And now the good stuff...

So, my life isn't all sadness and drama and shooting nightmares...  I'm working through a lot right now that I probably should have dealt with right after the shooting, and seem a little strange coming up 7 years later.   It is basically as if I had a broken bone that didn't get set right... if you want to get the whole limb working right again, you might have to re-brake the bone and set it right.  I'll be the last one to pretend that this isn't a painful process, but then again, I know there is no other way to let things heal correctly.   So, sorry if my last entry was a little morose and depressing.  To balance that out, I wanted to give an update on everything else going on in my life, as well as put in some real-life pictures instead of my usual stick-figures.

I had a birthday recently and have been able to take advantage of gifts to push me to find fun things to do with my time rather than just sitting around sulking.  As my psychologist likes to say, negative thoughts attract even more negative thoughts, so it is time to work on breaking that negativity chain by finding fun ways to keep myself busy!

Me, taking advantage of my free birthday hamburger and desert at Red Robin!

Firstly, I got a food dehydrator from my hubby, and I have been truly enjoying using it to make delicious treats.  Well, actually I've mainly been using it to dehydrate tomatoes to munch on and of course, to make beef jerky.  I even chopped up some strawberries and drained them of all of their watery life-force, then re-hydrated them in my stomach.  Mmmmm...

Beef Jerky in the process of drying, and some tomatoes from yesterday's work!

I'm using money to save for a fun mini-vacation this summer, and was planning to use the rest for a glass blowing class.  Unfortunately, the class filled up, so the next one isn't until June.  In the mean time, I've gotten back into learning German since Rosetta Stone now has a nifty app for my tablet.

Nick and I also decided that since we now have a yard, we have no excuse for not having some sort of small  garden.  Last week, when the sun was out, we got some little veggies and planted them.  Believe it or not, I had a ton of fun fussing with getting all the weeds out of the dirt :).  So, now we have some sweet snap-peas, edamame, sweet onions, romaine, and a tomato plant.  The cherry/pear/apple trees in the backyard are all blooming, though the rain and wind does it's best to dump blossoms all over the ground and garden.

The scraggly ones in the middle are onions--hope they perk up!!

We also got an indoor herb garden in a spot that gets tons of light though our kitchen windows!

Rosemary/Catnip/Sage/Greek Oregano/Purple Basil

Tea Time--beautiful new tea cup and some balsamic and olive oil to have with bread  :)  If I'm good, I'll eat a banana too...

None of this is to discount the feelings in my last post.  That is the dark side of my life, and very personal, but I choose to share it here in hopes that it might help others.  But, there is a light side as well, even if it is sometimes under the shadow of a cloud :).