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Wait...it's almost March?!?

 10 more months 'til Christmas.

This last month has been an absolute blur. Cleaning at Mrs. Bryan's house, cleaning at our house, lots of thinking and brainstorming and rearranging, appointments upon appointments, sinus infection/allergies, Bobby's surgery, meeting with surgeon and finally agreeing to future outpatient surgery for me, ongoing updates from my parents, garden tilled and snow peas, potatoes and beets planted (and yes I left several rows empty between the potatoes and beets for something else to go later as a buffer), chickens are laying, we may have a broody hen..in FEBRUARY!!!, we have two roosters that need to disappear, lots of family have been in from out of town to assist with the sorting and cleaning at Mrs. Bryan's house, and somewhere in the midst of it all I've found time to pay bills and catch up on a few emails. While I no longer feel like our house is a disaster zone, it is still overwhelming.

Years ago a friend posted a quote by Martin Luther:
    “You cannot keep birds from flying over your head but you can keep them from building a nest in your hair.”

I told Bobby that has become my mantra the last year. No bird nests...that is all I have to accomplish. And then I remember the barn swallows years ago that conquered our back porch. I missed one day...ONE DAY!...of sweeping off their forming nest and it was too late. There was a nest with eggs in it. I have to admit, we enjoyed watching the birds hatch and hearing them screech and watch them learn to fly and disappear. I did NOT enjoy cleaning up the mess afterwards.

On the positive side, rearranging the house to make room for things has meant doing some deep cleaning that really needed to be done. We hope to move the few furniture pieces we are getting from his Mom's to our house the middle of next month. Tonight I moved the fish tank to its new location, and we were amazed at how much larger the room looked with it in a different spot. I hope by my surgery in April everything will be in its place. That's my goal, anyway.

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