Well it is the eve of my 31st birthday. Yes in about 7 hours and 14 minutes I will start fielding calls from my zany relatives. For some reason in my family we all know what time we were born. My aunts and mom start calling me at 6:26am (well sometimes Aunt Cindy forgets that shes an hour ahead of me and thats a real fun call lol) Im kinda wishy washy about the whole thing, varying from blah to dread and everything in between. There has been so very much that has happened since last year....On Friday we will have been at this house for a year! Can you believe it?!

We have had a nice rain the past day and a half. The rain barrels have been replenished and the garden is clipping along at a good pace. Most everything that was direct sown has sprouted. I still need to get the spaghetti squash in and buy some thyme to replace what I lost. My broccoli started to flower, I had tried to tell Bill that we needed to take what small heads there were he did not agree and now they are mostly blooming....grrrrr. The spinach bolted so I will need to replant, along with the radishes which we ate. I harvested the some lettuce tonight for a big dinner salad to go along with some homemade bbq pulled pork. Hmmm good food for nearly free. The pork we got from the boys mom for taking them for a week while her power was still out. We spiced it and boiled it up before putting it on the grill, which left me with a bit o broth thats now being frozen. I'll use it to cook up green beans later. What leftover meat we have is being frozen in small batches for future lunches.

All in all today was a good day. I hope for the same tomorrow.

98% of the garden is in. We started planting Wed a lil after 9am and didnt finish until just after 8:30pm. I had to direct sow a lot of things but the peppers seem to be fairing well, I also had a couple cucumber plants that didnt get thrashed by the foul weather. I need to buy some spaghetti squash to plant and some thyme plants. I will get pics soon.

I volunteered to work Memorial Monday. Im gonna need all the OT and extra that I can get. I finally got ahold of my insurance guy who verified that yes, the claim on groceries has to go through my deductible first and its just not worth it as its a $500 deductible. Useless since we didn't have any other damage.

Wednesday the 27th is my birthday. Im not sure that we are going to do anything. I would like to do something, just not sure what.

I will write more and in more detail come my weekend.

Going good in So. IL

Well Friday the rest of So. IL seemed to get their power back on. The boys went back to their mom's and Bill and I got the house back together. We were without power from Friday until Monday. Everything in the deep freeze thawed and we lost quite a bit in the fridge as well. We just didn't have enough room in the cooler. :( We had a kick butt cookout and invited as many people as we could to help us not let it go to waste. Friday I called the State Farm hot line and the girl told me I had a $500 deductible on my homeowners. My groceries might total out @ $200 max if that. We didn't have any car or house damage so.....yeah according to what she was telling me we are on our own with groceries. I am going to call my insurance agent Monday and double check. Bill says not to worry and that things will be OK but I am very aggravated. Not so much with the insurance people, I expect that but that we were unprepared...and that is my job!

I have been lucky as my workplace had generators and I was working my normal days..Many people weren't so lucky. I had the option to not come in due to circumstances but I would not get paid...not an option. There weren't many of us but we did just fine. I work in product information and not sales anymore so it was not as busy.

It stormed again last night but I didn't let it get me too down as I love storms. Yes there is still standing water in parts of the garden and it is a mess. It is suppose to be nice and sunny and slightly warm for the next couple days. Actually, it's not suppose to rain again until Thursday!! I am hoping to be able to get it planted either Monday or Tuesday...Wed at the very latest. So much to catch up on. I hope that everyone is well where they are.

Ever hear of an inland hurricane in Illinois? Who knew?! But thats what the National Weather Service is calling it. The power FINALLY came back on late yesterday....little damage to the house and we are fine. The garden....not so great, thankfully it wasnt completely planted. There are still thousands without power so my house is a little crowded at the moment so I will write more when I have more time and privacy.