When It Rains it Pours - June 2021

The winds of change turned into a gale force by the time we arrived home from my lovely 40th birthday celebration up north. When we opened the back door upon our arrival home, a God-awful smell greeted our noises. My first thought was that we forgot to take the garbage out before we left. If only. Upon going into the kitchen to begin the unpacking process, I discovered a strange sticky goo dried on the kitchen floor. When I opened the fridge, it smelled like something died in there.  Something did die, and it was our fridge which dripped thawed raw meat, popsicles, and frozen fruits and veggie juice onto the floor and into the wall trim where it then made it's way into our basement.  The goo had solidified to the point where we needed a putty knife to scrape it away. And lots of bleach. It took days to find all the sources of the smell and reminded me so much of that one college roommate who came home drunk and puked into the heater, causing our room to smell like puke for the rest of the year. We got the car emptied out and went shopping to buy a new refrigerator that very night. Come to find out, after searching every appliance store in our area, that the size we need doesn't exist anywhere in stock due to an apparent Covid appliance shortage. We were told to expect a July arrival date. Fortunately, Will was able to borrow a mini fridge from work the next day and our Home Owner's insurance wrote us a check to help replace all of the spoiled food.

As if that wasn't enough to snap us out of our vacation chill, the very next day the power steering went out on my car, which was in the shop for a week and had a price tag of almost two grand. To add irony to this story, Will's car that we had posted for sale for the entire month of May, finally sold the day my car's steering went out. As the buyer was standing in my driveway making an offer to Will, I heard Alanis Morissette singing in my head. We knew it was now or never with Will's car, since we've been trying to sell it for over a year but it kept ending up in the repair shop. So we went from two cars to no cars and got a free loaner from the auto shop that was working on my car. Will could get to work, but the loaner did not fit our entire family, nor did it have air conditioning. Picture Will arriving at work sweating, and with a giant sticker on the side of the car that says "Free Loaner." Nothing like real life to keep you humble. But, we are grateful the steering didn’t go out when we were up north as that would have been a pricey nightmare to tow it home - been there done that before - with Will's car which was now fortunately sold.

So here I am, freshly 40, and living life again as a college student with my mini fridge, no car and wondering if it would be worth taking out a student loan. But unlike my college days, I am now responsible for four little humans who eat three times a day and need to be taken places like doctors and dentists and shopping and friends.

While all of this is going on, I am getting sicker and sicker.  I had started seeing a new Functional Medicine doctor in the spring who was taking insane amounts of blood work from me in an attempt to figure out what is going on with my health.  The first blood draw was split up over two different days and they took so many vials of blood at each one that I could barely drive myself home.  The second time I went, and each subsequent month after, I ate steak before my appointment and packed snacks for the drive home.  Over several months of this level of blood work, some patterns started emerging.  Namely, that I had extremely high levels of mycotoxins in my blood that started going up around the same time my family and I had what we thought was Covid at the beginning of April.  The doctor now suggested that we get our house tested for mold.  We've had our house tested for mold a number of times, and it always came back negative.  The doctor told me that it's a weekend certification to become a mold inspector and that not all mold companies are experienced at finding mold. So we did air quality testing with an online lab that the doctor recommended and when those flunked royally, we called in the remediation company that she suggested.  My mind is now starting to connect the dots - my sister's books that were moldy, our luggage and baby equipment, and the fact that our basement leaks and needs a dehumidifier running nine months out of every year.  The mold company found systematic mold on every single floor joist in our basement ceiling, as well as various molds growing on the cinderblock walls.  Will and I were told from other mold companies that there was harmless growth from water damage over the 100 plus years of our home's lifespan, but it wasn't anything to be concerned about.  Now I know that any mold is harmful for mold sensitive people.  I am apparently a mold sensitive person.  The most mind-blowing part of the inspection though was the mold growing on the floor joists - in the top, left hand photo below is an example of how the floor joists look.  Will and I thought that is just what 101 year old floor joists look like - they look dusty.  Nope.  It's mold.  Everything in our basement that had a porous surface and couldn't be wiped down with disinfectant or sent through the wash in a mold killing solution had to be thrown out.  Even our pantry in the basement - anything in a cardboard box like cereal or crackers and even the paper labels on canned goods had to be thrown out.  Will peeled the labels off of the cans, disinfected the can and labeled them with a sharpie. The food boxes were opened, boxes tossed, and we kept the plastic sealed food within.  It was financially devastating to throw so much out, unbelievably time consuming, and tedious.  And Will had to do it all by himself, as now we knew that I am anaphylactic allergic to mold.  

The allergists I went to over the years never tested me for mold allergies, only food and other environmental allergies.  This is why it was so confusing when I would have anaphylactic reactions to what seemed like food and my tests said I wasn't allergic to those foods.  And why after over seven years of going to so many doctors I was starting to think it was all in my head.  I did have many doctors suggest to me that stress could do crazy things, despite me telling them I wasn't stressed when these events happened.  Looking back on the allergic reactions, which I have kept a journal on, it became clear to me that these foods could easily have had mold on them, or it was times when I spent time in my basement where my workroom is.  The Functional Medicine doctor also pointed out that I am allergic to a mold-based antibiotic which I reacted to at age 5 and was my first known allergic reaction in my life.  

And even crazier, the blessing with our fridge and it's timing, was that when Will pulled off the floor trim, he found mold in the walls.  Mold was everywhere in my house.  We bought our house 11 years ago from someone who had bought it in a severely neglected foreclosure, and flipped it.  Everything looked shiny and new when we bought it.  We had no idea what was in the walls but it was making me sicker and sicker.  My beloved house was making me sick.  But that's not to say that any house is free of mold - most houses have mold and it is something you just have to stay on top of after any leak.  The problem with our house is that the basement leaks nine months out of every year, and so there is no inexpensive way to keep mold at bay.  It was time for Will and I to arrange for remediation, and determine if we could afford to fix the root problems or if it was time to move.  It was also time for me to begin coming to terms with the fact that I have an allergy to something that is almost as prevalent as air.  Mold is all around us, it is a useful part of how this planet efficiently recycles everything, and it is impossible to avoid 100%.

More ah-ha moments kept occurring.  When we had the remediation company out, he tested our sump pump as he said that is a common source of mold.  Guess what - the sump pump tested positive for mold and signs of mold exposure/toxicity for even people not allergic to mold include fever, muscle twitching, lung issues and fatigue.  All of the symptoms we had in April, after Will fixed our sump pump.  Another ah-ha moment was the severe stomach ache I had after eating the morel mushrooms I found last month.  Fungi and I are not compatible it seems.  For most people, there is a threshold of how much mold they can safely handle.  Mold gives off toxins to keep other varieties of mold from moving into their territory, and so if there is enough mold and not enough fresh air, the toxins can accumulate to the point where anyone would be sick from exposure.  That was the point we were now at in our house, as Lucy and Emma were exhibiting symptoms as well.  

Lots of heavy things for Will and I to figure out this month, but when you have kids, life continues to move forward.  Opal, still at a fresh 3 years old, is dependent upon us for almost everything.  The other three could manage somewhat with our distraction, but Opal needs us for the most basic things.  This is a huge blessing, as otherwise I may have been hard pressed to get out of bed this past month.  I didn't feel well, and emotionally was reeling from the news about our house.  Sweet and spicy Opal ensured I got out of bed each morning, and found reasons to smile, laugh, and keep going.  Here she is below in clockwise order from top left: I found her with a piece of tape fixing a part of the floor trim that she accidentally knocked a chunk out of, Opal helping herself to a left over piece of corn on the cob from our new, reachable mini fridge, Opal having long enough hair to finally braid, a marker I found with a piece of tape over the top and after asking who did that, Opal explained she couldn't find the cap so made her own cap, and finally, the piece of floor trim that Opal repaired.  She is a problem-solver for sure!

Also in the hierarchy of needs is Charlie, and although way more independent than Opal, still not responsible enough to be left to his own devices.  In clockwise order from top left below: Charlie napping in the grass, Charlie attacking the net we put across our driveway to keep kids and balls out of the street, Charlie looking in to our kitchen window, Will giving Charlie a good brushing with diatomaceous earth to keep him flea-free (he LOVES being brushed), Charlie looking like a sphinx on the cinderblocks where my beehives used to be, and Charlie napping on top of our car.  It took us a bit to find him, as we like to lock him in each night and when we finally discovered him on top of the car, he opened one eye and looked at us like we were annoying him.  What a cat.

We finished up school for the summer this past month, and I may have been more excited about this than even the kids.  In clockwise order from top left below:  Lucy reading a Physics book laid out like a graphic novel which I thought was a cool concept.  Wile E. Coyote was the main character and since Lucy has not grown up on this cartoon like I did, I think the novelty was lost on her.  When I asked her if she was learning anything, she responded, "You mean besides that coyotes are super dumb?"  Next photo shows Violet with a drawing shop set up in our craft closet, the girls receiving a package of brand new books compliments of my sister Jane's boyfriend's mom who is a professor at Oxford University and gets a free copy of any book that Oxford publishes so she sends us the kid ones, and finally, the kids making crafts together.

With no car and no school, the girls and I took up watercoloring together.  It is so relaxing and we all enjoy it.

Lucy and even Emma are outgrowing play, and this has left Violet lonely.  Slowly but surely, Opal has been filling in the playmate role for her.  The age difference between Violet and Opal is the same it is between me and my younger brother, and he was my very best playmate growing up.  I am so happy to see that despite a four year age gap, Violet and Opal are learning how to have fun together.

I wanted to officially launch my new business Wildflower Moon on the Full Flower Moon of May, exactly one year after I started the business.  That was not to be, but lots of positive steps forward happened this past month.  In clockwise order from top left below: reviewing another proof from the printer of the journal, seeing a mandala I drew in print, the cover of the journal, the bookmark which fulfilled my need of being eco-friendly but still sturdily made of maple veneer by a small artist owned company in Detroit, Lucy helping me make more bracelets, and cloth handkerchiefs made with my own signature fabric arriving from the sewing company I love in Cleveland.  It seemed like almost every day a new surprise was waiting for me in the mail, and the excitement that this generated was a huge blessing for my mood.

We celebrated Father's Day with Will this past month...

...and enjoyed a bike ride with him to celebrate the day.  I found a cool little bike seat on Facebook Marketplace for Opal, so that the girls and I could still get to places despite having no car.  Opal hated the bike trailer, she hated the bike seat that we had that went behind my seat, but she absolutely LOVES this little seat.  It's like a cuddle while riding a bike, and her and I both really enjoy the experience.  Because of this little seat, we were able to go to the kid's well-visits at the pediatrician via bike, which our doctor loved to hear, go to our friend's house, and even pick up a few groceries.  In the right hand, top photo below, we found a pair of twin fawns in the cemetery we walk in our neighborhood.

We spent time with family and friends this past month, and based on the COVID numbers, finally felt comfortable with an indoor visit with my family.  Hugging them made me cry, and it was so good to see my nieces and nephews although bittersweet as well to see how much they had grown since we last saw them in person.  Hugging my own parents after over a year of quarantine was an emotional experience I won't soon forget.  I didn't realize just how much I missed hugging them until I was finally able to hug them again.  Writing this almost nine months later, I know that we ended up quarantining again as the numbers went back up, and went back up again, but at this point, I thought/hoped we were through the worst.

We enjoyed the warmer weather this past month and the freedom of playing outside without winter accessories.  In the bottom, right hand photos our neighbor made a face out of some rocks on our picnic table and then Will came home from work and added arms and legs.  Aren't humans adorable?

The below pictures reminded me of this season, and how we came up with a new summer treat with our blender, a jar of peaches and some frozen mango.  We loved doing water play and eating this blended treat with a spoon to stay cool and celebrate the perks of summer.  I had to laugh when Violet and Opal put on their swim goggles to run through the sprinklers.  

Our wildflower meadow started blooming this past month, and Lucy was able to get some lovely photos with her camera (the three photos on the right hand side below) and all of the girls brought me lovely bouquets.

Another summer treat that the kids discovered this summer was homemade lemonade.  What a perfect time in our life to make lemonade from lemons.  The first time they made it from a recipe online that apparently was meant for a large crowd.  They ran out of pitchers and containers to hold the liquid and the kitchen was a sticky mess.  We have since revised the ratios and the kitchen is still a sticky mess, but we now have the appropriate amount of containers to hold it.

Emma and I tried our hand at making purple vinegar with chive blossoms from our garden and rice wine vinegar.  We gifted the pretty purple liquid to my mom and Will's mom with a recipe to make salad dressing with it.

Our garden produced tasty strawberries but with four sets of little hands picking it this year, barely any berries made it into the kitchen.  Will bought his annual flat of strawberries at the fruit stand by our house and made enough strawberry jam for the year.

When life is throwing you more lemons than you have pitchers to make lemonade with, it is helpful to find the humor in life.  I couldn't stop laughing when the pot bellied pigs our neighbor was babysitting got loose and some well-meaning citizen called the police.  Watching pigs being caught by the police was a level of humor only lost on the police themselves.  The road was blocked, traffic was backing up, and it was like a regular parade when the pigs were led back to their home on sticks with nooses, squealing (although it sounded more like screaming) all the way home with neighbors applauding and making pig and police jokes.

We headed up north at the end of the month, which was good timing to get us out of our house that was making us sick while we waited for remediation.  

Getting to the beach is a feat with four kids, and Will is like a human pack animal.  Thankfully my new beach bag from my parents for my birthday helped, but those inner tubes sure are interesting to tote.  Will has even been known to give piggy back rides when the sand is too hot.  The kids have no idea how spoiled they are by his strength.

I love sitting on the beach and watching my family play in pure peace and bliss.  I also love watching the babies leave the beach as the sun sets.  Every single baby leaves exhausted, wrapped in a towel, and carried by a tired parent.  My baby is no exception.

Lucy found a frog one evening at the beach and the kids had fun playing with it.  I'm not sure the frog had fun, but he did eventually hop away.  Will and I have some great memories pre-kids of hiking Tahquamenon Falls, and this year we felt like they were all old enough to enjoy it with us.  It was so nice to be back there, this time with our kids.

Since Will and I have been there before, I knew that we needed to get the entire family water shoes to be able to enjoy the full experience of walking in the falls.

After a blissful afternoon in the water, we had ice cream and then headed back to the cottage.  When I took my new water shoes off, I discovered that they had stained my feet blue.  Every day for the rest of the trip, I had to deal with people staring at my blue feet.  I wanted to say that I was on vacation from my day job as a member of the Blue Man Group, but I instead just tried to keep my feet buried in the sand.

Opal was carried for most of the hiking, as there were a lot of stairs, and how Will did it in the humidity was beyond me.  It drizzled most of the day and the air was super thick.  In fact, it rained every single day we were up north that week.  It didn't stop our morning hikes, but it did make beach time delayed, or just not as fun.  In the top, right hand photo below is a sweet little spot we found that we put a fairy in for a photo op.  I keep the fairy in our hiking backpack and the kids keep engaged in the hike as they look for perfect fairy spots.

We had a take out meal at sunset on the beach one night, and it was the type of golden moment that I will remember forever.  We had the beach to ourselves as it had rained earlier, and the water was calm and the sunset through the clouds was breathtaking.  Someone once told me that the most spectacular sunsets happen with clouds and that is a great metaphor for life.

We spent a lot more time in the cottage than we had hoped, but I had brought watercolor supplies and games and so we made the best of it.  Will was an art teacher for a time, and his frog that he painted reminded us all of his currently untapped talent.

The below photos show more time spent indoors at the cottage waiting for rain to stop so we could go to the beach.  I had to laugh when Will showed up for dinner one night with a towel wrapped on his head like Lucy and Emma had on theirs.  You can just hear Lucy and Emma saying, "Daaaaaaad!"  

This past month was the most expensive month of our lives with mold remediation, power steering repairs, a new fridge, and all of the items we had to throw out from our basement. It gives new meaning to the term Rainy Day Fund, as clearly, when it rains it definitely pours (and when it pours, our basement leaks). You could argue though that the ah-ha moments that occurred were priceless, and there is something to be said for finally figuring out what has been making such mysterious and disturbing health issues for me for so long. We were now in the thick of the events that would shape the course of our future. The voice in my head was no longer singing Alanis Morissette but telling me to buckle up, buttercup!

May 2021

By the time May rolls around, school is a deeply embedded routine, but it is also a countdown of just a few weeks left until we stop the routine for the bliss of summer freedom which lasts long enough to have to relearn the school routine again in the fall.  Totally worth it!  Here the kids are below in clockwise order from top left: the girls and I painting mandalas with q-tips, the girls plugging away at school while waiting at the dentist for Violet, Opal doing her obligatory morning snuggles so that she can face the day (this is equivalent to morning coffee for her - doesn't matter how late you may be running, you don't dare skip the obligatory morning snuggles), Emma doing school outside but needing shade, Lucy setting up the painting trays for us to begin the mandalas, and finally, one of the kid's answered a math problem in a funny to me way - 90 degrees is to right angle as 45 degrees is to _____.  Freezing, of course!

My kids may not always get along, but I do feel like a major perk of homeschooling is that they do mostly play well together.  They are each other's best friends and I know that having four girls close in age isn't always the homeschool scenario, so for that I feel very lucky.  Here they are below, enjoying each other's company.

Spring weather means outside fort season, and Charlie couldn't be happier.  I think he believes the forts are built just for him.  In the center photo below, Violet was starting to overheat so designed her own seat that also created shade.  Early May in Michigan is a tricky time where the weather is warm but the trees are not yet filled out enough to give any shade.  I love the bottom photo below where I found the girls all reading in their fort outside but in homemade shade.

May is a time when we are all just happy to be outside and every activity in the backyard is still new and exciting as we had the entire winter to miss it.  In clockwise order below: Will and the three oldest practicing physics, Violet's hair after a dandelion puff war with her sisters (this is actually the incident that showed us just how allergic Violet is to dandelions and sadly she won't be able to have any more dandelion wars where you take the stems gone to seed and blow them like bubbles or swing them like swords at your sisters), the entire family testing out physics at the playground at the end of our street, Violet trying to pull two sisters in play cars, and finally, Opal setting up her fairy house for the season.

Someone found a frog in the yard and all the sisters had fun playing with it.  Will and I always feel sorry for the manhandled (or in this case, sister handled) frog and are at the point now where if we find a frog, we take it to safety, far from where the girls may find him.  They are always gentle, but you CAN be too loving.  In the bottom, right hand photo below, Will and the girls are discovering tiny green shoots emerging in our wildflower meadow along our driveway.

I've always wanted to find morel mushrooms in the spring, and this year I finally set out searching for them with the family.  Imagine our excitement and thrill when we found some!!!  Because we wanted to observe mindful harvest practices and I did't know how many morel mushrooms the woods across the street from us produce, we only harvested a few.  I googled how to cook them, which involved a several hour soak in ice water and a lovely sauté in butter and invited my foodie neighbor over to try them with me.  They were absolutely the best mushrooms I have ever tasted, and I appreciated my neighbor's trusting and adventurous spirit as no one in my family would eat them with me.  

Flash forward in the middle of the night, and I woke up with a killer stomach ache and major sweating.  I seriously started worrying that I fed my neighbor and I poison mushrooms so I took several charcoal tablets.  As soon as it was polite to text the next morning, I asked her if she slept okay/felt okay.  She did.  What a relief.  Sadly, I don't think my body will allow me to eat morel mushrooms again.

I continued to plug away at Wildflower Moon this past month, and started the lengthy process of proofing the journal that I wrote.  Who knew that the layout and design process of the journal would be more consuming than actually writing it!  I had many friends and family members proof read it for me and offered amazing editing suggestions and tips to make it the best it could be.  The girls helped me make bracelets and even joined me for a meeting with the printer where they sat in the conference room with me and glimpsed their mom as a boss and not just their mom.  My kids did so good at this meeting and I was so proud of them.  I am so grateful to be a stay at home mom while still being able to be an entrepreneur and I hope that my kids are learning through osmosis what it takes to create and run a business or, even more broadly, how to follow your dreams.

Our suburban farm started to wake up this past month.  In clockwise order from top left below: a failed attempt at zucchini chips, Will replacing the heating element in our oven after it started on fire! (I am so proud of him when he fixes appliances with YouTube videos, but this one had me nervous), Will with a giant stack of waffles for him and the kids and an egg-free applesauce pancake platter for me, Will making an outdoor nesting box for our chickens, as the they had been fighting over the nesting boxes in the coop, a giant tray of apple bars, and individual stews and several trays of banana bread for the freezer.

The girls hand me downs were getting out of hand in our basement, and so Will and I organized them out this past month.  This is never fun and always time consuming but we were proud and relieved when it was finished.  I can't imagine having hand me downs for another gender on top of this!  Unfortunately, as we were cleaning up the clothes we discovered that several boxes of books I had been storing for my sister while she was in Europe for a few years were water damaged.  We took the boxes outside to assess the damage and detected mold on the majority of the books.  I felt terrible, as she had trusted me with these books and a lot of them were irreplaceable.  We layed out all of the books on the driveway so that I could text photos to my sister so she could have an inventory of the damage.  We saved the most important books in ziplock bags per her request and bleached the area of the basement where the mold had been growing and threw out the rest.  Throwing out books is one of the worst things for a book-lover like me and my sister to have to do.  Upon further inspection, we realized that our luggage was also moldy, as was some of the kids baby equipment so we tossed those too.  Little did we know that some serious foreshadowing was starting to take place.

We celebrated Violet's 7th birthday at the beginning of the month and the desks were finally all with their new owners now.  In the bottom, left hand photo below, Violet is holding up a popular figurine of a little girl with the number 7 on her dress from the 80s that I had when I was growing up.  I had actually donated mine years before I knew I would have daughters, but my college roommate had saved hers and doesn't have daughters, so gave it to us when Lucy was 7.  It has been passed down through the sisters at each 7th birthday and I love this little full circle tradition.

Violet received some great sister gifts and a few inexpensive gifts from Will and I, since the bulk of our budget was spent on her desk.

Probably her favorite gift was a Little Live Pet Shop fish that swims in water.  And, as I am writing this blog post over eight months later, I can affirm that she still plays with this toy.

Violet spent her birthday playing with her new toys and her sisters and had a delicious brownie topped with cream cheese frosting and strawberries for her birthday dessert.

The next May holiday at our house was Mother's Day.  We spent a quiet day together and despite the rain, took a hike on a newer to us trail at the local metro park.  Will stressed me out as he and Emma mucked through a marsh to dig up a plant called Marsh Marigold for him to transplant in our native rain garden at home.  I'm pretty sure this is illegal, and this gave me anxiety.  See photo in the below, right hand corner of Will and Emma deep in the marsh and in my mind, deep in trouble.

The Marsh Marigold is thriving in our rain garden, but native plant nurseries need to get their act together and offer more varieties of plants so my husband doesn't start having a criminal record.  Will made up for his shenanigans by making me strawberry rhubarb cobbler for dessert.  What can I say, I forgive easily when food is involved.

Later that week the girls and I went over to my parents house to give my mom her Mother's Day gift.  This year we gave her a rhubarb plant (with lots of Liz-tested rhubarb recipes) and helped her plant it.

While we were there, my sister Cate gave the girls' American Dolls a complete makeover.  She had told me where to order new wigs for each of the dolls from, so we brought her four dolls and four new wigs that the girls had fun picking out online.

Not only did she replace their hair, but repainted their faces.  They are absolutely beautiful.  All four girls dolls are hand me downs - one from my youth, two from my sisters, and one that Will's mom had won years ago in a silent auction.  They look like brand new dolls now.  It's hilarious to me to see my sister at work, with doll parts strewn around - kind of creepy but amazing too to see how talented she is.  She is an engineer by day and a doll restorer by night.

Later on in the month we celebrated the May and June birthdays in my family at my parents house.  To ensure COVID safety, we celebrated in the garage.  We played games, ate great food, and opened presents.  In the bottom, left hand photo below Lucy is carrying Violet in a tote bag I got from my parents for my birthday.  Finally, I have a bag big enough to bring all of the accessories we need for a comfortable day at the beach.

My dad, myself, and my brother John all have birthdays within a few weeks of each other.

The photos don't really show it, but it was cold and rainy that day and none of us had dressed warm enough for it.  Memories were made though, and when we finally do get back to celebrating indoors, I'm guessing we will never forget those garage celebrations.

This year I turned 40, and I knew I needed to be in my happy place when that happened.  I booked our favorite place almost a year in advance, and the owner of the cottage was very understanding and blocked out the days for me despite it being Memorial Day weekend.  And he didn't even raise the rate on me either, which is a huge kindness on the first holiday weekend in the summer in northern Michigan.

To me, there is something about turning a milestone birthday that really causes you to take stock in your life and feel sentimental for all you've been through, as well as force you to acknowledge your own mortality.  When Will turned 40, he told me he didn't feel any of this inner turmoil.  Must be nice!  But, that is why we didn't book a trip for his 40th.  The song that got me in an upbeat mood through the day, surround by my favorite people and my favorite scenery was Rob Thomas's song, One Less Day.  My family tolerated this song on repeat only because it was my birthday.  And it was a great reminder that I'll never be as young again as I am today.

This trip did not disappoint, and was a great way to kick off my 40th trip around the sun as well as the summer season.

There is something about this spot in the world that I crave, and Will has told me that he is starting to feel the need to travel to new places, perhaps even leave the state we live in, and I just don't know when that can happen as I need to be Up North in Michigan in the summer.  I don't want to hog our vacation budget or time, but the only compromise I can come up with is traveling to Will's interests in the winter and early spring and maybe one trip in the summer.  But going up north three times a year is what we aim for now, and it is barely enough for me.  I envision some day owning a piece of land up north so that we can come and go at our convenience.  I never thought I would be a person who was content to never go exploring to new places, but here I am, at least at this stage in my life.

I can't remember completely, but I believe the ice cream below was earned from a hike in which this was the bribe to stop the whining.  A win win for all!

Opal is at the age where she loves playgrounds and so we had to stop at a few playgrounds on the trip.  In the top, lefthand photo below, the girls are sitting on a tree branch on our favorite hike that we take yearly photos on, and it is like something that could be found on a playground, only better in my opinion!

Will and the girls were able to hide my birthday presents in the car on the way up north, and so the morning of my birthday was filled with great gifts.

The photo in the top, left hand photo below is a selfie I took as I watched the sun set in my favorite place on earth on my last night in my 39th year.  I told you I was sentimental, and that last sentence proves it.  Will was in the cottage getting the girls ready for bed, so I had some solitude and this time alone could be the best gift he gave me for my 40th.  I cried a few tears, and had a moment with God.  The gratitude that filled me for being there at that moment, and for the gifts I have in my life had me feeling awed and thankful.  I cannot express in words the moment I had here.  I also cried out to God to help make a shift in my life.  For several years now (seven to be exact) I have been getting sicker and sicker for unknown reasons - unable to eat so many foods and the list keeps growing, having anaphylactic reactions to unknown triggers and having chronic exhaustion and doctors coming up with no answers other than it must be in my head.  It is a hopeless feeling to be so sick with no medical reason - it makes you doubt yourself and feel like you will never find relief and that your problems are not valid enough to share with others, since there is no medical thing wrong apparently.  Plus, a feeling of needing to be up north more and just craving a shift to happen in my life, but not knowing what that shift needs to be.  In short, I pleaded to God for a change.  I felt a goose bump raising chill and a feeling in my gut that told me that this change would be one of the hardest challenges of my life thus far, and at this moment, on the eve of my 40th birthday, I felt the strength and readiness rise in me - I was ready.  Bring it.

For months now I have looked back on that moment with the sunset and God, and have wondered if I regret this request.  I do not, even as I write this blog post in retrospect.  All I can say is, be careful that you are ready for what you ask for.