Another Milestone

Hours slip into days, days turn into weeks, the weeks fly by and month by month time keeps moving along. New firsts, new feelings and new emotions rise up, Its hard to sift through all of it and sometimes its easier to simply stay busy and not process all the "hard". But you know what, no matter how busy I get, no matter how much I try to not think because it hurts, it still gets me sooner or later. Something always eventually happens that ends the good days, for a season. And then the grief process becomes so painfully real and there is nothing to do except walk right through it, embrace it, and hold on tight to God.
  I thought I was going to write several weeks ago and I had even started but......
  Maybe I was to busy.....
  Maybe I couldn't process my feelings enough to write....
  Maybe...
 Here I am. October 5th we hit the 6 month mark that Jonathan left his earthly body for  his NEW glorified one. October 15th was supposed to be his 45th birthday, but instead he won't be counting years anymore. Time does not matter in Heaven so I'm sure age doesn't either. We still wanted to say Happy Birthday to him and we hoped Jesus said "happy birthday" every time he looked at him. We still have earthly minds and we still think earthly thoughts and we think Jesus is ok with that.
 I had wanted to do something special every day on birthday week. Something that I used to do all the time for him. Something that was just part of life while I cared for him. But, the week was busy, really busy. Two of those days I was involved in school activities so I was not at home. One day I made fried pies and one night we hosted guests from PA and so the week flew by. I did however manage to make myself a green juice one day. I used to make him a green juice every day and I used to drink them too, but I had not made one green juice since he left. It was delicious! I want to do more this winter. I honestly love it. You should try it, it is so healthy!!
 A hand full of kale
 a cluster of cilantro
6 inches of cucumber
1 green apple
1 whole lemon, rind and all
I inch of fresh ginger root
 put it all into the juicer and you will have a refreshing smooth drink
I had wanted to make a carrot juice and a red beet juice too but I will have to do that later. Carrot cake with cream cheese frosting was his favorite cake and I used to always make it on his birthday. That was before sick days.I did get to make a carrot cake several days later but instead of one big cake I made several small ones to give away because it is not the boys favorite cake and I didn't want it to spoil. Last year I made him some healthy carrot cupcakes that he really liked and Carlin has been begging me to make those again so I will try to do that soon. They are gluten and sugar free and yes they are very yummy!
 I have tried more baking in the month of October then I had done in the previous months. It has been taking me a long time to get back into making food! O sure, I could do the normal cooking if it wasn't anything new or difficult. I just have not been adventourus at all and tried new things. I used to read cookbooks and loved trying new recipes, but it seems "used to" died. Anything that I had to really think to do in recipes was not a good idea to try. Let me tell you about my Sat. on Oct.10th.
It was a rainy cold day, I think it was like the 3rd Sat. that it had rained and I was tired of rainy Saturdays! I decided to make the house smell good and warm it up by baking. For a number of weeks I had been craving something pumpkin and cream cheese. It had to be something to go with my morning coffee, because that is about the only time that I eat anything sweet. Morning + coffee + something sweet= a good start to the day. I found a pumpkin cake recipe and decided to make cupcakes. I used a cream cheese filling from a chocolate cupcake recipe, and put a spoonful into each cupcake. then I took a strusal topping from a coffee cake and put it on top of that. O, and there were chocolate chips in the cream cheese too and I sprinkled pumpkin seeds on top to make them look healthy. In this case looks were very deceiving! They were delicious but the cream cheese did not sink into the pumpkin batter like I had planned and the looks were not picture perfect, it just spread over the top and baked like that. I was disgusted but...
 Next I decided to make a lemon pound cake. I had been wanting one for several weeks. I had been to starbucks and they had a delicious lemon pound cake and then I remembered a recipe I used to make and this was the day to try it. I found some coconut sugar in the cupboard that I figured I should use up since it was there for a very long time and coconut and lemon are my 2 best flavors after chocolate so I figured it would be just fine. I also hated to put shortening into this cake with all of its evils so I put coconut oil in it instead, hey, might as well make it a little bit healthy! I had the mixer running and was checking with Google on the amounts of coconut oil versus shortening and was happily mixing up this cake that I was so eager to eat. I couldn't find my pound cake pan, remember I hadn't used it for 2 years, so I decided I would bake it in a regular cake pan and eat square pieces instead of nice pound pieces, but I was ok with that. Well that cake would not rise beyond a half inch. I pulled it out of the oven and glared at it then I opened the cookbook again to try and figure out what went wrong......I don't remember putting the eggs or the baking soda into the batter! Sigh!! The chickens got the cake. I was still not done trying to bake and I figured I could do pumpkin pies. They are so easy and you do not need a lot of brains to mix up pumpkin pies. I turned on the oven to get it hot. Wait! The element in the bottom had a really bright spot on it and I was a little worried, I sure did not want to fight a fire, I was at home alone. So with my eyes in the stove I continued to mix the pies. I was making 4. Suddenly the element went out and it would not come back on so I new I could not bake my pies. I called my good daughter-in-law and asked her if I could take the pies to her house to bake and of course she said yes. I put a lid on the batter bowl and put the crusts on a cookie sheet and was ready to head out the door and THEN, I thought, What in the world are you doing, I have a stove in the basement that works perfectly fine??? I took everything downstairs, I poured that batter into those crusts and was scraping it all out smooth AND OH NO....I forgot to put the cinnamon, salt and nutmeg into that batter. If you are wondering if I'm Ok, I can understand the question. I sprinkled a little of each on each pie and used my little whisk to stir it in. I put them in the oven and they baked to perfection without burning! Needless to say I was tired of trying to bake that day so I washed up the mess and quit! My frustration level was high and I could not believe the failure I was. Baking used to be fun, exciting and mostly successful. Am I loosing my head or my mind? I know I lost my husband but maybe I lost my mind to.....people don't usually know it if they loose their minds so maybe I did.... lets talk about something else less complicated. I was able to laugh about it by the end of the day, maybe I'm still OK, Maybe?
 Its the time of the year when days are getting shorter and the nights longer. I like the summer hours much better! Believe me I could not live in Alaska where the days are really, really short. I like the sunshine and long summer days so much better. Did you know that you get vitamin d from the sun, and that almost no one gets enough vitamin D. Studies have shown that even the people that live in the sunny and warm states have low levels of vitamin D. It is a good idea to supplement with vitamin D3, for sure in the winter time. Vitamin D3 is also known as the happy pill. If you feel down and depressed try taking it for several weeks or months and see if you can't feel a difference. Another really good idea for winter time health is a rebounder. It is a mini trampoline that you can have in the house. They are super good at getting your lymphatic system moving! The lymphatic system removes waste from every cell in your body while regulating the immune system. and believe me, we all have toxins in us that need to be sent on out. The lymphatic system works only by gravity so if you do not move, neither does your lymphatic system. Did you ever wonder why humans get sick more in the winter? Less sun, less activity and more junk food over the holidays play and extremely large role in our winter time sickness.
 So you might want to drink green smoothies, take vitamin D3, and stay active and cut out the junk food! But then again, you might rather be sick, its a free world and its up to you!
 The past 6 month have been hard and challenging. I know what its like to.....
   wake up in the morning and force myself out of bed
   move along with the daily grind of life just because I have to

Flowers that came this month

  be in a big crowd of people and feel very alone
  hate being in a crowd of people
 have no idea what to cook because I'm not even slightly hungry
 feel panic because the future looks scary and overwhelming
                I also know.....
         THAT GOD NEVER FAILS ME OR FORGETS ABOUT ME.

Indian day at school

 That is why I can put one foot in front of the other and go about my duties.

birthday cake from Jonathans sister

 I wonder when I will like crowds of people and I wonder when cooking and baking will again become easy and fun? I wonder a lot of things, but until then we will continue to cross new milestones.