Summer Living and Loving

I'm checking in.
These last couple weeks have been bittersweet.
My latest trip to the neurologist didn't give the the news I was hoping for and my little guys recent trip to the allergist didn't put my mind at ease a bit.
Now in addition to walnuts, my little man has an anaphylactic reaction to peanuts.
He tested positive to all tree nuts and coconut.
I was going to post about coconut bliss.....my new fave ice cream.
Being dairy free is hard enough and I finally found an ice cream that was beyond amazing....YUM.
Now it's off the list and I sadly tossed it out.
I try to stay positive and remind myself that our life is good.
It's been worse. My child with cancer was worse. Not being able to get out of my bed was worse. These days it's all good. I can handle it. It's all good.

I've been loving my recent thrift store finds.
My garden is like a forest. The weeds are kicking my rear.
One more sweet little hen has turned out to be a rooster, bringing the total to three.
The cherry trees are producing as well as the other fruit trees.
My flowers are in full bloom.


The Oregon Country Faire was wonderful. It poured, thunder, lightning...the whole works and people were still laughing, dancing, walking barefoot through mud six inches deep. Myself included. My feet were so soft when I got home, lol and dirty heheh.

My hubby stayed with the kiddos. I'm not ready for them to see all the naked people.
It's not that I have any reason. Perhaps I wanted to enjoy the time with my best friend.

I have lived all these 35 years without realizing I had a sister.
Well.....I do have a brother and sister but they were put up for adoption before I was born and I don't know what path their lives took.

My mother was very young when I was born. She left my father when I was still a bun :) He was a cheater and later I learned much more that makes him someone I'm unable to love.
My grandmother was killed when I was one. I feel that my mother was still a girl herself.
My mother and my aunt through marriage lived together as roomates.
When Shelly was born I had just turned two a few days previous.
She was the most beautiful little thing. All black hair, porcelain skin and the bluest eyes I've ever seen.
We were raised together as cousins, but more like sisters. I remember always being together...from playing barbies with handmade clothes to dance class when we were a bit older....to cruising and running around town with boys. I never realized we were anything alike.
I was so isolated once my mother remarried. I think I was about 7, maybe 8 when things went bad. I know I was in third grade. I saw Shelly less and less.
Oh anyway to make a long... very very long sad story short.
I never knew that she put me on a pedestal. I never knew how much she looked up to me, loved and respected me.
Most of all. I never knew how alike we are.
Always we are on the same page. Sometimes we show up wearing exactly the same thing.
We have very similar beliefs and ideas. Never in all these years without her have I laughed as much as I have since we've been together again.
We decided to move here together. Her family and mine. Hoping we would all love one another. At first we all lived in the same house. WOW. What a mess.
We didn't know one another and everyone was walking on eggshells. You know what happens when you assume ;p
In the end it all turned out better than we ever dreamed.
This is the place I was meant to be. I love it here.
My cousin/sister/friend is my constant companion when our hubbies are working or when we just need to get away.

We love our yoga, our incense, our farmers markets, tea, baking, going to the pick your own, sewing, gardening.........so very much. I haven't had a best friend(aside from my husband who doesn't count, lol) since I was young.

So this is the summer of my dreams. Warm and alive and refreshing.
I am changing, growing, healing, learning......
There is so much I do not understand about myself.
I have been so alone, a mom and nothing else.
Shelly helps me to stay balanced and not be afraid. She is always nearby with a kind word or a joke to lift my spirits. She understands and doesn't judge.
The best thing is that she brings back the best memories of childhood, the innocence, the hope, the dreaming. I had forgotten to dream.
So for now I am learning to love myself, trust myself and enjoy time with my children without allowing motherhood to overwhelm me.
Yet at the same time all I want to do this week is sit on my swing and watch the kids run and play and giggle as they hope and dream and love me back.

I'm learning that it is not selfish to take a few moments for myself.
Yet I will never take for granted the moments that aren't.