding one to your garden as a memorial for Eli, you can put in your zip code here and it should tell you if there are any in stock in your area!**

The Garden

The zucchini plants are coming right along.... I can't belive they are already so big! And.....we finally have tomatoes! Those plants were beautiful for so long, but nothing was growing on them at all. In the last week or so they have really come to life and we should have some yummy Roma tomatoes pretty soon! Now I just have to figure out what to do with them all!

The Garden

Jason has been working hard already this year and here's one of his big projects. We decided to try and grow some vegetables and strawberries this year. Here is the garden he made in the back yard. In the second picture, you can see the beans already starting to come up! The tomatoes and lettuce have both made it through the ground, but are still small. It so amazing to look out and see the plants growing and getting bigger every day. I hope this will help out some with our grocery bill! I can't believe how expensive everything keeps getting.

We are both still doing great. I'm excited about baseball season finally starting! We are going to the first home game on Monday night. We'll see how much Eli likes the noise of the game. He's been moving around quite a bit lately and even Jason has been able to feel him. Our next doctor's appointment is on the 15th!