Connecting the Dots?

I have been looking forward to some time off from work when my vacation days become available, which isn't going to be til Aug. However, I have been off from work since Thurs. but not for any reason I would care to repeat.
Thurs. I went to work and after about an hour I started having severe chills,aches all over and my legs felt like they would not support me. I talked to my manager and drove home. I slept for about 4 hours and could not move without pain. The next day the fever was low-grade and eventually gone but these spots started showing up on my hands. One was very large and blistered. I tried to think what I did to cause this thing but came up blank. My oldest daughter called and said she had gone home from work with chills and fever of 102+ on Thurs. Hmmm. She too related she was getting some spots on her hands. We soon found out this was not coincidence.
 She came over on Sat. and had talked to her doctor's office the previous evening. We had started to suspect Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease since my great-niece had come down with it right after her birthday party the weekend before, which we both attended. Of course everything you see on the internet about it is that it's a children's illness and that normal, healthy adults don't need to worry. Hah! The spots we developed over the next day or two were very painful and were on our face, feet, hands and occasionally on other areas. The ones on the face, hands and feet were the very painful ones. Imagine walking on hundreds of needles. They didn't just hurt when we walked either. They were sore to the touch and for the first day or so just hurt all the time. Needless to say we were not happy campers.
Since I had the same thing our daughter decided to stay with us so she didn't expose her roommate any further. This stuff is highly contagious and lasts for about a week. Today is the first day I can walk without excruciating pain. Our spots are reducing and no longer hurt for the most part. I would not wish this on my worst enemy it's that bad. We have heard of at least one other adult who had it about 3 weeks ago and his doctor told him it's going around. You're kidding!

me

daughter

My fingers no longer hurt but they feel like they have one huge callous on the end of them. Especially the thumbs and index fingers. My hubby was a big help and took good care of us. Even trying to make us laugh by copying the way we walked. I'm sure I'll laugh more about this once it's all over. The pics were taken today when our hands no longer are hurting. This is actually looking better, believe it or not.

Reprieve and Replan

The lilac has gotten a reprieve. The weather has been hot and dry so I figured I needed to give it at least a fighting chance of survival and wait til we got some more rain. It arrived today. So, Tues. is the next day off and unless it's absolutely pouring I'll be transplanting the lilac as well as planting a few other things I've got. Maybe I'll even get some more weeding done. It seems like a non-stop task but I try to make it easier by using weed barrier and bark dust. I have 2 cannas that started coming up so when hubby decided to mow I covered them with large tubs to ensure their survival. (He's been known to spray or mow down some of my plants.) Accidentally of course ; ) Well, while I was at work he mowed again. I'm now down to 1, but hopefully it'll come back. I hadn't weeded around these things yet but there were lots of tall grasses and weeds to show where he avoided mowing last time. I had uncovered them so they got the sunshine so the tubs were sitting off to the sides. One of them he spotted because the foliage is purplish. The other one was green however and apparently he's not a canna foliage aficionado and didn't see it. (Note to self : Get cement blocks to surround cannas and any other plants I want to keep alive.)
So you see it's not all my fault the plants die.

lilac^

panorama of backyard

I've been trying to plan what to do differently with the backyard. We've decided to expand it further back and to move the swings out a different direction. I have a small plastic pond to put in still and am trying to figure out where to put it. I want to be able to see it from the deck but I don't want it under a tree where it will get a bunch of leaves in it. Any ideas would be helpful. The picture makes the yard arc a bit but it's actually straight across. The wood supports were for the swings. The small plant between the two larger ones is the lilac. It's been that size for about 5 years. :(

And We're Off!

The weekend before this last one we got our strawberries in the ground. We had help from various family members and the weather couldn't have been better. It took 5-6 of us 6 hours to plant 3000 plants and then finished it up on Sun. planting the last 1000. Of course that week I worked 5 straight at my job. I had to keep moving for a couple days there or my legs would stiffen up and start screaming. Usually break time and lunch are welcome events, but not with sore leg muscles. As I predicted our daughter-in-law worked like a trooper. She had several of us making sure she wasn't over-doing it, but she didn't take any more breaks than the rest of us. Oh the days of youth!
The Killdeer chicks are about the size of their parents now and still stick pretty close to them and to the backyard. When I'm not watching them I watch our Hummingbirds or Oriole. We put out feeders on our deck and when we're outside we get buzzed pretty often. They sure are feisty little things. I have yet to find a nest though.
My husband is finishing his last day at the local hospital for his internship and will be back to Safeway in another town on Weds. We actually got to carpool twice during his two-week stint. In a month he'll be done with school. Yippee! He's asked me a few times if I thought I'd continue to work after he's done. I figure as long as we need the health insurance I'll stay where I'm at. I do plan to drop down to part-time though once he gets a full-time job. We've been having opposite schedules and different days off and I don't like it. Call me crazy, but after almost 30 years of marriage I like spending time with my husband.
We're suppose to have a pretty good stretch of nice weather, about 5 days of no rain, so yesterday I went out and weeded 3 flower beds and my husband mowed the front and back lawns. The grass was literally 2 feet high in spots and wet. The flower beds were so full of weeds I could hardly tell where some of the flowers were. I did plant a couple mini rosebushes and a Rhodie while I was at it. You would think that living on a farm I would've developed a green thumb. NOT! Most plants I bring home don't survive. They tell me I have to water them fairly often. Huh. Believe me it's not for lack of trying. I have planted and replaced several plants over the years in the same spots to see if I could get something to grow there. We're talking of expanding our backyard and that will entail moving 3 established plants. Yikes! I'm not so sure about this. Especially since one, a lilac, is a cutting from a bush that ancestors brought from back east and is the only bush left in the family that we know of. I'm really nervous about moving it but it hasn't done well where it is and needs to be moved anyway. Pray for me, or better yet, pray for the lilac.
We should be getting our raspberry starts soon. The craziness continues it seems. I'm giving a baby shower for my daughter-in-law on Sat. and my husband says the berries should be here then. Really! There's only 600 of them. I'm sure he'll get them done in no time.