Hmmm....

...I wonder if this will work.  My new phone is not super compatible with blogger, hence the lack of posting, this year.  Posting from my old phone was simple!  I should have a little more free time, during this winter, though, so maybe I will try to get in the habit of posting from the good 'ol Mac. Here goes nothin'!

I have a new phone!

And I'm learning how to use it!  Updates of things that make me smile are to come, soon.  (Having a new phone makes me smile, that's for sure!)

RIP, iPhone!

I accidentally left my phone in my raincoat pocket, while at work, last Tuesday.  Which may have been fine, had it not poured buckets for hours.  I was soaked through several layers of clothes, and when I went to peel them off, I realized where my phone had spent the soggy day.  It has spent a week in a bag of rice but it's gonezo.
So my quick photo-a-day has been postponed!  On one hand, being phone-less this week has been frustrating, but on the other, it's been liberating.  No pressure to check and return texts has been nice, I admit.  :)
I will probably just wrap this portion of the, "Things that Make Me Smile" but will resume taking and sharing pics that do make me smile, as I'm able.  Even though a water-logged phone did not make me smile, there has been, and is, a lot to smile about, all around me.

After manually turning 20 eggs, 3x a day, for almost a month-

We all got to witness Duckie #1 hatch!

Logan asked to transfer it from the incubator to the brooder: "I'm so excited that I'm a little shaky!" Best.Ever.

A silly shirt that I was excited to finally wear!

First blooms on my new Mardi Gras rose

Bittersweet

Drove up the driveway to the last homeschool coop event, today- my final homeschooled kid's final, "Year-End Celebration."  This place has been a blessing to our boys, these last six years- and it will always hold a dear place in our hearts.  

Blue sky, puffy clouds, green buds on the trees!

When I had the four males watching the courting hummingbirds with me~

Snuck a listen (and look) while the music kid recorded a new song.

A little bike ride

And a couple of turtles along the way. 

The firstborn's first girlfriend-

-and the flowers he cut from the yard, for their one "monthaversary." 

Denim Blues, today:

I spy, with my little eye...

...the faintest blue starting to show up, on my Denim Irises(given to me at work, last summer)! Yay! 

Starting to look really look like spring, at a place I love!

Celebrity Selfie

Ok, a local celebrity.  Had a great run this morning with a bud from my running group, and as we came back to our vehicles, we nabbed a selfie with Ray Brewer, who was on the scene with WMUR, reporting on a local story.  Fun way to start the day! 

Beauty, anyway...

Any tulips that aren't sucked completely underground by the voles, are munched at the stem. I try to check on the remaining ones, each day, and try to snag the ones that have been chewed but not totally stolen, and I put them inside to enjoy.  Each day I add at least one more that I find! Not my original intention for these tulips, but I'll take what I can get!

Gardening, people I love, and music =

A great day! 

Half-Marathon Day!

Mark did an awesome job! 

Final Homeschool standardized testing(bittersweet)!

Mailed this out on Friday- last time administering this! 

Throwback cuteness!

First treadmill run in ages- a speedy 5K!

Spring!

An hour, a shovel, a hatchet, muscles, and sweat =buh-bye dead shrub.

Brotherly Love

Franconia Ridge Loop Trail, with a bud from high school days.

3:45am wake up time, 9 miles of serious hiking, water-crossings, 3 summits, great day! 

A few daffys and tulips made it, so far!

Haha, voles- you didn't eat everything!!

I love where I work.

Another Great Experience

Elijah had been loving volunteering with the WorkcampNE bands, these past couple of weeks.  I have had to drive him

for the extra hour every night he goes to serve there, but seeing how fulfilled he is (and seeing the occasional pic) makes it worth every minute of driving.

Date Day!

Slept in, 5 mile run, fishing via first canoe outing of the season, another grilled trout for dinner(caught by Mark, again)! 

The boys volunteered for their first Workcamp!

Did a little interior and exterior painting, a little flooring, a little roofing, and had a lot of fun.  Proud of them and happy they got to experience giving of their time and energy to others.

Went to fish for a little bit, last minute,

-and Mark caught the first trout of the season! 

Cam got an award for, "Most Practical" for his science fair.

Good job, buddy!

Instead of focusing on all of the plants that didn't survive-

(Due to moles and voles and chipmunks galore), 

-Gonna be happy over some of the pretties that did make it. 

Making the homeschooler come out for "P.E." in this nice weather.

Cam's First Science Fair at his school, tonight. Cute!

Boston Strong

Loved cheering the runners on for a few hours, today. Amazing experience, and so inspiring! 

Logan and Dad got to fish for the first time of the year, yesterday.

First (of three) planter boxes made-

-by Mark, for me, to cover three blueberry plants that I have planted inside of trash barrels.  (Learned that barrels help keep critters out of the plants, at a gardening class last year.) Better looking than a trash barrel, for sure! 

Pasque Flower

Funky, fuzzy, greyish flower buds, that lead to: boom! Bright purple and yellow flowers.  A few buds were open, on my plant today. Spring really is here!

Awesome Talent Show, Tonight!

The boys did great, and so did their buds.  Also, 2 other acts made me tear up because they were just amazing.  Such talent! Fun night.

Talent Show practice

Too cute.  This should be fun! 

Grief

Finding out that grief is a tricky thing.  I have been grieving relationships that I never had.  Funny how sometimes, we can think we have overcome an area of pain, for decades, only to find that there is still another layer of heartache to deal with, that is underlying.  Realizing that my grief of not being loved; that my recurring parental abandonment, which I thought was now just leftover scarring, is actually not a scar yet, but still a wound that oozes hurt into every pore and into every facet of me.  The feeling of not being loved; of being unlovable by everyone, creates a loneliness that hurts deep into my bones.  I can't seem to shake it.

Realizing that grieving can take much longer than I thought, or expected, or hoped, and realizing that I may grieve for my whole life, which feels...overwhelming to even think about.  I certainly hope I can somehow allow this wound to be a wound  but yet be able to stop mentally picking at the wound so that it can at least close up some.  Because it hurts, so much, and it affects every area of my life.  

I am going about my day to day, and the overly-busy schedule helps mask and deflect the pain I'm feeling, lately.  However, I have been feeling worse instead of better, this year.  This wound re-opened back in the fall of 2014, when life brought up some realizations about God, and about those around me, and it's just been a downhill spiral from there. Grief is tough.  I want to be authentic and share, in case anyone else reads this and feels alone in their journey of grief and loneliness, or in case I am able to look back at this entry, years from now, and be thankful for how far I've come, in healing.

And I hope I can continue to look for the good, and to try to notice the ways that I am cared about- and that I can be a joy-seeker, and not a wound-picker.  Trying to be contagious, and also courageous, in my authenticity.

Emerging seedlings

So excited to be germinating seeds from last year's Nasturtiums.  Have never collected seeds and then replanted the following year, so I'm loving this new gardening attempt! 

A yummy Science Fair Project

Hint: it involves baking cookies! Best ever. 

Our cute pooch

Duck eggs to incubate, and a hike in the woods!

Vernal Pool Night

Rainy day and warmer temps had me heading out with the boys for some amphibian-searching! Only Log, my fellow nature-lover, stayed out with me tonight, in the dark, although Elijah spotted our first one, tonight!  With a headlamp and flashlights, in our boots and coats, in the drizzle, we sought out the first amphibian finds of our season.  No frogs or toads, but we did find several red-spotted efts, a couple of them in aquatic salamander form(one was so cool- only it's head was sticking out of a hole, like a snake!!), and our last find was our favorite black-spotted salamander. What a blast. 

I will miss this.

The Legos are already gone from the bedroom shelves- how did that happen?? I miss them.  I miss the baby decor, too, that disappeared long before the Legos did.  And I will one day also miss the mess of other assorted trinkets that 11 year old boys love.  The mess makes me smile(sometimes). The wall letters that make up their names, that are all askew from being knocked down by energetic boys, make me smile, too- they've had those since they were born.  I wonder when they'll outgrow those, too? 

The Hooded Mergansers are back!

The two pairs that I passed, on the river on our road, this morning, may have been feeling confused by the snow and cold temps.  They were a sure sign that spring really is here, even though it doesn't feel like it, today! 

Found some great stock pics online, to go with my blurry, "from the van" pic. 

Gluten-Free Finds

Been reading that gluten-free diets tend to help with flare ups from auto-immune diseases, like Elijah's recent diagnosis of Vitiligo. Been on the hunt for gluten-free foods for him to try.  Some are hits, some have been misses.  Even though our grocery bill has skyrocketed (gluten-free foods are expensive! We budget $325 now, a week, for groceries!), we are thankful to be able to try this out, for the health of our kid. There are more gf options than I ever expected, and that makes me happy!