Pre-Winter Storms

Well, winter will soon be arriving here in Alaska. How do I know this? The pre-winter storms have started. Thursday night the wind started. Friday we woke up to continued wind (according to reports, 50 mph with gusts of up to 100) and to find that half of one of the trees in the back yard had broken and fallen over. Not much of a surprise for this poor tree. We had tried to support it, but, years before we bought the place, someone had tied it and forgotten. Over the years the wire had cut in as the tree tried to grow around it. It has lost bits in the past, either through winds or though pruning we've done to try to save the tree. We don't know if it will survive the most recent damage. We will try to repair it for the winter and see how it does next year, but this might have been the last straw for it and we might have to cut it down.
As if the winds weren't enough fun, Friday also saw Tom heading back up to work, so no, he didn't have time to deal with the tree, so I will get to do that later this week. (hoping to get the son in law to do most of it, actually...) Then Saturday morning, at 4 AM, I got woken up by an earthquake. Felt pretty big, but, after listening to make sure it didn't wake up the grandbaby who was staying over, I, and everyone else in the state, rolled over and went back to sleep. Turns out it was a 5.4 centered about 89 miles north of here. I know, to those of you use to California quakes, that sounds huge. Up here, they are generally so deep that, while things get shaken up a bit, there's rarely much, if any damage, cept maybe to knickknacks.. I spent most of Saturday cleaning the last of the garden stuff off the back porch. One or two things still to take care of in the yard and things should be ready to go for the winter.
And today I discovered that my bell pepper plant that has been kept in the house with the tomatoes, is infested with spider mites... *sigh* So far it doesn't look like they've spread to any of the other plants and it is now in isolation in an attempt to save it. I've gotten 2 peppers off of it so far this year, and it has several more in development, and, darn it, I want those peppers! This is the first year I've gotten one to actually produce viable fruit and I want em!
Probably the hardest storm was today at Church though. I was running late and arrived just in time to hear someone talking about how important it is to have kids while you're young enough to keep up with them, not when you're older and tired. That kinda stung, but I could deal with it. I know that these people have no clue of the heartache I deal with because of infertility and I know I wasn't their intended audience even if I was in the audience. But then, class was all about the importance of teaching in the home and our roles as mothers. Ok, twist that knife a little more.. I was able to participate without too much problem, but by the end, I was really feeling that, although I know the role and have been granted a small, part time part, I still feel as if someone out there is saying that I'm not worthy enough for a full time gig. And it hurts, it hurts so badly. Tom always jokes and tells me that I didn't need the practice and that I'm one of nature's grandmothers, and I adore the grand daughter, but, darn it, I want to be Mommy! I'm tired of waiting, of finally getting started on adoption paperwork only to have something new pop up to put things on hold again. Why can't my body just work for once!?!
On the way home from Church today, there were tiny little snow flurries. They left no trace and were soon gone.
Yup, winter will be here soon.

Holding patterns...

First, an update. Turns out Gaia often breaks into random tears over potty training (I chatted with her mom about it.) So it wasn't just me, yay! And she's always a picky eater. Hubby and her mom said that if she wouldn't eat anything, then I should just let her go until the next meal.. I have such a hard time with that, though, but she was pretty good about eating the rest of her time with us.
Now on to the new stuff. We're in a holding pattern again.. Just when we were posed to finish up or first round of paperwork and application, we are waiting. Hopefully we can still get the things done soon, but for now, we wait. Tom has heard rumors of possible lay offs coming at work, so we are waiting to see where that is going. He's already actually been offered another job, though it would be a cut in pay and is temporary (though we don't yet know how long that would last..) but it would be something to get us through if we needed it. We just don't know if he needs it yet. They are hoping to know one way or the other sometime next month, and either way should have work through til the end of the year. We just would hate to jump ship if lay offs aren't coming for him and they are going to extend their contract or something. For now though, at least until next month, we wait and see and save our pennies, just in case. We've been very lucky in this economy to not have been hit too badly. Really hoping our luck holds. :)
Emotionally, it's been rather draining on me.. Just had my birthday earlier this month. Is it really sad that the only thing I wanted this year was to have our fingerprints taken? I've been keeping myself busy though. We're moving the older girls downstairs for the next year or so while we do some renovations upstairs. We've got to move out of the master bed and bath while we do some work in there. (After the mold in the hall bathroom this past February, we suspect the little old man who built this house maybe didn't use the right stuff in any of the other bathrooms, either, so we are going to be taking them apart one at a time and fixing that, hopefully before there's anywhere near the problem there was in the hall bath.) And we'll be moving into their room while we do the work, because, well, there's no way I could live/sleep in a construction zone :) and we need to replace flooring in our room anyway. Once we ever get done there (which will be a while due to costs and the fact that we're doing it ourselves on the weeks hubby's home, so it will be an on again/off again project.. I'm figuring 1.5-2 years before everything is done upstairs..) we'll replace the flooring in the girls' room before moving them back up.
So I've been moving their stuff down and getting that all set up. Am actually mostly done with that, just a few more bits and pieces and one dresser to move this week. Then just have the finishing of set up downstairs. Then cleaning up and seriously cleaning the carpet before starting the moving of our stuff into their room.
The nursery is also more or less set up at the moment. Mostly it's set up as toddler zone for the grand baby, but would be easy to convert back to infant mode when needed.
And just got buzzed. B1 is coming over to pick up some things, so I'd better sign off for now and get a few things ready to go.

Frustration...

Sorry for the gap in posting. It has been a busy 2 months. Sisters in law and several other relatives came to visit for a bit, kept us busy. Then we had the big end of summer sending home of the girls and then starting the big end of summer clean up. Have been busy, busy. Then B1 and C had to go back down to Washington for C's brother's wedding, so I'm watching the grand baby all this past week and for a few more days.
For the most part, it's been loads of fun. She's working on potty training and is doing really well. She hasn't managed to poop in the potty yet, but she'd doing great with peeing in the potty. And is doing great at flushing and washing her hands and such.
The frustrating part has been her eating patterns. She is at that stage where she randomly decides that she doesn't like certain foods. It doesn't matter if she loved it yesterday, or has never tried it before, she will just randomly decide she isn't going to eat something and then will just sit and sulk and refuse to even speak. *sigh* It's very frustrating and I'm at a loss for dealing with it. I've gone and bought the organic stuff her mom buys just for this occasion, and she won't touch it. Hoping we don't have too much more of this during the next few days as I'm running out of ideas. Luckily though, hubby will be home tonight so maybe he'll have a few extra ideas.