Life With the Ladniers: This and That: Complete Randomness

Here are some things that have been going on around here that don't need a full post but that I'd still like documented:

1) David and I stayed up until 1:30 am on Monday night assembling the hive for our newest swarm. We still need to assemble the extra supers that I got for all of the other hives. The goal is to have them done so we can paint them Thursday night and add them during hive checks on Friday morning. David is being such a trooper. He works all day, builds all afternoon and then comes home and builds hive parts for my bees. And the kicker is that he seems happy to do it. I love him.

2) Yesterday was a day dedicated to Logan. I had a chiropractor apointment in the morning, a midwife appointment in the afternoon (everything still looks great!) and my first doula appointment that evening. My doula ended up rescheduling because she wasn't feeling well but the day made me realize that soon enough, Ayden won't be the only one that we have to set aside time for. This makes me a little sad for him but I think in the long run it will be good for him to learn that he is not the center of the universe. So many benefits to having siblings...

3) We lost two chickens in two days already this week. One would not come out from under our shed on Monday night and we guess something found her under there. We woke up to some feather evidence that pointed to a 4 legged predator of some kind. Then we had another vanish without a trace yesterday. There was just one less when I put them up for the night last night. We've lost two that same way before and we are thinking that scenario is a hawk or other bird of prey. We are down to 9 now and are hoping not to get too low since we wont' be replacing any until Spring. Poor girls!

4) A local movie theater shows older children's movies on Tuesday and Wednesday mornings all summer. You pay $3.50 per ticket which includes popcorn and a kid's drink if you wish to partake. The doors open at 9:30 and the movie starts at 10. Today they were showing "Muppets Take Manhattan" and Adyen LOVED it! He's been a muppet fan ever since a student of mine did a tap solo to "Life's A Happy Song" from the "The Muppets" with Amy Adams. He liked the song so much that we rented the movie on Amazon prime and he's been hooked ever since. They've got some other really great movies coming up so I'm going to try to take him a few more times.

5) I have discovered that lavender essential oil *helps* with the crazy itching of a day-old honey bee sting. The sting hurts but does not even compare to the unbearable itching you experience for the next couple of days. Scratching only makes it worse but all you can think about is scratching it! Here is the sting that I got just from peaking under the inner cover of one of the hives on Tuesday just to see if they were ready for a 2nd super or not:

Feisty girls! I will most definitely be smoking them during my hive check on Friday.

6) I made an old favorite for dinner tonight from some CSA squash we got this week, Zucchini lasagna! I always love making this because it gives us two dinners and two lunches. Leftover nights are easier than takeout in my opinion. Since we already have some leftovers in the fridge and are going out of town this weekend, I froze the 2nd half for freezer meal #6! Almost a week of post baby meals in our freezer right now and that feels really good.

My goal is 2 weeks worth so I plan on keeping it up!

7) While I was at my parents' house a couple of days ago my dad had a news station on and they were doing a story about a study that Cornel University did on how Facebook and other social media outlets are causing depression in some of the users. People are reading about all of the wonderful things their "friends" are doing in their news feeds. They read about how wonderful everyone else's lives seem, compare that to their own imperfect lives (the whole comparing someone else's highlight reel to your behind the scenes) and then end up feeling down about their own situations. I've had a couple of comments recently that made me feel like this blog is having that effect on some of my readers. Part of me feels bad for that because when I sit down to write these posts I do find the positives and highlight them rather than constantly focus on the difficult or negative things. It's not me trying to sugar coat anything, it's just one tool that I use to maintain a happy and positive outlook on my life just as it is. The other part of me feels like everyone should be celebrating the good in their lives and letting the bad go. Why shouldn't I take time everyday to celebrate all of the wonderful things and people I am so very blessed to experience? All I can say is that each and every individual is in charge of their own happiness. We cannot always control what happens to us but we can control what we take from it or how we react to it. It is up to us to be intentional about our lives and to make them into what we want them to be. David and I both work really hard on that everyday and as a result, we are a happily imperfect little family. No apologies or shame for that, only celebration!