A Second Cup (Five Months Later)

By accident this evening I clicked on the Blogger icon on my browser.  I was trying to delete it.  After all when was the last time I actually used Blogger?  Cup of tea in hand (my favorite that just arrived a half hour ago, organic Genmaicha Tea.) I finished cleansing my bookmarks and suddenly looked down at the page and remembered this appealing little blog.  Well, the nice name anyways.  I had to check it out and see what I'd written before I remembered where it all started and why I had started it in the first place.  Maybe it was fate that brought us back together.

The last 5 months have been, well, for lack of a better word, amazing.  Amazing in the ups and how great life really can be.  And amazing in the downs, where you realize just what is really important to you.  To recap I'll give you bulletins (don't you just love them?):

• May & June found us busy with garden, still recuperating from whooping cough and enjoying the nice weather.  We went camping and watched a tornado pass us by (it was pretty exciting/terrifying).
• July started off with my husband having a high fever and 5 days later he was in the hospital with chest pain.  They confirmed his heart was struggling and medivaced him to a bigger hospital.  It might have been one of the most terrifying things I've experienced so far.  He was discharged the next day and recuperated quickly and is doing fine.  There was no long term damage but it was quite traumatizing for everyone.  I missed my first birth the day after this and called in my backup who, thankfully, was in town and able to attend.  All these things made me really start to re-evaluate my priorities and I decided that, at the very least, I would not be taking new clients for the rest of the year.
• August kept us busy with gardening and family get togethers.  My husband was back to work and off his medications and doing well.  The last day of the month, my daughter's birthday, one of my last two clients went into labor.  It was long, but beautiful and the first one to really make me cry.  She was amazing and worked so hard.
• September was the beginning of the harvest.  Apples and saucing (60 quarts for us and my mother in law made at least as much too) and tomatoes started.  We homeschool year-round but seem to set to it a little more earnestly in September.  I celebrated my 31st birthday with a cold.  My husband was going to take me out and do something special the day before but I was so sick I told him I had to stay home.  This broke my heart, but really it was very needed and I relaxed with the kids and watched Disney movies all day.  It's my go-to for when I need to relax and be comforted.  The day of my birthday was fun with a few gifts and lots of love from family and friends.  The whole month was exhaustively busy, but highly productive and good.

That brings us to now, the beginning of October.  I have my last birth for the year happening this month, a cousin's wedding, family visiting, my husband is helping his aunt & uncle move and the constant harvest.  We've already processed all 51 of our meat bird that we raised over the summer.  A long hard day of work but it will feed us for the next year.  I am really looking forward to the end of this month, when we have nothing scheduled.  No plans with others for a while so we can just be home and concentrate on us for a while.

Oh my... that turned into a novel.  Well, I suppose it's alright, since it's been 5 months.  I'm off to feed the masses and then get them ready for bed.  My favorite time of the day.