Not much to update, but here goes...

Hi everyone,

Well, I'm afraid life isn't very exciting right now; I don't have much to report, but I figured since I hadn't posted since Memorial Day, I should remedy that.

The garden is going well--the beans and tomatoes are all blooming, we have little baby squash and baby grape tomatoes, and we've not had to buy lettuce for over a month--yay! The garden makes me so happy and peaceful--there's nothing like going out and playing in the dirt.

I've been doing some spring cleaning since school's been out. I cleaned out the cabinets in the huge coffee table in the living room, cleaned out the buffet in the dining room, and tackled the closet in the living room. Problem is, I hurt my back while working on the living room closet. I bent down to pick up something small, and when I did something popped and OUCH!!! That was Friday, but it's much better and I should be back to normal in another day or so. I've resolved that this will not get me down for long, because I have too many things I want to do to be incapacitated.

Oh, something else that looms on the horizon: I went to get new glasses the other day and found out that I have some retinal damage in the back of my right eye, probably from the times after my gallbladder surgery when my blood pressure and blood sugar were so astronomically high. After all, we don't know how long I was a Type I diabetic before I was diagnosed, and often my blood sugar was over 600 while I was sick. The doctor will probably have to do some laser surgery on the back of my eye, but I'm told it's no big deal--yeah, just a LASER BEAM to the back of my FREAKIN' EYEBALL--UGH!!! Anyway, I won't find out until July 1st, so it must not be too urgent.

Greg's classes are going well, but he's stressing, of course. God love him, I wish I could give him some confidence so he would realize how smart he is. He just knows he's not going to do well, and I (and everyone else that knows him) knows better than that.

Well, back to the grind...have a good Sunday, everyone.

Happy Memorial Day...I'm counting down!

Good morning everyone,

Starting a quiet Memorial Day here at Chateau Hillis...we've had our coffee/breakfast, and now we're discussing plans for the afternoon.  The in-laws are having a little cookout this afternoon, and then our little guy goes back home to his mommy, stepdad and sister.  I went to pick him up Friday and it was fun having some time for just the two of us.  

I'm literally counting down the minutes, the seconds until summer vacation starts.  I have such plans for my time this summer.  Gardening, reading, planning my lessons for next year, a short trip to Gatlinburg, more gardening, canning, and just enjoying my time.  I am so glad I feel so much better than I did this time last year--last summer was just a blur of feeling miserable and not knowing why.  Turns out, it was the diabetes giving my body such a hard time. Thank God it was something treatable, and not something much, much worse. Now I feel so much better that I can do so much more and enjoy life.

Take care, everyone...I'll be back soon with a "start of the summer" report.

If I Could, Would I Change Anything?

My friend Dana wrote a wonderful post on her blog about the things in her life she would change if she could, and those she wouldn't change for anything. Imitation, as you know, is the sincerest form of flattery, and while I have a WHOLE PLANNING PERIOD WITH NOTHING TO DO--THANK YOU JESUS!!--I'm going to ponder this concept myself for a moment.

Of course we all know you can't go back to the past (and as we've seen from countless time-travel stories and movies, it's usually never a good idea to do so) but what if we could?

In thinking about this, I know for sure there are things I would never change, and some I regret--

• I would marry my Greg again in less than a heartbeat. He is the love of my life and the best thing that ever happened to me.
• I honestly would not change the time Greg and I married to an earlier year...I don't think I was ready to be a married woman until he came along, and I don't know where his heart was before I met him. I had a lot of heartache before Greg, but I had a lot of good times as well. I had times I wouldn't trade for anything. I learned to be my own person, to live independently, and to take care of myself. I learned about all aspects of romantic love--to love someone who didn't love me back, to be loved by someone who I didn't love, and to be in love with someone who wanted to be with me but couldn't. I've traveled, made friends, lost friends, made plans, broke promises, given my all, given up, given in, all in the pursuit of who I was to become. That's who Greg fell in love with. I can't change that, and don't want to.
• I would have not given my mama such a hard time as a teenager. I was mean, smart-mouthed and awful at times, and I still apologize to this day about my behavior. I hate the way I treated her at times, and I regret the time I wasted that I could have spent with her.
• I regret not listening to my own heart and mind which were telling me to become a teacher years and years ago. Instead, I listened to my guidance counselors from high school (no offense, guidance counselors) who told me I should be an accountant because I was "good with numbers" and I wound up flunking out and not going back for 16 years. Whenever I think of all the amazing years I could have had working with these kids, it makes me so sad.

• I regret not standing up for myself when I was a fat little girl and people made fun of me. I was made to feel that I was less-than-human because I took up more space in the world, and I should have just told the people who treated me that way to shut up and leave me alone. Instead I would cry and beat myself up over it. If I had my time to do over, I'd let 'em have it!

And so it goes...all in all, I can't say there's much I would change, because all of it made me ME, which isn't so bad most days.

Peace Rose...

These are shots of the first peace rose that has bloomed on the bush Greg and I planted last year...I never dreamed I could grow something this beautiful. Guess I inherited my Ma-Maw's green thumb after all. By the way, if you were going to enter one of these pics in a photo contest, which would it be?

Happy Mothers Day!

 
Here's to the most beautiful mom in the world--
My dearest friend,
My most trusted confidante,
My #1 cheerleader,
and the only person to love me unconditionally.

Happy Mothers Day, Mama.

and Happy Mothers Day to all the moms in the world--

the Luckiest Women On Earth.

May the joys of motherhood always outweigh the sorrows,

and remember that God always sees the sacrifices you make even when others don't.

I'm a medical oddity, as usual...

News on the medical front; seems that I am now a Type I diabetic AND a Type II diabetic.  I had always thought that you could only be one or the other, but it appears that in rare cases, it is possible to have one and develop the other. I developed Type II diabetes (non-insulin dependent) in about 1990, and my blood sugars since my gallbladder surgery had become drastictly higher and increasingly unstable.  A test for something called polypeptide levels revealed that I had developed Type I diabetes (insulin dependent) as well.  The good news?  Now there's hope for controlling my glucose levels.  The bad news?   More insulin shots.  Yay.  More shots.

Oh well...at least I know I wasn't doing anything wrong.

What else is going on...oh, the garden is coming along famously.  All I have left to plant are my tomato plants and my poppies in my flower bed Greg built for me in the front yard.  When it stops raining so much, I'll take some photos and post them. 

Greg and I bought two more rose bushes, a yellow rose and a red rose.  They are small, but showing signs of new growth.  The pink rose bush, the peace rose bush, and the salmon/pink rose bush (also known as "Nee-Nee's Rose") are growing beautifully.    I've planted a  pot of basil and a rosemary plant on the porch that are both doing fine.  I've also started six pots of other herbs which are sprouting--two of parsley, sage, thyme, lemon basil, and another pot of sweet basil.   The crowning glories are two "sweet 100" grape tomato plants who are already 2 ft tall.

In the garden, we've planted peas, green beans, arugula, two kinds of lettuce, onions, cabbage, spinach, kholrabi, yellow crookneck squash, cucumbers, banana peppers, beets, and carrots.  The only thing that hasn't sprouted are the carrots.  Also we have already picked about three quarts of strawberries from our plants--they are so tender and flavorful! 

The birds have even contributed to the garden, in their own way--all throughout the garden plot there are randomly placed sunflower plants "planted" by the birds who dropped them from the bird feeder while in flight.  Greg and I decided to just leave them there--how cool will it be to have big, smiling sunflowers keeping watch over our vegetables? 

I can't wait for summer...I plan on having garden dirt under my fingernails all season!

Take care everyone...

Time to brag about my darling...

I have such good news!!! My Greg has gotten into the BASE-TN program at Tennessee Tech in Cookeville. The program is going to pay his tuition to become a licensed special education teacher.  I am SO proud of him!! It took a great deal of hard work and effort for him to get this award, and he deserves every bit of it. 

His goal is to become a comprehensive k-12 special ed teacher, which is where he is meant to be.  The students in that area love him so, so much, and he loves them too.  He has such patience with them, and they think he hung the moon (well, he did, of course!).  When we walk down the hall together at work, they see him and their faces just light up.  The Comprehensive program needs a wonderful, caring man like him.

Have I mentioned lately how proud I am of him? Have I mentioned lately how much I love him?