Garden, Bored, Sad...

I've been meaning to start a garden since we moved down her to Florida- well, not and actual in the ground garden because when we were picking a rental to move into my husband said his hill to die on was having a pool. In this part of Florida, yards are tiny and if you have a pool it means you have no grass except for a few square feet in the front of your house (and those few square feet are relegated by the wonderful HOA).

I had dreams of tons of containers filled with yummy produce and oh my- I could grow all year!

Well, I've done nothing in regards to gardening here. Other things keep coming up and honestly the first two (three, four ) months were full of me just being homesick. I have frequently visited the local farm stand where they sell tons of locally grown produce, though equally because I love supporting local farms and that the local stores that sell produce here (Target and Public) have horrible produce.

I really think it is time for me to grow something outside. In full transparency my husband did buy me an AeroGarden for Christmas but I feel like that is cheating mostly because he has been doing the upkeep. When I see the water light blink I am like "uggggggggggg" and don't add water so he does it.

As part of me trying to get back into my groove down here in this foreign land I thing my next goal should be to grow some sort of edible plant outside. I need to research what can grow at this time in Southern Florida, go to an actual store to buy supplies and then grow said plant. I also need to pledge to keep up with the maintenance aspect (this is always my downfall).

Also, perhaps growing my own food will cut down on my grocery bill each week. I swear that I spend much more on groceries as a stay at home mom than I did when I was working part time. I think it has a lot to do with that I am bored and need a hobby and gardening may be the perfect thing to make me feel productive  (or may not because I am horrible at keeping plants alive).

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Florida- Grrrrr

not the view from my house- I wish!

I am looking out my window at the moment and instead of the weather being overcast and cold it is sunny and warm (and very, very humid).

Obviously I am no longer in the tiny state of Rhod Island (insert frown face emoji here). My husband accepted a new job in southern Florida and we have been down here for four months- four long and semi-miserable months.

Florida is great, but it's just not for me. Before the whole move idea came up I was honestly completely content with my life. Then boom- all that I held dear to my contentedness (is that a word?) was gone and replaced with a foreign state with different customs than this New Englander was used to.

Slowly but surely I am moving towards accepting the fact the we are here and I need to get over the things I don't like but man, is it hard. This move was a horrible idea (for many other reasons that I'm not going to get into right now) but we did it and hopefully in a couple of years we can undo it.

I don't see myself making friends down here because I am just the type of person who makes friends at work- making mommy friends and doing the play date thing is just not in my DNA. And while pondering this fact I realized that I miss blogging.

Blogging was always fun for me. Even though I wasn't getting millions of page hits a day it just felt nice to write and to get my jumbled thoughts out of my head.

So please join me on my journey to to accepting Florida as my new home state and my journey to trying to save money (because it is fricken expensive living down here).

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I'm Back!

Life happens and things we once thought were important suddenly become unimportant. And then things change and those once important things are no longer important.

It has been almost a year since I last blogged and my life has progressed in so many ways.

My children are about a year older than before (almost 8, almost 6 and 3 1/2). We adopted a dog (a pit bull mix) who is now best friends with our min pin. I am working three days at work and stopped working Saturdays (oh my gosh- how awesome has it been to not have to wake up super early on Saturday mornings).

And I finally decided to go under the care of a doctor for my Crohn's disease. In December I saw a GI doctor and then after a whirlwind of many tests, including a colonoscopy, it was found that I had a complication from my disease that required surgery.

I was very shocked at this because after all of the years I have had this disease the past couple of years I have been feeling better than before- at least as in not having painful flares many times a year. I ended up having the surgery in March and though I thought the recovery would be easy because I recovered from all of my c-sections pretty easily, I have to admit that I felt like total crap for a couple of weeks. I went back to work after three weeks on a limited schedule because sitting home was driving me crazy but I fully admit I should have waited longer.

As of today I guess I feel good? I still get pains after eating sometimes and have been feeling tired with headaches but even with that I know the surgery was necessary. I also started some medications to keep me healthy- I have done much research and have talked extensively with my doctor and medication is the best way to keep me healthy and prevent further issues. I hate taking pills everyday and giving myself injections every two weeks but I have to think about my kids- me trying to be a martyr and trying to do it all holistic is just not going to work in my situation. If it could happen I would do it but it's not so I am not going to beat myself up about it. I can still continue to eat healthy (though it is hard sometimes because if I eat too much fruit, veggies and high fiber foods I feel sick) but I have to allow modern medicine to allow me to live a normal life so I can be the best mom and wife possible.

So there is a nutshell of my life. Not so glamorous but who's life is?

As for my blog....

I plan on writing about what I always have. Being a mom with all that entails, eating healthy and trying to save money while doing it all. I am going to keep it real like always because I am not perfect and do not strive to be so.