It is interesting to me how human nature cannot fully grasp the magnitude of a blessing without also experiencing the depth of loss. I also am intrigued with how easily it is to forget gratitude, as life moves on and the pain and suffering begin to fade. It almost becomes a blessing then, to have a life with a balanced portion of both blessing and loss as without one, the other cannot be appreciated. This past month literally awoke me with a shock to the blessings that I have and gave me a renewed appreciation of what they mean to me when Lucy woke me up early one morning to inform me that the fan plug was on fire and to please come quick. With my heart in my throat, I rushed to the girls room to first observe that there was no visible fire and then to quickly connect the dots with a pair of scared little girls, a charred pair of child-sized scissors and a blackened wall outlet. Imagine my relief as the weight of what could have happened started to dawn on me. Lucy wanted to unplug the fan next to her bed, and upon finding that the plug was stuck, utilized her scissors to pry it out of the wall. She was not hurt and her bed, just an inch off of the wall, did not catch on fire.
Our babies, our sweet babies were okay. Our house did not burn down. The entire upstairs fuses were blown, but those fuses had done their job. It was an important reminder to Will and I that even at age 6, safety reminders still needed to be a regular routine and that the only thing separating us from a good day versus a bad day is gratitude. Pure and simple gratitude.
These three girls are my world, and even though most days I feel under appreciated and exhausted, there is no place I would rather be and no one I would rather be with. And to share my days with these three girls in our cozy, light-filled and beautiful dream house is more than I could have ever asked for.
Of course, my reminder in gratitude did not stop there though. Ah, this sweet life of mine, offering me up such a balanced portion of blessing and dare I say, this time, torture! After three years of bee keeping I am by no means an expert. In fact, after three years, I can honestly say I have a large repertoire of things that DON'T work, and a shrinking list of things that DO work. With that being said, after working with honey bees for three years, I have developed a sense of ease, or casualness with creatures that should be handled with utmost caution at all times. I met a friend at the property north of here where I have a couple of hives and was proud to show her my bees. I had a couple of tasks to complete to help get them ready for winter and *may* have been showing off a bit with my nonchalant attitude about getting stung. Needless to say, I ended up being swarmed by angry honey bees and stung so many times that I started running while swearing and yelling "I'm trying to help you!" until I ended up falling on a gravel driveway and hurting my knee. I had upwards of thirty bee stings and as I lay in the gravel driveway - still getting stung and trying not to cry - it occurred to me that this could be one of the lowest points of my life. My sweet friend had a first aid kit in her car, and drove me home. The irony was not lost on me though when she handed me a first aid wipe that said "sting-free" on it. In the pictures below in clockwise order from the top left: Will going through great care to save and release a honey bee that was in our house (too bad that karma didn't help me), the "sting-free" wipe, my hand beginning to swell, a baking soda paste on my arm that took the majority of the bee stings, a mud paste on my arm, and lastly, the food that I had made the honey bees to help them get through the winter.
My mom has asked me several times why I even want to take such a risk to work with honey bees when you can just buy honey at the store. Before the bee attack, I told my mom that working with honey bees is actually a very calming experience for me. At no other time in my life am I able to focus so intently that the rest of the world fades away and it is just me and the hum of my hard working bees. It is mesmerizing and peaceful. The day after the bee attack, as my knee throbbed, my body continued to swell and the stings started itching like crazy and I got a fever, I was really starting to question myself about having a hobby that is obviously so dangerous. The day after the bee incident I had to go back to the property to get my car, and to finish winterizing the bees. I had Will go into the bees for me, as my swelling and itching and fever would not have allowed me to work in a safe manner. Truth be told though, I wasn't emotionally ready to face the bees yet. The following week though, I decided to be brave. My motivation - the three pairs of brown eyes watching me, to see if I would let the pain define what I love to do. Plus, how would I be able to afford my honey addiction or my love of all things beeswax? My take away from this experience is that I do still love bee keeping, but just like my 6 year old, I need to be reminded of proper safety precautions on a routine basis. May I never forget the great bee sting of 0-15, and may I always carry enough duck tape to seal off any holes in my bee suit! Below are products that I have been making with my honey and beeswax, as well as a little girl I caught poking holes in a frame of honey comb.
Fortunately, that was the end of the drama for October. The baking soda and mud pastes took my swelling and fever away very efficiently, and if I were to ever be stung that many times again, I am confident that if I use those old-fashioned remedies (thank you Krista and Google) first that I will be better much faster. Once my knee started feeling better from the incident, I took full advantage of the gorgeous fall weather we had this past month and got outside as much as possible. Below are views from a nature path by our house and the nearby cemetery.
We enjoyed many visits to the local cider mill, the girls joined Will and his parents for his school's homecoming parade, and we all enjoyed many playground trips.
Our backyard is small enough that the leaf clean up is more enjoyable than not, and the kids definitely had fun playing in the leaves.
We picked pumpkins from our garden and planted almost 200 crocus bulbs. The crocus will hopefully come up in the early spring and provide the first of the season's food for my bees.
We have been diligently plugging away at school work and are fully immersed in our routine. Things that make homeschooling possible include grocery delivery, as witnessed by our cat in the top right hand picture below.
I'm the kind of person who can pass hours upon hours quite easily on Pinterest. I have had to limit my time spent on there as of late, because it just makes me feel depressed that I don't have enough time to do all of the wonderful and amazing projects posted. We did try making mini, fairy-sized pumpkins out of acorns which was a disappointment because the kind of paint we used just wouldn't stick to the acorns. We did have better success with good old fashioned Play Doh and finger painting - you know, the kind of stuff we did as kids because our parents didn't have Pinterest.
Our library hosted a kid carnival this past month which was a lot of fun. Violet hit the ground running when we arrived and I unbuckled her from the stroller. Lucy and Emma on the other hand took a while to warm up. I thought maybe it was because they were the oldest kids there, but once they felt comfortable, they were an unstoppable pair.
Our friends invited us to an event at the Science Center this past month that was quite an experience. The theme was color, and they had make and take crafts and science experiments all involving color, as well as live demonstrations, music and food. We even enjoyed the girls first experience in a planetarium. It was a night to remember shared with good friends, and it doesn't get any better than that.
Here we are below, enjoying more time spent with friends and cousins.
We celebrated Will's birthday this past month and spent time with his family.
Will and I are almost at the point where we have celebrated as many birthdays together as we have apart. I am grateful to not only spend birthdays with my best friend, but to also watch the traits that I love in him, blossom in our kids. Will's sense of humor is top on my list of attributes that I love, and our kids have definitely inherited some of his hilariousness. In the picture below, Emma brought a hook that fell off of a hanger to Will and said, "Daddy, one of your hookers fell out of the closet."
We had a fun Halloween with minimal stress. This year we just couldn't decide on a costume that we all agreed on until about two weeks before Halloween. Fortunately for me, Will took over the job of Halloween costumes and was able to pull together Lucy and Emma as noble Robin Hoods for under $8 total at the Salvation Army. Violet was a bee and cost us nothing as we already had the costume from when Emma was a baby.
Below are pictures from our mini Halloween party we had before we went Trick or Treating with friends in our neighborhood. The top left hand picture below is of a tray of "bloody" band aids and "used" q-tips that our friends brought as an appetizer. Violet was a huge fan of the q-tips. In the bottom right hand pictures you can see us posing with Will's mullet wig. I gave Will's cousin a scare when I texted her a picture of me and said I needed to cancel our hair cut appointment the following week because Will cut my hair and didn't he do a great job? Little did I know that Will had the same idea, and texted a picture of Lucy in the wig to a friend of mine, saying that Lucy cut her own hair. I was a little confused when my friend called me freaking out but I was able to figure things out pretty quickly. Both our cousin and friend were pacified when we sent them the picture of Violet in the wig.
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