Well, we have been home for well over a year now. The Plan: get an assignment near home, finish our home renovations, move to the mountains of Western NC. Well, life happened. The assignment ‘near home’ fell through and I went back to work at my ‘home’ hospital. That turned out to be really great, I got to reconnect with my nurse and work buddies. I had been thinking of and planning to go back to school to get my bachelors degree in nursing (I currently have my Associates in Nursing) and so I started my program at WGU in August of last year. I then got diagnosed with Hashimotos Disease and spent lots of time and money on doctors, naturopaths and supplements. Around the same time there was a family crisis and I got custody of two extra children (here you can throw in a whole lotta emotional junk and drama). As you can imagine the things that I wanted to do got put on the back burner while the more important life stuff was at the forefront. In January my aunt asked me how homesteading was going. I laughed and told her it wasn’t. I was busy with school, meetings, work, dr. appointments- you know all that life stuff.
But, that conversation relit my desire to spend time doing some of the things I enjoy doing, like homesteading. She talked about lettuce and the things that she like to plant in the cooler weather. I have always wanted to try growing lettuce. I started some in a pot in West Virginia, but it did not do well. Now I had the motivation to try again. I planted a couple types of lettuce, broccoli, cauliflower, kale and collard greens. The lettuce, collard greens and kale did really well, the cauliflower and broccoli- not so much. But I learned. The thought of plantings those plants can never intimidate me again because I have grown them. I let the broccoli and radishes flower- I never knew vegetable flowers could be so pretty. Letting those vegetables flower might have done nothing for my harvest, but I learned something new and that’s part of the fun of it.
We all have busy seasons in our life were scheduling gets out of control or something more important needs your attention. That’s just life. I am happy to report these days life is not quite as busy. I have a new nursing jog that is not so physically demanding. I seem to have a better grip on Hashimotos and I’m not so debilitatingly tired. School….. well, I’m trying to power through it. I can tell you I am not a fan of Biochemistry. The summer garden is thriving and we have chickens again. Life is good.
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