Soup and Jacob

I have finally had a few days off so I went and spent a day with my daughter Jennifer and her beautiful son Jacob. 

It was so much fun interacting with him and building more Nana memories. 
For lunch Jennifer defrosted some pumpkin soup, which I love, and after Jacob decided that the sandwiches weren’t quite so great he joined us with a bowl of soup. At 18 months I was quite impressed with his ability to feed himself soup.

Not only did he mange to get spoonfuls to his mouth he actually enjoyed it. 

When he noticed he had spilt some down his bib he was quite determined to scrap up the mess and eat that too.

However after a while he decided drinking it straight from the bowl was the easiest way to get big mouthfuls. 

I so need to catch up with them more often.

Yates Vegie Growing Challenge

Well I have joined the Yates Vegie Growing Challenge and it also involves blogging about it. Unfortunately you can only seem to put one photo at a time on each post so I am going to do it here as well.

OK when the challenge came into my inbox I thought oh yeah I plant a garden every year…

But this year I want to make it different.

You see we have chooks that get out of their inclosure and while that is nice to have free range chooks and so free range eggs they do destroy an early garden and I find it so disappointing after all my hard work. Not only this but you can spend hours searching for the latest spot they they have chosen to lay their eggs or secretly start their sitting or clucky stage. We aren't allowed roosters in town so there is not point on them sitting on the eggs for then to hatch cos that ain't going to happen ladies.

In previous years I have gone from this

Here it is with veges ready to harvest.











But unfortunately this is what greats me when I go to look at the garden plots today.

It's not been used for a good year as we have four plots we rotate with the chooks and my hubby’s desire to grow his own potatoes.

We have one for the chook run which fertilises the ground. They get all our food scraps so not only are they eating the scraps and depositing their ‘chook poo’, they are also scratching in the left overs they don't eat.

Then a plot (plot number 2) they have just been on, hubby plants his potatoes in, digging very deep so the compost of the chook poo is dug in.

When the potatoes are finished I move in to the plot to plant the rest of the vegetables (It then becomes plot 3) and it is used mainly over the spring/summer with some vegetables that linger into winter.

The last plot (plot 4) is the one I have finished with and when the last of the vegetables are harvested its time for the chooks to be moved onto it.

So each plot is used for the same thing every fourth year which seems to work helping keep the diseases at bay and getting a good lot of fertilizer into the soil.

This plot (above) was last summers attempt and after the chooks had a field day with my seedlings I gave up. You can see the overgrown fenced area for the chooks but they just hop up onto the fence line and out to freedom. I know clip their wings - something else that will keep them out of my garden.

So the Yates Challenge is not only going to get me out there and do something about the garden it is going to help keep me accountable.

Hope Springs

Harry and I went and saw a movie at the end of our anniversary weekend away - Hope Springs. One would wonder why a couple on their anniversary would choose this movie but it was a fun good feel movie and although cute long was certainly one that was a film I am pleased we did see.
As Harry said as we walked out, "Its not a movie I would want to see again but it's worth buying in case the kids have issues and we can just say 'Have a watch of this'".

2hr 1min‎‎ - Comedy/Drama‎‎ - English‎

Director: David Frankel - Cast: Steve Carell, Meryl Streep, Tommy Lee Jones, 

 

Although a devoted couple, 'empty nesters' Kay and Arnold Soames (Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones) are in need of (in Kay's opinion) help to ignite the spark back into their marriage. After their 31st wedding anniversary, Kay was left wanting to spice things up and reconnect with her husband. 

For years they have slept in separate rooms, forgoing any physical affection. Each morning Kay cooks Arnold breakfast before he trudges off to the accounting firm where he's a partner. Each night Arnold falls asleep in front of the big flat-screen in the den to the drone of golf tips. Then wife wakes husband so the two can traipse upstairs to their separate bedrooms. Kay and Arnold aren't angry with each other, or unkind: They're just...average middle-class American zombies in a nice split-level house. 

When she hears of a renowned couple's specialist in, she attempts to persuade her skeptical husband, a steadfast man of routine, to get on a plane for a week of marriage therapy. Kay (who works as a Coldwater Creek employee) tells Arnold  she has paid for them to undergo a week of intense marriage counseling with Dr. Bernie Feld (Steve Carell) in the small coastal resort town of Great Hope Springs in Maine. Arnold, a creature of plodding, unimaginative routine, denies their marriage is in trouble and resists getting on a plane for a week of marriage therapy. 

Just convincing the stubborn Arnold to go on the retreat is hard enough - the real challenge comes in sessions with Dr. Feld as they both try to articulate their feelings, revitalize their relationship, shed their bedroom hang-ups and try to re-ignite the spark that caused them to fall for each other in the first place. In daily sessions in his office, Dr. Feld counsels them together, each time asking increasingly frank questions about their sex life and feelings toward one another. Arnold is angry and defensive, rigidly resistant to change, and unwilling to see the depth of his wife's disappointment. 

 

Discouraged by Arnold's recalcitrance, angry and crying, Kay goes alone to a bar where she vents to the bartendress and learns nobody else is having any sex. Arnold visits a nautical museum. Back together, they spend the night in the same bed for the first time in years, and Kay awakes in the morning to find Arnold's arm around her. At this sign of progress, Dr. Feld urges new measures. They make halting attempts at intimacy on the bed of their budget motel and again in a movie theatre, but this time with disastrous results. Arnold finally takes the initiative to arrange a romantic dinner and a night at a luxury inn, where they attempt to make love in front of a fireplace, but the grand design fails. 

At their final session, Dr. Feld tells them they've made much progress and should take up couples therapy back home. But back in Omaha, old habits resume. Kay offers to pet sit for a fellow employee and packs a bag to stay there, as a first step in a permanent break with Arnold. 

With Kay already in her bedroom, Arnold ascends the stairs to bed and pauses at her door, but does not knock. Both are shown in bed trying to sleep. It is Arnold who arises, puts on his bathrobe, and enters his wife's bedroom. Kay sits up as he sits down beside her and they tenderly embrace. The lovemaking that follows is warm, natural, and quietly passionate. The next morning it's clear that the marriage is in a whole new place after all. 

Later that year, as Kay said she fantasized, they renew their wedding vows on a beach with Dr. Feld present, making promises to be more understanding and considerate of each other.

The interesting spin off from this movie as it has a small weblink "relationship guide" to some hints to improving a tired marriage.

Spring has Sprung

A typical picture of spring is a lamb with daffodils like the one above. But that's not something I can stage but for me its not spring until I have seen my first lamb.
And that happened last month so we are well and truly into it.

I do find it a time of promise. The promise of warmer days shorter nights and the flourish of new growth all around.

For those who suffer from SAD Seasonal Affective Disorder there is a feeling of coming through.

Seasonal affective disorder (also called SAD) is a type of depression that occurs at the same time every year. If you're like most people with seasonal affective disorder, your symptoms start in the autumn and may continue into the winter months, sapping your energy and making you feel moody.  Don't brush off that yearly feeling as simply a case of the "winter blues" or a seasonal funk that you have to tough out on your own. Take steps to keep your mood and motivation steady throughout the year.

This can be a time of hopelessness for those who suffer from chronic depression for where as those who suffer from SAD will perk up in spring knowing that the summer will soon be here; those with chronic depression can not convert their mood the same and so feel even worse simply because they can't.

In fact spring is a time where suicide is high, almost 50% of the cases are in spring. The serotonin levels appear low in people with depression and depression is linked to suicide risk. Long periods of little light during winter months may result in a prolonged dip in serotonin levels, causing an increase in depression and suicidal behavior that extends into the warmer months. Lack of exercise, sunlight directly on the skin and fresh vegetables also contribute to this. A person with SAD will take the spring days as a chance to get back out there and enjoy the new season but a depressed person can't.

I believe it is because they feel worse as they see others coming out of their SAD so in turn a depressed person will feel worse because they can't. Not only is their body lacking the serotonin they don't seem to be able to take the steps to balance them out. Medication will help but there is a certain amount of self that needs to help themselves too, through counseling and recognising their triggers and what is happening to themselves and others. If they are not aware of this too they will feel worse. Its like the snow ball affect getting bigger and bigger.

If someone you know suffers from depression be sure to watch them at this time but also gently encourage them to venture outside with you and talk about the promise of summer times etc.

I for one at this time, know I need to keep myself on guard, not just to bring me out of any SAD moods but to watch Harry and be strong for us both.

I look for the signs of spring as if for a promise but also as a check to watch over us both.